Disney Pics

Disney

We're back.

It was pretty cool. (temperature and excitement/activity)

First couple of days we had temps high enough to swim, so we did. We also enjoyed Magic Kingdom and Epcot. Teppen Eda was a cool Japanese restaurant. Kids liked the dinner cooked right there in front of us. Chef Mickey was neat, too. Kids got autographs and pictures with Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and Pluto. Did Mission: Space, Spaceship Earth, Soarin', and Nemo's ride at Epcot.

After that, it cooled off, so we stopped the swimming. But we had a blast at Hollywood Studios (probably our favorite day!). We saw two stunt shows, the Muppets 3D show, went on a back lot tour, did Aerosmith Rockin' Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror. Had a great time at Toy Story Midway Mania. Caught Mushu (sp?) in a quick show about animation, then had the kids do a short animation class. Also had a decent Italian dinner and the kids got their own Stitch dolls (one medium size and one huge).

Went back to Magic Kingdom and enjoyed it again. Between the two days there, we went on Space Mountain, People Mover, Buzz Lightyear ride, Dumbo, Barnstormer, Jungle Cruise, and I'm sure I'm missing a few. We also did the Carousel of Progress, Stich's Great Escape, and some other shows at Magic Kingdom and elsewhere. (Frankly, I'm not sure how we fit everything in. We did get up pretty early every day, so we ended up only catching the light show at Epcot and not taking in Fantasmic or the Magic Kingdom fireworks - they were later in the night.)

Finished the trip with a day at Animal Kingdom. That safari ride was awesome! I think because of the temperature and time of day, the animals were all out and moving. Saw dozens of different animals out there. Expedition Everest was pretty cool, too. And we got to go out to Rafiki's Planet Watch to pet some goats and pigs. The Yak & Yetti restaurant was even a decent place to end it all.

I will be posting plenty of pictures in the next week or so! :)

SPRING ... AND BASEBALL

It is, after all, the first day of spring, right? So, why wouldn't we start baseball here in Minnesota? Well, maybe because we have to be inside because it still looks like this outside:

 

 

Full disclosure: this is actually a picture of my daughter and her two friends from a couple weeks ago, but it DOES still look like this outside. The current temperature is 12.

 

Oh, to be in the sunny climates of Florida, if only for a week ... ;)

 

HAPPY SPRING EVERYONE!

3rd grade state rec tournament

My son had a few athletic events this weekend. You wouldn't know it by looking outside here in Minnesota, but it was tryout weekend for baseball, so he spent an hour and a half hitting, throwing, running, and fielding ground balls and fly balls. That fit real well in between three basketball games his team played at the MYAS 3rd grade state recreational tournament. The team competed really well, showing good skill, teamwork, and effort as they won their first two games Saturday and narrowly lost to a good Prior Lake team in the championship game Sunday afternoon. So Proud of the boys. Congrats OMGBA 3rd graders!



The boys were slightly down about a 2nd place, but that's still a pretty big trophy.



(games first bucket in championship contest)

Beware the Ides of March

... of course, for me, it should've been "Beware the 14th of March." Oh well. Happy early St Patrick's Day!

Snow Day on Tuesday

It was a snow day on Tuesday, thus the schedule/routine got all mixed up. The kids stayed home from school and played in the snow, and with their friends (inside and out) all day. I never left the house, but ended up with a fresh gallon of milk and a Caribou coffee thanks to a kind neighbor :)

My daughter cried when gymnastics was still on as scheduled, because, of course, it meant that she had to stop playing with her friends. Seven boys shoveled the end of my driveway after the plow came by in the afternoon. Of course, my son had already helped me clear the driveway the first time; and we even got into the act and helped out neighbors clear theirs.

I felt pretty compelled to make a nice dinner, so I busted out my grandma's spaghetti plate/bowls (Thanks, Gramma!) and we had a nice spaghetti dinner, complete with meatballs and italian turkey-sausage, and of course garlic bread.

In a strange twist, having my wife around and working from home prompted me to finish my initial posts for my current class (a bit early, since I usually do it closer to deadline - Wednesday/Thursday). In doing so, I noticed that I posted another 'A' in my recently-finished class. That puts me at eight classes down and two to go for my masters degree.

I even learned a couple things in this most recent class: I now know how to use a 'soft return' in MS Word, and I now know that you need to clear the hyperlinks from your annotated bibliography if you are submitting it electronically. Good things to take away from a class called "Teaching Students with Math and/or Literacy Difficulties."

*insert :/ and appropriate sarcasm*

On another note, baseball is set to start in about ten days and we just got seven inches of snow to add to the white wonderland that was already covering the ground. Glad our family vacation to Disney is coming up soon, too.

I do love spring. I just wish it lasted longer than two weeks here in Minnesota. (Or will it be shorter this year?)