Delayed - Disney

Cheryl, Allison, Jamie, and I went to Disney last weekend.  It was a packed weekend full of fun!  (Warning - picture overload ahead.)

Friday during the day we did Epcot.  One of the main reasons we were there was to do the Food and Wine festival, so we did lots of eating (and some drinking).  We stayed at the Beach resort which was just a short walk into Epcot.  (Short if you go the correct way.  Jamie and I had a hard time following arrows this trip.  But...I think it could have been marked better.)

We did some of the rides and saw Mickey, Goofy, and Minnie.  The weather was warm, but there were often clouds so it felt nice.

 We picked out oysters to get pearls.  I got a blue pearl and it was perfect.  It is now a necklace.

In the evening we went to the Not-so-scary Halloween Party.  We dressed up as the emotions from Inside Out.  Joy and Sadness were the most recognized and we kept hearing, "Sadness" or "Joy and Sadness" from everyone around us.  We first stopped by Mickey.  It was a bit scary at first.

Then we watched the parade.  It was probably one of my favorite parades ever.  It was probably due to all the choreographed dancing.

We went trick-or-treating.  (They gave out handfuls of candy at each stop and it was awesome.)  We went on a few rides, including the mine ride.  I think that is one of my favorites, although it feels just a bit short.

Saturday Allison had to leave. :(  The rest of us went to Hollywood Studios for a few rides.

After a short stop at Disney Springs, Jamie and I headed to Animal Kingdom.  We mainly went to do the roller coaster, but decided we had enough time for the Safari too.  It was rather dark by the time we finally got to the safari, but since they hadn't closed yet we went for it anyway.  The weather was perfect so the least that would happen would be a nice ride.  We saw bunches of animals though!  Hippos, elephant, assorted grazing beasts, alligators, and, best of all, the lions.  The male lion was pacing and growling as we went by.

Sunday we had a quick stop at the pool, did one last ride at Epcot, ate some more food, and sadly said goodbye.  My favorite drink was the limoncello, my favorite food was Schinkennudeln from Germany, and all the desserts were delicious.

It was wonderful to have a vacation...I've been needing one.  Near the end I wished the boys were with me as we were doing something fun, but then I would remember that I waited 30 minutes to do this fun thing and was glad they weren't there. :)

Friday: a good day...except for about 15 minutes

Let's start with the 15 minutes.  It was late afternoon and almost bath time.  Isaac had just discovered that sticky stuff that comes on the back of credit cards and wanted to keep it.  I told him he could play with it for a bit, but that it would then have to be thrown away.  He played with it, he threw it away.  And he promptly started crying.  "I'm going to cry forever if you don't let me have it back."  "Ok."  A few minutes later the screaming started.  I sent him to his room and told him he could come out when he had calmed down.  A minute later he gagged and threw up.  We got in the bathroom and he threw up again, mostly missing the toilet.  I was annoyed, but at least he stopped his tantrum and got in the tub.

This morning we went to a bounce house at a semi-local greenhouse.  The boys loved it.  There were a few tears and a few hugs through the mess with Joshua, but mostly just fun.  (It turns out that if you make a noise while hugging kids don't really think you need arms to hug.  It sometimes works out very nicely.)  Isaac did a great job protecting his little brother on the slide.  Everyone else in the party had to leave for assorted reasons, but I think we stayed there almost two hours.

Bath time went really well too.  The boys played for a long while and when Joshua finally decided he was done his toes were blue.  I added some hot water for Isaac and got a space heater out for Joshua.  I think Joshua was having too much fun with his brother to worry about the temperature.

Thursday: acting

Today I made my students stand up and act out a nested if function.  As a play it would be short and boring, but for an excel function it was rather wild.

Curious about the function?  =IF([gender]="M", IF([eye color]="blue", "stand by the green paper", "stand by the yellow paper"), IF([eye color]="blue", "stand by the blue paper", "stand by the purple paper"))

Wednesday: merman

Tuesday: a new recipe

Isaac chose pasta with white sauce for dinner tonight.  So I was getting everything together and found the jar with some sauce in the fridge.  There was also a container with sauce and I found that a bit odd - why didn't last time's left overs go in the jar - but who knows.  I've been gone for a few days so maybe that's how it got there.

I ran out of sauce and had to open a new can for my noodles.  After a few bites Ben says, "This tastes really weird.  Kind of sweet."  Hmm.  Well, after a few more bites he has me try it.  It does not taste like my sauce.  There's some leftover noodles though, so he goes to change out his dinner.  While in the kitchen he sees all the containers.  "Did you use this?"  "Yes."  "It had pumpkin yogurt in it."

Well, that explains it.  I don't put leftover yogurt in containers, so that is why I was confused. They look exactly the same...the same off-white color, the same color flecks and everything. But it turns out that pumpkin yogurt mixed with Alfredo sauce is not a good combination.  Just so you know.

Thursday: travel

We've almost made it!  Jamie and I are on the bus headed to the hotel.  It's a bit late, but not too bad.

I really enjoy flying without kids.  It's gotten a bit better now that they can iPad, but there's still a lot of waiting.

Wednesday: change of plans

We went to the library today to get some new books.  I thought there might be a story time at the same time as we were going, but was kind of hoping to avoid it.  Or at least most of it.  Isaac really wanted to make fish biscuits, and I wanted to have time for that.  Well, it turns out it was a special story time on fire safety and it involved seeing a fire truck.  Isaac was patient while we got our books but then mentioned that he wanted to see the fire truck.  I told him we might not have time for fish biscuits in that case, and he seemed sort of ok with it. 

So of course we walk in late - like 20 minutes late - just as the fireman had all his gear on.  Joshua took one look and freaked out.  So much for our sneaky entrance.  He was clingy the rest of the time, but finally would be put down on the fire truck if Isaac held his hand.

They were letting the kids spray the hose.  This was Isaac's favorite part.

I didn't think Joshua would want to do it too, but he did.  I let Isaac take the pictures...he took about 30.  Twenty of Joshua, nine of the water spray, and one with the spray off.  But they were good pictures. :)

We did have time to make fish biscuits (out of sugar cookies, from Octonauts).  They turned out a bit brown, but we only used half the roll so we'll be able to try again.  (Dad and Pat, Isaac is really excited to give you some.)