I survived!!!

...the NaBloPoMo!

I actually posted everyday in November and while some of the posts weren't exactly the most inspirational, I can say that I did it. I did actually learn something too...that it's okay not to have something "important" to say everyday and that I should and could make more of an effort to post more often. I did like doing the random thought entries.

And with that as a lead-in, here are some random thoughts on a Tuesday evening...
-Fiona seems to be adjusting more to us and I can even reach in and take her out from under the book shelf now, though she does still hiss. We've been letting the kitten out of the room for a few hours when we're home at night and he seems to be having a good time. Of course I don;t think I've ever known a kitten who didn't seem to be having a good time!!
-I finished Safe Haven today and was really surprised by the end. I still think it's my favorite of his books! I started listening to The Giver by Lois Lowry on the way home and I like it so far. It reminds me of The City of Ember (or should I say that City of Ember reminds me of The Giver since The Giver was written first? Sort of like when people tell my mom she looks like me when I really look like her. (you know, because she's my mom?!) But I digress.....)
-I'm not sure if you're supposed to put parentheses inside of other parentheses like I just did but oh well, I did it!
-I'm trying to get into the Christmas spirit but I'm just not quite there yet. I think this weekend I'll at least take down the Thanksgiving decorations and put up some decorations outside. I think Michael might put up the lights over the weekend.
-I still haven't quite mastered the new camera and putting pictures on the computer thing and I am too tired to wrestle with it tonight. I have been taking my daily picture for Monkeyboy311 and will post them all when I feel like I have the energy to deal with it!
-Work has been really busy and crazy lately and for a Tuesday it feels like it should be Friday, or maybe that's wishful thinking? Is it bad that I'm looking forward to my colonoscopy on Thursday so I'll have a day off? Though I may end up going in Sunday for a few hours.
-I think that's about it for me before I fall asleep sitting here at the computer!

Daybook

For today...Monday, November 29, 2010

On My Mind...our niece who has been struggling with some personal issues lately. (Cassandra, know that we love you very much and are here for you if you need anything.)

Outside My window...dark and cold...although today was really nice, you didn't really even need a coat! But we're expecting rain and maybe snow by the middle of the week.

What we're Reading...I'm still making my way through Wuthering Heights and have started A Christmas Carol for a read-along. Tucker's still reading Fudge-A-Mania and we also read some Thanksgiving books.

What We're Listening to...I am loving Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks. I was really intrigued by the Sleeping with the Enemy aspect but it's on such a different level than I ever expected! with Tucker we listened to a Nate the Great collection and an Encyclopedia Brown collection. He told he "really liked Encyclopedia" so I want to get more of them! I loved Encyclopedia Brown when I was his age so I was hoping he would like him!

What We're Watching...I'm so glad Jennifer Grey won DWTS and also that Lacey came in second because I have always liked her! (I just don't know what to watch on Mondays now! lol)...still enjoying Undercover Boss, Survivor, Amazing Race, and CSI. And as always, iCarly, Victorious, and Big Time Rush are on a lot.

I am Hoping...that our new kitten Fiona adjusts to us. She was taken from a home where there were a lot of animals so she's really timid and has been hiding in the corner under a bookcase. She's slowly letting me pet her and talk to her. The social worker in me wants to make it all better for her. She's really very sweet.

In the Kitchen...spaghetti, pork chops, chicken pot pie.

Around the House...dishwasher and dryer are running...clothes waiting to be folded, more to be washed...straightened out the spare room enough so the kittens can go in there. we're keeping Fiona in there all the time and Shrek in there during the day and at night (so they get used to each other)...in general the house is actually pretty neat!!...Michael finished raking all the leaves today ( I think it's the first time he's been done before December!)

Coming Up this Week...my endoscopy/colonoscopy is finally on Thurs...soccer game on Fri night...Lego Kid's Fest with Andrew and his family on Sat...Michael and Tucker are going Xmas shopping with Michael's mother on Sun.

No picture thought this week...I brought my camera to work to show off the kittens and left it in my desk!

A busy weekend...

Okay so for some reason, Blogger is not letting me add pictures! So I guess I'll settle for telling you about our weekend and then post the pictures another time! which is really annoying because I think I finally figured out how to transfer and load the pictures to the blog with the new camera!

On Saturday Tucker and I met my friend Dawn and her son Caleb at a children's museum for some fun for the boys and a brief opportunity to catch up on what's been happening with each other! the boys had a good time and enjoyed the new exhibits. From there we went to Shady Glen for cheeseburgers and milkshakes ( a must if your in the area, as every local can attest to!)

Today we were busy---we started out by heading to the tree farm to tag our tree. Next we headed to the local Humane Society to check out kittens. They've had some 8 week old ones on their website for awhile but they weren't on there this morning and come to find out, they had been given to a local pet store and we could adopt them from there. We did look around at the cats they had and I wanted to take them all home!!! We got to the pet store just as some guy was signing the paperwork for 2 out of 3 of the kittens so we checked out the last one and their next youngest, who is 5 mos old. We played with them for awhile and decided to take them. The 8 week old is a boy, all black, and we have named him Shrek. The 5 mo old is a female, black with a white nose, chest, and feet, and we have named her Fiona. She's pretty nervous and scared but I think she'll be a great cat once she gets used to us. Shrek is hilarious and makes us laugh with all his kitten antics!! Tucker is completely and totally beyond excited!!!!

I will try to get the pictures up soon!

Celebrating Thanksgiving

We celebrated Thanksgiving at my mom's this year! My Uncle John joined us for the festivities and my mom put him right to work with the turkey!

Here he helps take the turkey out of the pan...

It was decided that my uncle and Michael would be in charge of carving the turkey (with my mother supervising", of course!)





Quite the spread of food!
Filling up our plates
Sitting down to the great food!
Sharing their usual holiday bottle of wine...
We played Uno after dinner and before dessert...always fun!

My uncle didn't play but that doesn't mean he gets left out of the pictures!
Eileen slices up her yummy homemade apple and pumpkin pies!
It was a great day overall and it was good to spend time with family, reflecting on how blessed we all are.

Black Friday

I thought this video was pretty crazy!!! Thankfully it didn't look like this at 6:30 when I got to Target!!!)

I'm pretty tired and don't feel up to posting too much...

I ended up at the Black Friday sales this morning (though not at 4 am). My mom dropped my camera yesterday and broke it. Target had a nice one at a great price (and she said she would reimburse me for it! even more of an incentive to get up!! lol)

Now I'm just trying to figure out how to work with getting the pictures on the computer-every camera's different so I hopefully will have the Thanksgiving pictures up this weekend!

From our home to yours...

Thanksgiving Thoughts on Thanksgiving Eve

-How is it even possible that tomorrow is Thanksgiving? My mom is cooking and we'll be heading there after we watch the Macy's parade.
-I'm thinking we may go see the parade is person one of these years. I know it's really crazy and usually cold there but it's one of those things we want to try.
-One of my friends volunteers at the Soup Kitchen with her four kids every Thanksgiving and I think that's something else we'd like to do. She started doing it 2 years ago to show the kids that all is not rosy with the world and it turns out they really enjoy it. Her kids are now 11, 9,9, and 8 and they look forward to it now (the 11 yo and 1 of the 9 yo are "hers" and the other two are adopted)
Apparently the 11 yo is quite a flute player and plays his flute there.
-I changed the title of the post from 'random' to 'thanksgiving' because I seem to have a theme going here.
-I think that should cover me for my daily post.

Daybook

For Today...Tuesday, November 23, 2010 (yes a day late but we had computer issues last night and then by the time it got straightened out, I was too tired to do it!)

On My Mind...still not feeling great and have been feeling horrible again with heartburn and nausea. My blood pressure's also running high and I'm feeling like I felt when I was in Disney. I'm getting an endoscopy/colonoscopy next week so I just need to make it through til then. I called my GI today and he called me in a prescription for something to stop the nausea because nothing OTC is helping. I just want to actually enjoy Thanksgiving!

Outside My Window...dark and actually nice temp-wise. We've been having a little bit of a "Warm" spell this week (for this time of year anyway!)

What We're Reading...I'm still working on Wuthering Heights. Just haven't had a good block of time to do any reading. Tucker finished SuperFudge and we're now reading Fudge-A- Mania together. We also read The Littles (loved these books when I was his age) and one of The Magic Treehouse Research Guides (Just can't think of which one right now). I'm hoping to read a couple of Thanksgiving books with him.

What We're Listening to...I finished The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake and honestly I had a hard time with it. It's about a girl who can taste what people are feeling in the food she eats. I just didn't get it, I guess. But I did enjoy the relationship part of it. I'm now listening to Safe Haven and LOVING it! Nicholas Sparks is one of those authors that I have to read when there's a new book because otherwise I can't remember if I read it. Does that even make sense? I think this is probably my favorite of his books!

What We're Watching...literally, I am watching DWTS as I write this and am so rooting for Jennifer Grey! I loved her carrying the watermelon last night at the beginning of the Free Dance...still watching Survivor and Amazing Race, liked Mallory and Gary on AR and they got eliminated so I'm not sure who I'm rooting for now...other favorites, CSI, Big Bang Theory, and Glee.

I am Hoping...to sleep well tonightt and to feel better.

In the Kitchen...lemon chicken pasta, pork chops, ham steaks.

Around the house...dishwasher and dryer are running... looking pretty good in general.

Coming Up This Week...Thanksgiving at my mom's...seeing Megamind on Friday...getting together with my friend Dawn and her son Caleb (who will be here from VA) on Saturday...tagging the Christmas tree and getting KITTENS on Sunday!!!

A Picture Thought... from Tucker's last game; it's hard to take good pictures through the Plexiglass and someone was standing in front of the open area and wouldn't move! I have a few more games to keep trying though!!!

A cute commercial....

http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/hp-happy-baby-commercial

I'm completely exhausted and don't have the energy to come up with a creative post tonight and I don;t want to ruin the daily post-thing!!! Click on the link above for a commercial Tucker and I LOVE!!!!

My Sick Sense of Humor...

Hopefully I don't offend anyone but I got this as an email and it made me laugh out loud!!!

Airport Security Solution

Here's the solution to all the controversy over full-body scanners at the
airports:

Have a booth that you can step into that will not x-ray you, but will
Detonate any explosive device you may have on your body. It would be a
Win-win for everyone, and there would be none of this crap about racial
Profiling and this method would eliminate a long and expensive trial.

Justice would
Be quick and swift.

This is so simple that it's brilliant. I can see it now. You're in the
Airport terminal and you hear a muffled explosion.

Shortly thereafter an announcement comes over the PA system, "Attention
Standby passengers. We now have a seat available on flight number 4665 ....
Paging maintenance. Shop Vac needed in booth number 4."

Assorted Thanksgiving Facts....

Not feeling up to much tonight so here's some facts about Thanksgiving from theholidayspot.com:

1. Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November in the United States.
   
   
2. By the fall of 1621 only half of the pilgrims, who had sailed on the Mayflower, survived. The survivors, thankful to be alive, decided to give a thanksgiving feast.
   
   
3. Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on the second Monday in October in Canada.
   
   
4. The Plymouth Pilgrims were the first to celebrate the Thanksgiving.
   
   
5. The pilgrims arrived in North America in December 1620.
   
   
6. The Pilgrims sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to reach North America.
   
   
7. The pilgrims sailed on the ship, which was known by the name of 'Mayflower'.
   
   
8. They celebrated the first Thanksgiving Day in the fall of 1621.
   
   
9. They celebrated the first Thanksgiving Day at Plymouth, Massachusetts.
   
   
10. The drink that the Puritans brought with them in the Mayflower was the beer.
    
    
11. The Wampanoag Indians were the people who taught the Pilgrims how to cultivate the land.
    
    
12. The Pilgrim leader, Governor William Bradford, had organized the first Thanksgiving feast in the year 1621 and invited the neighboring Wampanoag Indians also to the feast.
    
    
13. The first Thanksgiving feast was held in the presence of around ninety Wampanoag Indians and the Wampanoag chief, Massasoit, was also invited there.
    
    
14. The first Thanksgiving celebration lasted three days.
    
    
15. President George Washington issued the first national Thanksgiving Day Proclamation in the year 1789 and again in 1795.
    
    
16. The state of New York officially made Thanksgiving Day an annual custom in 1817.
    
    
17. Sarah Josepha Hale, an editor with a magazine, started a Thanksgiving campaign in 1827 and it was result of her efforts that in 1863 Thanksgiving was observed as a day for national thanksgiving and prayer.
    
    
18. Abraham Lincoln issued a 'Thanksgiving Proclamation' on third October 1863 and officially set aside the last Thursday of November as the national day for Thanksgiving. Whereas earlier the presidents used to make an annual proclamation to specify the day when Thanksgiving was to be held.
    
    
19. President Franklin D. Roosevelt restored Thursday before last of November as Thanksgiving Day in the year 1939. He did so to make the Christmas shopping season longer and hus stimulate the economy of the state.
    
    
20. Congress passed an official proclamation in 1941 and declared that now onwards Thanksgiving will be observed as a legal holiday on the fourth Thursday of November every year.

Some funny thoughts on a Friday...

Great American Smokeout

The Great American Smokeout is an annual event held on the third Thursday of November[1] in the United States encouraging Americans (of whom 45.8 million smoke) to stop tobacco smoking. The American Cancer Society held its first Smokeout in 1977. The event challenges people to stop smoking cigarettes for 24 hours, hoping their decision to not smoke will last forever.

I am posting this in memory of my dad who died of lung cancer on October 26, 2004. We miss you, Bubba!

On this day....

Given my fascination with the Tudors, I thought this appropriate to take notice of:

On this day in 1558, Queen Mary I, the monarch of England and Ireland since 1553, dies and is succeeded by her 25-year-old half-sister, Elizabeth.

The two half-sisters, both daughters of King Henry VIII, had a stormy relationship during Mary's five-year reign. Mary, who was brought up as a Catholic, enacted pro-Catholic legislation and made efforts to restore the pope to supremacy in England. A Protestant rebellion ensued, and Queen Mary imprisoned Elizabeth, a Protestant, in the Tower of London on suspicion of complicity. After Mary's death, Elizabeth survived several Catholic plots against her; though her ascension was greeted with approval by most of England's lords, who were largely Protestant and hoped for greater religious tolerance under a Protestant queen. Under the early guidance of Secretary of State Sir William Cecil, Elizabeth repealed Mary's pro-Catholic legislation, established a permanent Protestant Church of England, and encouraged the Calvinist reformers in Scotland.

In foreign affairs, Elizabeth practiced a policy of strengthening England's Protestant allies and dividing her foes. Elizabeth was opposed by the pope, who refused to recognize her legitimacy, and by Spain, a Catholic nation that was at the height of its power. In 1588, English-Spanish rivalry led to an abortive Spanish invasion of England in which the Spanish Armada, the greatest naval force in the world at the time, was destroyed by storms and a determined English navy.

With increasing English domination at sea, Elizabeth encouraged voyages of discovery, such as Sir Francis Drake's circumnavigation of the world and Sir Walter Raleigh's expeditions to the North American coast.

The long reign of Elizabeth, who became known as the "Virgin Queen" for her reluctance to endanger her authority through marriage, coincided with the flowering of the English Renaissance, associated with such renowned authors as William Shakespeare. By her death in 1603, England had become a major world power in every respect, and Queen Elizabeth I passed into history as one of England's greatest monarchs.

from: history.com

Christmas Giveaway

5 Minutes for Mom is sponsoring their annual Christmas Giveaway! Click on the picture to learn about all the great prizes and how you could win 'em!

Daybook

For today...Monday, November 15, 2010

On My Mind...I am so tired...maybe if I actually went to bed instead of playing on Facebook...lol

Outside my Window...it's typical fall temps and we're expecting a lot of rain over the next few days.

What We're Reading...I finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and ended up enjoying it a lot. I do plan on reading the second one but it's not something I feel I need to do right away. I'm reading Wuthering Heights now; it's my last book for the Take Another Chance Challenge. Tucker has been reading Superfudge by Judy Blume and we read Tsunamis and Other National Disasters (A Magic Treehouse Research guide) together. Tonight we started Ancient Greece and the Olympics, another Research guide.

What We're Listening to...I finished Water for Elephants and if you haven't read this book, you need to. I'm now listening to The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender.

What We're Watching...very much involved with DWTS and cannot believe Bristol made it to the semifinals!!! Loving Jennifer Grey still and would be happy if she or Brandy won...Tucker is extremely addicted to Cake Boss and wants to know why it isn't on all the time.

I am Hoping...to get to bed and sleep tonight.

In the kitchen...pork chops, chicken, chicken brushetta, pizza.

Around the house...cleaned up a lot because Andrew came over...laundry waiting to be folded (even after folding three loads yesterday!!)

Coming Up This Week...not too busy...soccer game Fri night and I think that might be it...can't think if anything's happening this weekend or not.

A Picture Thought...I took this last week and still love it!

Team Ra-Ras Kicks Breast Cancer

I received this as an email from my friend Joan who happens to a breast cancer survivor....
(I keep forgetting to add with these videos, to hear the music, click "pause" on my playlist)

A few weeks ago, 135 Philadelphia Eagles Cheerleaders representing five decades got together for a weekend to do a dance routine to benefit Susan G. Komen for the Cure. We practiced for a month to do this and the video is finally ready. We had such a wonderful time getting together and working at this. I haven't seen some of these women in 26 years! A few women from my squad and our choreographer all are breast cancer survivors.

We need to reach a goal of 1 million views of this video and United Healthcare will donate $100,000 to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, so please click often and spread the link.

Random Thoughts on a Sunday Evening

-I've really been trying to stick with this NaBloPoMo thing and post everyday but honestly some days I just haven't had the energy to come up with something so I've copped out and used YouTube. I wonder if that counts as a post though since I think the point is to get us all writing on our blogs daily.
-I definitely need to stop worrying about doing things the right way and just do them, already.
-I definitely need to stop worrying.
-I was in Big Y today and laughed out loud when I heard the song "Muskrat Love".
-A cute story but a little lead-in to set the mood: Tucker's friend Andrew came over for a few hours yesterday to play so Tracy and I sat down with Emily (who's 2) to chat and kept her busy with crayons and markers. Tracy and Emily left to do some errands while the boys played some more so I feed them lunch and while they were eating, Andrew asked Tucker "Do you like crayons" "yes" do you like markers" "yes" Andrew thought for a minute and said "so does Emily" then he asked "do you like to draw" to which Tucker responded "yes" Andrew thought a few minutes more and then said "well you and Emily should get married then since you both like crayons, markers, and drawing!" If only finding someone was that easy!!!
-I was recently removed from some one's friend list on facebook. She's on the PTO board and Tucker's friends with her son. There has been some tension (for lack of a better word) among the board between one of the new co-presidents and current treasurer (who is one of my good friends). We were all on Facebook and had communicated through there over the summer but I noticed this week that she no longer comes up on one of the games I play. Heather told me she noticed that she was missing from her friend list also. Trying not get all highschooly over it but it feels like I'm back in high school. I kept one of the moms from PTO on my friend list for two years, couldn't stand the woman, and removed her as soon as both of her kids moved to middle school last year. It does seem rather petty to me and I can't stand the drama over everything. (I'm waaaaaaay oversimplifying the issues here; don't really want to go into it here.)
-I'm probably one of the few people who is actually looking forward to getting a hysterectomy. I see my doctor tomorrow and after having tried Lupron for three months I've not really seen any difference (my back pain was determined to be sciatica from 2 uterine fibroids pressing on the sciatica). Combined with all the other issues I've had since Tucker was born, I am so ready to get this over with. Hopefully tomorrow I can get him to schedule the surgery for the beginning on January. I'll be out of work for six weeks.
-My uncle is still not doing any better. He is getting the chemo treatments but it may be too late to make any real difference.
-Tucker has started indoor soccer and thankfully this year we don't have any practices, just Friday night games which will lighten up our week considerably. They won their first game the other night 4-2 and Tucker did great! He started the game on the front line and came thisclose to scoring a goal. He is such a different player in indoor; he's much more aggressive and really goes after the ball.
-We are getting kittens this month! Felix has been gone since July and Tucker has been asking to get kittens ever since. We've been putting it off because financially it couldn't happen but we've budgeted to get kittens Thanksgiving weekend from the Humane Society. It's a little pricey but when you figure that they will already be neutered and had their first shots and compare that to what it would cost to take them to the vet, it's actually pretty good. we are very excited!!!! :)
-It doesn't sound like anyone's going to bed upstairs and it's 8:45 so I guess I'll go up and be the bad guy! Night!

Momma

This was one of my favorite comic strips!!

A Trip through the 80s

I

I'm not feeling very creative tonight---this is the best I could come up with for my daily post!

You Capture - Serene

Beth from I Should Be Folding Laundry sponsors this weekly meme to challenge us all to take pictures with a theme in mind. This week's theme was Serene.


As soon as I saw the challenge for this week, I thought of the beach near our house (which incidentally is the Atlantic Ocean). So on Sunday, I drove down took these pictures. It was a beautiful crisp Fall Day; perfect for a walk on the beach.
.

Happy Veteran's Day

But the freedom that they fought for, and the country grand they wrought for,
Is their monument to-day, and for aye.
~Thomas Dunn English

My Favorite Commercial is Back!

Fall is my favorite season!

"When the trees their summer splendor
Change to raiment red and gold,
When the summer moon turns mellow,
And the nights are getting cold;
When the squirrels hide their acorns,
And the woodchucks disappear;
Then we know that it is autumn,
Loveliest season of the year."
- Carol L. Riser, Autumn

Daybook

For today...Monday, November 7, 2010

On My Mind...I attended the funeral of the mother of my friend Joan over the weekend. She was 95 years old and by all accounts, an amazing woman. It was a beautiful service and I am honored to have been part of it.

Outside my window...it is COLD!!! We woke up to an inch of snow! Actually to be more correct, the thunder and lightning woke me up at 5:30 AM instead of my alarm. It was sleet and hail on the way to work!

What We're Reading...I'm halfway through The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and while I'm enjoying it, I'm still not sure what the fuss was/is all about...with Tucker, we finished Diary of A Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw and will finish Pirates past Noon (Magic Treehouse)tonight.

What We're Listening to...I finished The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (it was only 3 hours long) and found myself really enjoying it! I'm now listening to Water for Elephants which I have been wanting to read for awhile.

What We're Watching...it's getting serious on DWTS now! I'm so glad Jennifer stepped up her game, so to speak, and is still in it! It's time for Bristol and Kurt to move along now...Big Bang Theory always makes me laugh...getting back into CSI...Still liking Cake Boss, Undercover Boss, and now liking What Would You Do? and Hoarders.

I am hoping...that my Uncle Ted continues to tolerate chemo.

In the kitchen...pot roast last night, chicken pot pie tonight, ham steaks, not sure what else.

Around the house...laundry waiting to be folded...actually pretty neat.

Coming Up this Week...PTO meeting tomorrow night...Michael's taking Tucker and his friend William to KidCity on Thursday (they're off for Veterans Day)...not sure what else.

No Picture Thought this week

Can you believe it?

Hard to believe but this week marks the 25th anniversary of Back to the Future! I was a huge Michael J. Fox fan back in the day and this is still one of my favorite movies!

check out this clip I found on YouTube!

Just a reminder....

Don't forget to change those clocks before you go to bed tonight!

Days 4, 5, & 6 at Disney ( + Misc...)

WARNING: this post has a kajillion pictures! In my effort to finish up the Disney trip, it's turned into a lot of pictures.

We are now up to Day 5 and we headed to Hollywood Studios. I was really looking forward to going here because I enjoyed it so much when we came on our honeymoon 12 years ago!

Tucker posed with coke delivery man...

Our first stop was the Tower of Terror...
I wasn't feeling great so I didn't plan on going on but Michael definitely wanted to. Tucker insisted he didn't want to but I went with him all the way to where you get on the elevators. Needless to say, Michael rode by himself!

We then headed over to Toy Story Mania and got FastPasses to come back later...like 6 pm! (Keep in mind it was only 9 am!!!)

We went on the Studio Back Lot Tour and enjoyed checking everything out, including props, etc. Michael and Tucker had to pose in front of the Star Wars stuff.
It was a given that we would have lunch at the Pizza Planet! Tucker has been talking about it forever and we finally did it!

We then headed over to the Honey I Shrunk the Kids Play Area and Tucker LOVED it!!!!


Do you think he's enjoying himself?!? lol
Here comes Tucker...

Here comes Michael...


Posing with the giant ant...
On to the Muppet 3D show (the lady behind us in line offered to take this for us!)
Michael and I didn't do this when we came here and it was a little hokey but still fun! Tucker and I posed with our 3D glasses


The Great Movie Ride is one of my favorites!!!
Tucker was looking forward to this....
They show you all kinds of neat tricks and stunts and show you how they actually create the action you see in the movies....

Unfortunately it was during this show that I really didn't feel well and actually spent most of it in the shade with a wet towel on my forehead. I ended up taking the resort bus back to the hotel and they took our rental car back.

They continued on and one of Tucker's favorites was the Indiana Jones' Show---he especially liked the explosions!




We had reservations for "dinner" at 3:30 at Mama Melrose's (including the Fantasmic show preferred seating)so they ate and then came back to hotel, figuring they would go back at 6 for Toy Mania. Michael took one look at me and thought I should be seen and find out was going on. By this point I had really bad stomach cramps and was shivering. He contacted the front desk and I went by van to a walk-in clinic where they couldn't decide if I had a GI bleed, a bowel obstruction , gastroenterititis or simply my IBS. (I'm sparing you all the TMI details...you're welcome). So I went from the walk-in clinic to the ER by ambulance and as the EMTs are worrying about my blood pressure (it was 161/100), I was wondering if I had cut my toenails since they were right in front of this 20-something face!

I arrived at the ER with a temp of 103 and my blood pressure had come down to 141/100 so they attached some monitors and left me in the hall. That was at 6:30. they didn't come along and put an IV in until around 8:30, and the doctor finally saw me and order a CT scan and blood work. The blood work happened right away, the CT scan didn't happen until 12:30 AM!! During this time I was on the phone with Michael, my mom, and Julie to keep them all updated. Julie was on "stand-by" if for some reason we needed to have her come get Tucker if Michael needed to be with me at the hospital. After they did the CT scan and I had a minor meltdown, I was finally free to at 2:30 am. I ended up having gastroenteritis and a flare-up of my IBS...not fun!

It turned out that Tucker and Michael didn't end up going back for Toy Story Mania and Fantasmic and just hung out at the hotel. I slept in and they headed to Hollywood Studios to be the first in line for Toy Story Mania, which they were!

I met them for lunch at Planet Hollywood and was actually able to eat a little bit!




This is the mirror in the ladies' room; I just had to take a picture!
The Lego store...




We rested for the rest of the day and then it was time for our final day!

Julie and family came over to spend some time with us before we left...


Miscellaneous pictures...

We came home every day to find creative towel creatures done by the housekeeper!
Tucker took this one himself!
some pictures in the 50s...




And that would be it...We had a wonderful time and can't wait to go back in two years!!!!