One of My Favorite Places

At the beginning of August I took a week and went to Disney World. Since I grew up going to Disneyland, just seeing the castle makes me happy. I've never realized how much I love that place. Yes, it's expensive and yes it typically doesn't change much. But the smells, the sounds, the way the rides hurt your neck and back as you get older are things I absolutely love.

We arrived on a Sunday, hung out in the hotel and swam in the pool Sunday Night. We stayed at the Wilderness Lodge on the Disney property. Having jammed the Disney experience into one single day my entire life, this was a new experience. I had a week. There were 4 parks that were on the plans and the Magic Kingdom was going to be hit twice.

Day One:
We woke up ready to go. We boarded the boat that conveniently took us from our resort to the Magic Kingdom entrance and headed out for the 8a opening. I NEVER knew there was a little show at the entrance before the park opened! All those years. We rushed to Space Mountain and got our first Fast Pass. We did so much on Day 1. Around 4 we went back to the hotel to regroup and calm our sensory organs. We headed back out around 7 for the parade and fireworks.

Day Two:
We went to MGM on Day 2. MGM never used to be fun. The best ride they had was the backlot tour. Then they got the Tower of Terror and put themselves on the map. I LOVE the Tower of Terror. The kids were nervous. In line G wrapped her arms around me and I could feel her little heart beating against my leg. She LOVED it. We did that 3 more times. We went to ride the Star Wars Tour because M can't get enough Star Wars. He was so excited. I had to opt out because of my mother's wonderful gene pass of motion sickness. They were walking out of the ride with these passes around their neck. Everyone had one. This is the "Year of a Million Dollar Giveaways" or something like that. They had given away a Dream Fast Pass. It had six fast passes on it. You could use them all day long at any time. They give these passes to 40 people a day at each park. It was fantastic. We did everything. The kids did the Rock 'n Rollercoaster. It goes 0-60 in 3 seconds or something ridiculous like that. There was an extreme stunt show too. Motorcycles, fast cars, jet skis flying all over the place. It was my favorite thing at MGM, besides the Tower of Terror. We were seated for the Fantasmic show that night and the rain started. We ran to our bus stop, drenched and cold and came home. It was a full, fun, wonderful day.

Day Three:
I think we went to Typhoon Lagoon (edit...oops, forgot the 'n' the first time around) on Day 3. It was crowded. That's really all there is to say about that. There were so many people there. We were able to do their little swim with the sharks pool. It was 68 degree water and about 20 feet of swimming. That was it. Kinda cool, unless you've been able to snorkel elsewhere in this world. Then it was puny and kind of lame. They have the largest wave, wave pool in the country (I think). There was a thunderous boom and then this wave came. It wasn't so much a wave but a wall of water. It had to have been a 10 foot wave. We weren't in the right place for this wave. If you didn't know, you can't outrun water. It swallowed all of us up and spit us out near the concrete shore. Needless to say, we scooted back and learned our lesson. G lost her goggles on the first wave. Miraculously they floated up and hit my foot a little bit later. We waited for one slide, M got a belly ache and we headed home. The kids were done. We went to the hotel and rented little mini Sea Ray boats. We coasted about the lake around the Magic Kingdom and had a great time.

Day Four:
Animal Kingdom had lots of hype when it opened. It was very cool. We got there early for the Disney Magic Hours. If you were staying on Disney property some parks had extra hours. Either an hour early or a couple hours late. So we got there at 8a instead of 9a when they let the commoners in. We headed for the talked about safari. We saw elephants, hippos, giraffes, monkeys, antelope and more. Then we saw a Lion walking around. It was early. I think it was the hour that it was awake for the day. Which was pretty cool. It was very similar to the Jungle Cruise, but with real animals and in the Savannah, not the river. There is also a new ride called Everest. It was huge. I didn't do it because i'm a pansy and thought there would be loops. I can't do 360s on roller coasters. The neck and back gets all out of whack. T and the Kids loved it though.

The last day we were there was at Magic Kindgom again. We had a lunch reservation with Cinderella at her castle with her princess friends. If I were younger it would've been my worst nightmare. People in costume freaks me out; always has. We met Cinderella, Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Mary Poppins, Snow White and Belle. It was also the best food i've eated at Disneyland or the Magic Kingdom. It was a grilled Salmon with some sort of rice. Tasty stuff. Worth having to small talk with the princesses.

I was sad to leave. It was such a great time. There is so much more but I can't remember it all to write it down. Hopefully in time little snippets of the trip will pop into my head for more posts.

At the airport, ready to go! M didn't want to take the picture...can you tell?

This is the Wilderness Lodge. It is as huge as it looks.

The MGM hat.

My Favorite ride.

The parade at Magic Kingdom. Pays to have someone taller than the crowd with you!

Going to the airport...no one wanted to leave.

Clean???

I haven't been much in the mood to blog lately. I had a great time at Disney World and will be posting pictures soon enough, but right now, I just got home about 30 minutes ago. Today was the day that the cleaning crew came to clean up after the development company "finished" their job. I got a called this afternoon that they were going to be returning the key to me because they were done. Oh and the following pictures are right when I walked in after the "cleaning" crew had been here. Let me know if this looks clean to you.

Picture #1 - There's a water ring on the counter. Probably my water ring from months ago when they started working, but if they just cleaned, wouldn't it be gone?

Picture #2 - I had to write "dust" in the dust because it just made sense. This is the coffee table in the living room.

Pictures #3 - This is the "finished" job. They didn't even screw the plate covers to the wall...COME ON!

Picture #4 - This is the 1/2 bath toilet. Where i'm assuming every worker and their mother used the bathroom. The sink was dirty too, but the pictures didn't show it.

Picture #5 - The kitchen sink. Dust, dirt & dust bunnies...did they not use water to clean?

As you can probably tell, i'm over this. I'm beyond upset. It's probably not good that I didn't sleep on this before I posted, but this is ridiculous. And it's just the surface....I have no idea what's behind that sheetrock that they "fixed".

Me on Yahoo!

A couple of weeks ago this was on the front page of Yahoo! again. I had seen it before and it freaked me out just as much then as it did the second time. There is an uncanny resemblance of the girl with the hamburger and drink...

Raining Inside Too!

You'd think that living under a roof would prevent me from dealing with the rain that doesn't stop outside. Due to poor drainage and a procastinating development company this is what I have been dealing with. Then this week, they came to "fix it"...This is the corner that the mold started in...

The towels were soaking up the water that was coming from the wall...

What I walked into after Hector came to spray the mold killer behind the walls...

The corner that the mold started in after the "renovation"

18 Holes Is A Long Day!

So last Sunday I got to play my first 18 holes of golf EVER! There were three of us and we played best ball. We shot a 95. Regina kept track of how many of my balls (that I hit) were played by everyone. It was about 20. They said that wasn't bad for my first round. I had some good shots, I got a blister on my toe, sweated a whole bunch and had a great time. I think it took us 5 hours to play. It was one of the only sunny days in the last few weeks.


Everyone liked this picture because I had obviously missed the ball on my swing. It was hole 13 or something, I was tired!

Internal Explosions

So the time it is going to take to write the 12 hours of doctor, hospital, waiting room, lab test story is ridiculous. I'd like to at some point get it all out there. The short version. Excrutiating pain, trip to doctor, trip to emergency room, tests, IVs and a ruptured ovarian cyst. The good news, i'm going to live, I didn't have appendicitis as originally diagnosed and didn't need surgery. I also have a tiny kidney stone that they incidentally found while looking over my catscan of my abdomen. The pain started at 9:30a and I got home from the hospital at 10p. It was a tiring day. The one time I don't have my camera on me, I like to carry it around, I go to the hospital. I used my camera on my phone and wished I had an iPhone to keep me occupied with internet and music while I waited and waited. Here are some pictures from the hospital. I had to drink an apple juice & iodine cocktail so they could have the dye inside of my body for the scan. Then when they put the IV in blood squirted out of my arm like a fountain. It was on the sheet and on the floor. That IV was almost as painful as the rupture inside of me. I will try to write the story at some point b/c it is pretty interesting. I'm ok! Nobody worry, i'm fine!





Timely Run Down (for the ones that would like to know):
9:00a Arrive at work
9:30a Pain starts. Am thinking I have food poisoning or something from night before.
11:45a Have to go home from excrutiating pain
11:50-2p Roll around trying to be comfortable. Can't lay down, can't stand up. Fetal position is the most comfortable, but not better.
2:15p Call Tam to take me to the doctor
2:45p After hitting every red light between my house and the doctor I am seen by the nurse. He draws blood, I pee in a cup and the doctor tells me I have appendicitis and he will call the surgeons at the hospital that he "sends all his appendicitis patients to".
3:00p Ruth arrives at the Dr. to drive me to the ER
4:00p Arrive at ER, wait, wait, wait...grossness in the waiting room (more on that later)
6:30p Finally called into triage nurses station for admitting
7-9:45p I received a fancy gown. I drank apple juice with iodine in it so they could see contrast in my CAT scan. Waited an hour for that to work. Surgeon came in and started talking to me. The nurse comes in and tried to insert an IV into my right arm. (The nurse from the dr had drawn blood from my left arm hours earlier.) He couldn't "find the vein". He went to the left arm and the gushing blood proved he had found this one. There was blood dripping down my arm. IVs hurt. I think i've mentioned that, but it's necessary to say it again. I go to the CAT scan room. They hook some clear tube to my IV for more solution to be pumped through my veins. "This will make your body feel warm" she tells me. "ok" I responded not thinking much of it. I raise my arms, because that was the most painful thing to do with an IV being pulled by the clear tube connected to the CATscan machine. They announce that the solution is now being pumped into me and they weren't kidding about the warmth. I actually thought I had peed on myself. That's how warm it was! Fortunately, I hadn't...

I went back to the room and waited some more for the results. Really Nice Surgeon comes in and says "well, your appendix is fine," I wait for the "but". "But you had an ovarian cyst rupture and you have a small kidney stone that we incidentally found. It's not blocking anything, but you should see a urologist to figure out what to do about it. And you should drink more water." The surgeon instructs the nurse to take more blood for a pregnancy test. Even after repeatedly telling them I wasn't pregnant, they insisted. If it was positive I would have a room waiting for me upstairs. It took an hour for my blood work to come back. Before we heard the results (as anxious as I was to see if I had some miraculous conception, Jesus Jr I like to call him), a new nurse comes in and says "Ms. Robinson, I think we have a room for you upstairs." "Um, no, i'm certain you don't. We haven't even heard the results of the test and I would bet I don't have a room". At this point I hadn't realized it was the blood work for a pregnancy test we were waiting on. It would've been funnier. I thought, at the time, that it was to see if my white blood cell count was still high (signifying infection). The nurse comes in, tells me i'm free to go and rips out my IV. I gather my things, take off my gown and take my paperwork. "You may want to stop by the receptionist's desk on the way out for any payment," the nurse told us. The prospect of waiting in the hospital another 30 minutes seemed like a great idea, but we just walked right on by. They'll find me if I owe them something. That was at 9:45p.

Saturday I was a little sore. Sunday it was as if nothing ever happened, so I went to play golf for 5 hours.

Catching Up

I think lots has happened since the last time that I posted. I'm exhausted right now, so only a few pictures will highlight the last week or so.

4th of July, Keith Urban Concert, Pedernales Falls State Park and the new feature I found on my camera that allows me to pick a color and have the rest of the image black and white. I was excited!

There will be more...