Christmas is upon us.. and so is the food that goes along with it. I'm not the baker/candy maker that my Mamaw was. That kinda gives me the grins to say her name, as she's been gone from us since I was in high school. I was talking to somebody today about Christmas candy and I remembered Mamaw making fudge and divinity every year. She kept a metal tin that would appear in one of the spare bedrooms every year.. and I'd dig in and snatch myself some goodies. I'm sorry but I don't have a fudge or a divinity recipe. I couldn't make either one of those if my life depended on it. I *am* thinking about trying out a divinity recipe possibly though. I've just got to find one first. And order a new whisk for my stand mixer. Anyhoo...
..in the meantime, I can always make some yummy quick bread. And my favorite is:
Cranberry Pumpkin Bread
3 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 can whole berry cranberry sauce 16 ounce
1 can solid pack pumpkin 15 ounce
3/4 cup chopped pecans.. at our house, nuts are always optional. I leave them out myself.
2/3 cups oil
4 eggs (I've used Egg Beaters and it turns out fine)
Glaze ingredients:
1 cup confectioner's sugar
1/4 cup orange juice concentrate - not diluted
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, pie spice, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
3. In another bowl, combine the cranberry sauce, pumpkin, pecans, oil and eggs. Stir into dry ingredients and mix well.
4. Pour into two greased 9 inch by 5 inch by 3 inch loaf pans.
5. Bake for 65 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
6. Cool for ten minutes; remove from pans to a wire racak to cool completely.
7. Combine glaze ingredients (conf. sugar, orange juice concentrate, and allspice); drizzle over cooled loaves.
This bread is delicious! It's super moist. It even freezes well. I slice it when it cools and put it in a big zip top freezer bag and just pop off a piece when I want one. It reheats well in the microwave. Soo good! For other yummy Christmas treats, hop on over to visit Donna at Way More Homemade!
Friday, December 12, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
some thoughts on WDW
I know I've gone on and on about our trip... and well, yes it was very wonderful. But there were other aspects of it too. I noticed that everybody was in a hurry.. including ourselves. And yes, there were a lot of people there, even when it wasn't 'crowded'. And that we tended to look past the faces of those people in those crowds as just a nuisance that we must get around. A faceless, soul-less mass of humanity that was only in our way. In so many ways, that was constantly with me during our stay. I enjoyed the few moments we actually talked to people while we were there. I talked to a family in line with us. Their daughter has the same name as ours and we discussed spellings of their names and just generally chit chatted with them. You know.. treated them like they were people.. not just something to look past and get through. There was the family at the bus stop too. They were late for a character breakfast and were really anxious for their bus. Which was also our bus. Which we had been waiting for as long as they had. But when it arrived, I gestured for them to get on the bus first.. because they had to be somewhere and at that point, we were just goofing off. I felt sorry for them. And as things go, we were able to squeeze on the bus right after them. I think we even got to sit down. Score! There were the Wish families I saw. I didn't talk to any of them, but I definitely noticed them. They broke my heart a little bit. And there was the family we saw on a bus one day who's (almost?) adult son has some sort of handicap. His parents were completely patient with him as he passed them notes and they wrote notes back to him. He had a teenaged sister too. The son was the only one that smiled during our whole bus ride. I wonder what kind of life they have taking care of a child in an adult's body.
I could go on and on, as we were constantly with people for all those days. And we aren't exactly people people, if you get my drift. My husband declared it a people free weekend when we got home! (if my husband had a blog, it would be called Notes from the Behind the Wall.. oh yeah.. much more quiet/introverted than me!) Anyhoo... it was sad in so many ways. I would wonder how many of these people know Jesus. Statistically probably not very many. That huge mass of people that we'd sometimes get annoyed with are still loved by God and He longs for them, even when they don't care or even know who He is. When I think of humanity and His love for them, it's overwhelming. And that was the saddest and most beautiful part of all.
I could go on and on, as we were constantly with people for all those days. And we aren't exactly people people, if you get my drift. My husband declared it a people free weekend when we got home! (if my husband had a blog, it would be called Notes from the Behind the Wall.. oh yeah.. much more quiet/introverted than me!) Anyhoo... it was sad in so many ways. I would wonder how many of these people know Jesus. Statistically probably not very many. That huge mass of people that we'd sometimes get annoyed with are still loved by God and He longs for them, even when they don't care or even know who He is. When I think of humanity and His love for them, it's overwhelming. And that was the saddest and most beautiful part of all.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
the fifth and final day
The fifth day was our last day in the parks. It was Wednesday.. the day before Thanksgiving and the traffic inside the parks was picking up. And we were tired. We decided to go back to the Hollywood Studios place. But we could barely walk. So we took in a live Beauty and the Beast show. Boo had never seen a live show with costumes etc so this was quite a treat for her. It was very sweet. After the show, we just couldn't take the crowds any more and left.
We ate lunch at the counter service place at our resort. They made really good (fancy-er) sandwiches and they were HUGE. We were basically just 'killing time' for most of the day. Which was fine. It was nice to not be in a big fat rush to get somewhere. We just piddled. After lunch, we went to a place to ride a boat to Wilderness Lodge. A friend stayed there when they went and urged us to take a peak at it, if we had the time. So we did that. It was an indoor HOtel... nicer than where we stayed. But we've 'done' the lodge look resort at Big Cedar Lodge before, so this was nothing new to us. But yes, I did have to say 'wow' at the vastness of space in the open common area of the hotel and of course, the Mickey Mouse totem pole.
After that, we went to Downtown Disney, which is a small-ER area with shops and places to eat. We had fun look in all toy and gift shops. There is a Lego store there and we all had a blast looking at the Legos. Yes, we are all little kids at heart. They had little bins where you could built your own people, so Boo built some people. That was fun. Mixing and matching heads, bodies and accessories. And the hubs bought a Lego Star Wars Darth Vader. Boo was jealous because he HAS A CAPE. Evidently this is big stuff. She has an old set and HER Vader is minus the cape. Oh well. I bought a Mrs. Puff (from Sponge Bob) key chain. She cracks me up.
We had reservations at Planet Hollywood for dinner. We were seated quickly and our food came quickly. It was an 'interesting' environment, but we were glad to leave. Too loud. Dang, I sound like 'old people'. Oh well.. maybe I am! LOL The girl that waited on us is from our area, so we chatted with her for a bit. And then we walked around some more and camped out on a bench for a while. It was fun to people watch. And we were tired of walking.
Then it was time for our final 'fun'. We were able to get tickets to see Cirque du Soleil. And it was amazing! If you are a fan of Jon and Kate plus 8, and you've seen the 'cutting room floor' episode, it features when they got to see Cirque. There just aren't words for how incredible it was. We loved it! It was a nice way to end our stay at Disney. It was chilly after the show was over. That was our latest night out. We couldn't wait to get on the bus and head back to our little oasis for one more 'sleep'.
We woke up bright and early and got ourselves together. The Disney people came for our luggage and us around 8:30 am. We checked out of our room and checked our luggage IN at the counter at our resort. Yes, we checked our luggage at Disney. Crazy, isn't it?! It made getting through the airport much quicker. Except for thedumping of everything but your undies into a bin security thing at the airport, that is. That waddle away from the xray scanner barely holding onto all your belongings and your ticket and your driver's license is just a blast.
We made our flight without a problem and were home by early afternoon. I had just about all the unpacking and laundry done before nightfall. We were tired and happy and so glad to be home. And we didn't want to be in a crowd again for a long time.
We ate lunch at the counter service place at our resort. They made really good (fancy-er) sandwiches and they were HUGE. We were basically just 'killing time' for most of the day. Which was fine. It was nice to not be in a big fat rush to get somewhere. We just piddled. After lunch, we went to a place to ride a boat to Wilderness Lodge. A friend stayed there when they went and urged us to take a peak at it, if we had the time. So we did that. It was an indoor HOtel... nicer than where we stayed. But we've 'done' the lodge look resort at Big Cedar Lodge before, so this was nothing new to us. But yes, I did have to say 'wow' at the vastness of space in the open common area of the hotel and of course, the Mickey Mouse totem pole.
After that, we went to Downtown Disney, which is a small-ER area with shops and places to eat. We had fun look in all toy and gift shops. There is a Lego store there and we all had a blast looking at the Legos. Yes, we are all little kids at heart. They had little bins where you could built your own people, so Boo built some people. That was fun. Mixing and matching heads, bodies and accessories. And the hubs bought a Lego Star Wars Darth Vader. Boo was jealous because he HAS A CAPE. Evidently this is big stuff. She has an old set and HER Vader is minus the cape. Oh well. I bought a Mrs. Puff (from Sponge Bob) key chain. She cracks me up.
We had reservations at Planet Hollywood for dinner. We were seated quickly and our food came quickly. It was an 'interesting' environment, but we were glad to leave. Too loud. Dang, I sound like 'old people'. Oh well.. maybe I am! LOL The girl that waited on us is from our area, so we chatted with her for a bit. And then we walked around some more and camped out on a bench for a while. It was fun to people watch. And we were tired of walking.
Then it was time for our final 'fun'. We were able to get tickets to see Cirque du Soleil. And it was amazing! If you are a fan of Jon and Kate plus 8, and you've seen the 'cutting room floor' episode, it features when they got to see Cirque. There just aren't words for how incredible it was. We loved it! It was a nice way to end our stay at Disney. It was chilly after the show was over. That was our latest night out. We couldn't wait to get on the bus and head back to our little oasis for one more 'sleep'.
We woke up bright and early and got ourselves together. The Disney people came for our luggage and us around 8:30 am. We checked out of our room and checked our luggage IN at the counter at our resort. Yes, we checked our luggage at Disney. Crazy, isn't it?! It made getting through the airport much quicker. Except for the
We made our flight without a problem and were home by early afternoon. I had just about all the unpacking and laundry done before nightfall. We were tired and happy and so glad to be home. And we didn't want to be in a crowd again for a long time.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
day four, WDW
On day four of our trip to Disney, we went to Disney Hollywood Studios. It was a fun day.. some of the things were quite memorable and others.. not so much. We arrived over a half an hour before it opened. As with the other parks, there is the early 'let in' and then everybody walks on ahead to a roped off area. But the fun part was, we were near the front of the line and they put on a little 'show' for ya before they let you in. There was a guy standing in the back of the truck like thing with an old time movie camera and another guy in another vehicle acting like a director. The director guy also had a 'family of the day' with him and he put them through their paces of doing things for 'his movie' and it was all very cute. And then he included 'us' in his 'movie' and told us we had to walk when the ropes went down. We thought it was a clever way to keep order. And yes, he even hollered into a bullhorn at people that did not walk. Cute.
The first thing we did was ride a Toy Story ride thing. It was one of the coolest things we did all day. It was an interactive arcade kinda thing and Boo and I competed shooting things from our ride. Pretty fun stuff. When we got off, the line just to get a fast pass was crazy long. We weren't able to ride that one again. But it was a lot of fun.
We rode a thing called The Great Movie Ride. The funniest part of it was before the ride. They put a group of 'us' in a queueing area that looked like a movie theater with a screen and it showed clips of different movies of different eras. One of them was an old movie where the ladies all swim in sequence with each other. I have no idea what the name of it is. Anyway.. what does this bring to mind to Boo and I.. but that birth control commercial.. Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Everydaaaaaaay. Yep, Boo and I sang that song to ourselves QUIETLY while we waited in line. LOL The ride itself was a snooze. A bit of a disappointment.
After that we did a back lot tour. That was pretty cool. They showed how they do explosions, gunshots and fire in water environments. They also took us through a storage area for props for different movies. We saw some old muppets stuff and some of the stone creatures from The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. That was pretty cool. (and gobs of other stuff too) We rode a tram for the rest of it. It sprinkled a little, but by the time we got off, it stopped. That was our only wet weather for the whole trip. We saw a Herbie VW and Walt Disney's private plane. There were lots of interesting little tidbits on this ride.
Then we went to a car stunt show. That was pretty neat as they 'filmed' it live while it was going on and we could see parts of it on a big screen. They talked about how cars 'go fast' and spin out and all kinds of crazy stunt-y stuff. There were also motorcycles and some jet skis too as there was a moat kinda thing in front.
After that we went to a Muppet 3D show. That one was a lot better than the other 3D show we saw at another park. Very clever and funny. Not scary at all for little kids and it made everyone laugh. Then we grabbed a fast pass for a Star Wars ride thing and ate lunch. Lunch was awful and I was hungry a lot that day. lol Then we did the Star Wars thing, which was ok, not great. There was also a little 'show' they did live outdoors on a stage with little kids from the audience and Darth Vader and some good guy in a brown outfit.. can't remember who-LOL- and that was cute with the little kids and their light sabers and all. Funny. We watched that for a little bit.
Then we saw an Indiana Jones stunt show. It was fun watching them perform stunts 'live' like that. And there were a couple of unexpected little elements in that one too, which made it fun. There was a Prince Caspian character greeting and a small attraction with that.. we skipped the character thing and did the movie clip thing.. not much to it.. lots of movie clips strung together creatively and no place to sit down.
There was a big exhibit on Walt Disney himself. We found that nostalgic and interesting. We spent a lot of time looking at that stuff and really this was an education for our daughter. She didn't grow up seeing Walt Disney every Sunday night when The Wonderful World of Disney came on. See.. didn't I just make a bunch of you nostalgic just by saying that?! There was a movie about his life there too, so we watched that too. Fun and interesting.
There was a live show about animation which we did. It was ok. And there was a 'show' about sound work/foley art. All we did was listen to some stuff on headphones in TOTAL DARKNESS.. a great move for the kiddies.. and then it was over. Not a favorite. Then we ate supper at a buffet called Hollywood and Vine. I wasn't expecting much, but it was quite delicious.
And then we did the evening show called Fantasmic. It was interesting in some ways. They figured out how to make a movie screen on a sheet of water sprayed into the air. That being said, they showed movie clips on that thing for waaay too long.. and villains too.. they dragged out every spooky character they could think of.. scared the little kids to death. There wasn't much pyrotechnics to speak of. There were more characters at times.. floating by on a boat or something..but mostly it was just very dark. When we left, I wasn't feeling very fantasmic about it, lemme tell ya. (I was feeling more bummed that we missed the REAL fireworks show at Epcot! LOL)
The funny part was waiting to go into this show... they had a previous show of it, and the lady that kept coming over the loud speaker saying things about where the strollers had been moved to etc for those exiting.. but with a northern accent (no offense if you are from the north!) and for some reason, it just made us laugh. So sadly that was our cheap entertainment while we waited in line.
That ended Tuesday, which was day four.
The first thing we did was ride a Toy Story ride thing. It was one of the coolest things we did all day. It was an interactive arcade kinda thing and Boo and I competed shooting things from our ride. Pretty fun stuff. When we got off, the line just to get a fast pass was crazy long. We weren't able to ride that one again. But it was a lot of fun.
We rode a thing called The Great Movie Ride. The funniest part of it was before the ride. They put a group of 'us' in a queueing area that looked like a movie theater with a screen and it showed clips of different movies of different eras. One of them was an old movie where the ladies all swim in sequence with each other. I have no idea what the name of it is. Anyway.. what does this bring to mind to Boo and I.. but that birth control commercial.. Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Everydaaaaaaay. Yep, Boo and I sang that song to ourselves QUIETLY while we waited in line. LOL The ride itself was a snooze. A bit of a disappointment.
After that we did a back lot tour. That was pretty cool. They showed how they do explosions, gunshots and fire in water environments. They also took us through a storage area for props for different movies. We saw some old muppets stuff and some of the stone creatures from The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. That was pretty cool. (and gobs of other stuff too) We rode a tram for the rest of it. It sprinkled a little, but by the time we got off, it stopped. That was our only wet weather for the whole trip. We saw a Herbie VW and Walt Disney's private plane. There were lots of interesting little tidbits on this ride.
Then we went to a car stunt show. That was pretty neat as they 'filmed' it live while it was going on and we could see parts of it on a big screen. They talked about how cars 'go fast' and spin out and all kinds of crazy stunt-y stuff. There were also motorcycles and some jet skis too as there was a moat kinda thing in front.
After that we went to a Muppet 3D show. That one was a lot better than the other 3D show we saw at another park. Very clever and funny. Not scary at all for little kids and it made everyone laugh. Then we grabbed a fast pass for a Star Wars ride thing and ate lunch. Lunch was awful and I was hungry a lot that day. lol Then we did the Star Wars thing, which was ok, not great. There was also a little 'show' they did live outdoors on a stage with little kids from the audience and Darth Vader and some good guy in a brown outfit.. can't remember who-LOL- and that was cute with the little kids and their light sabers and all. Funny. We watched that for a little bit.
Then we saw an Indiana Jones stunt show. It was fun watching them perform stunts 'live' like that. And there were a couple of unexpected little elements in that one too, which made it fun. There was a Prince Caspian character greeting and a small attraction with that.. we skipped the character thing and did the movie clip thing.. not much to it.. lots of movie clips strung together creatively and no place to sit down.
There was a big exhibit on Walt Disney himself. We found that nostalgic and interesting. We spent a lot of time looking at that stuff and really this was an education for our daughter. She didn't grow up seeing Walt Disney every Sunday night when The Wonderful World of Disney came on. See.. didn't I just make a bunch of you nostalgic just by saying that?! There was a movie about his life there too, so we watched that too. Fun and interesting.
There was a live show about animation which we did. It was ok. And there was a 'show' about sound work/foley art. All we did was listen to some stuff on headphones in TOTAL DARKNESS.. a great move for the kiddies.. and then it was over. Not a favorite. Then we ate supper at a buffet called Hollywood and Vine. I wasn't expecting much, but it was quite delicious.
And then we did the evening show called Fantasmic. It was interesting in some ways. They figured out how to make a movie screen on a sheet of water sprayed into the air. That being said, they showed movie clips on that thing for waaay too long.. and villains too.. they dragged out every spooky character they could think of.. scared the little kids to death. There wasn't much pyrotechnics to speak of. There were more characters at times.. floating by on a boat or something..but mostly it was just very dark. When we left, I wasn't feeling very fantasmic about it, lemme tell ya. (I was feeling more bummed that we missed the REAL fireworks show at Epcot! LOL)
The funny part was waiting to go into this show... they had a previous show of it, and the lady that kept coming over the loud speaker saying things about where the strollers had been moved to etc for those exiting.. but with a northern accent (no offense if you are from the north!) and for some reason, it just made us laugh. So sadly that was our cheap entertainment while we waited in line.
That ended Tuesday, which was day four.
Monday, December 8, 2008
day three, WDW
We planned a 'catch up' day or two, just in case we couldn't get everything done in a park the day before, we could go back and get it done. Well, crowds were light (they didn't feeeeel light, but they were.. it was a mixed bag), so we had a day we hadn't planned out and didn't know what to do with. We had not planned on going to Animal Kingdom, but we decided to do that, since we had the free time and all. Well..
.. we sort of liked it. And sort of didn't. It FELT crowded because all the walkways are narrow and overgrown with plants.. thus creating an exotic vibe, but also making a person feel claustrophobic and pressed in and stressed out. That's just my/our take on it. We rode a thing that I can't remember the name of that was basically a jungle safari kinda thing in a huge jeep. It was kinda neat. There were live animals walking around very close by. It was hard to snap pics because of the vehicle rocking as we rode on rutted out pathways they called 'roads'. haha. Just adding to the ambiance of 'safari' I guess. Whatever. There were also some animatronic animals added in that helped create a little back story about poachers. Could have done without that part. The real animals were the stars of the show.
There were these even skinnier pathways that led us down to areas that were like zoo exhibits with animals etc. We enjoyed that because it felt like we were off the beaten path and the crowds were lighter. I took several pictures of the signature tree inside the park called 'The Tree of Life'. I wasn't really crazy about the name of the tree. But anyhoo... we ate lunch and left. We had had enough of the crowdedynes. LOL
We rode the monorail around.. just for fun. Enjoyed the things we could see from it. We went back to Epcot and rode Test Track AGAIN. Yay! Then we went to dinner. Dinner was at our resort, as we were hoping for an early night and thought we'd skip out of the parks and enjoy a NICE meal outside the park. Well... this meal was a big disappointment. Everything on the menu sounded wonderful, but it did not deliver. My dinner had the potential of being great, but not a single item on my plate had an ounce of flavor. boring. And every dessert had milk, so that was a no go too. It was pretty sad.
The building the restaurant was in housed many things. It had a counter service place in it. That's Disney speak for fast food. And then the place we ate dinner in... table service... Disney speak for slow food. And also a gift shop. So we shopped. They had much cuter tshirts there than I'd seen inside the park. And I was bummed. So I asked the man working there if we could exchange our shirts even though we had purchased them inside the park. And he said 'sure!'. So we walked back to our room and grabbed the shirts I'd bought for Boo and I and went back and exchanged them. I was so glad they let us do that. Boo and I ended up with really cute shirts. Now it just needs to get warm enough to wear them! LOL
.. we sort of liked it. And sort of didn't. It FELT crowded because all the walkways are narrow and overgrown with plants.. thus creating an exotic vibe, but also making a person feel claustrophobic and pressed in and stressed out. That's just my/our take on it. We rode a thing that I can't remember the name of that was basically a jungle safari kinda thing in a huge jeep. It was kinda neat. There were live animals walking around very close by. It was hard to snap pics because of the vehicle rocking as we rode on rutted out pathways they called 'roads'. haha. Just adding to the ambiance of 'safari' I guess. Whatever. There were also some animatronic animals added in that helped create a little back story about poachers. Could have done without that part. The real animals were the stars of the show.
There were these even skinnier pathways that led us down to areas that were like zoo exhibits with animals etc. We enjoyed that because it felt like we were off the beaten path and the crowds were lighter. I took several pictures of the signature tree inside the park called 'The Tree of Life'. I wasn't really crazy about the name of the tree. But anyhoo... we ate lunch and left. We had had enough of the crowdedynes. LOL
We rode the monorail around.. just for fun. Enjoyed the things we could see from it. We went back to Epcot and rode Test Track AGAIN. Yay! Then we went to dinner. Dinner was at our resort, as we were hoping for an early night and thought we'd skip out of the parks and enjoy a NICE meal outside the park. Well... this meal was a big disappointment. Everything on the menu sounded wonderful, but it did not deliver. My dinner had the potential of being great, but not a single item on my plate had an ounce of flavor. boring. And every dessert had milk, so that was a no go too. It was pretty sad.
The building the restaurant was in housed many things. It had a counter service place in it. That's Disney speak for fast food. And then the place we ate dinner in... table service... Disney speak for slow food. And also a gift shop. So we shopped. They had much cuter tshirts there than I'd seen inside the park. And I was bummed. So I asked the man working there if we could exchange our shirts even though we had purchased them inside the park. And he said 'sure!'. So we walked back to our room and grabbed the shirts I'd bought for Boo and I and went back and exchanged them. I was so glad they let us do that. Boo and I ended up with really cute shirts. Now it just needs to get warm enough to wear them! LOL
Saturday, December 6, 2008
our 'hotel'
Our 'hotel' left a little bit to be desired. At least it did right after we made the reservation. I was kinda bummed when I figured out it wasn't a hotel at all. But a fayn-cee-fied MOtel. But it turned out ok. And yes, it looked a little better than the pic from Jungle Cruise directly below.
We stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort and actually, the view and the aesthetics were kinda pretty. We enjoyed the views right outside our door. See... isn't it pretty?!
Inside the room, it was the standard cookie cutter hotel room. It had a Nemo wall border and bedspread. Cute. But it kinda felt like they'd tried to go 'tropical' in a time past, and then added the Nemo stuff. There were different shades of green in some places and that kinda bothered me. But it wasn't 'bad' at all. It had the standard motel issue 'tiny bathroom' that you've gotta step out of to change your mind, much less your clothes! Thankfully there was a curtain that could be drawn to enclose the sink area, so there was a little room to spread out and change without being in full view of everyone in the room. So that was a nice little extra. They also seemed to take into account that guests would indeed be carrying luggage and need a place to put it down upon entering. You may wonder why I say that, since it sounds kinda like a 'duh'. Well, lemme tell ya...
We usually stay at Hampton Inns. It's nice for our needs as a family and it usually works out for us. But in 2007, we went to Colorado for vacation and stayed at Hampton Inns along the way and in Colorado Springs. Weeell... I've never walked into a hotel room and just stood there holding my luggage looking around and being shocked and surprised that there wasn't a single place to put it down and get it out of the way.. until our most recent Hampton Inn stays. And they've changed the beds in those too and they're very bouncy and not very supportive. So...
...the fact that they had places for me to put my stuff down was a plus, right off the bat. And the bed was supportive and non-bouncy so I wasn't sore when I woke up in the morning. The room we were able to get had two double sized beds in it. I was supposed to sleep with Boo since the hubster is very tall and has to kinda curl up to fit in a double. So that was the plan. Until I slept with her that first night and got elbowed, knee'ed and slapped around all night long. We called for a roll away bed for the rest of the nights. I was able to get a little better sleep after that..except for the funny noises the sheets made. We've never had this one before..every time we moved or rolled over, the sheets made loud crumpledy racket. Woke me up every time any of us.. including myself moved. And the real 'kicker'...there was a brochure in the room that showed how we could order these wonderful linens for OUR HOME! Talk about 'LOL'. We did 'laugh out loud'. We thought we could skip out of the rackety, weird feeling sheets. Thankfully, we weren't there for the sheets! : )
We stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort and actually, the view and the aesthetics were kinda pretty. We enjoyed the views right outside our door. See... isn't it pretty?!
Inside the room, it was the standard cookie cutter hotel room. It had a Nemo wall border and bedspread. Cute. But it kinda felt like they'd tried to go 'tropical' in a time past, and then added the Nemo stuff. There were different shades of green in some places and that kinda bothered me. But it wasn't 'bad' at all. It had the standard motel issue 'tiny bathroom' that you've gotta step out of to change your mind, much less your clothes! Thankfully there was a curtain that could be drawn to enclose the sink area, so there was a little room to spread out and change without being in full view of everyone in the room. So that was a nice little extra. They also seemed to take into account that guests would indeed be carrying luggage and need a place to put it down upon entering. You may wonder why I say that, since it sounds kinda like a 'duh'. Well, lemme tell ya...
We usually stay at Hampton Inns. It's nice for our needs as a family and it usually works out for us. But in 2007, we went to Colorado for vacation and stayed at Hampton Inns along the way and in Colorado Springs. Weeell... I've never walked into a hotel room and just stood there holding my luggage looking around and being shocked and surprised that there wasn't a single place to put it down and get it out of the way.. until our most recent Hampton Inn stays. And they've changed the beds in those too and they're very bouncy and not very supportive. So...
...the fact that they had places for me to put my stuff down was a plus, right off the bat. And the bed was supportive and non-bouncy so I wasn't sore when I woke up in the morning. The room we were able to get had two double sized beds in it. I was supposed to sleep with Boo since the hubster is very tall and has to kinda curl up to fit in a double. So that was the plan. Until I slept with her that first night and got elbowed, knee'ed and slapped around all night long. We called for a roll away bed for the rest of the nights. I was able to get a little better sleep after that..except for the funny noises the sheets made. We've never had this one before..every time we moved or rolled over, the sheets made loud crumpledy racket. Woke me up every time any of us.. including myself moved. And the real 'kicker'...there was a brochure in the room that showed how we could order these wonderful linens for OUR HOME! Talk about 'LOL'. We did 'laugh out loud'. We thought we could skip out of the rackety, weird feeling sheets. Thankfully, we weren't there for the sheets! : )
Friday, December 5, 2008
day two, part two
So I left you all with us eating lunch on day two. We had a monster huge 'fancy' deli sandwich in the land pavilion. Some of the produce sold in meals in that building is grown on the property we saw during our 'The Land' tour. I thought that was kinda cool.
After lunch, we went to Honey I Shrunk the Audience. It was bad. Just thinking of a way to use 3D...and scare kids half to death with scary things shooting out at their faces. Way ta go Disney! And then we rode Test Track again. Yay! And then an oldie but a goodie, Spaceship Earth. That's the ride inside the big Epcot 'ball'. It surprised me that these rides that could be called 'boring' were some of Boo's favorite since they were interesting and there were things to look at and notice. And then on the way back down after the ride, there was a small touch screen and by answering a few questions, they made up a little mock up community based on your likes and put your/our heads on the tops of the people. So we got a good laugh at the pic they took of us on the ride and watched our little person doing things on the screen. Good for a silly laugh. We rode this again at some point later in the day.. it was an entertaining way to get off our feet!
Then we toured the world showcase... that's what it's called, isn't it?! I forget. We just called it 'the countries'. We saw a little street show of a couple of 'french bakery fellows' and they did an acrobatic thing with balancing chairs and standing on top. Pretty incredible and a little dangerous with no wires etc. But it was comical and fun to watch. The one fellow on the ground made all his wishes known by blowing a whistle.. gently..loudly..with feeling etc. Interesting all he could invoke with just gesturing and a whistle. We walked around and browsed and took plenty of pics of the buildings etc. At one point we rode a boat around in the waters in the middle of the showcase area.. just for fun. It was nice to see things from the water.
We watched part of the America video thing in the USA area. It was kinda boring and we were hungry. So we bugged out and went to dinner. We had a reservation at a hibachi place in the Asian section. We were seated right away. The meal was wonderful. Probably the best meal we had while we were there. And of course, the table entertainment was fun too. Ourcooker guy chef was interesting and since he talks to people everyday, he could talk to any guest about wherever they happened to live. He was an interesting person. This meal was late.
Some side notes... one thing we were all looking forward to was the Hall of Presidents. It's closed... until JULY of 2009! Is that crazy, or what?! We were bummed as it's one of those things people go to Disney wanting to see. And we didn't get to. : ( Another thing, we purchased tshirts in the world area. We thought they were cute and we'd been seeing a lot of the same stuff, so we just went on and bought one for Boo and I that day.
Well, by the time our late hibachi dinner was over, so were the fireworks! I was totally bummed. I knew we would be cutting it very close... but it's a very short show and it was over by the time we stepped out after dinner. It was a disappointment at the time, and as the week wore on, I became more upset that we missed it.. just to eat. (oh well, there's a 'better' show coming at Disney Hollywood Studios, right?!)
After lunch, we went to Honey I Shrunk the Audience. It was bad. Just thinking of a way to use 3D...and scare kids half to death with scary things shooting out at their faces. Way ta go Disney! And then we rode Test Track again. Yay! And then an oldie but a goodie, Spaceship Earth. That's the ride inside the big Epcot 'ball'. It surprised me that these rides that could be called 'boring' were some of Boo's favorite since they were interesting and there were things to look at and notice. And then on the way back down after the ride, there was a small touch screen and by answering a few questions, they made up a little mock up community based on your likes and put your/our heads on the tops of the people. So we got a good laugh at the pic they took of us on the ride and watched our little person doing things on the screen. Good for a silly laugh. We rode this again at some point later in the day.. it was an entertaining way to get off our feet!
Then we toured the world showcase... that's what it's called, isn't it?! I forget. We just called it 'the countries'. We saw a little street show of a couple of 'french bakery fellows' and they did an acrobatic thing with balancing chairs and standing on top. Pretty incredible and a little dangerous with no wires etc. But it was comical and fun to watch. The one fellow on the ground made all his wishes known by blowing a whistle.. gently..loudly..with feeling etc. Interesting all he could invoke with just gesturing and a whistle. We walked around and browsed and took plenty of pics of the buildings etc. At one point we rode a boat around in the waters in the middle of the showcase area.. just for fun. It was nice to see things from the water.
We watched part of the America video thing in the USA area. It was kinda boring and we were hungry. So we bugged out and went to dinner. We had a reservation at a hibachi place in the Asian section. We were seated right away. The meal was wonderful. Probably the best meal we had while we were there. And of course, the table entertainment was fun too. Our
Some side notes... one thing we were all looking forward to was the Hall of Presidents. It's closed... until JULY of 2009! Is that crazy, or what?! We were bummed as it's one of those things people go to Disney wanting to see. And we didn't get to. : ( Another thing, we purchased tshirts in the world area. We thought they were cute and we'd been seeing a lot of the same stuff, so we just went on and bought one for Boo and I that day.
Well, by the time our late hibachi dinner was over, so were the fireworks! I was totally bummed. I knew we would be cutting it very close... but it's a very short show and it was over by the time we stepped out after dinner. It was a disappointment at the time, and as the week wore on, I became more upset that we missed it.. just to eat. (oh well, there's a 'better' show coming at Disney Hollywood Studios, right?!)
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