CLICK HERE FOR FREE BLOG LAYOUTS, LINK BUTTONS AND MORE! »

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Disney...Here We Come Again!

My work week mornings are pretty monotonous. I wake up, get dressed, do my hair and makeup, get Shaylee dressed and ready to go, gather my belongings, pack my lunch and am out the door by 7am. After dropping Shaylee off at my grandmother’s (G.G’s), I head off to work, often stopping to purchase an energy drink or iced coffee somewhere and enjoy the local country radio station, Cat Country 107.1 FM on my drive to work.

Lately, Cat Country has been giving away Disney World ticket to the seventh caller that can answer that day’s Disney trivia question. Yesterday, they did a snippet of three Disney classic movies which I instantly recognized as scenes from Bambi, Lady and the Tramp, and Dumbo. As I listened, I figured I would give it a shot. I could recite most Disney movies from beginning to end and I certainly knew these ones. I was doubtful that I would even get through after my first three attempts to call their studio line rang busy. On my fourth, and final, attempt, I actually got ringing and not the busy tone. My heart skipped a beat as I waited to see if someone would actually answer….

Then someone answered in a loud and boisterous Southern accent, “Congratulations, your caller number seven!!! What’s your name and can you correctly identify the three Disney movies?!”

I got through! I was caller number seven! I was so excited and surprised that I almost forgot the answers but somehow managed to state my name and squeak out the Disney titles, in the correct order, hehe. The hosts laughed and asked how old I was and when I answered “27” they said “you sound like your fourteen!” I had to agree, “I get that a lot.” Apparently being caught completely off guard in my unanticipated expectations that anyone would actually answer, my surprise must have raised my vocal octaves a bit, LOL. The female host exclaimed “Well, you certainly know your Disney!” and I proudly stated that I had a three year old (but actually am a big Disney fan all in my own right, with or without kids!).

So today I drove down to the radio station (which fortunately is located about 15 minutes from my work) on my lunch break and picked up my tickets! We are going to Disney!!! Hurray!

Since we had just gone to the Walt Disney World resort in January for my birthday, we decided that we will be going to the Animal Kingdom, one of Disney’s newer parks. Animal Kingdom is dedicated to nature and conservation and home to over 1,700 animals from 250 species and sprawling across 500 acres of landscape, making it the largest animal-themed park in the world! Its very family friendly; I think there is only two rides that Shaylee may be too little for, but other than that, its all about the animals and attractions. And who doesn’t love animals?!

The only downside is Shaylee is getting so big there is no way I can pass her off as a two year old anymore to get in free, so her ticket is going to cost us $63. We will probably stay at another Disney All- Star Resort since they are economical, fun themed, and right there in the Animal Kingdom park area. To avoid high room rates, we will probably go some time between August 9th through October 1st, when the rates are lowest at $82 a night. So roughly we are looking at $227 out of pocket (before food- and you can bet we will be going to the O’hana restaurant for Mickey waffles again!) which is a very, very, very reasonable price for a family of three summer vacation! I can’t wait!



Saturday, May 09, 2009

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

I got my Mother's Day gifts from Nils and Shaylee last night since Nils has to work Sunday and could not wait for me to open them. After they picked me up from work, Nils handed me my cars and then reached into the center console of the car to present me with a Brad Paisley CD and a flash drive for school. I was quite pleased with the CD, as I do not normally buy CDs for myself and with my recent country kick, it was nice to get a new CD with some of the songs I have enjoyed on the radio. I thanked him and was happy with what I had. But Nils is sneaky sometimes. He had me open the top of the center console of the car and inside I found a white jewelry box. There is more?!

I opened it to find a beautiful certified freshwater pearl necklace, ring, and earring set!!! I had been mentioning it to Nils for a little while that I would really like to get a pearl necklace someday and had my eye on the ones that were a single pearl on a thin silver or white gold chain, not the typical pearl stands. And that's what I got! He remembered and I have to say, he has got excellent taste! He picked this set out all by himself.... well, with a little help from the jeweler, LOL. I was DEFINITELY not expecting this! And a whole set?! Plus he is paying to get my nails done (I found a place that is much cheaper to have them filled and I would really like to have pretty nails instead of these short, stubby ones when I flash my new ring off to everyone, LOL).

So my Mother's Day was 100% better than I could have even hoped for, and totally a surprise. Based on the past couple of years I knew that I would get card, Nils never forgets to get one, and maybe a little something. I totally thought he was going to get me the last paperback in the Shopoholic series I read since I do not have it yet, and this was all way more than I was expecting- a card, a real pearl jewelry set, a CD, a flash drive for my computer for school, dinner and my nails done....I am going to have to do some planning to make his Father's Day as great as my Mother's Day has been!

Thursday, May 07, 2009

My First Day of School

My first class for school yesterday started off kinda rocky.

The summer semester is not a very popular semester I guess because my MAT 9012 class on Wednesday was moved to another building. We were notified by email that that the room had changed and I was really feeling on top if of things- armed with my campus map, text book, binder and assortment of highlighters and page flags to mark parts in the textbooks that were going to be on the test, needed review, etc. So when I got there, after sitting in traffic due to road construction, I found parking with ease and had plenty of time before class to leisurely walk across our beautiful campus. Since I had permission to leave work at 4:30, I had plenty of time since my class didn't start till 5:30. Good thing too, considering the parking lot I turned into was on the complete opposite side of the campus.

I found my building but was surprised to see that the doors to get in were locked. No biggie, I thought, I will try another- except all doors leading in were the same. I was still early so I stood and waited, maybe we were the only class that was using the building and maybe the professor was not here yet, being how it was so early. By the time 5:15 rolled around and a collection of my classmates joined me outside the building, we knew something was wrong. I tried to call to the registration counter to see if they knew if the doors had been accidently locked or something but after being transfered four times and then left with the public student safety voice mail, I gave up.

It was only when we were down to 5 minutes before class started that one of my classmates pulled out his laptop and found that they moved our class...again. So the ten of us- me and another girl in three inch heels having come straight from work- started running across campus. The class was upstairs so we took them two at a time. We all made it into class with two minutes to spare but our instructor, Mr Shawn Taylor, was very understanding. I even was still able to get a first row seat like I wanted. I was sweating my butt off and feeling frazzled but I had arrived at my destination and class itself was fine.

Oh, and the really messed up thing was that my parking spot was right directly in front of this new building. Had there not had been another class change and had it not been on the second floor, I would have been parked right outside our classroom window!!!