Florida Day 4: Wide World of Sports and EPCOT

We woke up early on Saturday morning and headed out to get our race packets from Disney's Wide World of Sports.  The packet pick up was at Disney's Fit for a Princess Expo, and boy oh boy was that packed!  While Anna and I stood in line (long long lines) to get our race stuff Spence went and watched some spring training and soak up some sports fun!

Spence caught a ball during batting practice!

What Disney park is complete with out a Mickey?

After we got our packets and had seen all that WWoS had to offer we were off to EPCOT!

Just inside the park

We went on a ride with Figment of the Imagination

Afterwards Spence and Anna composed some of their own music

Then we were off on the world tour

Had a drink in a "traditional" pub.  It reminded Anna and I of the pub down the road from Harlaxton, minus the distinctive odor that the Greg had going for it....

We met Alice

and Marry Poppins

Watched some impressive shows

And took in the wildlife

These pictures don't begin to encompass all we saw and did this day, but our camera died part way through and I haven't gotten the other pictures from Anna yet!

Florida Day 3: Magic Kingdon

I think the day at Magic Kingdom can best be summed up in photos.  So here we go!

On the tram from the parking lot

My friend J and her hubs, it was J's first visit to the park!

Spence and I on Main Street

First of many parades we saw while at Disney

On the Buzz Lightyear ride

Spence is prepaing for battle?

On the Stich's Great Escape ride

and then we met Stitch!

Just about to get on Space Mountain

Actually on Space Mountain!

Just sat down on the Mad Tea Party ride....

and we're going.....

FAST!

We had to ride "It's a Small World"

First of many shots of the castle

Our whole group, a little tired but still having a magical day!

We saw the fireworks show

and then decided that just one more ride on Space Mountain was necessary

before we headed home

The last of many pictures of the castle

We were at the park for 12 hours, and I loved every second of it!

Florida Day 2: Magical Midway and Spence's Birthday!

We woke up late on Thursday, and you probably would have too after the 3am bedtime.  My friend Anna was getting in that day to enjoy some vacation in the sun, so the first thing we did was go pick her up!  Then we headed to a place that J suggested called "Magical Midway".  They have go-karts, some rides, arcade games and a mini golf place next door that has like a million gators running around.  (OK maybe a million is a slight overstatement)

Spencer wasn't a 100% OK with backing up the van just yet, don't worry, by Saturday he was pulling U-Turns like nobodies business!

Spencer and Anna in line for the go-karts

This is the ride we spent the most time on, and the one we saw the shuttle launch from!

view of the go-karts from the swing ride

After a little while we headed next door to the gator mini golf place, we didn't play any mini golf, but we did get to hold a gator!

I think his name is Fred.

Holding a gator is thirsty work, Anna and I with our favorite UK drink, a Strongbow!

Anna is trying to get a picture of the shuttle launch

After the shuttle launch, before they brought us back down

Spence isn't quite sure about this ride!

Probably the coolest thing about this day was that there was a space shuttle launch, we opted not the spend the day stuck in bumper to bumper traffic to get to see it like up close in person, but we did get to watch it from one of the rides at Magical Midway.  This particular space shuttle launch was especially cool because this is the Discovery's last trip into low Earth orbit. Discovery will be traveling to the International Space Station, carrying a module packed with supplies, critical spare parts, as well as a robotic assistant named Robonaut 2. With the entire Space Shuttle program scheduled for mandatory retirement this year, Discovery is the most-flown spacecraft in history, traveling 143 million miles over the course of its 39 missions since 1984, and spending nearly a full year in orbit.(http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/02/space-shuttle-discoverys-final-launch/100015/#)

After our day at the park we met up with J and one of her friends in an area of Orlando called Winter Park, it was a great end to our first full vacation day, the area isn't a touristy part of town and it reminded me of Mass Street in Lawrence. 

We all hit the sack early that night, because the next day was DISNEY!

Florida Day 1: The Flight, the Van, the Directions

We took off from KCI at about 5:30pm, had a fun layover in Atlanta and finally landed in Orlando at about midnight.  We went to go pick up our rental car so we could drive to my friend J's apt and hopefully crash asap, we were beat.  Of course we had a line at the rental car counter, and then we found out that due to some "perfect storm" type circumstances they were actually out of cars.  Yup, out of cars.  Keep in mind this is after the counter attendant and I have chatted and he's swiped my credit card and I'm feeling bad that we didn't invite him to our wedding a few years ago.  I tilted my head and said something witty smart sleep deprived like "say what?"  He explained that the only vehicles they had left were a bit.....larger.  He then hurried to add that to compensate for the inconvenience that they would be discounting the rental by 50% and we wouldn't need to pay for gas.  Spence and I shrugged and said OK, we went down to the parking garage to pick up our "larger" vehicle.  You may be thinking, yay an SUV or even eh a mini van.....oh no there was nothing "mini" about this van. 

Yes friends that would be a 15 passenger van.

We shrugged again and said something along the lines of "we're in an excellent (if not exhausted) mood, we're on vacation, its cheap and we don't have to gas it up, lets roll."

Now by this point its about 1am.  My friend J had given me her address to get to her apt.  She also gave me some great landmarks, we'd pass a McDonalds, and a strip mall with a Publix and would go through the parking lot before we saw the complex.  So armed with my modern technology, an address and an (I thought) working GPS we set out.  Turns out the GPS lied to us, took us to a totally wrong part of the Orlando suburbs.  Totally wrong, but with all the same landmarks.  We were lost in the middle of the night, in a strange city driving the largest vehicle either of us had ever driven.  We couldn't do anything but laugh. 

By 2am we had made our way to the correct apt complex, hugged J and were starting the long loved girl tradition of catch up talk.  I think Spence passed out on the floor at some point but by 3am we were all tucked in safe and sound in bed.  Sleep has never felt quite so good. 

Day 2 coming soon (with more pictures, day 2 had a lot more pictures)

Almost recovered

We took off last Wednesday evening for almost a week in Florida.  When we left the KCI airport (I grew up with it being called KCI, it's technically MCI but never to me) it was 60 degrees and sunny.  When we woke up the next day (in Florida) it was sunny and warm in Orlando, and beginning a mix of snow, rain and sleet in the KC area.  HA!  (sorry). 

The first day in FL was Spence's birthday, we had planned to spend the day at Disney but a travel glitch with my friend who was coming with us meant that we postponed the Happiest Place on EARTH.  Instead we slept in (which was good because as I'll explain later we didn't fall asleep until 3:30am) picked up my friend at the airport and then went to Magical Midway to spend the day.  We got to watch the space shuttle launch from the top of a ride there which was freaking awesome.  The first few days in FL we stayed with one of my best friends from high school and her husband.  We got to experience Disney's Magic Kingdom with them on Friday (it was my friends first trip!) ran around Epcot and Wide World of Sports on Saturday and then on Sunday my friend ran in the Disney Princess Half Marathon!  --If you've been reading my blog for any amount of time you may remember I was planning to run as well; my knee had other plans and it just wasn't going to happen this year. I already have a training plan in place for next year that hopefully wont kill me, hopefully--  After the marathon we trekked around Universal Studios for the day before falling asleep at the ultra cool hour of like 8pm to prepare for our trip home.

Pictures to follow along with some more stories about our week in the sun!

ABCs of me!

(A) Age: 27
(B) Bed Size: Queen
(C) Chore You Really Dislike: taking out the trash
(D) Dogs? Georgie Butthead (I do love him, but he is a butt head sometimes)
(E) Essential Start Your Day Item: energy drink
(F) Favorite Color: Green
(G) Gold or Silver? I wear white gold a lot, but have been decorating w a lot of copper and bronze lately
(H) Height: 5'6”
(I) Instruments You Play: None, at one point I kinda played the flute, but that was short lived
(J) Job Title: Office Claim Rep
(K) Kids: none yet
(L) Live: KC Metro area
(M) Mom's Name: Susan
(N) Nicknames: Jules
(O) Overnight Hospital Stays? I don’t think I’ve ever stayed overnight, I had my ACL repaired in high school but they sent me home same day (I think, it’s a lil fuzzy)
(P) Pet Peeve: drivers who don’t use turn signals
(Q) Quote from a Movie: too many to even try and type, I grew up quoting Monty Python movies with my friends so its safe to say I laughed a lot.

(R) Right or Left Handed? Righty.
(S) Siblings: I am an only child with 6 step siblings
(T) Time You Wake Up? Between 5am and 7am
(U) Underwear: I wear it
(V) Vegetable You Dislike: Brussel Sprouts, blech
(W) What Makes You Run Late: friends who are running late that are picking me up? I’m usually early bc I get twitchy when I am late
(X) X-Rays: Knee, Elbow
(Y) Yummy Food You Make: According to my friends most of what I make is good, but I have a soft spot for my home made mac n cheese. 
(Z) Zoo, Favorite Animal: Otters

Fail.

Well the test did not go as planned.  As in I planned to pass it. 

I was pretty bummed for most of the day yesterday.  For all my worry I didn't REALLY expect that I would fail.  I studied and I generally pass tests with little to no effort, so since I put in (quite a bit) of effort I thought that it would show.  Not in this case. 

My supervisor and manager are trying to look into what areas I need to study better and *HOPEFULLY* I'll be able to take the test again in about a month.  (and hopefully they will decide that if I'm going to take it in a month that its not worth messing with my paycheck until the next time I take it).