Our magical day in the Magic Kingdom

On Wednesday, Tim and I took the day off and headed east to Orlando. I had taken a personal day and he had traded a day off with a coworker, so it was a nice break in the middle of the week. The reason for the trek to Orlando? This little promotion.

I had registered a few weeks earlier and gotten my free admission in to the park of my choice. In retrospect, we might have enjoyed Epcot or Hollywood Studios more, but I wanted to see that castle, darn it. Tim had never been to Disney, and I hadn't been there since 1996, I think. We bought Tim's ticket online using the Florida resident discount - yes, for living in this constant state of tourism and humidity, we are awarded 10% off Disney admission.

The weather was great - not yet too hot or humid - and the crowds were fairly small. I think the longest we waited in line was 45 minutes for Splash Mountain. We skipped one ride because the projected wait time seemed too long and we wanted to get a drink. We came back and the ride was temporarily out of service, so we skipped it completely. I had never been on the Haunted Mansion, and that was fun. Some of my favorite attractions from the mid '90s were no longer there, and Space Mountain was closed for refurbishment. We had lunch at a cafe near Pirates of the Caribbean, where the man who took our order laughed at me when I said I wanted the quesadillas. Later, I found out why he laughed: It was from the kids menu. And came with grapes and unsweetened applesauce. I think he was offended that I ordered Diet Coke instead of milk, but I didn't know it was the kids menu! It was good, though, and hit the spot without leaving me feeling sluggish. We later got over-priced popcorn - but left the park before requiring dinner.

Disney also probably has the biggest collection of "children in desperate need of a nap and therefore have a massive meltdown" that I've ever seen. I mentioned to Tim that a lot of parents will stay in the resorts on Disney property so they can escape for naptime, and then they return later in the day. We saw quite a few families with small children entering the park as we left. I can't imagine being a little kid and waiting in the long lines, in the heat, in the crowds, with all of the fun stuff to buy swirling around you and Mom and Dad constantly having to say no. Tim and I decided we're not taking our kids there - but if you want to, be our guest! :-)

We were wiped out by 5 p.m. We aren't used to getting up early, and after the drive, the standing, the walking and the heat, we were exhausted. We wrapped up the day with some shopping on Main Street and were lucky enough to see a parade passing by (in photo at right).

We got to the car and started out trek back to Bradenton. We were hungry and stopped for dinner at one of the first exits. After dinner, I slept in the car for about an hour until we got closer to home. Then we stopped for Dairy Queen, and with a Midnight Truffle Blizzard, my birthday was complete. We watched baseball and mindless TV for a few hours before heading to bed early after our long day.

It was an awesome birthday - thank you to everyone for the calls, cards, e-mails, presents, texts and birthday wishes!

Pretty shrubbery!

An elephant on the jungle boat ride.

Rapid and random recap

Things have been relatively quiet lately. I worked six very long days this week and Tim worked seven days in a row. Between work, regular errands and getting ready for my friend Julia's Signing Day, we didn't have much down time.

It's starting to warm up with humidity down here. Sigh. It will likely stay oppressively hot for the next 6-7 months. Tim loves this kind of weather; I hate it. I believe I have run for the last time outside until September or October. The treadmill and I are going to be close buddies for a while, but now that I've run 5Ks and trained outside, it's really, really boring. I'm going to have to figure out a way to beat my workout boredom in general - I had a really fun, challenging routine of classes and strength and cardio workouts when I lived in St. Pete, but the Y here just isn't even close to offering what my old gym had. There's another Y about 20 minutes away, but even then, the classes offered are early in the morning and the equipment is older. Even the Zumba class I've attended at the Bradenton Y is aimed at senior citizens - I'm usually 20-30 years younger than anyone else in the class, and understandably, the instructor doesn't really offer many challenges, just fun and a decent workout.

This week Tim and I arranged to get Wednesday off from work - it'll be my first requested day off since the wedding! - and we're going to Disney to celebrate *someone's* birthday. Disney has a cool promotion this year that we're taking advantage of, and we get a 10% discount on Disney admission because we're Florida residents, so we really got a good deal. Free ticket+discounted ticket=we're going to go. Tim has never been to Disney, and I've only been there once in 1999 for a band trip. We're going to spend the day in the Magic Kingdom, and I'm really excited that it shouldn't be too hot or crowded. I think it'll be a long, tiring day and wish we could have Thursday off, too, to recover, but I think it will be a lot of fun.

In other news, apparently Mario got an extra bit of protein in his diet on Saturday. Tim was off for the day and had ordered a pizza to eat while watching the draft. While he was busy keeping Mario in the condo, it seems a lizard snuck in while the delivery guy was here. And Mario decided that the lizard was his dinner. I am so disgusted. Every time I look at Mario I think he's fatter than he was yesterday. I don't like having his head near mine, so he's been sleeping on Tim's side of the bed or at the bottom of the bed. I don't know why Tim didn't stop him from killing and eating the lizard, but I guess the only thing I can hope is that Mario truly did kill and eat the lizard, because I don't want to know there's a live or dead lizard in the condo right now. And I think we'd know because Mario would stalk the crap out of him.

Since Sidney never seems to get any blog love, I'll share one recent story (and hopefully update with pics later). Sid is dumb. Doesn't answer to his name. Doesn't respond to any normal stimulus. Freaks out if you open the freezer door. But the one smart thing he does is try to give us offerings at night. At first he used to just do it with a stuffed moon he has - he loves the thing and always carries it around when we go to bed, wailing/meowing as he brings it (it's a hilarious sound - his mouth is stuffed with a toy and he makes this pitiful, extremely loud wailing noise). I'll always find the moon at the end of the bed or on the bed. But lately he's been doing it with other toys, too, over the course of the night. Yesterday we had the moon and three little toy mice at the end of the bed. Today, it's the moon and two little toy mice. I'll have to take a picture sometime of the pile of offerings.

Other than working and such, I've also been busy posting at the baking blog Meghan and I started. If you haven't seen it, check it out!