Did y'all miss me?

Probably not.

But that's okay. I pre-wrote all my blogs and had every intention of sending it to my accounts (Facebook, Twitter and Google) and commenting, but that was before I discovered my hubster's new Google pad wasn't totally able to function, plus we didn't have Internet access and had to use his cell to connect to satellites.

Don't ask.

I usually don't. I just nod my head like I understand and say, "uh-huh, yes, honey" Trust me, it's easier my way, otherwise, he'll go into some truly geek-tech jargon and I'm totally lost.

Anyhoo--We went on vacation for nine days, arriving back home late Sunday,the night before my kidlet had her first day of school. But she seems to have weathered her lack of sleep just fine.

We enjoyed a nice vacation in the land of heat, humidity, afternoon thunderstorms and love bugs (though they aren’t in their *love- making* time of the year . . . that’s usually late September), in other words, FLORIDA. I managed to read 2.5 books on the airplane and during our ‘downtime’--when we left the parks early and missed the thunderstorms :-) As much as I love my Kindle, I hate the fact that I had to turn it off during takeoffs and landings. Bummer.

On the writing related front, I managed to think out story #2 in my quadrology--how does a hunky pirate ghost sound? So exciting! To that end, I just ordered four pirate books. Arr, me mateys!
When we go to DisneyWorld and Universal, we walk A LOT.  Anyhoo, this year, my feet survived!! Yay! No blisters! Last year, I had blisters upon blisters, blisters upon calluses and walking was totally NOT FUN. The feet relief was due in part to my wonderful New Balance sneaks with a metatarsal insert AND my rigid walking regime over the last two months. I didn’t wear a pedometer this time around, but I know we easily clocked 10+ miles per day as we tend to walk quickly from one ride to the next one and then walk to another park to do it all over again!

Aug. and Sept, are big months for Latin American and Brit visitors, though the Brits outnumbered the LA’s this time around. It was fun listening to the accents and trying to figure out where they were from. I'm not as good with the Spanish speaking cultures, but English, yes. I also heard Italian, French and a small variety of Germanic languages.

Overhead view of Harry Potter experience

First we visited both parks at Universal , enjoying the Harry Potter experience--a MUST DO, if you get a chance to go--as much as possible considering the area was seriously jammed with people. Srsly, they had to shut that section of the park off because it was over populated. We rode numerous rollercoasters over and over and over again. The blue and red are dueling coasters in the Dragon Challenge, the snow-covered buildings are Hogsmeade, and, of course, Hogwarts is the castle/ride.

*NOTE TO SELF* Do NOT drink butterbeer and then ride the HULK rollercoaster without seriously belching A LOT. Sorry, if that was TMI, but it had to be mentioned—and no, I didn’t get sick. . . just burped a lot, though we did see someone tossing cookies into a trashcan after the 3-D Spiderman ride—not a coaster, but a simulator--what a wuss . . .

After 2.5 days at Universal, we drove to the Wilderness Lodge to enjoy the Disney parks for six days.

Wilderness Lodge from Pool

Disney. . . what can I say? 

Nope it would take up too much room to write it down, you just have to go and experience it. We did the meal plan again this year—basically pre-paid food (one table service{entrée, dessert}, one counter service, and one snack per day per night in a Disney hotel). And yes, I was scared I would go crazy over the food, but I didn’t. If the family got Mickey Mouse ice cream bars, I got a water and ate a Mickey ear and savored the delish bite. I did force myself to eat dessert with our table service coupons. And with all the walking, albeit much standing, I only gained 1.4 lbs upon my weigh-in 12 hours after we flew back into town. All in all, I’m very happy with it. I’m back on track and fully believe I’ll lose that weight gain by next week—

But then again, my 50th B-D is on Monday and hubster made a reservation at Flemings . . . I’ll just weigh-in PRIOR to my B-D dinner. :-)Yeah, I like that plan.
Well, time to go and use my new Mickey Mouse French Coffee press. Cute, huh?

TTFN {Tigger speak for TA-TA FOR NOW}