Lately...

We're still yawn-worthy boring around here.  

Time lately had been spent...

- On school and work.  As I said, my work schedule is back to my normal two or three days a week and I am so grateful for that.  I don't know how people can do that full time.  I don't shy away from work in general, but I don't love the job enough to do it all!the!time!  In fact, I found myself not enjoying it at all when I worked too much.  Every day I work, I have two objectives...1). to be a blessing to those around me, and 2). to exude a positive and friendly attitude to my co-workers and the customers.  Number two was certainly not happening!  

- Applying for jobs.  My love and passion for teaching has not lessened.  Unfortunately, my options are probably limited to charter and private schools who are not bound to follow the Florida pay scale for teachers.  A person with my experience and education (graduate credits) requires a higher salary than a newly graduated teacher - about a $20,000 difference that schools are hesitant to pay.  They do most of their hiring through job fairs for graduating seniors.  

- Watching play-off basketball and hockey.  Not really interested in watching either (unless it's the Lightning) but with only one TV that has cable, I have no choice.  Since I do have the TV 95% of the time, I feel it's only right to let Zack have it to watch his sports.  Lately, I have been just going into my bedroom and watching Netfllix.  

- Theme parking.  We still try to get Disney once a week.  I think we have black-out dates in the summer so I want to get use out of the passes while we can.  We went to the Magic Kingdom earlier in the evening and went on Haunted Mansion, Splash Mountain, and Pirates of the Caribbean.  Apparently, they have some technology that "reads" your wristband and the name attached to it when you're on the ride so when we went on Haunted Mansion, we saw tombstones with our names on them...it was pretty cool.  Zack was pretty serious about wanting to buy this

Perhaps if we still lived in Wisconsin I may have bought it for him. But there is no way that he would get any use out of this in Florida...so...no.  Thursday evening we are going to Universal Studios with C.J. We are pretty excited about it and hopefully this is the beginning of our "going once a week" like we did last summer.  


And that is about it.  

EPCOT with the Famiglia

At lunch on Sunday I asked my aunt and uncle if they had any plans this week and they mentioned wanting to go to EPCOT.  Hello---my favorite Disney park.

They ended up getting free tickets for today and, since I did not have to work, I decided to join them.  They met me at my apartment and I drove (I get free parking) and we had a little parking perk since my aunt had a knee replacement a couple years ago and has a handicapped sticker.  

We spent a lot of the time just walking around...s.l.o.w.l.y. !!!  I've mentioned before how we usually power walk through the parks focused only on getting from one area to the other as quickly as possible, so walking that slowly was a bit of an adjustment for me.  

Since the majority of people begin the day in the front of the park, we immediately headed to World Showcase and went to the show in China and then watched a little flag show in Italy.  I discovered that my aunt's favorite thing was watching the performers which is something we never do.  

Mexico

China

Germany

Italy Flag Show

After the performance, we went to the American Adventure and then had some lunch.  They both enjoyed the show and they said that if it wasn't so long, they would want to see it again.  It is one of my faves too. 

America

We got to Japan just in time for my aunt to watch a drum show while I went to the back of Japan where there is a hidden food store and picked up a few packets of my favorite Japanese candy.  I got to the show just in time to watch the end of the drum performance - it was pretty good.

We continued walking and stopped in France for the movie - another one of my faves.  

France

In the end, it took us about 5.5 hours to get through World Showcase. 

In Future World we went on the Living with the Land boat ride, did some shopping at Mouse Gear, and went on Spaceship Earth. When we got there at 10:30, Spaceship Earth had a 45 minute wait. At 5:00, we waited less than 3 minutes.  

It was a very nice day. Even though it got into the upper 80's (approaching 90*), there was no humidity yet so it wasn't unbearably hot.  

  

Famiglia Visite *Family Visits*

My mom's sister and her husband (from Wisconsin) are visiting Orlando.  She is very special to me and I spent a lot of time at her house when I was growing up.  Also, she lived with my mom right after I was born and apparently she is the one who got up and fed me every night and stayed up late with me when I decided sleeping at night was no fun.  During this time, my dad was gone M-F working out of town and my sister was only 15 months so I guess she really needed the help.

Anyway, we decided to get together for some pranzo (lunch) at a local restaurant.  Jon was supposed to work but has been sick and, while I am sad he has not been feeling well, I am happy he was able to join us.  

I must have been invisible to our waitress though because first, she brought out everyone's drinks but mine...and then she did the same thing with the food.  The drink only took a couple minutes to get but by the time my food finally came, everyone else was done eating already.  And because everyone shared little samples of their food with me, I wasn't even hungry anyway.  I ended up bringing it home and they took it off the bill so I guess it all worked out okay.  

When I began as a waitress, I was trained to make a map of the table for parties of 6 people or more.  Not only would that prevent something like this from happening, but then also, when serving the food, you don't have to stand there asking who ordered what. It is much more professional.  

Oh well, it was still a nice time with family. 

We Are Yawn

Life moves on here...day to day...week to week...

We are boring and nothing blog worthy has been happening.  

I am happy to say that my work schedule is back to normal. I finally had to go to my boss and ask for less days...I am a hard worker and I have never called in sick for work so he told me he likes to schedule me as much as possible.  But it was getting to be too much and it was affecting my mood and attitude. 

Zack and I went to the Magic Kingdom last night and it was less busy than usual but still waaaaay too many people there!   Even though we live only about 15 minutes away, it takes at least 1/2 hour to get to the Magic Kingdom from the parking lot.  Repeat that on the way out and a full two hours is taken up just in transport.  So we don't really get to do very much there.  

Same Castle...Different Day

Same Paddleboat...Different Day

Yesterday we had fastpasses for Splash Mountain and The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train

This was the first time we were able to get fastpasses for it so I had never been on it before.  

We also went to see Mickey's Philharmagic and Carousel of Progress.  

Philharmagic

All four parts of Carousel of Progress

Dancing with the Incredibles in Tommorwland...the kids, not me. 

Raucous Thunder and Intense Lightning

I'm talking playoffs baby!  

Stanley Cup Playoffs!

After the Tampa Bay Lightning (somewhat surprisingly) made it all the way to the finals last year, expectations were high that this might be their year!  

However, injuries combined with some sub par play have kind of crushed those expectations.  There is still a chance, of course, but that chance is minuscule.  

So the playoffs began last night and we were there!  

Just like last year, the Lightning meet the Detroit Red Wings in the first round.  C.J. told me that the atmosphere for a playoff game is completely different than for a regular season game and he was so right!  

First of all, there was barely an empty seat in the arena - except in front of me!  *big smile*

This was the giveaway last night:

Zack shook his so hard that by the end of the game the "knockers" on both sides of his paddle had broken off. 

Game summary:

- The Lightning scored first and took a 1-0 lead into the first intermission. 
- I'm not sure what exactly happened (because I did not see it) but Detroit scored two goals in about a minute as the second period began.
- Tampa Bay scored again and the score was tied at the end of the second period.
- The Lightning scored again midway through the third period but unfortunately, they were offsides which negated the goal...
- Then, not even a minute later, as the crowd was chating, "refs, you suck", they  scored again!  

And that is how it ended...3-2.  

The Lightning take the ice for pregame warm-ups

Pregame ice projections (very cool)

After Tampa Bay's first goal - and sorry about the shaking but I was cheering!!!!

Some game action

Tampa's third goal...the one that didn't count.  But we can pretend because, as I said, they scored again about a minute later. 

And the end of the game horn

Go Lightning!

Let's Talk Meals

This week's meal plan:

Sunday:  We ordered pizza this evening.  This was a splurge and a last minute decision mostly based on the fact that we had very little food in the house.

Monday:  I work until 6:00.  On the way home I will stop at Wal-Mart to pick up some groceries and will bring home a rotisserie chicken.  They are so cheap but so good! 

Tuesday: I work again - until 4:30 so we will have something easy -Tacos.  

Wednesday/Thursday: One of these nights we will be going to Tampa Bay for the Lightning's first playoff game.  Just not sure if it will be Wednesday or Thursday yet. On the way to the game we will stop for dinner and on the other day, we will have BBQ ribs and corn

Friday:  Pork Chops and wild rice

Saturday:  Probably hot dogs and mac and cheese.  We may go to Universal Studios for the final Mardi Gras parade.  


And there we have it...another week's worth of boring meals.  

Magic Kingdom (Sort of)

I am still being scheduled at work a bit more than I'd like...Actually, I'm not sure if it is the number of days that I am working or the days that I am being scheduled for that is making me crazy.  Specifically, it would be nice to have two days off in a row...but I haven't had that in two weeks and I won't have that until next week when I have Thursday and Friday off!  

Anyway, we wanted to make it to the Magic Kingdom this week because we haven't been there in almost two months and as I was looking at the weather this week, Thursday is supposed to rain.  Today, on the other hand, was a beautiful day, if slightly warm, with temps in the high 80's.  But, hey, it's never too warm for me.  

And let me just say...I just don't know where all these people come from!!!  I guess they haven't gotten the memo that Spring Break is over!  Basically all we did was eat, see Hall of Presidents, use our fast passes for Splash Mountain, and then got the heck out of there. 

Surprisingly, there was no traffic on I4 so I was finally able to time our drive...it takes exactly 12 minutes to get from our apartment to the parking lot of the Magic Kingdom.   

Pictures:

A stop at the Confectionery (of course)