Happy New Year!

Disclaimer...this is a really long post so if you don't have the time or just don't care (it's not about the boys), feel free to skip it!

Mommy and Daddy had a great trip to Orlando/Tampa this week. We arrived early Monday morning in Orlando and headed to EPCOT. It was chaos! I had been there before on New Year's Eve but apparently had blocked the experience from my mind. We spent the morning doing things you usually skip - enjoying the Innoventions exhibits, a backstage tour of the Land Pavilion, a meal at Mexico, the American Adventure show... Then the rain came and between being soaked and having a sinus headache/migraine, I decided to throw in the towel for the day. Yep...I quit Disney World. I was miserable and it was only 3:30 and the New Year was still so far away and my head hurt so badly...we left. Luckily, after medication, a nap, a shower and some dinner I perked back up and convinced my patient husband to go back and brave the crowds again. We made it back to the park around 10:00 and thoroughly enjoyed the big countdown they do and the great fireworks. All-in-all it turned out to be an OK New Year's Eve!

Patrick making friends on the "Behind the Seeds" tour - we highly recommend it if you ever have the chance. It's well worth the time and money!

Tuesday morning we drove to Tampa for the Outback Bowl. UT won. The details of the game are not important...we played ugly, there was horrible officiating and the UT fans were pitiful. But, the outcome was positive so it was worth our trip. We made it back to Orlando and walked to Downtown Disney for some shopping and dinner. We spent way too long building Drew a Mr Potato Head (yes Kathy - it is SO hard to stop trying to squeeze stuff into the box!) and doing our other shopping that dinner ended up being a hot fudge sundae and a milkshake from Ghiradeli. Highly nutritious and delicious!

Yep...there were as few UT fans there as it looked on TV...it was pretty sad...

Wednesday we met up with our good friends Erik and Mary from Jacksonville. They were in town for the Michigan game and we actually ran into them on Monday at EPCOT - in the midst of the billions of people, we stumbled upon some we knew! They were with family that day so we planned to spend Wednesday with them before they headed back. We had a great time riding the things Mary and I missed in May (she was pregnant too so she was just as fired up to get on them!) like Expedition Everest, Tower of Terror and Rockin' Roller Coaster. After a great lunch at the Brown Derby, they headed home to see their little girl and we spent some more time at the park. Oh yeah...forgot to mention that the temperature dropped overnight Tuesday and it was FREEZING on Wednesday. Literally - it was in the 30s and 40s. We were completely bundled up and still so cold. So, we did some more things you usually skip when it's nicer outside, like the Animation exhibit. We got to take a 20 minute art class and learned to draw Goofy. If you know anything about either of our art skills, you are probably laughing out loud right now. But both of our pictures actually turned out to look somewhat like the real thing. At least you can tell who we are trying to draw! We finished the evening back at Downtown Disney seeing a movie...at a theater...when it had been out for less than a month... It was a nice experience!

Freezing...just to look at lights on NY street at MGM...

The highlight of the trip was at 2:00 am on Thursday morning, the fire alarm went off at our hotel. So we evacuated and waited for the firemen to give the all clear. It was such a pleasant experience...awake from a deep sleep, stumble to throw on tons of clothes, stand outside in the freezing cold (it got to 28 that night) because neither of us thought to bring the car keys down...all because some moron put a donut in the microwave and left it going until it caught fire. Ahhh...the joys!
We made it home Thursday afternoon after a brief delay at the Orlando airport. Some stupid guy had to be removed from the plane (after we taxied and were in line for take off) because he refused to put his window shade up and then called the flight attendant some names. The pilot removed the guy himself - he was not happy to have to turn around just for an idiot. We had to wait about 20 minutes for them to find the guy's bag but eventually we made it airborne and home. It was so good to see the boys - we missed them so much! They had a great time with Nana and Grandaddy (who were tired but still love the boys) and I don't think they realized we had really been gone.

Lessons learned from our vacation...Don't go to Disney World on New Year's Eve. Don't let Mountain West Conference officials call a major bowl game. Don't assume it is going to be warm just because it's Florida. Don't forget the car keys when the fire alarm goes off in the middle of a freezing night. Don't ignore the strange acting guy walking to the plane in front of you.
Happy New Year!