Friday, September 11, 2009

My Vent/PSA for the day!

USE THE CROSSWALKS!!!!! They are there for a reason people. Seriously, why would anyone be stupid enough to cross a 7 lane road not in a crosswalk? I can not tell you how many idiots I see crossing a major 7 lane road near my house that just cross where ever they feel like it. Today took the cake though, some girl decided to cross (mind you she was in between 2 crosswalks that should could have walked to in less than about 2 minutes) the road and just stop in the middle of the lane I was driving in. I had to come to almost a complete stop.

I often see people standing in the center turn lane just waiting, or at night when people wearing dark clothing cross or stand in the center lane, do they not realize people can't see them! It's not like there aren't plenty of crosswalks, there is one at least every half mile, often more frequent than that. Or what about the people who cross like 10 feet from the crosswalk, seriously you had to cut through traffic and risk your life to save yourself from walking 10 feet! It's just unbelievable!

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

DISNEY WORLD! Days 4-5, August 21st and 22nd

Friday, August 21st

Day two at the Magic Kingdom. Today we had a character breakfast in the park before park opening. Our reservation was for 8:10am at The Crystal Palace. We arrived at the gate around 7:45 or so and waited to be allowed in. We took a few castle pictures (and got some on the photo pass too, so we will have those at a later date). We were bummed to see a huge crane by the castle that wasn't there on Wednesday so we wished we had taken pictures then, but oh well, what can you do.


At breakfast we were joined by Winnie-the-Pooh and friends. We ate as quickly as we could because we wanted to be out in the park when it opened at 9am. After eating and a quick stop for diaper changes and band aids for the blisters that were forming on my feet we were ready to go right at opening!



The first stop on "The Plan" today was the Tomorrowland Speedway. Emily couldn't go on this ride so we got a baby swap pass and Jon took Nathan on first then I got to take Nathan on without having to wait in line (lucky kid got to go on twice in a row). Jon drove when it was his turn but I was brave and let Nathan drive. Lets just say there is a reason 2 year olds don't get drivers licenses.
After two rides on the speedway we headed to Astro Orbiters. We thought it was just another "Dumbo" ride but it was much faster, not good for a girl with vertigo, even Jon had a hard time with that ride. After that we went on the Carousel of Progress (something we hadn't planned to doing but we were getting warm). After that we grabbed a snack...ice cream. Part of our dining plan was getting 2 snack a day and until that point we had not used very many of them so we had tons of snack credits to use up. Nathan dropped his ice cream within minutes of getting it so we went to get him a new one and they just gave it to us. They really understand a 2 year old at Disney! Next stop, Buzz Lightyear!



Once we were confident the evil Zurg was defieated we headed over to Toon Town.
The plan was to ride Barnstormer then explore all the houses and see some characters. Barnstormer wasn't working at that time though so we visited Minnie's House, and Mickey's House. Saw some princesses (pictures of that at a later date, they were on the photo pass). Cinderella, Belle, and Aurora were all amazingly princess like and were great to our little prince and princess. Emily wasn't afraid of them at all and Nathan walked away with lots of lipstick kisses on his face. We checked out Donald's Boat and a little play area before hopping on the train to go to Frontierland. It was getting close to nap time and both kids fell asleep in the stroller.
We took advantage of this and went on Big Thounder Mountain Railroad.

After Expedition Everest the day before this was actually kinda lame. Then we were getting hungry. The kids were still sleeping so we got ourselves lunch at Pecos Bill. We figured when the kids woke up we'd get them something. They did wake up while we were eating but at that point they had gotten a decent nap so we saw no need to leave the park to go back to the hotel. We headed over to Pirates of the Caribbean (Nathan was singing "yo-ho, yo-ho a pirates life for me") only to find it was temporarily shut down. But Captain Hook and Smee were right across from the ride so we waited in line to see them.
By the time we saw Hook and Smee Pirates was working again, so we parked the stroller and went to get in line. I felt a rain drop so I ran back to cover the stroller so it wouldn't get too wet. Jon and I got split up and it took a few minutes to find each other but we finally did and we got in line. After Pirates it was pouring. We decided early in the trip that we don't melt so we weren't going to let any rain bother us. We left our stroller by Pirates and visited the rest of Adventureland. Only problem was because of the rain most of the rides had to close down. We went and saw the Tiki Room show and then the Swiss Family Treehouse. We also grabbed fastpasses for the Jungle Cruise since it was closed at the time.

Carpets of Aladdin finally opened (another "Dumbo" ride) and we were in the first group to ride it. Then we went on the Jubgle Cruise using our fastpasses (good thing we got them because there was a long line already and we were able to pretty much walk on).

At this point we had pretty much done everything we were hoping to do. We still wanted to get on Barnstormer and meet Mickey and Minnie. Nathan also wanted to ride the cars at the speedway again. So we went back over to that side of the park. On the way we saw the Carousel line was short so we went on the Carousel again. Today Nathan was excited to ride the horses.

We went back to Toon Town and rode on Barnstormer. It's a little rollercoaster that was designed for kids. It lasts all of about 1 minute, if that. Nathan and I went on and he decided that once was enough even though he could have gone on with Jon if he wanted. The line for Mickey was still rather long, which was kinda sad for me, I really wanted to see Mickey. The speedway was still closed from the rain so we took a stroll up and down Main Street USA and ran into Chip and Dale.

I don't remember what we did after this, but we eventually went to dinner at the Liberty Tree Tavern, quite posisbly mine and Jon's favorite Disney restaurant (although Whispering Canyon Cafe has given it a run for it's money). After dinner we again skipped the parade and fireworks. Instead we finally go to see Mickey and Minnie since everyone else was distracted by the shows. Those pictures on on the photopass so they will be posted later. We then headed back to the hotel. It was late, but since we opted to stay at the park instead of go back to the hotel for a mid-day break we had to pack all our stuff. We were being picked up at 6:30am to be taken to the airport.

Saturday, August 22nd
Two plane rides back home, no problems. I was super tired and when we got home I went right to bed. That's about all there is to tell. I was so out of it and tired from our fun few days at Disney that I really don't remember much from the flights home, just that I really wanted to sleep but I couldn't.