Between Vacations

I spent August 24-27 in a whirlwind of family fun.  Of course, I'm a terrible blogger and didn't bother to record anything of note at the time.  Now on the eve of another "memory maker," I'm going to throw up a random list of things I want to remember about how wonderful it was to be with everyone again.
August 24 - evening - dinner at Downtown Disney with Rose, Gary, Mark, Dawn, and Scott.  Good food and wine, followed by a trip to Goodings to pick up ponchos for the tourists!

August 25 - Magic Kingdom with a ton of people! 

Our original plan was to meet up with Dawn and Naomi and their respective spouses and children, sign them in, and go off with just Dawn and Mark.  Then 7 others showed up, including Jenn and her family, so we stuck with the crew long enough to ride Pirates (not a good idea with a tiny baby...she wailed through the whole thing, and everyone on the boat was throwing me the "bad mommy" look because I was holding her!), Hall of Presidents, and Haunted Mansion.  By the way, the new and improved Hitchhiking Ghosts at the end of Haunted Mansion blew my freaking mind! I want to go back again and again and again!  After that, we bailed on the family fun and headed home... with a Dole Whip pit stop.  Mmm...magical Magic Kingdom treat...

August 26 - Happy Birthday Scott!

The day started with a little birthday brunch for my halfway-to-70-year-old.  Actually, it started as a little brunch and ended up being me feeding 11 people and trying to keep the stress away from Scott.  Note: I've never even really participated in Thanksgiving dinner (besides the pies).  I was so proud of myself - sticky buns, a bread casserole (with pancetta...that I fried...with splattering oil), individual chicken pot pies... and the only thing we didn't do from scratch was mashed sweet potatoes from our local favorite BBQ place.

Then we napped.  I needed it!

The evening was spent in celebration of Aunt Mary and Uncle Richard's 50th anniversary. In addition to the planned activities - dinner, musical performances by some grand kids, and a DVD of 1950's home movies that made me laugh and cry - we brought a little entertainment of our own.

I bought these 2 11x17 picture frames on clearance a few months ago, for the purpose of using them as silly photo props.  I brought them with me and stashed them in a corner until I saw a photo op.  As soon as the frames came out, they were like catnip for the kids, even the camera-shy ones.  People were squeezing as many faces as they could, going 3D and popping out of the frames, and generally laughing and having a good time.  I got major brownie points for bringing them along!

Alicia as Richard, and Richard as Mary

I was also a (small) part of the night's most fun surprise: "Flat Mary" and "Flat Richard" - customized masks of their faces, perfect for taking even more ridiculous pictures!

After the evening's fun and frolic, we asked everyone to take a pair of masks home with them, and to take pictures where they live.  Our plan is to create a travel diary of The Adventures of Richard and Mary.  I hope people remember to take pictures!



August 27 - Another day of Park Hopping, this time with Rose and Gary, Laura and Richard, Alicia, Alex, and Megumi.  We did almost all the "E-Ticket" rides at the Studios and at Magic Kingdom, got caught in a monsoon, and had lunch at Prime Time Cafe.  Some of the highlights for me:

Laura and Richard's 10th Anniversary Hoop-La!  We got them bride and groom mouse ears and anniversary buttons. Everywhere we went, people congratulated them.  They got up on stage for the Indiana Jones show, got shout-outs from parade performers, and generally got a lot more attention than they were probably comfortable with.  It was awesome!

The new Star Tours was so much better than I expected it to be!  There were 9 of us, which apparently qualified us for our own private ride.  I was the "rebel spy," (you'll understand when you ride it) and Alex was yelling back at the screen that he wanted to turn me in.  Our tour saw Chewbacca, Yoda, and JarJar Binks.  The 3D is great, and the simulator motion matches the image on the screen pretty seamlessly.

Riding Big Thunder Mountain with Alicia and literally laughing until I started to sob.  Because the lap bar was set to my legs and she's so much skinnier than I am, she got tossed around a lot.  The first dip, I thought she might fall out.  From then on, I just couldn't stop laughing.  By the time we pulled into the station, I had tears streaming down my face. When I recounted the story to Scott, people were looking at me to see who the sobbing freak was!

Laughing to tears again on Space Mountain. I was in the front of our rocket, and every time we went through a jarring turn on sharp drop Alex would yell "woah, Space," as though he was trying to get a horse to stop. It just got funnier and funnier.  Honestly, I can't remember the last time I had so much fun on Space Mountain!

Having great seats for both the Electric Light Parade and Wishes. Thanks to this, I was able to learn about what I'm now calling the "shaky shaky" feature on my camera and get some killer pictures of both without a flash.

And of course, we brought Flat Mary & Rich along for some killer photos "where Magic lives," but I won't be previewing those quite yet.

Driving home after a marathon day in the parks, with sore wet feet and total exhaustion setting in, it was hard for me to not get emotional.  I miss them all already - not just the ones I had a chance to "play" with, but the ones I only saw at the anniversary party.  I met some new extended family members, made a baby cry in terror, and took a zillion pictures (of which, about 50 came out).  We had a fabulous time - even better than we were anticipating - and look forward to seeing everyone again.

Table for Three

The bug man came and went Wednesday afternoon around 3:00. He was here for five minutes. I asked him what the "big infestation" was that the office manager had alluded to the day before, and he said he hadn't seen anything at all in this building. Though perhaps it would be on the second side... What really got me about the whole process was that he was squirting his little gel syringe in the front of the cabinets - like right at the hinges. I never once saw him reach all the way back.

I won't complain though. We did get 7 bags of crap thrown out. And to celebrate, Scott and I took off right after the bug man left for an early dinner at Mama Melrose's. (originally made a 4:10 reservation so that we could go see Fantasmic, but were so exhausted we just came home after) We were seated at a table in the very last section of the restaurant, next to the wall, which happened to be decorated thusly:

I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I want Placido Domingo watching me eat. I wanted to take a picture of him and Scott together, but Scott wouldn't cooperate. We pigged out on an assortment of artisan breads and mozzarella/tomato salad, Scott had the steak with gorgonzola butter (and red pepper polenta...ick!) and I had pork marsala with mushroom risotto. We split a piece of cheesecake for dessert, along with a glass of port.Scotty likey dee port. Jamie likey the tiny glass - like the size you'd give a six-year-old his wine in, if you were so inclined. Anyone else think Scott should totally make this his Facebook profile? Aunt Rose would be so proud...

The next 2 weeks are going to be pretty nuts for me. I'm working every day next week except Wednesday, training Friday and Saturday (training someone else - not me being trained), a 2-hour class this Tuesday and an 8-hour class next Monday. And then ELECTION DAY the next day. I'll be hosting an election night party for myself, similar to my Emmy party, with random appetizer foods and a bottle of rosé I got from my boss last week. And I certainly pray that I'm not drowning my sorrows in bubbles by the end of the night.

So if you don't hear from me, assume I'm fine, just working or sleeping!

Boo!

Well, I'm at 8 am tomorrow. Wish me luck with that! Also, I wanted to remind you all that tomorrow is March 20 - the day to wear your favorite sweater! I bought myself a red zip-up sweater yesterday just for the occasion.

Scott had a meeting this afternoon, so he and I had lunch together, and then wandered aimlessly around Disney's Hollywood Studios (can I still call it MGM?) for a little while. He left for his meeting just in time for me to catch the new "Block Party Bash" parade.

I read someplace recently that John Lassetter has done little more in his new position within Disney than put his Pixar products in as many places as possible. This parade (transported from California Adventure) does little to dispel those thoughts. Oh - and the next attraction to open at the Park-Formerly-Known-as-MGM is a Pixar-themed shoot 'em up ride. Funny, I enjoyed that the first time around when it was called Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin!

But I digress. The parade (which isn't a traditional parade by any means) is cute. The only characters are Pixar-branded: those from Toy Story, the much-ignored A Bug's Life, and Monsters, Inc. with surprise appearances from the Incredibles. The non-character performers are dressed in outfits that look like someone threw Austin Powers and Pixar into some sort of costuming blender.

The "block party" portions where the parade stops feature trampoline performers, dancers, and performers on scooters. I didn't get any pictures of those because I didn't do my homework ahead of time. I was at the very start of the parade, where the floats race past in less than 5 minutes, and then I leap-frogged the parade and caught it at the end... where the floats once again don't stop! How's that for dumb luck? Well, I got some cute pictures of the characters and some of the dancers. Next time I'll watch from a better spot!

The Wave

Scalzi's Monday Photo Shoot: Wave hello! It could be you waving, or some of your family, or a group of friends, or complete random strangers. I just want to see those hands waving.

I really had to dig back into my digital archives to come up with something for this assignment. There's bunches of pictures of my family members doing "jazz hands," which looks like waving, but it's just not the same. So here are the two I came up with:

When in doubt, default to a picture of a Disney Star in a parade. This, of course, is Ariel. She's presented here all fish-like for the Stars & Motor Cars parade at MGM, but she's got feet in the Magic Kingdom parade. All that magical transformation must get exhausting!

And another Disney favorite: the wave-at-the-person-who-waited-in-line-with-you-but-ended-up-not-riding photo. This is my dear friend Jackie, taking Juliette out for her first spin on Dumbo. Julie isn't the baby anymore, by the way. She's now *gasp* the middle child.