31 posts tagged “weekend”

I know I'm a little late, but I wanted to update on my weekend.  Friday night I hung out at my parents house after work because my grandparents had come down for the weekend to watch the Kentucky Derby and place bets at the nearby dog track (they do this every year...my grandmother just LOVES the Derby).  I ate dinner with them and then came home to watch my Friday night shows.  Tadd got home from work shortly after I got back and we just vegged and watched TV for the rest of the night.

Saturday morning I went shopping for the finishing touches for our costumes for Joe's graduation party that night at Betsy & Richard's.  The party was school-themed and guests were encouraged to come in costume, so I decided to go as a librarian and Tadd went as a gym teacher.  I picked up some track pants on clearance and a soccer whistle for Tadd's costume, and some fake glasses and a scarf for mine.  I got home and cleaned a bit, then started getting ready for the party.  My brother came by to tag along to the party.  He decided to come last-minute, so he threw together a "school sports fan" costume by wearing a Boston College t-shirt, visor, and one of those giant "#1" finger things that people wave around at sporting events.  

Despite the fact that I really wasn't in a party mood for most of the day, we ended up having a GREAT time, as we always do at Betsy & Richard's parties.  As a matter of fact, we were among the last to leave at the end of the night and I didn't go to sleep until around 3:30am.

Sunday we got a late start, but we decided to head over to the Magic Kingdom for a few hours.  This is going to sound really strange, but I totally rediscovered the Hall of Presidents.  I know I had seen it before when I was very young, but it's one of those things in the MK that I always forget about completely.  I know it has the reputation of being the biggest snoozefest on property, but knowing that I hadn't experienced it in probably 15 years, plus with how much I love history, I decided to give it another try.  The waiting room is really neat...it's like a portrait gallery of various presidents, with a glass case on one wall containing all sorts of presidential artifacts. 

There's also a small domed rotunda in the center of the room with the presidential seal on the floor.  The show itself starts with a short film about the trials and tribulations of America's history and how it shaped us into the country we are today.  Then the curtains raise and you see all of the presidents in all their audio-animatronic glory, some are seated, some are standing.  All are in the contemporary fashions of their day.  The announcer goes through and introduces each of them, which takes quite awhile, but what I LOVED was that throughout the introductions, the animatronics stayed subtly animated.  They would randomly tap their feet, shift their weights, twiddle their fingers, etc.  When it was their turn to be announced, they would nod their heads slightly at the sound of their name.  And their heads would turn based on where the spotlight was at any given time.  Very subtle stuff, but quite effective and realistic.  We were seated close to the back, so I told Tadd I want to do it again and sit closer so I can take in the details better.  After introductions, Dubya gave a brief speech, followed by Lincoln.  It got me wondering...I wonder how soon after the new president is elected will they have their audio-animatronic added to the show.  I'm actually really excited about that, not just because I'd rather hear someone other than Dubya speak, but just because I want to see what they do next with this attraction to keep it current.  If we renew our passes as we plan to, we will very likely be able to see the new addition.  Anyways, all that to say that I give the Hall of Presidents two thumbs up.  No line, nice and cool, relaxing, great for history buffs, and you just HAVE to appreciate the amazing job the Imagineers have done with the audio-animatronics.  If you only have one day to do everything in the Magic Kingdom, this is easy to skip, but if you've already seen all the major attractions a million times, this is a HIGHLY underrated show.  A true hidden gem!

In the spirit of trying things we usually skip over, we also decided to give the Liberty Belle a try.  That's the giant white steamboat that sails around the Rivers of America.  This ride wasn't quite as big of a hit, but we were able to get some great shots of the Haunted Mansion and Thunder Mountain.  It wasn't bad, but not all that exciting either.  I much prefered Hall of Presidents.  We also did Tomorrowland Transportation Authority, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Carousel of Progress.  Believe it or not, this was Tadd's FIRST time on CoP!  With as many times as he and I have both been to MK (he used to WORK there, for heaven's sake), I couldn't believe it.  He thought it was hilarious how at the end, in the pseudo-futuristic-1989's-version-of-ultra-modern scene, the daughter says that she can't believe that there was ever a time when people lived without car phones.  That part REALLY needs to be updated.  Anyways, we ended our day with the Philharmagic 3-D movie, which I am a total sucker for.  I just think it's too cute!  Especially the part when Donald Duck is trying to fly with Peter Pan & Tinkerbell.  Anyways, it was a really relaxing day.  It was pretty crowded, but pretty much everything we did had no line because we totally avoided the most popular attractions.  I think the longest we waited was 15 minutes for Pirates (but since the line is inside and air-conditioned, we didn't mind a bit...it was HOT outside!).

I really love Earl Grey tea, especially Twinings brand.  I used to drink tea all the time, but I think I got sick of it, especially green tea.  I was in a tea mood this morning, so I brought two bags of Tazo green tea into work today and brewed some early this morning.  It was just too bland and weak for me.  We have a huge box of Twinings Earl Grey teabags in our break room, so after lunch I decided to give it a try.  MUCH better.  I guess I just need a tea with more oomph.  Last time we were at Epcot, I saw a bunch of great exotic-flavored Twinings teas in the UK pavilion's tea shop, but I didn't buy any because I figured they would be in my grocery store for much less money.  Haven't been able to find them anywhere.  So next trip to Epcot, I will go tea shopping.  In the meantime, I will enjoy the free Earl Grey at work and maybe buy myself a box of my very favorite tea ever...Bigelow Vanilla Hazelnut.  Yum.

We ended up not doing too much this weekend.  We got a bottle of wine and drank while we watched our usual shows on Friday night (The Soup & Real Time w/ Bill Maher).  Saturday was cleaning day, then in the evening we ordered pizza, finished off the wine, and watched For Your Consideration and Borat.  Did a little shopping yesterday, since I had a bunch of Mall coupons to use.  Had lunch at the Elephant Bar, which was nice.  We didn't go to DHS like we planned because Tadd was too tired.  I was bummed, but there's always next weekend.

Speaking of next weekend, Saturday is 10 years since Tadd and I first started dating!  I can't believe it has been a decade.  Not sure yet what/if we are going to do anything to celebrate.  We've been invited to a party that night, so I guess we should figure things out pretty soon so we can make plans and RSVP yes or no to the party.

Potential big things going on with Tadd's career, but since I don't know the details yet, I'm keeping quiet!

I'm soooooooo glad it's the weekend.

Flower & Garden Festival tomorrow!  I'm so psyched.  It isn't as cool as the Food & Wine Festival, but it's still going to be fun and wonderful.  Tadd and I are ready with our camera, sunscreen, and new Misty Mate personal misting systems, which will be useful since the high temp tomorrow is 88 degrees.  Yuck!

Look forward to copious amounts of photos of beautiful topiaries and other fun stuff upon my return.

I can't believe we're almost halfway through the week.  It always seems like the first few days of the week fly by, and then the last half of the week just drags.

Well, our marvelous and much-anticipated date night didn't quite go as planned.  Anyone who reads this who lives in Central Florida probably knows why.  It poured buckets most of the drive to WDW Saturday afternoon.  By the time we arrived at the Grand Floridian Resort, the rain had stopped, so we decided to go to our dinner reservations at the Grand Floridian Cafe and see how the weather was afterward to decide what to do.  We really enjoyed our dinner...I started with the mushroom soup, then for my entree had the chicken in a wine sauce with spinach, fingerling potatoes, mushrooms, and roasted onions in a delicious vinaigrette.  Tadd had the french onion soup, then the shrimp & prosciutto penne in an asiago cream sauce with asparagus tips.  Everything was very good and the service was top-notch.

The weather was still holding up when we finished dinner, so we walked down to the boat dock at the back of the resort and caught the next boat launch to the Magic Kingdom.  We had a 20-second shower while we were on our way on the boat, but I had hope that things were clearing up.  We got through the turnstiles and to the end of Main Street when the skies opened up again.  We made it to the covered passageway between Adventureland and Frontierland and had to take cover.  After about 20 minutes of intense wind, a deluge of rain, and crazy lightning and thunder, there was a lull.  So we, unfortunately decided to try to make our way out of the park.  The main reasons we wanted to go to MK that night were to see Wishes and Spectromagic, neither of which can go on in the rain, so there unfortunately wasn't much reason to stay if it was going to storm all night.  What a bummer...  Tadd said he'll make it up to me and I at least have Flower & Garden Festival to look forward to next Saturday.

Various other things going on:

The compressor in my car decided to die last week, so we had to spend $400 for another.  Luckily Tadd was able to replace it himself on Sunday, or it probably would have cost three times as much.  But it's really nice to have air conditioning in my car again.

Fantasy baseball is going great!  I'm in first place in our league.  Go Chase Utley!

I reached the 90-day point at work.  Got my benefits packet, but still no 90-day review.  Hopefully they will schedule one for me soon.  I'm definitely in need of a raise!

Tadd is having a blast with his new baseball video game.  He started a season with a modified version of the Red Sox.  He made players of all his guy friends and added them to the team.  Apparently in Videogame Land, Tadd, Bet, Rick, Manny, Richard, and Ryan have joined the Red Sox. The look of the game is very much like what you would see on ESPN, including commentators with surprisingly intuitive and complex dialogue.  They talk back and forth really smoothly about whatever happens to be going on.  When you consider the variables that could happen with all the players and plays and other possibilities, it's pretty neat!  They'll even refer to your customized players by name if they are names that happen to already be in their database.  I keep hearing them compliment Tadd's batting.  It's funny!

Last night, Tadd, Ryan, and I went to the Brantley Fair.  It's a really tiny carnival, but still pretty fun in a kitschy sort of way.  We rode the ferris wheel, bumper cars, and a couple other spinny rides.  We probably would have stayed a little longer, but it started to rain.  While we were wandering around, we walked by the ping-pong toss, where you toss the balls into the little fishbowls to try to win a goldfish.  That is the exact way that we got our current goldfish four years ago!  Manny, Stephanie, Bet, Jessica, Tadd, and I all went to the Brantley Fair back in 2004.  We saw the ping-pong toss and all gave the game a try mostly without luck, but apparently we had discovered an unknown talent in Stephanie because she won about 8 or 9 goldfish!  She gave us 2 of them.  One died a couple of years ago, but the other one is HUGE and still going strong.  It goes to show that you can't judge a carnie fish based on their  carnie roots! 

I had every intention of booking our cruise this weekend, but I'm still a little gunshy.  I guess I just want to be extra sure we are getting the best deal.  Hopefully I will be able to make a decision on where to book soon.

Less than 2 days until MLB Opening Day!  Go Sox!

I did a lot of shopping this weekend.  Bought 2 shirts at JCPenney, 2 tank tops and a pair of those bermuda shorts to wear for our theme park adventures this spring/summer and some clothes for Tadd at Old Navy, and did some Easter shopping at Target and various other places.  We ended up going to the Old Navy off of Colonial Drive and passed a Scientology protest on the way, which was...interesting.  We also went to this HUGE wine store in that area.  I got a bottle of cherry wine imported from Denmark that I found I absolutely adore.  I took the advice on the bottle and mixed it with cola and it tasted like the most delicious Cherry Coke I have ever had.  VERY yummy.  They also have some black currant beer that I want to try.

I also pretty much went nuts with my CVS shopping this weekend.  I made 3 trips to 3 different CVS stores and spent a grand total of $8.98 on the following:

• 2 packages of 6 large plastic easter eggs
• 2 woven Easter baskets
  
• 2 Cover Girl TruShine lipsticks
• 1 Maybelline SuperStay gloss
• 2 Oral-B Cross Action toothbrushes
  
• Dove shampoo
• Dove conditioner
• Dove deodorant
• 2 bottles Dove bodywash
• Bic Soleil razor
• Bic Soleil refill cartridges
• 2 tubes Lumene Aktiva face cream
• 5 Lifestyle Fitness pain patches
• 2 Glade room sprays
• Reese's candy bar
• Almay eye makeup remover pads

I still have $16 in ECBs to use next time.  My last trip, where I got the Bic Soleil stuff, Glade sprays, eye makeup remover, and candy bar, my out-of-pocket total came to $0.24.  Have I mentioned how much I love CVS?  I also did very well with grocery shopping this week.  We got about $85-worth of groceries for about $35.  This couponing thing is becoming a new hobby of mine.  I love that most people have hobbies that cost money, but mine saves us a TON!

We saw The Other Boleyn Girl Saturday afternoon.  I thought it was pretty good, even with all the historical inaccuracies.  I knew it was based off of a novel, so I had a feeling the plot would take liberties, which it did.  I still enjoyed it.  I thought Natalie Portman made a great Anne Boleyn.  ***minor spoiler alert*** I did have to roll my eyes a bit at the very end when they tried to be all dramatic in spelling out in subtitles that the baby daughter that Anne and Henry had together grew up to become Elizabeth I.  Perhaps I am just a history nerd, but I thought Elizabeth I's parental lineage was pretty common knowledge.  ***end spoiler alert***  When we got home, I was in the mood for more Henry VIII stuff, so we rewatched the first 3 episodes of The Tudors while drinking our new cherry wine.  It got me all psyched up for the start of season 2, which starts March 30th!  It was kind of interesting seeing the same story twice, one right after another, with different actors playing the same characters and a different style of telling the same story.  Kind of like comparing Elizabeth (the theatrical release film starring Cate Blanchett) and Elizabeth I (the HBO mini series starring Helen Mirren). 

In other news...we are finally booking our cruise next weekend!  Yay!

Things are much better at work.  For most of the week, my boss actually took over a good portion of the work I just don't have time for anymore.  He, the case managers, and I are picking up each other's slack to keep things going as smoothly as possible and having daily status meetings to keep everyone on the same page.  We're still behind, but at least I don't feel like it's totally my fault or that there will never be an end to the frantic pace.  And, most importantly, my boss's boss and pretty much everyone else involved is in total agreement that the current distribution of work just isn't working.  In a month or two they are going to hire a part-timer, most likely a college student, to help out.  I still am insanely busy, but there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel, so I'm happy again.

Not much on the agenda so far this weekend.  I want to go shopping for some spring/summer tops and I want to go to the movies at some point.  There was some talk of dyeing eggs, but I'm not 100% sure on that.  I can't decide if it's pointless and silly or just something festive and fun to do.  I know Tadd wants to.  We had so much fun carving pumpkins for Halloween, so this is kind of in that vein. 

Last Saturday, Tadd, Bet, and I went over to my parents house and we had our live draft for Fantasy Baseball.  We also bid on behalf of my cousin Kerry.  It was actually a lot of fun!  I can't wait for the season to start.  I'm sad that I didn't get my #1 pick, Josh Beckett (my dad ended up getting to go first and snatched him up in the very first round...I guess great minds think alike!).  And then Tadd picked my #2 pick, Jonathan Papelbon, in the 2nd pick of the 1st round.  And THEN Kerry got Jacoby Ellsbury (my 3rd pick)!  I knew we'd all be fighting over the Red Sox players.  But the H-Bombs did get Dice-K and a bunch of Red Sox relief pitchers, as well as Kevin Youkilis, so I'm happy.

Ok, back to watching Alice In Wonderland!

Lately I've gotten back into couponing.  I always love a good deal, but up until the past couple of weeks, I hadn't been as into it as I had been in the past.  It takes some work and strategizing, but in the end, it's really satisfying.  Just this weekend alone, I have spent less than $10 for about $80 worth of product from CVS.  My total over 2 trips to CVS stores yesterday and today was $8.78, which got me 3 CoverGirl lip products, a tube of toothpaste, a plastic accordian file (to organize my ever-growing collection of coupons), 4 bags of Easter candy, 2 packages of maxi pads, some deodorant for Tadd, a bottle of conditioner, hairspray, and some Excedrin Migraine.  I love it!  And after all of that, I still have $7 in Extra Care Bucks to put against my next CVS purchase.  We also did our weekly grocery run today and got another $80 of stuff for $52.52.  I would say we are well stocked on many things for awhile.  This website really helps with finding th best deals, although I'm also considering restarting my subscription to the Grocery Game.

My mom made it through some major surgery this past week.  She has had all sorts of issues with her lower digestive tract, so they went in and removed the part of her intestines that were the source of the problem.  Tadd and I visited her in the hospital Friday night and Saturday.  She seems to be doing a lot better, but she still has about 2 weeks of recovery ahead of her.  Once she is recovered, most of the problems she has had in that area of her body should be gone and she can even go back to eating things she couldn't have before.

Bet came over and hung out Friday night and ended up spending the night.  Then Saturday night, he tagged along with Tadd and I to meet up with Betsy & Richard at this new place down in the Waterford Lakes area called Firkin & Kegler.  It's an entertainment center with a restaurant, nightclub, arcade, bowling alley, sports bar, pool hall, etc.  We had a good time.  We ate, drank, the boys bowled a few games, and Tadd even won me plushes of Scuttle and Ursula from The Little Mermaid with tickets from the arcade.  Hee!  I have some pics from the evening that I might post later.

I will be back soon with my Oscar picks!

Lots of fun stuff going on right now...

• This weekend, we pretty much finalized our cruise plans.  October 4th on the Carnival Glory!  I absolutely cannot wait.  We'll be going to Cozumel, Belize, Hondouras, and the Bahamas!
  
• Tadd started up a fantasy baseball league, and I decided to give it a try.  I named my team the H-Bombs.  I'm not really up on the stats and figures, but it's all just for fun, so I'm just going to do my best and learn as I go.  I'm currently putting together a list of my top 25 players for when we do our live draft.  Bet, Ryan, my dad, Richard, and a few others will have teams as well.
  
• We get a short day at work tomorrow thanks to Presidents' Day.  All of the companies that use us for their benefits administration for are off tomorrow, so we only have to work 9-2.  Nice!  It would be even nicer if we got the whole day off, but I'll take what I can get.
• I never knew how much you could save by shopping at CVS until today.  We finally got one of those Extra Care Bucks (ECB) cards, and bought a ton of cleaning supplies and other essentials today, including one of those automatic shower cleaner machines.  We saved a total of $26 off of an approximately $50 purchase with sales and coupons and then got an additional $21 in ECBs towards our next purchase!  Even better...I found that there are whole message boards devoted to getting as much value out of those ECB cards as possible.  People are walking out with $80-worth of stuff, while only paying like $0.11 out of pocket because they know how to work the system.  This totally appeals to my bargain-shopper tendancies!  I love it!  So I have a feeling I will be shopping a lot more at CVS from now on.
  

Ok, I've started this a little late, but better late than never, right?

Sunday morning, we woke up fairly early and got ready to check out of the hotel.  We were on our way to Animal Kingdom around 9:45.  From the (extremely crowded) front gate, we walked straight back to Africa and bought some cinnamon buns.  As the masses rushed toward Everest and Kilamenjaro Safari, we sat in the shade of the open-air Dawa Bar and enjoyed the beautiful 70 degree weather while eating our breakfast.  It was really nice!  

From there, we headed back toward the Festival of the Lion King, which neither of us had seen.  Tadd tried to get some pics of the show, but our camera sucks, and the lighting level was quite low.  It was a cute show.  The theme of the day was to do as many things as we could that we either had never done, or hadn't done in a very, very long time (with the exception of Everest, because I absolutely cannot leave AK without riding Everest!). 

So after Lion King, we took the train to Rafiki's Planet Watch.  They have some exhibits about conservation, an animal clinic where you can watch live surgeries (they were repairing a turtle's shell when we were there), and a petting zoo with various domestic goats, sheep, cows, donkeys, etc.  There was this really sweet little goat who followed us around for awhile.  We petted him for awhile, and his little tail wagged like a puppy!  They also had this really funny donkey who kept rolling around in the dirt.

We took the train back from the Planet Watch area and then went on the Maharaja Jungle Trek in Asia.  Not sure why, but this is something we had always passed up every other time we had been to AK.  I'm so glad we finally decided to do it!  They did such an amazing job with this animal trail.  It winds all around and through this beautiful area that is made to look like the ruins of an ancient Buddhist temple.  The architecture, the painted murals on the walls of the temple, and the incredible attention to detail were just breathtaking!  To see tigers and various other exotic animals in those types of surroundings was really wonderful.

After we left the trail, we had lunch at the counter service portion of the new Yak & Yeti restaurant.  The food was pretty good, but I must say I'm not a fan of the setup.  The tables are all behind the restaurant in a crowded open-air courtyard with very little shielding of the elements.  We were there during one of Disney's slow periods, and there were tons of people milling about with trays stacked with food, looking around for tables.  I was lucky that I grabbed a table as a family was leaving while Tadd waited in line to order, but due to the table's positioning, we had to sit to one side of the table to avoid the direct path of the sun.  I just can't imagine eating there when it's 90 degrees out and 10 times more crowded!  And what happens when it rains???  We all know that happens quite a bit in Florida, especially during the summer.  I told Tadd that next time we're going to pay the extra few dollars and eat in the sit-down restaurant, which is all inside.  I've heard nothing but great things about it.

We really only had one more thing on our list...Everest.  We made it all the way over to the foot of the mountain when Tadd realized he didn't have his backpack on him!  So we RAN back to Yak & Yeti to look for it.  Luckily, the nice family in the table next to ours noticed we had left it behind, and had turned it in to the nearby gift stand.  Crisis averted!  So we then walked all the way back to Everest.  With how crowded the park was, we were shocked to see the wait was still only 30 minutes.  Not bad!  But then I saw the sign for the single riders line.  I figured it didn't really matter to me if I didn't ride with Tadd, so we decided to chance it.  There were only maybe 7 people in line ahead of us, and we probably only waited 10 minutes or so.  Better yet, the back row was completely empty, so the guy assigning the single riders to fill in the gaps just let us have the back row.  So we even got to sit together!  Score!  After Everest, we headed out of the park and went back home.  My feet were killing me by the time we got back to the car.  There's something about Animal Kingdom that is very draining.  We always spend way less time in a day at AK than at other parks, but I always leave feeling completely exhausted.  But then I can be at Epcot for 12 hours straight and still feel ok at the end of the day.  I think it must be the layout of the park or something.

Thus ends our wonderful Valentine's weekend!