yesterday was our annual family disney day.  we’ve gone every Christmas season for the last twenty-three years that my dad had worked there.  last year was the only year we’ve ever missed, thanks to dad’s broken hip and five week hospital stay.  geez, you miss one year and the whole danged place changes!  there are new attractions and overhauls of old ones.  my favorite ride, the haunted mansion, had a ton of changes including some fantastic interactive embellishments to the line.  another great highlight to the day was the monster’s inc laugh floor.  if you’re not familiar, it’s an animated and interactive standup comedy attraction.  toward the end of the show, the monsters were joking with a kiddo in the audience and he asked the kid what you get when you mix a human and a grape.  the kid said he didn’t know and the monster said “we don’t either but there she is” as the spotlight flashed at me and i was shown on the big screen.  i laughed and laughed and laughed.  yay me for being part of the show!  arcanai: the human grape!  hee hee 😀  so, as always, it was a great day at the happiest place on earth with my terrific family.

we got to epcot first to ride the new and improved test track	we then made our way to the magic kingdom
we wandered around a bit before heading to tony's for lunch where my daddy surprised me with an early birthday cake	yummy cake
next we went to see the progress on the new fantasty land. we couldn't get into belle's place but we were allowed to look around at gaston's.	♫ everyone here wants to be you, gaston ♫
we checked out ariel's new under the sea ride	and hubby got to do it's a small world
even dumbo got some updates	there are now two dumbo rides - a long overdue improvement
reflections of neuschwanstein	cinderella's castle
and what trip to disney would be complete without a parking lot wheelchair race to wrap things up?

my cousin has been doing roller derby for the last year or so.  this is something that i’ve never actually experienced so it has been eye-opening to learn about this sport.  we went to one of her practices last year and i was completely clueless about what was happening.  last night, we finally got to see her in a real game (bout? match?).  thankfully, there was a player from another team sitting next to me so she patiently explained things to me throughout.  i think i finally got it about figured out around halftime.  it was a fun time and i’m glad we got to see her before she went on hiatus. 

go cousin go!

number .38

soylent pink and me

we drove down to orlando last night so that we could be here first thing this morning for my sissy’s neighborhood’s 5k.  we did it with them two years ago, before they even lived in the neighborhood and had a great time.  the race itself is nice because it works it’s way through 3.1 miles of quiet, tree-lined neighborhood roads but the real draw is the cause… benefits go to the russell home which is a fantastic organization that houses and supports atypical children in central florida.  i think this was their fourteenth year of putting on this charity event. 

so, two years ago, i found myself racing a little old lady – had to be in her eighties – and unable to beat her.  this year, i felt confident that i could take the octogenarian 🙂  i never saw her but i also didn’t post a stellar time (though much better than that one, for sure).  i guess i overdid it on my stairs workout the other day because my calves are super tight.  even though i stretched and warmed up good before the run, i decided not to push it.  i did a leisurely 36 minute 5k and enjoyed myself.  and when i got to the finish line, i stuffed myself full of panera bagels with my family.  i appreciate that running events are something that we can enjoy together as a family. 

seriously, i’m not sure i’ve ever had a busier or more tiring forty hour period as friday/saturday.  after work on friday, we made the drive down to orlando.  we got a late start and made a longer-than-normal dinner stop in tallahassee so our arrival was later than i had hoped.  hubby fell asleep after eating so he got a four hour nap while i finished out the drive.  we made it to my sissy’s by 00:30 but it was around 01:00 by the time we got our luggage in and got into bed.  though i was exhausted, i was unable to sleep so i angrily tossed and turned until the alarm went off at 04:30 – yes, we purposely got up after just 3.5 hours in bed.  my cousin picked us up at 05:00 and drove us out to clermont to meet up with her team for hills training.  there’s a residential street out there with a hill they call “big bertha”.  it seemed to be about the same height as our bridge but much less gradual.  i did it twice and only made it about a third of the way up each time before settling into a walk.  really, though, it wasn’t the incline that got me, it was the decline.  i was fine pushing myself up the hill but going back down killed my knees.  the first time down, i ran it full tilt and it hurt my knees.  the second time, i walked down in a zig-zag pattern and it still hurt my knees so i chose not to do a third repeat.  i did, however, run several of the side streets and ended up running a good bit of that side of the neighborhood, so i got in some pretty good mileage that way.  of course, i can’t say with any certainty, but my guess is that i did just shy of seven miles – by far my longest run to date.  and even with all of the hills (there were more hills than just bertha) i felt fine.  go me!  after the run and cool-down, we headed back to my cousin’s where she cooked breakfast for us and her family.  mmmmbaconandeggs.  when we left there, we walked the mile or so back to my sissy’s to refill our water bottles, change shoes, and be off to the next activity:  cheerleading!

niece¹ decided to give cheering a try for the first time this season.  and she must be pretty darned good because she had her mom and siblings, three grandparents, and an aunt and uncle there to watch.  she was absolutely the cutest cheerleader out there!  and very spirited – i heard her over everyone else.

look at that form!

getting great air!

after her game, dad offered to grab some pizzas and come by the house for lunch so we had a nice lunch with him and his wife before heading to nephew²‘s flag football game.  i’ll take this opportunity to point out how bloody hot it is in orlando right now.  i don’t know the actual temperature for our 06:00 run this morning but i can tell you that within the first two minutes of the run, i was drenched in sweat.  as hot as the bridge was on thursday, it is ten times hotter and stickier here.  ugh.  since we were tight on time between breakfast and getting to niece’s cheer, we didn’t shower and change.  and i felt a little funny about that.  but after sitting for an hour in the heat at her game, i was pleased with the decision.  thankfully, sissy has a nifty stadium tent that they brought to all the games to keep the direct sun off of us but the air was still stagnant.  i stayed drenched all day long.  and i stank something fierce.  but my family loves me anyhow and allowed me to remain under their tent.  anyhow, back to the narrative at hand… nephew had some great plays and his team won. 

totally intimidating the other team

going for it!

there was another game between nephew²‘s game and nephew¹‘s game.  we all sat around in the heat a while, getting eaten alive by ants, and then sissy, the kids, and i made a slurpee run just before nephew¹‘s game started.  he played awesome as well and also had a win.  i can’t believe how grown he’s getting.

look at that MAN barreling down the field

great pass!

after that game, we got a “recess”.  we all came back to the house and jumped in the pool!!!  the adults mostly stuck to the hot tub to rest their weary bones.  it was a welcome respite and gave me an opportunity to show off cobalt.

nephew2

niece1

nephew1

i ♥ cobalt!  after the pool fun, we made a quick dinner of various leftovers and got showers (way overdue, let me tell you.  we had to take our clothes down to the laundry room because after leaving them in our room while swimming, the stank slapped us in the face when we opened the door!) and then headed to the kids’ halloween dance.  niece¹ dressed as a puppy, nephew² dressed as tebow, nephew¹ was too cool to get dressed up – i guess you could say he went as a teenager!  sadly, hubby took the pix there but had the wrong setting on so they all came out terrible blurs.  you can take my word for it that there was a lot of cuteness there.  the dance was put on by the organization that does the cheerleading so all of the different cheerleading groups performed a dance number, which was really fun.  niece¹, of course, did fabulous.  the two oldest groups were much more choreographed and impressive but i was astounded at the provocative moves and costumes.  these kids are all thirteen and under!  we also got to meet nephew¹‘s girlfriend, who is in the oldest cheerleading group, for the first time.  it was amusing to see how they acted around each other.  they’d get within three feet of one another, look in opposite directions, smile out of the corners of their mouths, and then go different ways.  LOL.  i’m so glad to see that they have so much innocence left.  their “dance” consisted of texting each other from opposite sides of the gymnasium all night.  really, he spent almost the whole night with us old fuddy-duddies.  nephew², on the other hand, spent the night dancing with a group of the second-oldest cheerleaders.  he was totally a ladies man!  niece¹ just had a good time hanging out with her friends.  we made it home in time to watch the last bit of the gators game and then i finally got to go to bed after forty straight hours of being awake.  haven’t done that in years and it is much harder than it used to be.  we laid down in bed and both let out a huge sigh.  said i to hubby, “they do this every weekend!”  i just couldn’t do it… three kids going 90 mph in three different directions all the time.  gracious!

so anyhow, as tired as i was after my forty hour waking binge, i slept a whopping four hours before waking up and tossing and turning the rest of the morning.  insomnia rocks!  /sarcasm.  luckily, sunday was a much calmer day.  i gave up and got out of bed at 09:00 and started working on making plans.  i was hoping to see my brother since i haven’t seen him all year but i called both him and his wife and got voicemail on both.  i did make plans with my friend jenny to get together with her and the hubby for dinner.  that left us the rest of the morning and afternoon to do some much needed resting up.  and make a kohl’s trip.  dinner with friends was healthy and fun and we were in bed at a decent hour.

so, as is to be expected when you live at the beach and have visitors… most of the week was spent in or around the water. 

hubby

CIL/sherlock

cousin/writersblock

my cousin’s friend and her son came down from ‘bama tuesday night and they stayed through thursday.  wednesday, while we labored, they went to pensacola to see the blue angels train.  sounded like they had a lot of fun.  they spent thursday on the beach and touring town so as to leave us a nice, quiet work environment and then we dragged them to the bridge for some much needed torture.  happily, it was a much better run for my cousin than our midnight run and i think she had fun (in as much as forcing your body to drag itself over a bridge can be fun).  for me, it was my first time ever doing two laps over the bridge!  granted, i had to start thirty minutes before everyone else in order to finish with the rest of them and i was ready to die at the end, but i did two laps! 

friday, we took another day off and went to the state park so that they could do some fishing from the jetty.  while they were out in heat fishing, i found a nice shady gazebo and grabbed a nap.  until i was awoken by the naval hovercraft coming through the pass.

cool breeze + shade + beach sounds = naptime

hovercrafts are noisy

but still pretty cool - how do i get me one?

after doing some more touring of the park, we came back home where i started on dinner while hubby kayaked and cousin and CIL fished in the backyard.  apparently i missed quite the catch by my cousin when her fish decided to exact revenge by covering her in a healthy coat of blood.  obligatory in-mouth-spurts included.  blech!  sadly, this is also when she discovered that her brand new waterproof camera (same model as my cobalt) had died a watery death.  very, very, very sad, that.  after my fabulous dinner of bacon-wrapped fillets, asparagus, and cob corn, we all headed back down to the beach for some night fishing.  sadly, my cousin did not have any more spectacularly bloody catches but both CIL and hubby managed to reel something in.

writersblock assembling the perilous pink pole

sherlock's big beef stick strikes again!

sherlock's haul

hubby's proud catch

sherlock eyeing hubby's big fish

before leaving this morning, they took one last fishing trip to the beach.  i’m glad they enjoyed it so much but it’s a shame they didn’t get their fishing licenses earlier in the week so that they could have had fishing fun every day.  after a good breakfast, they got on the road around lunchtime.  it was a wonderful visit with my favoritest extended family!

pre-race photo op

how far past my bedtime is it again?

the real start

OUR start

my finish

my cousin's finish

i would do it again.  although i would probably just bandit it because it really was not worth paying $15 when i didn’t even get a shirt.  they could have at least offered to mail one to me.  i really wanted the stupid shirt.  the nice thing about running at midnight is that it’s not quite as florida outside.  although i was still sweating like crazy by the time we finished.  so… next year then?

…were certainly surrounding a family member this past weekend.  thanks to the wonders of fb, we heard about this saturday morning and we were shocked.  one of hubby’s cousins was driving home to visit family for the weekend last friday and ended up having the biggest scare of his life thanks to a sociopath who apparently doesn’t deal well with road construction.  he was shot at while driving down i-75.  the bullet hole was inches behind his head.  and judging by the angle of the hole, the man was mere milliseconds or centimeters off on his shot.  either way, my cousin-in-law escaped a potentially fatal incident by a much smaller margin than anyone wants to contemplate.  for the sake of his children… for the sake of his wife (who has already been widowed once and was in the seat next to him)… for the sake of the family… i am so thankful that we are not burying another far-too-young friend/loved one.  thankfully, they are both uninjured.  although i’m sure it will take some time for the memory of it to fade.

the good news is that both the man and his wife, who was driving, are in jail.  these upstanding citizens with no registration, no insurance, and no drivers license, are being charged with two counts of attempted first-degree-murder and facilitation of a felony, respectively. 

for more, news video and article about the incident.  cousin-in-law was clearly still on an adrenaline rush when he was interviewed in the video.  i just can’t imagine.  at least during my frightful gun experience, it was never actually fired.

we went to wedowee this weekend for FIL’s birthday and a family reunion.  it was a very nice weekend with the in-laws and everything seemed to be pretty good around there.

before we left yesterday afternoon, i happened to be in the house alone with MIL.  we had a very troubling conversation that left me worried and sad.  i listened to her and tried to offer my support but before long i was teary eyed telling her that she was the only mother that i have in my life at this time and that i love her very much. 

the conversation ended abruptly when the men-folk came back in and quickly changed to talk about “final arrangements” for both MIL and FIL, should anything happen (they’ve both had health problems lately so i guess it’s been on their minds).  we left soon after for the long drive home.

two and a half hours after we left, i got a call from my MIL.  she was crying and told me that she had been thinking about our conversation and that she felt that perhaps she needed to talk to someone.  i told her that i loved her, that i would pray for her, and that i would help any way i could, even if it was just listening. 

it felt relieved to know that i might have reached her and helped her some.  i hope and pray that she finds her way to a better place.

thursday night, i enjoyed dinner and conversation with my friend katie and her family. 

friday afternoon, i was thrilled to get hubby back.  we were going to try to get out and do something for our anniversary but by the end of the day, i had coughed myself into a migraine.  instead, hubby helped BIL move and set up their new summer kitchen and i popped a bunch of motrin and dayquill.  just as good.  after dinner, the adults soaked in the hot tub a bit. 

saturday, sissy and BIL left town and we became honorary parents to three chilluns.  although one of them left after a few hours for a night out with his friend’s family.  we took the other two out for dinner, ice cream and a movie at the dollar theatre, which is actually the $2.50 theatre (stupid inflation!). 

sunday morning, we took the chilluns to church and then dropped the eldest off at a friends for an afternoon of boating.  we took the other two back to the house and spent the afternoon out at the pool.  nephew had a couple friends over so even though we lost one of our chilluns, we netted one extra.  sissy and BIL got home around 16:00 and, after a few minutes of catching up, we loaded up and got on the road. 

overall, it was a nice week in orlando.  not the best for getting out and visiting around since i felt so crummy most of the time we were there but i had some good quality time with my sissy’s family and my cousin.  mostly though, i wanted to be home.  it is so strange that, after all of these years of being on the go, we finally have a home that we don’t like being gone from.  it was beyond wonderful to get home last night.  and even more wonderful today when we awoke to find a lovely cold front and clear water in the gulf.  i don’t ever want to leave!

it’s been an off week for orlando visiting.   between being sick and hubby being gone, i’m just not super motivated to be social.  i’ve spent a lot of time hanging out with sissy’s family, which is always a joy.  yesterday, i finally started to feel better.  the sinuses cleared up and i coughed a lot in the morning but even that was lessened throughout the day.  last night was poker night at my cousin’s which is the night i look forward to most when i’m down here.  i am honored that stryker always shows up when we’re in town even though i hear he never shows up anymore. 

i choose to steal the pic writersblock posted because i'm so amused at all of us geeks with our laptops open while playing poker (although the pic was taken before the cards and chips hit the table)

yes, we were all partaking of our various geekyness throughout the poker game; my cousin and i played a game of scrabble on fb while taking everyone else’s poker chips (she finally won when we all went all in, with four side pots, and a bunch of nothing cards).

when i got back to my sissy’s i briefly visited with her and BIL before heading to bed where i was up until 01:00 unable to sleep.  and then i awoke out of a sound sleep right around 02:30 for a severe coughing fit that lasted until close to 04:00.  i’m sure i had the whole house awake listening to me hack up my spleen.  after coughing myself into a massive headache, raw throat, sore chest, and pulled muscle in my back, i finally broke down and took some OTC cough medicine.  within fifteen minutes i had quieted down enough to start trying again for sleep.  it was just a miserable night.  i guess hubby is lucky he wasn’t here as i would have certainly kept him awake.

my sting-ray-flu has hit the road.  i carefully cultivated it all last week so that i could bring it to orlando with me.  as planned, it flourished over the six hour drive down here so that i was feeling far more lousy when i got here than i had during the week.  i have made efforts to spread it around to all of my sissy’s family as well as other relatives and friends, as chronicled below.  you’re all welcome!

saturday sissy’s family accompanied me and hubby to my dad’s for a nice lunch and visit with him and his wife.  saturday night’s plans got postponed due to hubby having to get some work done so we popped in on my cousin instead. 

sunday we went to see my friend’s first house.  i loved her sense of pride as she showed us around and i am impressed with the improvements that they have already made in the last month.  i wish them happy, happy days in that home.  the rest of sunday was lazy.  we got back in time for splashy pool fun but i chose to nap instead.  when i awoke, i went down and sat next to the hot tub while hubby, sissy, and BIL soaked.  no way was i getting in a hot tub on a 94° afternoon!  the rest of the evening was passed with dinner, a bit of the magic game, and a movie.

as much as we enjoyed our company over the weekend, it was so nice to have a quiet afternoon yesterday sunday with just us two.  it was heavenly. 

however, we did have a good time with family.  the parentsIL and teenagers arrived around 17:00 on thursday.  we hung out on the beach for a while and wiied a bit before hubby’s sis and BIL arrived around 22:00.  wii continued to play until 02:00 when everyone gave up waiting on hubby’s bro’s family to get here.  he stayed up to greet them when they got in around 03:30.

by friday morning, there were thirteen of us in our little 1273sq ft condo.  everyone was up and raring to go at 06:30 which means i spent a couple hours clenching a pillow over my head until i finally gave in and joined the crowd.  there was wii fun before everyone headed for the beach.  i abstained, choosing to remain in my air conditioning reading a book rather than sitting in the sun since there was no chance of me getting one of my two umbrellaed chairs with so many visitors.  i feel it was a good choice.  i read and dozed and conversed with folks as they came and went for snacks and such.  as the afternoon wore on, a group of them decided to make a grocery run and the rest went their separate ways for quiet time.  hubby and i went down to the beach and napped under our umbrella for a bit.  when we all regrouped, a picnic feast was prepared and we all headed back down to the beach to grill burgers and dogs. 

thankfully, saturday morning stayed quiet until closer to 08:00.  when i got up, i got right to work on a birthday cake for nephew c.j.  for lunch, he chose a restaurant and we all had a nice meal out.  we even got a bit of a show watching the giant carp, turtles, and raccoon enjoying their lunch behind the restaurant.  the rest of the afternoon was actually fairly quiet as half the group took the teens out for go-karting and putt-putt. 

sunday morning, the crowd started packing for home around 08:00.  they had all departed by 10:15.  hubby and i walked his parents down to their car and then spent a couple hours cleaning back up.  after that, we held down the couch the rest of the afternoon (with the exception of me getting up to change laundry loads every hour or so).  it was blissfully quiet and comfortably spacious.  while we genuinely enjoyed spending time with the family, especially those we don’t often see, 2.5 days was quite enough of having that many people cramped into our cozy condo!

on the whole, i think everyone else had a good weekend too.  niece a.g. even declared that she was going to spend her whole summer break with us!

my sissy is a much better sissy than her sissy is. this came in a care package when i was sick a couple weeks ago. it made me smile very much a lot.

clearly, he should be in a pink floyd recording.