Wreath Success!

Darren always makes fun of just how much Christmas decorations we have- but the one thing I was missing was a wreath for our front door. But no more. Today, we went to a craft fair in Tampa (Darren would like me to note that he was not going entirely of free will and that he was not the only guy there). Within about 5 minutes, I found this wreath. It might be hard to see, but there are Mickey ornaments all around the wreath. I was super excited about this discovery! We also found a few Florida themed ornaments, like Santa starfish and pufferfish ornaments.


Once we got home, we decorated the apartment and our tree. In our old apartment, we could only have fake trees, but here- we can have live trees! We went to Lowe's the day after Thanksgiving and found a perfect tree. We let the branches settle overnight before we put on the lights and ornaments. Between the two of us, we probably have 2 huge plastic storage containers of ornaments...mostly mine. Not all the ornaments are on this tree, however- we also put up a "pencil tree" in the bedroom with some of my ornaments.

We have most of our gifts wrapped and under the tree. Now- we're all ready for Christmas and family to visit! :)

Quick Update

Dad is here visiting while Mom has her "group" over to the house to scrapbook. While he is here, the three of us volunteered to work the Ragnar Relay- a 201 mile race across Florida (Clearwater to Daytona) last night. Dad and I went to the Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios today. He also brought his computer so we could look at the pictures we took the last of October at the beach- they turned out awesome! Megan comes tomorrow! :)

It's been a long time coming...

...so it's been a while. I've worked at Disney for 4 weeks now, and it's been busy. Like really busy- 3 of my 4 weeks have been 45-50 hour weeks. Our location has been training a lot of new people- mainly College Program and part-time people like me- so now that there are more of us, our hours should even out a little bit.

Despite the long days, I'm enjoying my work. Some days it's hard to get up at 5:00 to drive an hour to even get to work...but I forget all that when I walk on stage and it's only me and a practically empty Epcot- complete with the sunrise over Spaceship Earth. And it doesn't hurt that when Darren and I want to hang out at Disney...it's free. :)

My parents came to visit for Halloween/my mom's birthday, and it was great to see them. The first weekend they were here, we went to Halloween party at the Magic Kingdom, and Darren, my dad, and I ran in the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror 13K. Then Darren went back to our apartment since he had school and did not think a 2 hour drive every morning and night would be fun. I stayed with them during the week since they were super close to the cast parking lot for Epcot and so I could see them more!

It's a really good thing they were here too because apparently I am allergic to something that bit me. All I know is that I was standing at work and my ankle itched so I leaned down to scratch it and discovered that my ankle was completely swollen. I told my manager, and he sent me to first aid the next day. The nurse there thought it was some kind of insect bite and was surprised to learn that I had never had this kind of reaction before. Since my parents were so close, I was able to get a lot of rest and kept ice on my ankle most of the night. It's all better now!

For my two days off, we all came back to Brandon with a full to-do list. We painted our bedroom, visited some scrapbook stores, and took pictures for our Christmas cards. :) Dad will be back to visit next weekend for the Ragnar Relay here in Florida. We're not running, but we're volunteers for a team.

The weather is finally cooling down- we have our windows opened tonight. Our cat is super excited by that and is running to all the open windows and sniffing the air. Also, as a note- the mall here is already decorated for Christmas, and the tree goes up tonight at Epcot.

*starts to sing* It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...