The Sound of Silence...

OK, it had to be SSOO obvious that I need some time alone! Todd looked at me on Thursday and said, "Why don't you take Saturday for yourself?" In medical terms I was "one acorn away from nuts."

Emma had a birthday party from 9:30 - 12:00 on Saturday that I took her to. They met at SoHo Sweets in Homewood, picked out the ice cream that they wanted and then trekked over to a beauty school down the road for the "whole package". We are talking fingernails, hair, and make up. The girls had a BLAST. I'm not really sure the ladies at the salon knew what they were in for!



here is our Birthday girl..Emily

and her little sis...already learning the moves.

the end of the day with all the nails done and hair up!

After dropping Emma off at home I headed out to a movie. Yes..(sigh) by myself. I used to think that there was no way that I would EVER go to a movie by myself. Why would I need to when hubby loved to see them as much as me? I would always have the comfort of another person with me in the dark. Well, children change things and you become braver than you thought you ever were. I walked right up to the ticket counter and proudly handed over the $$ for the ticket (wow prices have gone up) and then whispered "One ticket to Eagle Eye", hoping people would think that I was meeting someone in the theater!!

Luckily the previews had already started so the theater was dark although it is hard to hide one lone silhouette slinking into the nearest seat. The move was alright. I wish the ending had little to do with a computer "on it's own" as apposed to a bad guy in charge of the mayhem.

As luck would have it the theater is right next to the mall?!! So, for a few hours I wandered around looking at all the stores and finding way more for Emma than I did myself. It's just more fun to dress her.

By the time I made it home (early by todd's standard) I realized that the only words I had spoken since about 1:00 was when I bought the ticket. No body asking me things, interrupting me, begging, pleading, or pouting around me...WOW!

The sound of Silence.

and More...

These are the bone cages that were used in Pirates of the Caribbean.

The pod ship from Flight of the Navigator


The Indiana Jones show

The Fireworks...


Just before the show starts.

It's all about the Castle...

A Pirates Life for me

Had to Share..

My almost 7 year old (going on 37 years old) niece said the following to my dad when he picked her up for dance.

Big Jer, I have a friend at school who goes for Obama...we're no longer speaking. 

The Rest

Well, I don't have a lot of time to update each day that way that I would want...so here's a preview of the rest of the Disney Trip. I'm basically just going to go in the order that the pics on my camera are in.

We stayed at Pop Century which takes the different decades and creates a theme around them. We were in the 70's area. The end of the building had an 8 track tape on it and these are some of the other large representations that were on the grounds around the building.




Next is Disney's Hollywood Studios.....

We ate at the Sci Fi Theater. This is where you go inside and eat in a car as if at a drive-in. They show clips of old black and white movies while you eat.


The kids had a great time in the "driver's seat".


The kids got a "driver's license" at the end of the meal.


We were then off to Star Tours. This was a cool ride that had you feeling you were on a mission at light speed. 

We then headed over to Lights, Camera, Action. Stunts galore!! This show tells a lot of the secrets to the dangerous chase scenes that yo see in the movie. They explain why scenes are shot out of order, how they "drive" backwards, and how all the explosions are set up.

Here we are waiting in the stands for the show to start.

The show begins.

Playing with the merchandise.

Out next stop was the Hollywood's backstage tour. You got to see how things were put together in a final film. The story is that Robert (the captain), Todd (the wacky deckhand), and me (the mechanic) are in the ocean with a war starting around us.

Robert and Todd, in the scene below, are seeing bullets spraying around them from Aircraft. I am about to get a call from Robert about the ship problems. Right after this picture was taken of me, about 800 gallons of water were dumped on me. It took several hours to dry off even thought they had given us the oh so fashionable blue suits.

more later......

Animal Kingdom

We then decided to tackle the Animal Kingdom.

We visited the tree of life.

Searched for the Yeti at Mt. Everest.

We went on a bus ride through the Kilimanjaro Safari getting a close up look at nature.

We went to the Kali River Rapids. The wait was so long we were about to leave but an Ambassador from Disney gave us the fast passes her group wasn't going to use. Below is what happened next.

All seemed to be having fun..


until someone got too wet!! (guess who)



We saw a 3D show about a bug's life (this was really cute and fun!!)



I'll save you the pictures of the blisters that were forming on my toes by this point. I'll just say that when Emma saw them she said, "Don't ever show me that again...it's too disturbing."

Anyway, we then made our way to the Festival of the Lion King. It was a wonderful 30 min show with great songs and costumes.

EPCOT

We basically have Friday through Tuesday to "do" Disney. We are going to be tackeling one park a day. Our first adventure started at EPCOT. It didn't take long for Robert to be dubbed Dr. Disney. This is their third time to go, but that man has a plan!! We were all trying to keep up with him or at least keep him in sight. He tried to keep us updated with the plan for the day and to see what it was we wanted to do, but it was just easier to follow him and let him pick the activities. He knew when to go for fast passes and where evrything in the parks were located. You would have never known that we were "first timers" since we were not always having to look at maps and figure out which way we were headed. We did the "around the world" tour through all the countries. We road Soarin' (loved it and HIGHLY recommend it). We also road the Test Track. Nolan loved this and we got fast passes to ride it later. We went back after the illumination fireworks to let everyone leave the park so we wouldn't be waiting so long for the bus back to our hotel. Todd and Nolan sat out this time so Robert, Lee, Emily, Emma and myself satisfied our need for speed. However, this time right before the ride was suppose to be over, the car literally burned rubber and came to an abrupt stop. The announcer came over the intercom and said that a technical difficulty had occured and the ride was stopped. It asked us to sit and wait for an attendant to help us out of the ride. We must have been there for at least 10 or so minuets and Todd ended up calling me to find out what happened. Nobody did say what happened but we got a pass to ride again anytime during our stay. We saw "Honey I shrunk the kids" (this was better than I thought it would be), Journey Into Imagination, The Nemo and Friends 3D thing (this was also VERY good,they have a lot of underwater fish life to look at.

Test Track

We ate at the Garden Grill that night. It's a restaurant that slowly rotates as you eat dinner. Many of the Disney characters visit you at your table.

  

M*I*C*K*E*Y…Why, because we’re crazy

Well, we have finally taken our first voyage to Disney. Todd had wanted to go there for our honeymoon but I said that one day when we had kids we would go, so it was to Aruba we went. Anyhoo, we are here with the Atherton’s (Beau, the dog’s, parents) for our Fall Break.

This is a week of firsts for the kids. Emma had never been on a plane before and Nolan once only as a baby. Emma was excited about the idea of getting to fly but Nolan being true to form was worried about the plane having some technical difficulty and having to make an emergency landing. (Todd calls this is “Rainman” phase).

We were able to get the kids excused from school on Thursday after lunch and we headed straight for the airport. Nolan did fairly well on the flight from B’ham to Atlanta…I think his exact words were “Well, one flight down successfully, hopefully the other will go as well.”

When we got on the next plane a little before we reached Florida, we hit turbulent weather. You could see the lightning flashing and all of the sudden the plane dropped so fast that your stomach was up in your ribs. A collective “AAHH” rang out among most of the passengers but the plane was stable in a few seconds. The stewardess got on the mic and asked who all was on their way to Disney. We raised our hands and she said well, this is just a little preview of some of the rides you’ll be going on.

It was late when we got in so we went straight to bed to be able to take full advantage of the next day.