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So here’s the thing: Avalon and I are in Florida! And here’s the other thing: I had a few anxiety attacks prior to make the trek down here. See, I always get a little anxious when I fly, not because of the FLYING part, but because of the security. I HATE GOING THROUGH SECURITY. Those people are so mean, and so demanding, and do I really need to practically strip down naked to assure those people I’m not hiding a bomb in my bra? So obviously my anxiety was multiplied knowing I was taking my seven week-old through security and on a plane with me. Would she scream the entire way? Would her schedule that I have worked so hard to establish get totally thrown off? How was I going to change her diaper on a plane?
Needless to say, I prayed for safe and seamless travel for the past two weeks. And as always, Jesus provided. Avalon did awesome! She slept the entire car ride to Chicago and all through the airport, security was a breeze, and we even had time to grab a bite to eat at a restaurant before boarding our plane.
Then after we boarded the plane she nursed through take-off and believe it or not, WAS AWAKE THE ENTIRE PLANE RIDE. And didn’t even cry! She just relaxed, sat back, and enjoyed the ride, just as every commercial pilot has instructed his passengers to do. There was one time when she had a bit of an explosion in her diaper, which was bound to happen…so we changed her diaper right there in our row, across the legs of my mom and sister. We instantly became one of those families.
Avalon’s had a lot of fun since we’ve been on vacation and is getting loads of attention from her Mamie and Aunt Courtney. She’s been such a good girl, and we’re going to have so much fun Girl Time with her. We’re starting by having a pillow fight in our panties tonight!
Thanks, everyone, for all of your concern about our dolla billz being stolen at the hotel. Luckily it ended well for us, but possibly not so well for the housekeeper.
For the following two days after we reported the theft, we spent a significant amount of time talking to the hotel’s security people about the incident. They wanted to clarify our story and double-check all of the facts so that they had plenty of information and details when interrogating the housekeeper. They also kept reassuring us that they were taking it very seriously and wanted to make things right with us.
We finally found out that the hotel wanted to credit our account for the entire $215 that had been stolen. Unfortunately for us, we had already pre-paid for our hotel room (we got a better deal on the room that way) so we didn’t really have an ‘account’ for them to credit.
However, the hotel allows its guests to charge things to their rooms, like food and gifts and whatever other outrageously overpriced items were available. Rob and I had already charged a dinner and some drinks to our room, and figured that by the end of the week we would have enough crap racked up on our account that the $215 would cover, which is exactly how it all played out.
We’re both extremely grateful to the hotel that they were gracious enough to pay back, in a sense, what was taken from us and to deal with the housekeeper situation in a timely and efficient manner. I was fearful that we would have been totally screwed by the whole situation, but thanks to the people at the hotel I have a new-found faith in the American society. I’m not exactly sure what is going to happen to the person that had the sticky fingers, but I’m resting assured that they will do what’s right and justice will be served.
Now, about the hotel. We decided to stay at the The Dolphin.
I had never stayed there before, but always gazed at it from afar imagining it to be wonderful, as it does have a certain unique, massive visual appeal to it.
Did I love it and would I stay there again? Eh. Possibly. The rooms were nothing special and definitely looked old and worn. If the hotel were a face, it would have some serious crows feet and saggy jowls, and not in the cute, old lady, ‘oh, it gives her such beauty and character!’ type of way. Plus, I’m not gonna lie, having been stolen from doesn’t exactly leave a great taste in our mouths about this place.
On the upside, however, the location of this hotel is killer and is basically why I chose it. From the hotel you can walk to Epcot and the Boardwalk and can ride a boat to Hollywood Studios. I knew that Rob and I would be frequenting Epcot quite a bit for dinners, so I knew it would be a convenient place to be. Plus, compared to the other hotels that are in this vicinity (like The Boardwalk Hotel, the Yacht Club, and the Beach Club), the Dolphin’s rates are at least $150-$200 less per night.
(Although now I can see why. Heh.)
All in all, I guess my theory is that the point of taking a vacation to Disney is not to hang out in the hotel room anyway, it’s to go and be in the parks. But if I did ever go back to this hotel you can bet $215 that I’d be keeping my cash, jewels, gold, frankincense, and muhrr in my back pocket at all times.
Trust no one, that is my new motto. Thank you, Disney.
(First, hi! We’re home now. I got a little busy (read: tired) on vacation and failed to keep up with posting. Plus the internet connection was so slow that I fell asleep everytime I attempted to upload photos. Anyway! I have updated my previous posts with pictures, so if you want to go back and see photos click here for the first day, here for our day in the Magic Kingdom, and here for our day at Epcot.)
Our next stop was to Hollywood Studios. Our hotel was in a great location that allowed us to take a cute little boat over to the park.
We spent the morning doing various things around the park, including the Indiana Jones stunt show (way cool), the American Idol show (it was so realistic I felt like we were actually in Hollywood), and the Muppets 3D show (classic!).
When it was time for lunch we got into my favorite place, the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater. The restaurant is tricked out to make it look like you’re at a drive-in movie, so you sit in cars and watch old movies while you eat hamburgers and fries. It’s always so fun! (And that’s not my bra peeking out, it’s a tank top, just so we’re all clear on that, thank you.)
Unfortunately it started raining later in the afternoon (as it did every day), which made our plans of seeing the car stunt show fall through. We ending up wandering around the park for awhile waiting to see if the weather cleared up at all, and unfortunately the rain just wouldn’t give up.
We headed back to the hotel for a much-needed nap considering our dinner reservations at O’Hana weren’t until 9:40 pm, which is practically in the middle of the night to a pregnant chick like me. When I made the reservation a couple weeks ago the booking agent told me that even though that was the only time they could seat us, it would be well worth it to take the late dinner because we would love it so much. Needless to say, my expectations were sky-high.
I finally awoke from my nap and we made the trek over to the Polynesian resort for dinner around 9:00. Lordy, did it feel bizarre to be waking up in the dark to go to dinner. We totally sounded like old-timers when we reminisced about how we felt like we were back in our old college days.
Anyway, the dinner did NOT disappoint! The restaurant has a fixed menu for a fixed price, which included bread, salad, pot stickers, barbecue chicken wings, broccoli, noodles, and then their specialty: skewered meat. Shrimp, steak, pork, and turkey. You could have fed at least ten people with the amount of food they brought to our table. This is where they do all of the delicious cooking over the open fire:
After all of that came dessert: pineapple bread pudding a la mode, topped with a bananas foster-type caramel sauce. The heavens opened up and I heard angels singing when I ate it, it was THAT GOOD.
Unfortunately, as I write this I am still recovering from how much food we ate that night…which was two days ago. I am not kidding at all, I ate so much and was in so much pain that I had to do the stingray shuffle all the way from the hotel lobby to our hotel room. Walking had never been so taxing in my entire life, and oh crap, I am only 27 weeks pregnant, how will walking feel when I have an entire full-size baby packed in on top of a full stomach?
Rob and I decided to spend the day at Epcot today. I think for him it was a bit of a relief – a break from all the kiddie, Magic Kingdom, kiddie-ness. He admitted that Epcot was a little bit more ‘grown up’ and seemed to like it more.
We started out with breakfast on the Boardwalk and ate muffins the size of our heads. This was just the beginning of the The Day of Eating Horrible Foods That Have No Nutritional Value. But some days you just have to do that.
Once we walked over to Epcot we figured out pretty quickly that they are in the middle of the Flower and Garden Festival, which meant the grounds were covered with beautiful flowers and crazy topiaries carved into various Disney characters.
It was so beautiful! I tried all day to wrap my mind around how many gardeners it would take to upkeep something as massive as Epcot’s gardens, but then it made my brain hurt so I stopped and ate a soft pretzel instead (Bad For Me Food #2).
The first ride we went on was Spaceship Earth, the ride that is inside the big Epcot ball (very cool) then did the 3-D Honey I Shrunk the Audience show, hung out at The Living Seas, then made our way over to Test Track. Turns out pregnant woman aren’t allowed to go on that ride, so I convinced Rob to go by himself while I wandered around in search for some air conditioning.
By that point we were hungry again, so we started making our way around the International Showcase where we planned on eating our way through all the countries. And? Goal accomplished. Brats in Germany, lemon ice in Italy, and that’s all I want to admit to, okay?
Finally, towards the end of the day, we went back to the new ride, Soarin’, where we had a Fast Pass. And let me just tell you: THAT RIDE IS SO AWESOME. It’s a simulation ride, one which makes it look and feel like you are hang gliding over California. You go over Palm Springs golf courses, and Napa vineyards, and mountains and lakes. That’s a ride we may have snag another Fast Pass for so that we can do it again.
(By the way, coming to Disney over Memorial Day weekend is not that bad! I had assumed the crowds and lines to be a lot worse, but it’s not really any worse than normal.)
Finally it was evening and we were reservation-less for dinner. So what did we decide to do? Cap off the day with ice cream sundaes. Why eat healthy at this point? Have you ever had peanut butter ice cream/hot fudge/PB cup sundae? Please go get one as soon as possible. It will speak to you and make you feel whole. It’s that good.
Next up: Hollywood Studios!
Our first full day in Disney started out great. We went to the Magic Kingdom, as planned, and took the classic souvenir photo in front of Cinderella’s castle.
After a few hours of walking around and doing all the rides at MK (including A Small World, which Rob was not all-too thrilled about, but dude, it’s a Disney classic), we came back to the hotel to chill by the pool.
Later that evening as we were getting ready to leave for dinner, Rob reached down into his backpack to grab his wallet and pulled it out with eyes as big and round as dinner plates – he realized all of his cash was gone. So I hurried and opened my suitcase, dug out my purse, and opened my wallet to see that my cash was missing as well.
GAH. Turns out, the housekeeper who had cleaned our room late afternoon while we were at the pool had stolen over $200 cash from us. Way to put a major damper on our trip.
At this point we should have been on our way to dinner, but instead I followed Rob as he marched his way right up to the front desk, steam coming out of his ears, where he talked to the manager and the security guard. Luckily, while we were telling our story to the security guard, there was a front desk staff person standing there who heard the whole thing. I could tell that something was fishy as she asked us where our hotel room was. When we told her the location and what floor we were on, she nodded and replied, “Oh yeah, we actually have already had another person from that same location report theft from their room, too.”
Well, great. And actually, it was kind of great, because I feared that our situation wouldn’t be taken seriously and that the security person would think we were just trying to be shady and see if we could get money out of them that had been ’stolen’ from us. However, hearing that it happened to someone else on the same day and in the same location legitimized the whole thing and gave me a little glimmer of hope, that we may, in fact, get our money back.
After all of those shenanigans we had to bust a move over to Epcot where we had dinner at Tutto Italia, in Italy, and hell if I was going to miss our reservation because of some klepto maid!
On our way there we even saw a really pretty double rainbow over the Epcot lake:
We made it to the restaurant in time, albeit a bit sweaty and frazzled, and had a really nice time. For awhile we were even able to forget about our money being stolen.
(And, by the way, thank the good Lord that they didn’t steal our entire wallets…what would we have done without credit/debit cards? Our ID’s? Our Disney tickets? That woulda been a total fun-buster, for sure.)
We’ll see tomorrow what happens with the money. I have a good feeling that the hotel will make it right and get our cash back to us. And if not? I can guarantee they will get some serious BAD PRESS ON MY BLOG, AND I DON’T THINK THEY WANT THAT.
I so wish that was an actual threat.
Hi! We’re here. In Disney World! Woohoo! We made it into Orlando earlier this afternoon, and then spent the rest of the day wandering around our resort (The Dolphin) scoping things out.
We had dinner reservations made tonight at the Flying Fish (at the Boardwalk), but when we went to leave our hotel room we realized it was a tsunami outside.
SERIOUSLY. COULD. NOT. GO. ANYWHERE.
I don’t think I have ever seen it rain that hard, or that horizontal. Even the ducks were pissed because of the violent raindrops being pelting upon their little bodies.
Since we were somewhat stuck, and of course! without an umbrella!, we found a killer restaurant right in our hotel, Blue Zoo, and had a nice dinner there instead. And when dinner was over it had finally stopped raining so we could make our way outside and catch the end of the fireworks over at Epcot.
Tomorrow we’re headed to the Magic Kingdom, since I figured that’s the only appropriate place to take Rob first as he has never been to Disney before. Gotta keep it traditional, wouldn’t you say? The Haunted Mansion is calling my name.
Well, it is with deep regret that I report of the total failure that was the boys’ fishing trip to Key West. Not that they didn’t have fun; I mean, unless you’re a penguin isn’t it just about impossible not to enjoy a little warm weather while on a boat in the middle of the blue ocean with the sun shining down on you?
What didn’t happen on their fishing trip was the obvious: THE FISHING. On their first day out they simply had bad luck and couldn’t catch a fish if their lives depended on it, which makes me extremely grateful that their lives aren’t, in fact, defined by the number of dead fish piled up in the cooler on the back of the boat. WHAT A RELIEF.
So not only were the fish outta town, but the weather wasn’t cooperating with their plans, either. Day by day the winds were picking up, making the seas rougher and rougher. If the guys had decided to stay in Key West the entire time that they had planned, they would have been traveling back home in nine foot waves.
But because they’re smart they decided to leave a day early, and instead made the voyage home in only five foot waves. If you’re reading this and are all, nine foot five foot blah blah who cares?, what this means is that 1) a four hour trip ended up taking almost eight hours, and 2) several parts of the boat were broken due to such violent up and down movement and slamming into the water.
I think they refer to experiences like that as “Making Memories”. But if it were me, I would more than likely refer to that experience as “I Made It Through Hell And Back and Will Now Reward Myself With Some Ice Cream And Then Possibly Some Guacamole”.
I was sorry that they had to cut their trip short, and even more sorry that they came home empty handed and didn’t bring me and Grandma any fresh yellowtail snapper. We were so anxious for a fish fry upon their return that we were taking turns sleeping with the electric skillet.
Although our taste buds got slighted, we were thrilled to have the boys back safe and sound a day earlier than planned, and as a bonus we were able to enjoy some extra time together to hang around the pool. My Grandpa is a stellar captain, and I’m so grateful that he was able to get everybody back on solid land in one piece.
Every time I come down to Florida I am reminded how much I adore this beautiful state. As soon as I walk out of the airport and into the warm, salty air I feel refreshed, renewed, and ready to tackle all of the world’s problems do nothing but lay around by the pool covered in tanning oil.
On this trip in particular I am taking the “getting a tan” part of my to-do list very seriously, not only because I am obviously very pasty white, but also because I recently noticed that one of the Google searches that led someone to my blog was the search phrase “I’m so pale I’m depressed”.
If that isn’t motivation for my melanin, then I don’t know what is.
Yesterday afternoon after we landed, the boys took off on some errands to buy food and fishing supplies for their boat trip, because anyone who has ever been on the Fishin’ Mission knows that the keys to a successful fishing trip are Snickers and Bud Light.
While they were gone, I took Oliver on several walks to stretch his legs and get some fresh air since the poor guy was stuck in a cage during the entire plane ride down here. As we were walking along the edge of the back bay, near the boat dock, I happened to look over at the water and notice four dolphins casually flipping around at the surface. Oliver and I picked up our pace, walked down onto the dock, and sat down to try and catch a few more glimpses of the dolphins before they noticed we didn’t pay an admission fee for the show and took off.
It was at that time – watching the dolphins play in the water, smelling the salty, fishy water, sitting with Oliver and watching the slight breeze blow through his ears – that I almost cried out of pure happiness. Everything just felt right. I was content and totally at peace and it was perfect. This, I thought, is where we need to retire. And soon.
Then Oliver got up and ran over to investigate the splatter of bird poop that was nearby.
And my moment was over. But it was nice while it lasted.
Tomorrow is finally the glorious day when I will make my way down to Florida to overdose on sun and warmth, two essential elements to my well-being and sanity that have been missing for many months now and could maybe explain the constant twitching I have acquired since sometime mid-November.
I’m taking all my favorite boys with me on the trip: Rob, Oliver, Dad, and of course my trusty Mac. Of that group, the humans will be ditching out on me and heading down to Key West on a fishing trip with Grandpa in an attempt of catching some grouper, or if that doesn’t work out, at least hooking up with some pirates for a friendly exchange of rum for some shrimp. It’s always fun when that happens, because those pirates? THEY’RE REAL. So real, in fact, that in the past, when we would meet up with them to do a trade-sie, my sisters and I were always encouraged to make our way down into the galley so they wouldn’t get too excited seeing three young girls hanging around the boat in bikinis. Because, you know, they’re lonely pirates. Enough said.
Also, sorry the posting has been sparse around here lately. I plan on making up for it on this trip, but for now, if you really need a time-wasting distraction from work or laundry or plucking your eyebrows, check out my About Me page, as I’ve recently gotten more acquainted with myself and updated it a bit. It’s always interesting, the personal scrutiny and investigation. I have found I really don’t like looking at my life through a microscope like that. In fact, I plan on never doing it again. For some reason I am much more comfortable with the entire world wide web scrutinizing me instead. And because of that, issues. I have them.
Because this trip was smack-dab in between my birthday and our first anniversary, Rob wanted to celebrate both occasions down here in Florida. The birthday part was taken care of a couple of days ago, and the anniversary part was celebrated last night at an awesome restaurant, Blue Water Bistro.
Right as we were about to leave for dinner, Rob stopped me and asked if I would open something first -a very small, green box. And as every girl should know, small boxes are very, very precious. So my eyes lit up, and I quickly opened the box to reveal an anniversary band that matched my wedding band.
See before:
(sorry for the crap photography, just work with me here…)
And after:
See how he added that third band at the top? I love my husband. He is too, too good to me.
(And please dismiss the swollen fingers and unpolished nails. Shame on me. Goes to show that a girl should do better at taking care of her nails because, apparently, you never know when you’re getting some new bling.)
So anyway, the rest of the night encompassed good drinks, excellent food, and a great time.
And the sweetest card that he has ever given me, which made me cry right in the middle of the restaurant.
The ironic thing about the card, just so we are all on the same page, is that he didn’t used to even give me cards at all. Last birthday? No card. Last Valentine’s day? No card. But I think he finally got the point now, of how I love sweet simple cards even more than new diamonds most presents.
We had a perfect time celebrating the first year of being married. And I hate saying this, due to me sounding OLD when it comes out, but how does time go by so fast?!
