Disney World

We went to Orlando last weekend which means that we went to Disney last weekend too.  It's fantastic having a sister that works at Disney (even though she won't let me see her office).  Actually, she might be moving her office to a room that has a window (big times!) and she might even sit by that window.  To top all of that off, this window that we are speaking of can be viewed by guests who are on the Back Lot Tour ride at Hollywood Studios.  Like, the tram goes right by the window and you can see in there and Katie will have to wave at you if she makes eye contact.  I told her the day that she moves to that desk I will spend the whole day (after she gets me into the park for free...obviously) on that ride just so I can see her desk and wave to her.  All day long.  I might even have all our family members ride also in staggered groups so that every twenty minutes when a tram goes by her window, there will be someone waving obnoxiously at her.  Hmmmmm...good plan.  Anyway, back to Disney World.  Both Katie and I have friends who are going there in the past few weeks and it's very interesting to see how people take their Disney vacation.  In our family, it was all buisness.  My parents sacrificed other things so that we would be able to go to Disney in the first place.  We definately would not stay on property (unless we were camping at Fort Wilderness) and we always got the talk about how we are not going to be grumpy and how we are going to have a good time and everyone is going to be happy (like it or not).  Being in a park with my family is pretty equivalent to running a marathon.  The goal is to ride every ride at least once.  You will get to the rides quickly and efficiently.  You will not complain.  While we are waiting in line for one ride, we are mapping out our route to the next ride (and planning for the rest of the day).  Parades?  We don't do that.  3:00 is for riding any (or all) of the mountains.  As for food, you can split a meal with a sibling and drink water out of the water fountain.  It's exhausting and it's awesome.  You're jealous.  Being that this is how I grew up, I find it hilarious that people want to do things like people watching and taking naps.  There are no naps allowed.  Nap in the stroller (on the way to the next ride).  I also find it interesting that now that I'm not paying for my tickets anymore, I don't feel all the pressure to hit every single attraction.  We went to Animal Kingdom on Thursday because Katie got an extra day off of work.  Alexa got to pet the goats and pigs and we went through one of the trails so that she could see some birds.  Then on Friday we went to Epcot to see the fish in the Seas Pavillion and we walked around the World Showcase while Alexa was sleeping, saw our friends' band play and went on the boat ride in the Land.  All very relaxed and layed back.  It was kind of nice, for a change.  Now, don't get me wrong, I still think my family's way of doing Disney is the best way there is.  But I can now appreciate how someone might want to do it a little differently (and less psychotic).

Purple Weed and a Fuzzy Baby

I don't know if I've written about this, but Alexa doesn't say 'Mama'.  She used to.  I still think it was her first word and she used to say it all the time.  But for some reason, since she has really started trying to talk, the Mama thing has disappeared.  She says 'Dada' and 'Daddy' with no problem, but never 'Mama'.  So when I picked her up from day care the other day, the strangest thing happened.  They were playing outside and when I walked out on to the playground, Alexa saw me and started walking real fast toward me saying 'Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama'.  She wasn't loud or screaming, but almost saying it to herself.  Of course, I was super excited to hear her finally say it!  She came up to me and I gave her a big hug and a kiss and asked her to say it again.  Do you want to know what she did?  Shook her head no.  That little crazy.  She can totally say it and flat out refuses!  Hmmmm.

The continuation of a super long post describing our week (or at least two days of our week) in pictures:
  

Oh, so many things to be said with this picture.  First of all, yes, that is our Christmas tree, still drying out and waiting to be turned into firewood.  Alexa picked out this outfit to wear and she thought she looked super cute.  Especially the shoes.  She threw an absolute fit when I tried to put her sneakers on her.  I told her that we have to have shoes on to go outside, so she went into her shoe basket and pulled out the purple crocks.  OK, kid, whatever, as long as you have shoes on.  She was probably trying to coordinate with the shirt.  It has Mickey on it and the shoes are Minnie Mouse.  I don't know how that all works.  I don't do fashion.  Obviously. Oh, and her hands are over her mouth because she's coughing.  We are currently working on coughing into our elbow, but it's proving to be slightly more difficult to learn.

 Playing with rocks.

 Now that is a handsome looking dog!

 Is it bad parenting to take a picture first before taking the rock out of your kid's mouth?

 OK, two pictures.

 And....she spotted a bird.

 Yup, there it is, in the tree.

 She's showing me her teeth ;)

 We went to the baseball park to watch Travis, Chase and Brayden play.  It was pretty windy! (Nice hair, Lex! hehehe)

 Just checking things out.

 Look at Hot Stuff climbing the fence!  Hopefully, she won't use this new love of climbing to get out of her crib!  I'm not ready for a toddler bed yet!

 I shall call this picture: "Purple Weed and a Fuzzy Baby"

 "Hey"

 Nick and Alexa planted two of the trees that we got on Arbor day.  And of course they had to use her car to transport them around the yard.  Actually, the pots fit very nicely in the 'trunk' of her car.  Have I talked about the car yet?  She's obsessed.  Every time we go outside she has to ride in her car and then most of the time throws a fit when it's time to go inside again (actually, the going inside part is getting better).  She just walks up to it, sits down in it and looks at you, waiting to be pushed around.  She loves it.  It's the best $3 my mom has ever spent...yay for garage sales!

Big helper girl. 

 Planting the dogwood tree.  See that black thing in the background?  That's our compost bin.  Nick got it for Christmas from his dad.  He loves it.  I fear it and call it the bear magnet, which Nick does not understand at all.  I'm not sure what there is to not understand.  We had a bear in our back yard who went all through our garbage (and ate the food).  So the obvious thing to do after something like that happens is to put a bin in our back yard that is full of old, rotting food.  Because that won't attract bears at all, will it?  Exactly.

 She found an extra tree to be planed.

 Lexi learning the fine art of digging with a shovel.

Tree #2 ready to go in the ground. 

Hi Glynniss.  Glyn says that she's embarrassed to have this picture up because of her rough hair cut.  I told her that maybe if she would stay still while she's being shaved, her hair would look beautiful like Minnie's.  Minnie looked at her smugly, then Glynnie gave her a look and walked away.  (what?  Not everyone has conversations for their dogs?  Because that is totally what happened!)

Hello, Beautiful

Tallahassee Drivers, take 2

I feel the need to re-post my rant about the Tallahassee drivers because the people up here still totally suck.  Especially the people who were driving yesterday.  Alexa and I were on our way to Tallahassee for music class.  We go every Friday and by the time we leave the house it's after 9:00 so most people are already at work.  So we were driving up 319 (which is the two lane road into Tally which is usually pretty busy making the chances of passing someone slim to none) stuck behind someone going ridiculously slow, as usual.  Finally, after getting to the area where it changes to four lanes and I can pass the crazies, I was driving along minding my own business when some idiot pulled out right in front of me.  I mean, she had to have done it on purpose.  There was no one else around me...no one in the other lane and she pulls out of a shopping plaza super slow, completely cuts me off and continues to drive at 30mph (the speed limit there is 45).  So of course I had to slam on my brakes and swerve around her so that I don't slam into the back of her car.  And obviously I had to give her a dirty look as I passed by her.  Would you like to know what she was doing as I gave her that dirty look?  Putting on her freaking make up!!!!!  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!  You just almost killed me and my kid so that you can look like something special when you get to where ever you're going?!  You can't wait for a red light?  Or better yet, why didn't you touch up your make up while you were parked in the parking lot you just came out of?!  Is it really necessary to do that as your car is moving?  I feel like it's even worse then the whole texting and driving thing.  I mean, really, since we are talking about making that illegal, we might as well make putting make up on while driving illegal too.  Or any other stupid thing people do.  It's a total lack of common sense.

And since we are on the whole driving in Tallahassee thing, I have another little thing that irritates me.  You know the road I was talking about, 319?  On the way out of Tallahassee it merges from 4 to 2 lanes.  The speed limit is 55.  I swear that people make it their life goal to go as fast as they can and pass everyone around them, which normally I'd be OK with except that after the merge is done, they drop back down to 45 or 50.  That is not cool.  If you were going to go the speed limit (or less), just stay in the right hand lane and let those of us who have no regard for speed limits pass you!  Instead, what happens is that you have lines of cars going 80mph trying to pass one another and then once they've merged, it's down to 45.  Dumb asses.  And I know what you are going to say, 'oh, well maybe they got stuck behind the person in front of them, blah blah blah.'  Nope.  Because on multiple occasions I have moved over to the right to let someone pass me (with no one in front of me) because they were coming up so fast.  And guess what they do once the merge is over?  You got it, down to 50mph.  I think they have like some secret set of rules that they have to know if they learn how to drive here.  It must be on the drivers test because I feel like everyone does the same thing.  Maybe I'll go over to the DMV and ask.  They will probably deny it because I'm not from here.  I'm an outsider.  It's a conspiracy.