Food, Rain and Superman

Jonathan's parents are in town for a week, so that means party time for me! His parents are so sweet, and always insist on taking Jonathan and I out for dinner.

Unfortunatly, the minute they drove into Orlando, the rain started, and it hasn't stopped yet. It makes it hard to do any outside activities. Hopefully it will cooperate on Saturday afternoon, when we dine at Liberty Tree Tavern in honor of Jonathan's mom's b-day.

Last night we all saw Superman Begins together. I was pleasently surprized. The movie had action and some tender moments between Clark and Lois' son. There were also some pretty awesome previews before the movie for Spiderman 3 and Pirates 2.

I'm embarrased to admit . . .

. . . that I'm still eating bags of black jelly beans I bought at Target's "after Easter sale". Yes, I realize Easter was over 2 months ago, but I love them so much. Sadly my bag is almost gone. Another 10 months I'll have to wait!

Ways to Maintain A Healthy Level Of Insanity

I'm sure we've all seen this e-mail floating around, but I find it hilarious every time somebody forwards it to me.

Ways to Maintain A Healthy Level Of Insanity.
1. At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car With Sunglasses on and point a Hair Dryer At Passing Cars. See If They Slow Down.
2. Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don't Disguise Your Voice.
3. Every Time Someone Asks You To Do Something, Ask If They Want Fries with that.
4. Put Your Garbage Can On Your Desk And Label It "In."
5. Put Decaf In The Coffee Maker For 3 Weeks. Once Everyone has Gotten Over Their Caffeine Addictions, Switch to Espresso.
6. In The Memo Field Of All Your Checks, Write "For Smuggling Diamonds"
7. Finish All Your sentences with "In Accordance With The Prophecy."
8. Don't use any punctuation
9. As Often As Possible, Skip Rather Than Walk.
10. Order a Diet Water whenever you go out to eat, with a serious face.
11. Specify That Your Drive-through Order Is "To Go."
12. Sing Along At The Opera.
13. Go To A Poetry Recital And Ask Why The Poems Don't Rhyme?
14. Put Mosquito Netting Around Your Work Area And Play tropical Sounds All Day.
15. Five Days In Advance, Tell Your Friends You Can't Attend Their Party Because You're Not In The Mood.
16. Have Your Co-workers Address You By Your Wrestling Name, Rock Bottom.
17. When The Money Comes Out The ATM, Scream "I Won!, I Won!"
18. When Leaving The Zoo, Start Running Towards The Parking lot, Yelling "Run For Your Lives, They're Loose!!"
19. Tell Your Children Over Dinner. "Due To The Economy, We Are Going To Have To Let One Of You Go."

I'm getting a pool installed!!!

Wait ... no I'm not. That would be my next door neighbors. They got a pool installed this morning at 7:30am!!!

What is the deal with that? Don't cement mixers and some other big truck know that I don't have to wake up until 8:13am for work.

Grrrrrrr!

Photos from Missouri - part 2

After I finally got over my car sickness, Jonathan, his dad and I went to Onondoga Cave. The walking tour was 1 mile thru the cave.
Obviously, these stalagmites (sp?) are called "The Twins". (everybody giggle at their name ...). Stalagmites 'grow' 1 inch (or was it 1 cm?) every 10 years (I think?). These suckers were about 8' high! The white one is still 'live'.

The next picture shows some "bacon grease" dripping off this mini cliff. The tour guide said that rain water mixes with 'acid' in the ground as it seeps in to the cave, which forms all these amazing things. Water from the ceiling kept hitting us. I couldn't help thinking of the Animal Kingdom 3D movie "It's Tough to be a Bug", "Oooooh, I hope none of you are allergic to acid."

As we exited the cave, there were some bats hanging out (no pun intended) by the door. One started swooping around. The guide said they won't touch you, but they will get pretty darn close to you (before their sensors kick in, I guess). Being the pansy that I am, I ducked. Being the pansy Jonathan is, he ducked too. He knocked heads and I let out a little scream. How embarrassing.

It was hard to take pictures inside a pitch black cave. I didn't have a 'cave setting' on my digital camera. And it was freezing in there!! I think the tour guide said it was 57 degrees. One lady on our tour had shorts, a tank top and flip flops on. I don't know how she survived.

Photos from Missouri - part 1

Jonathan's family lives on a farm. They have over 1500 acres. Here are 2 photos of the back yard. Who knew Missouri was such a hilly state? (Maybe lots of people, but not me!). It was a pretty sweet view.

And here is a shot from the front yard. (Blogger isn't letting me format the phots. The picture with the white flowers is the front yard). We drove thru the farmy part. From my limited knowledge of farms, I think they just grow hay and they have lots of cows. Jonathan's parents don't do much (or any?) farming. His grandpa still does some farm work, and has a group of people who work for him. The coolest part was a 1/2 acre cemetary smack dab in the middle of the farm; old and new graves were in there. I wanted to get out and explore, but I didn't want to seem like a freak in front of Jonathan's dad (did I mention he's a judge?).

Here is one of the farm dogs, Squeaky (or is it Sparky).

Summer Movies: 3 down, 2 to go

I saw Cars on Saturday in a theater here in MO. I loved it!!! I highly recommend it to anybody and everybody.

Ever since I saw a movie poster, I knew Guido (or "little toot" as I call him) was going to be my favorite character. He's just so adorable. I wish he would've spoken English, but beggers can't be choosers.

I also wanted Fillmore to be one of my favorites, just b/c I think hippies are cool, but he wasn't very cool. He didn't really say much.

The best part of the movie was the end credits, where they did a shout out to Joe Ranft (sp?). Jonathan and I knew he died a couple months ago, since he was the voice of Heimlich, one of Jonanthan's favorite Pixar characters. It was a really sweet tribute.

Long story short (too late!), GO SEE CARS!!!

Hello from MO!

MO = Missouri

We (Jonathan and I) arrived in St. Louis around 9:15pm, and got to Jonthan's family's house around 11pm. I did a little experiment with myself on the plane, I didn't take dramamine and only used the Sea Bands (that my mom swears by). Normally I use both on planes. My experiment didn't work out so well ... I got totally sick.

But that's over now, let the vacation begin!!!

Since we flew Southwest we didn't have assigned seats. As we boarded (is that a word??) the plane, there were no 2 seats together. I sat next to some teenagers. A girl let me borrow her book called "Size 12 is Not Fat". I read 1/2 of it, and it was a really good book. I want to look up the author on line and find a library and find out what happens in the end. It was kind-of a teenage-y book, but those are the best kind - fast reading.

I'm not sure what Jonathan's parents have planned for us this weekend, but I hope seeing the movie Cars in in the works. That's #3 on my "summer movie watch" list.

PIE photos

I'm having problems posting pictures. I tried yesterday, but then blogger kicked me off. Let's try again!

This is Al Weiss. He was the head of WDW, but now he's the head of all Disney parks world wide!

Here is a bad picture of Art Linkletter. He looks really old in this picture, but he really didn't look that bad. And this Mickey topiary was in the lobby of the Contemporary.

Mickey and Minnie were all dressed up too! Jonathan is always leaning down in character photos.

Partners in Excellence Banquet

Last night Jonathan and I attened his PIE banquet at the Contemporary. It was very fancy, and very fun. All the pictures are on Jonathan's camera, so I'll post those later.

The evening started at 6pm with a wine and cheese and photos. They took a professional photo of us. Mickey and Minnie were out in their gold tuxes and fancy dress. Even Al Weiss was there for a photo op.

At 7pm we all made our way into the convention hall. It was decorated with black chair backs and yellow/gold ribbons. Tables were assigned. We sat next to the other 2 men who won from Jonathan's department, and 2 heads of their department. Jonathan had fun schmoozing with some higher ups.

The dinner was beef and fish. The best part was the mashed potatoes with weird looking carrots on top. The carrots were very skinny strips, maybe fried in butter? They looked like hair on top of the potatoes, but they tasted great!

The guest speaker was Art Linkletter. He was one of the original TV presenters of Disneyland 50 years ago. He told stories of his friendship with Walt Disney. For being 94 years old he was pretty funny and with it.

As we walked out around 10:30pm (totally stuffed with food), there was chocolate fondu out in the lobby! I couldn't stuff myself with any more sweets, but you can't pass up fresh pineapple.

Here is a picture (I found on the internet) of the statue Jonathan 'won'.