Round Up

Love it when I plug the iPod in to blog and Metallica comes blasting through my headphones!! I'm awake!!! Who needs coffee? I do, but I like sugar in mine. I can't have it right now, but we'll get to that. You get a random blog today. Lots of little things.

We got Disney passes!! Thank you, Uncle Sam, for holding our money for us and not letting us spend it. We have had the best time. We have been to all the parks this year except Magic Kingdom. We have been there before and wanted to spend some time at the other parks for awhile, see what they had to offer. We have been on safari at Animal Kingdom, we have traveled the world at Epcot, and been treated like stars at Hollywood Studios. The boy and the baby get to pick a park that they want to visit for their birthdays. Hubby and I went for our anniversary. The kids spent the night with friends and we headed out to the Boardwalk, then Epcot, hopped the monorail to Magic Kingdom then back. It was awesome! We picked up the kids the next day and headed to Hollywood Studios. It was super crowded, so we left after a couple of hours and went to Epcot.

This is hubby and me on the monorail. We like the park hopping thing. The park's too busy or you've seen everything you want, just go somewhere else. Lovely!

 This is us after the Nemo ride. My phone rocks. OMGA, I like being able to take pics and post them to Facebook, because I am ate up that way! This is the observation deck of the aquariums. Fun!!

 We did a Kim Possible mission. If you don't know, she's a teenage spy in a Disney cartoon. You get cell phones that give you clues on how to accomplish your mission. You take it country to country and stop bad guys. Fun! We've decided we have to do on each time we go. It's fun being a spy.

 We call it the golf ball. Sure wish I had figured out the zoom on my phone when I took this. Still pretty, though.

 Mr. Potato Head at the Toy Story Mania ride. That was fun!! The big girl whooped us all. I threatened to whoop her if she beats me again...

 This is outside the Movie Magic ride at Hollywood Studios. Groman's Chinese Theater. I liked the way it looked.

 I rode Dinosaur. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. It was kind of jerky and it was very dark. Would I ride it again? Only if I had to. I was nervous about my back, and I'm not sure I would survive another trip through time.

    This is, by far, the best family pic we've taken. Funny, isn't it? We've met characters galore and princesses out the wazoo. One of the first things we did was buy an autograph book. It was also one of the best things we did, too. That has been so much fun. I know you've seen the pic of the baby hugging Pooh Bear. The smile on her face is just way too precious.

The problem with having passes is that we are always heading to Disney when we have a few hours to kill. You should see my poor, neglected house. Pure filth!! We did spend a couple hours cleaning on Sunday. I no longer have to compare my bathroom to a gas station bathroom, thank goodness! You should have seen the kids' bathroom. No, I take that back. Hubby even cleaned our room. I can walk through it and not have to follow the path through the junk. There is still plenty to do, trust me, but at least some of the grime is gone.

Lent has started. For Lent, hubby and I were going to start the Maker's Diet. Hubby was looking at the eating plan and what you get to eat the first couple of weeks. He was afraid he'd starve to death. If you know hubby, he shouldn't lose any weight. He has a hard time putting weight on, so losing is not good for him. He was looking at the Hallelujah Diet. We've decided to combine them. I need to get on the website and print some of the recipes. We've had vegetarian meals before, but not raw foods. That's interesting. We'll see how we do.

We did, through all this, decide to give up sugar for Lent. That has been hard. We are sticking with natural sugars in food, like fruit, just not added sugar. My friend K and her family have done this. You thought HFCS was in everything! Why do you need sugar in turkey lunch meat? Crazy stuff. I can't even put sugar in my coffee. Do you know what that's like? It's yucky. Hubby has been using honey. I don't like it with honey (insert super whiny voice here). Just want a good cup of coffee. Of course, we blew it right away. We had a dinner at church. That's what the flyer and message said. Only it wasn't dinner. It was dessert. What?!? How can I tell my family no when they were starving and looking like they could keel haul me with no problem? We all got two. Lovely.

Our other give up for Lent is going to restaurants. Except the baby's birthday. She was due a dinner and she wanted to go to Cracker Barrel. We went after the church dessert dinner because we all needed solid food and I needed something to soak up the sugar. We ended up getting our food to go because the sugar decided it was not going to be my friend. Fine, be that way. The chicken and dumplings were ok, but they sure weren't my mamaw's. Great, now I want my mamaw's chicken and dumplings. Gonna need to make a test batch of dumplings with alternative ingredients. Hmmmmm...

We bought kits for our square foot garden. Between the overtime starting again and trips to Disney, hubby just doesn't have the time to build them. My project today is to get the kits together. We are already behind in planting, so we need to get a move on. Maybe those passes weren't a good idea. Who am I kidding? They're awesome. We did come home one evening and the tower was on it's side. The wind had been blowing something fierce and over it went. I lost most of my brussel sprout plants. So unhappy about that. I still have two or three plants. It's about time to clean it out and start new stuff anyway. Hubby and I are thinking a tower full of strawberries. Oh, yeah. As soon as we get it cleaned out, we'll get it moved over to the garden area. Now if I can keep Big Sis from raiding the strawberries. And the boy. And the big girl. And hubby. And me. Uh oh, maybe not.

We took a chicken class! It was fun. Now the hard core research starts. We need to decide what kind of chickens to start with, how many, what kind of structure, and all that good stuff. We do know we are only starting with about 5 or 6. And we aren't doing chicks. Too much effort and time. And we aren't doing meat chickens until we know we can raise egg chickens. I am so stinking excited. You should see the kids.

I guess that's enough for now. I'll post the pics of kids with the baby chick and the boy with a chicken on his head. Why do I think that may be a normal occurence?

Have a great day.