The Best Birthday Present EVER

Let it be known that Mary gives pretty great gifts. I was luckily on the receiving end this time. For my birthday, Mary bought tickets for a snorkeling tour of EPCOT's The Seas aquarium.

What can I say? She knows what I like.

The Seas Aquarium houses one of the largest single seawater aquariums in the world. If you picked up the Spaceship Earth, the large sphere that is in the center of EPCOT, it would fit inside the tank with 5 feet of room to spare on each side. Yes - THAT big. The aquarium houses a variety of animals, including dolphins, sharks, manatees, seaturtles, rays, and a wide variety of fish. It is also super great - that is a well-known fact.

It started with a quick walking tour of the facilities, and before we knew it, we were suited up in wetsuits and being thrown into the cold water of the tank. We were told not to reach out with our hands - the tank inhabitants were accustomed to being fed by divers - but nonetheless, the fish and the rays made sure to check us all out. It was a little unnerving to be swimming with the sharks, but because they're fed in the dark, they couldn't care less about the humans in the tank. Tourists inside the guest area filmed us as we swam by. The rays raced by our faces, inches away, and the sea turtles came up from the bottom to take in gulps of air. It was a truly picturesque and relaxing experience.

And I couldn't have asked for a better birthday present.

Valentine's Day Cactus?

This may be a bit random- but I was really excited by this. When I was growing up, we had a "Christmas Cactus" in our dining room that usually bloomed around Thanksgiving. So last year, when Walmart was selling Christmas Cacti, I bought one. Of course, it didn't bloom last year. (Anyone who knows my luck with plant life will not be surprised by this. It's more surprising that it survived the move down here and is still alive a year later.)

When it didn't look like it would bloom this year, I did some research online and found articles with very specific directions on light and temperature. Still, it didn't bloom this year at Christmas. Then, last night (after forgetting to water it for about 3 weeks), Darren looks over at the plant and gasps. There must be about 10 buds. So apparently, we didn't purchase a Christmas cactus- it's a Valentine's Day cactus!

Snow.

No- it's not currently snowing in Florida. Actually, the highs for the next few days are in the 70s. What I want to talk about is the 10-day, record breaking cold we had the first 2 weeks of January, including the day of the half-marathon.

That's right, just a little over a year and a half since the idea first entered in my google search, Dad, Darren, and I were running in the Disney World Half-Marathon. Temperatures for this race are usually in the 50-70 degree range, making it a nice to warm run in January. But oh no. Not this year. This year- it snowed. There I was, 4:30 in the morning, sitting on one of the main roads in Disney World, watching it snow. It was a lot like TN snow- where you see it coming down but it melts almost instantly? But it was still snowing. In central Florida. By the time we started the race (at 6:10), it had turned to mostly sleet.

The first few miles, we were trying to start slow and not let the excitement of "OMG- running at DISNEY is so much fun!" mean that around mile 6 we collapsed. And besides, that many thousands of people running in the same direction at the same time meant that we traveled at the same speed, at least until the road opened up and people were able to spread out.

As we headed to the Magic Kingdom, area high school and middle school bands and cheerleaders were lining the road, cheering us on. When we entered the Magic Kingdom and started running down Main Street, we were trying to find Mom in the crowd, but we only glimpsed the back of her head. :(

We then traveled backstage (seeing Captain Jack Sparrow and other pirates on a pirate ship playing the Halloween parade music was quite entertaining) where we saw more characters (Bert, Mary Poppins, and TWO penguins!). Back here, the scenery was a little lacking, so Sharpie (one of the sponsors) set up signs every 100 ft or so with interesting facts. None of which I can remember now, of course!

Finally, 3 and a half hours after the start, we rounded a corner in Epcot- and there was the finish line. By this point, it had been raining/sleeting on us for a good 4 hours. Darren was in shorts, which isn't too bad when you've been running for 3 hours. My hair had gotten wet from the rain and then frozen so that I had little ice curls. Not to mention, by the time we reached Epcot, little puddles had formed on the course that meant when you ran through them, your socks and shoes were completely soaked. We all headed straight for the food tent and then to get our bags of clean, dry clothes. We found Mom, took a group vote that we wanted to head straight back to the hotel instead of venturing into the parks, and boarded the monorail.




Did I mention we're ready to register for 2011?! :)

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...

Look at me! I'm a flippy little dolphin!

Darren and I watched "Finding Nemo" last night and laughed over this dolphin quote. Little did we know that we'd see some dolphins today! We tried to go kayaking last weekend, but I had Traditions on Saturday and the waterfront office isn't open on Sunday. We were able to go this weekend, though!

We wanted to get one of the tandem kayaks, but there wasn't one available when we got to the dock. However, a group was just coming back in and we were able to use theirs. While they were figuring out how to get out of the kayak without flipping overboard, we talked to one of the guys about where to go. He suggested going one way (to the left, if you really want to know) because he had seen some dolphins that way.

Well, we headed out in that direction. Off in the distance, I was able to see little fins in the water. Since I LOVE dolphins, my first thought was 'dolphin' not 'shark.' We stopped the kayak and had at least 3 dolphins around us. They seemed to like swimming towards us and then ducking under the kayak to come up on the other side. About this time, the dolphins were drifting away and behind us- the dolphin sightseeing boat. Never will we pay for one of these tours. We eventually continued on our journey...but we ended up coming back to the dolphin area and hanging out. Which was super cool.

This time, there were about 6 dolphins and they started to play in the waves! Seriously- they were flipping completely out of the water! It was so cool. The whole time they were about 5 feet from the kayak! Even the Coast Guard came out for their patrol and stopped to watch the dolphins.

Oh...you want to see pictures? Um...see there's the problem. We didn't bring the camera. BUT! I have next Saturday off...and we're seriously considering going back and taking some pictures.

Coming Soon: Halloween decorations and painting pictures!