Week 4

After we got back from Texas I worked so much that I don't really have a lot of pictures from the last 2 weeks.  I really just forgot about it to be completely honest.

Nov. 10

Book of Mormon!  Sorry for the crappy photo quality, but the lady who took the photo had no idea what she was doing so I had to edit it so you could even see us.  The show was pretty funny, but pretty vulgar sometimes.  I was surprised that I cared about the vulgarity. It was weird seeing all these old people dressed in cocktail dresses and suits laughing and the crude jokes.

After the show we went to The Melting Pot, which was AMAZING!  I should've taken a picture there, but I just was too hungry to remember to do so I guess!

Nov. 11

First day back to work :( At Disney it becomes Christmas on Nov. 2nd.  This is how the fountain of Lady and Tramp is decorated at my restaurant.  I think it's pretty cute.

Nov. 14

Thor is just so weird.  I like to take pictures of him. 

Nov. 16

All the the Disney resorts have crazy Christmas displays.  These are from the Contemporary Resort.  It's a gigantic Christmas tree made out of gingerbread.

It was also Thor's first gameday in his new jersey!  Grant's trying to imitate the face that Thor was making.

Nov. 20

It's Thor's 1st birthday!  We have an Avengers cake pan so I decided to make him a doggie Thor birthday cake!

He was a big fan.

Week 2 and 3? I've already lost track.

Oct. 26

Look at my sweet little Thor baby sleeping!  He loves to snuggle.

Oct. 29

Another one of our favorite places is Sea Dog Brew Pub.  Sea Dog is owned by Shipyard.  I don't' know why they have this giant Pumpkin Head beer there, but I like it.

Oct. 30

Plane ride to Oklahoma!  This is my travel buddy, Rex.

Oct. 31

Today I went to the dentist (no cavities!) and really just hung out with my mom all day until we went to Wine and Palette.  I wore my Snow White costume t-shirt today for Halloween!

Painting at Wine and Palette.

My finished Headless Horseman painting!

Nov. 1

I don't know if this is actually the date we went to Braum's, but man have I missed those ice cream sundaes!  I actually took this picture to send to Grant to make him jealous.

Nov. 3rd

I went to a restaurant called Upper Crust in Edmond to meet up with some high school friends.  It was so much fun!  I'd seen Alex and Justin in June, but I hadn't seen Caroline since 2010!  And she brought her sweet 7-month-old baby, Eden.  Oh, and her husband, Ryan. I took a picture of Eden when she was awake, but I don't know what happened to it!  You'll just have to take my word for it that's she's adorable.  It was SO good to see them and made me super excited to be moving closer to them.

Nov. 5th

Bruce and Lana loved to snuggle me on the couch when I was home.  My mom just got Bruce this summer.  He's the doberman.  He's so sweet but super annoying when he wants to be pet, which is like 80% of the time.

Nov. 7

Now I'm in Texas for Grant's brother Erik's wedding.  This is Grant holding Katie, his parents' pug rescue.  She's ridiculous.  They rescued her from a puppy mill where she had like a million puppies and she only has 8 teeth.  She doesn't know her name and she's really dumb, but I love her.  This is the only way she likes to be held.  She flips herself over like this as soon as you go to pick her up.  This is from the Rehearsal Dinner that was at Grant's parents' house.

Nov. 8

Erik and Rebekah's Wedding

Grant and his parents had to be at the venue at like 430, but the wedding wasn't until 7 so I hung out at his parents' house with his grandparents until 6.  The wedding wasn't much fun for us for a lot of reasons, but mostly because the Matron of Honor didn't have her crap together so Grant ended up having to take care of a lot of stuff that he didn't need to worry about.  His main priority (since he was the Best Man) was to make sure his brother had the best day possible, so at least that happened.  And Grant's best friend from high school who I've met before was at the wedding so at least I had someone I knew who wasn't related to the Groom to hang out with during the ceremony and reception.

Rebekah and her 2 new brothers.  That's Grant's brother Forrest on the left.

This decorated truck is most of the reason we didn't have much fun.  The DJ/MC guy told Grant at like 10pm that the bride and groom were planning to leave the reception at 11:30 so we should go decorate the truck.  He also told Grant that they were planning to do the garter and bouquet tosses after they left the hall (which I thought was really odd).  So all the groomsmen, Grant and I went out to decorate Erik's truck.  When we came back Grant's dad told us that they'd done the bouquet and garter toss while we were gone.  Isn't that ridiculous?  None of the groomsmen were even there and it was the DJ's fault!  Grant and I literally had time to dance for 1 song.  By the time I got these pictures with him it was 11:15.  Oh well!

Nov. 9

Yay!  We're finally home!  The first thing I unpacked was this sweet jersey I bought for Thor!  Thor actually likes to wear clothes, but Kingsley treats any time that he has to wear clothes as if it's the most absolute worst time of his life and that he's been given cruel and unusual punishment, so that's why Thor got the jersey and Kingsley didn't!

Week 1..ish

Hello all!  It's a lot harder for me to remember to take a picture every day than I thought it would be, so a few days are missing.  Peter was visiting for a week and now I'm in OK until Grant's brother's wedding, so I should have some fun stuff to post about at least for the next few days.

Oct. 13

Grant and I went to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal.  We've been before, but this time it was absolutely horrible.  Apparently, since it was the day before Columbus Day all the High Schoolers were there.  It was supposed to be a pretty slow day there, instead it was by far the busiest they'd had yet (according to the ticketing guy).  We only had time for one haunted house, The Walking Dead, which had a 2 hour wait.  We decided to just do that and leave.  The house was terrifying but really cool to see all the stuff played out from the TV Show.  The drinks were expensive, the crowds were horrendous and as usual Universal was completely unorganized, but at least they did right by The Walking Dead. Here's one a picture from one of the scare zones.  It's a zombie with no legs that could move all along that platform.  It looked really real and awful.

Oct. 15

Homework day.  Boring!

Oct. 17

I worked a double today (first of 4 in a row) so the most exciting thing was my new laptop decal!

Oct. 18 

Sometimes when you leave work it's really nice to see some fireworks.  This was taken from the cast parking lot and was the Hallowishes fireworks.

Oct. 21

Grant and I checked out a sports bar by our apartment after work called Gators.  While not fans of The Florida Gators, we still really liked it and will probably go there more often.

Oct. 22

Peter's here!  Yay!  We took him to one of our favorite places, The Brick House Tavern.  Look at my delicious bloody mary!  There's a deviled egg in there!

Later in the evening we surprised Peter with dinner at Jiko, which is a really fancy restaurant in the Animal Kingdom Lodge.  This is the dessert they gave him since we were celebrating his birthday.

Oct. 23

Peter and I went to Epcot for the Food and Wine festival.  Here he is in Mexico drinking an avocado margarita.  It was yummy, but too thick and creamy for me to really enjoy on such a hot day.  I felt like I was going to explode from all the food from the pavilions plus this marg.

Every year Boyz II Men comes to Food and Wine as part of the "Eat to the Beat" concert series.  A bunch of other bands come like Hanson, Sugar Ray and Smashmouth.  I always try to go to see Boyz II Men.  I mean, who doesn't like a free concert?!  It was really fun.  They came out in the crowd and everything.

Oct. 24

Peter and I went up to the bar at Grant's restaurant, The California Grill.  He sent us some delicious sushi!

The sunset from the restaurant (it's 15 stories tall, the tallest building at Disney).

Our second round of drinks.  Mine is a cucumber fizz and Peter's was a Sake Martini. Yummy!

Oct. 25

Peter and I adventured to Magic Kingdom to go see talking Mickey with Travis.  That's right, now when you go see Mickey he talks to you!  His face and eyes move.  It was really cool.  It is not creepy as some of you might think.  He told us about how he went to a haunted house in Liberty Square (The Haunted Mansion) and that a ghost was hitchhiking and followed him home.  He asked if we'd like to take a picture like the hitchhiking ghosts.  Here's a link to a video of a family's encounter with him on YouTube.

Weekly Daily Update!

Hello my dear friends!  I've decided that I'm going to take a daily pic and upload them all with a little story every week, just like Laura does.  I think it's a great way to stay connected, since I feel like I have a little bit of a better idea of what's going on in her life, and I like to feel connected to you all!

My life is pretty boring.  I mostly just hang out with Kingsley and Thor, do homework and go to work.  Seriously.  On my days off I let Grant take my car to work since I don't have anywhere to go or any one to see and his car is old and doesn't have air conditioning.  Sad face.  Maybe I can also use this as an opportunity to do more fun things and not just watch Netflix with my two furry sidekicks.

I'm really excited about this!  The reason I included this post before my weekly post is that I want to make myself accountable for this and not just blow it off since I didn't tell anyone.

I'll leave you with my current favorite picture of Kingsley to hold you over to my next post. 

Let's go fly a balloon!

I recommend that you sing the title of this blog to "Let's Go Fly a Kite" from Mary Poppins.  That's how I sang it while I typed it.  And also, it's much more fun that way.  Anyway!  February of last year Grant and I bought a Groupon for a sunrise hot air balloon ride as a Valentine's Day gift to each other.  So you buy the Groupon and then pick a date for your fun adventure.  Then at 6pm the night before the flight you check their website to see if the flight will happen or not.  Apparently weather is super important to hot air balloon rides.  Which seems pretty obvious, actually.  Well, our first 5 balloon rides were canceled for bad weather.  After each cancelation you're given the option to rebook on one of their next available flights.  At first it was super easy to rebook, then the Groupon started showing up almost every week and suddenly it was an entire month before we could book another one.

Finally a few weeks ago we got on the balloon!  And it was so cool.  And also a little lame.

We had to show up at this hotel at 5:30am about 15 minutes from where we live to meet all of the other people and fill out paperwork.  People were late so we left late.  Then we had to get in these vans that took us to the launch site.  Twenty-five minutes later we're still in the van and the sun's coming up.  I thought this was a sunrise balloon ride?  We pull up to this giant field and all the pilots get out and tell us to wait.  The pilot gets back in the van and says we have to go somewhere else to launch since apparently this place has swampland or something.  You'd think they'd work that out before they had 100 people waiting to get in balloons.

Another 20 minute van ride happens.  The sun is now completely up and I'm getting cranky.  We get to another field which meets the pilot's approval.  Then they start to take all the balloon stuff out.  We have to help them set the balloons up.  At first I thought this was really cool that we were able to experience everything that goes in to making a balloon fly.  But then I remembered it was 630am, I hadn't eaten breakfast and it was a random chilly day in Florida (seriously, it's the only time all season I wore a sweater, pea coat, gloves and a scarf).  I just wanted to be in that balloon and then get back to the hotel for complimentary breakfast.

look how cold Grant is!

We helped roll it out of the bag

Grant volunteered to help hold the balloon open while they were filling it up with air.  He said that it was cool to see, but it took too long and the air was really cold.

The balloon we were in was brand new.  It was the first time it had ever been flown.  I thought that was special until I realized that all my pictures would be of the dingy balloons since I was in the pretty shiny new one.

Finally they got the balloons up (it took at least another half hour) and we jumped in the basket.  Our balloon (and 2 other ones) held 16 passengers plus the pilot but there was another balloon that held 25 passengers.

The fire was nice and warm

We went over a lot of swampland which was nice to see.  If we were flying on a warmer day the pilot said we could've seen gators.  Once the basket hit the top of a tree and it scared me so badly.  We were in the air for about 40 minutes.

look at all the steam coming off the golf course pond

swampland!

I think this is my favorite picture.  It's a reflection of our balloon in a little pond.

I also thought it was really cool that we flew right over our apartment!  Our building is the last one on the left.

After we landed (which was a little terrifying) we had to help put the balloon back together which was awful.  It took forever since we had a new balloon and we were in this really prickly grass type field.

Once the balloon was in its giant bag we got back in the van (there's people who follow the balloons in the sky to find where you're going to land and meet you there) to meet people from another balloon to have a champagne toast.  I was the last one to get champagne so there wasn't much left.  Sad face.  They had orange juice too, so I guess we had Mimosas.

They said an Irish toast and then we piled back in to the vans to go back to the hotel where breakfast was served.  By the time we got home it was 10am.  Basically we were gone for 5 hours for a 40 minute balloon ride that met 15 minutes from our apartment.

Overall it was a great experience that I probably won't do again.  The actual balloon ride was amazing, but we paid almost $200 for it and for all the labor we did I felt like we should've got a discount or something.  Here's some more pretty pictures. 

orange trees

pretty balloons

The inside of the balloon while we were in the basket

“The winds have welcomed us with softness.

The sun has blessed us with its warm hands.

We have flown so high and so well

That God has set us gently back into

The loving arms of mother earth.”

-Irish ballooning toast

DVD Clutter

Since 2009 I've moved 5 times.  Those moves have made me realize how much unnecessary stuff I have!  One thing that's helped a lot is going digital for media like books and music.  The only thing that is still a real problem is my expansive movie collection.  I'm sure all of you remember how many movies I have.  In case you forgot, it's like a zillion.  And they are such a pain to move!  Another thing that I hate about them is how much space they take up.  The bookshelf that we've been using to house these DVDs is giant, falling apart, can't hold all that we have, and is super ugly.  I finally couldn't take it anymore!  I used to think that the DVD cases looked so pretty all together around TVs.  But they don't!  They look like clutter! Grant and I will probably be moving again in at least a year (and maybe once more after that) and the thought of moving them all again was not pleasant.

This is just the Blu-Rays.  I forgot to take a picture of the other bookcase.


Here's all of the DVD cases on the floor.

So we went to IKEA and bought 4 of these boxes.

One for Blu-Rays, one for TV seasons and two for movies.  Unfortunately, that's not enough.  I'll have to head back there to pick up a fifth one for the rest of the TV seasons.

Then we went to Target and got some cheap DVD sleeves and card stock.

I kept the cover art for the Blu-Rays, because I can't make myself part with them just yet.  I didn't keep any art for the DVDs though since we were missing a lot of them and have a lot of DVDs that came with Blu-Ray combo packs.

Here's the finished product!  I just made the dividers with the card stock and cut them so they'd have little tabs for the letters.

I'm very happy with our newly organized DVDs.  Maybe someday I'll get around to making a spreadsheet or something to keep track of them all since it's hard to read some of the names when the disc is 2-sided.

We used the now open wall space to make a little bar!  Complete with a shelf for wine glasses and such!  When that's finished I'll post about it.

"We're all different people and we're allowed to be different from one another.  If someone ever says you're weird, say thank you.  And then curtsy.  No, don't curtsy.  That might be too weird.  And tip your imaginary hat.  That'll show them." - Ellen Degeneres (Seriously, I'm Kidding)