Scrapbookers can cook!!

Wholly crow!! We had our staff picnic today, and I tell ya, the food was amazing, a wide variety and ALL very yummy, I should've taken pictures of each dish. Dean had a great idea.... next time we do a pot luck like that, everyone should just have a stack printed out of the recipe that goes with each dish, and we can have like a big tasting smorg, and then walk away with the knowledge on how to make it again. Absolutely fabulous food today!!!

Me and Dean :-)

Jeanne and Gayle, everyone was happy to see each other

Maddie called Martina to join us

Gloria, smirkin'

Hello Michaela!

Dianne, Gayle and Kate, we were all trying to hide our teeth in case we had corn in them.... no corn here, smile BIG! :-)

Carolyn? It almost looks like you are going to show me something in your hand??? haha

Dean BBQ'ing the steaks... in his glory

Mike and Gloria, checking the corn pot... there was enuff corn to feed an army!

Liz and Megan

the row of food, it goes on forever!

P.S. I can't cook, I brought fruit salad! Doh!

Some pix from the trip

Anyone who knows Dean knows 2 things about him, he doesn't really like rides, and he would prefer not to be singled out in a crowd...... well, apparently in Orlando, these rules don't apply!


Here we are a roller coaster that shoots you from 0-60 in seconds! And yep, there is Dean, we even went a second time!

Dinner with pirates


and put on stage for all the audience to see!
That's my man :-)

A Magical Trip.

For eight days, I was immersed in "The Disney Experience." Here are some of the things that happened:


I met the Blue Men, met an astronaut, saw Titanic's grand staircase up close, flew on a Space Shuttle, gazed at the massive Saturn V Rocket, saw my wife slap one of the Plain White Tees, saw Mickey Mouse officially open the Magic Kingdom, saw my wife cry happy tears when we saw the famous Disney Castle and Baloo from Jungle Book, rollercoasted with Aerosmith, Spiderman and The Hulk, took a boat tour through Jurassic Park, went on the ride that made a legend of Captain Jack Sparrow, flew through downtown Calgary in "Circle Vision" at the Canada Pavallion, starred in a magic show at Wonderworks where I helped "sing" the closing song, was featured as "That Guy" on the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor, was chased by Jaws, was in a room where I introduced to all the US Presidents, was about to go on GM's Test Track ride but seconds before we boarded it closed due to rain, touched a moon rock (smooth!), saw a meteor that fell from the sky in China in the 1500s that I could actually buy for only $12000USD, was denied Sushi in the Japan Pavillion, saw hoards of fussy kids driving their parents mad, got hit by flying banana pieces, watched the Twister set get destroyed twice, dined with pirates, took a ride on a bike taxi, found a new favourite restaurant (there is only one in Canada and it is in Toronto), watched many fireworks shows, experienced lots of warm rain, saw the latest Harry Potter movie (we were the only three people in the theatre so we got to boo the previews we didn't like, cool!), walked miles and miles and miles, spent a few hours in Denver, Colorado.

It was only eight days but we did three weeks worth of stuff. What a trip!

Spidey

Photoshop just saved me 15.00 :-) they were selling the pictures like always at the parks, so I decided to make my own.... moi haha, now I have to go play with other pix!! This could be addictive!!

Grade 10

Home from the Magic Land, or World in this case.... our flight was delayed, but we landed safe and sound, Dean was waiting with open arms. No issues at the airport and homeward bound we went. We unpacked, and pretty much packed it in for the night... Maddie started grade 10 today. I dropped her off at 9am, since she didn't have a chance to figure out the bus system yet, then I got home and she left a message saying that school started at 10:30. Oops! We could've used that extra sleep. Oh well she is walking around and learning all the places nearby.

waiting for the shuttle at the Hotel

Learning the flight is delayed in Denver

First day of grade 10





at Bishop Carroll

and just as she always has, ever since Kindergarten, Maddie waves and says bye mom....

Leavin' Orlando

The day you hate to come...... time to depart...... we had a blast, saw and did 1000 things, goodbye Mickey, til we meet again :-)

Winding down...

Time to wind down, me and Maddie spent the day in the pool, we went for a walk this morning, had Subway lunch, and vegged. Our shuttle is booked for tomorrow and now we're just gonna watch a movie and die Maddie's hair pink. Lol it's hard to sit after going 100 miles an hour every day for 15 days. But tomorrow it's back to reality. On the upside.... Dean will be waiting for us :-) I need another 15 days off now to scrapbook all these pictures!!

...just one more

the funny thing about this picture isn't Maddie, but look at the womans face as she sees Maddie in Alice gear, and the guy behind videotaping...lol priceless, I guess now we know why they don't sell adult costumes it gets confusing... Maddie had a few people stop her and ask where she got her dress. Disney coulda sold some Alice stuff today! ok, I am going to bed now. The launch was scrubbed, and I need sleep. I think this is the only time the internet connection works well!!!! I'll be home soon enuff, til then... ciao.

Scrubbed again

After a long bus ride home tonight, we hopped in the pool. The pool is wonderful here, and it feels so good to float around after being on your feet alllll day!

time to catch up on friends, the internet is sporadic during peak hours so when it's good, it's hard to stop!

I found out that you can see Wishes from the hotel! Not like a Disney hotel but still pretty good!

it was a tough decision, right up til 10PM when the bus left for Kennedy Space Center I thot about going to the shuttle launch, probably a once in a life time event, especially now, that the shuttle program is coming to an end. But it was hard to spend our last day, ( and dollars ) on a "not sure" thing. We watched the last shuttle launch on TV and the time before it flew, the launch was scrubbed minutes before, so we decided against going. We did however set the alarm for 1:20 am so we could see it from the hotel, the sky lights up so much they said, that we'd be able to see it. But, when we got out there, we saw weird flashes above where the shuttle was to launch? I didn't think it was lightening because they looked red, we waited out side 20 mnutes past the time it was supposed to go up, just in case... but we gave up. At 1:20am the launch was scrubbed due to weather, AKA the lightening that we watch every night. I checked the web site at 1:20 before I woke Maddie up, and it got scrubbed moments after the door closed behind us. Well, I'm glad we weren't there, but too bad for everyone involved. Conditions just did not improve with enough time to continue the countdown. The launch team is setting up for a 24-hour scrub turnaround. Launch is scheduled for 1:10 a.m. Wednesday.

1:50 am, time to give up ......

Islands of Adventure

Today Maddie and I went to Islands of Adventure. We got the final t-shirts we wanted to get and had some fun in the store trying on hats....

Maddie? how do you really feel about hamburgers....lol

Entering Suess Landing, there was a bit of fun to be had here.

the Cat in the Hat for example....

then onto the Lost Continent, we tried to peek at the Harry Potter buildings that were being built, but it's hard to see in there. That should be a very impressive attraction!

The lines today were pretty good, even the Duelling Dragons only had a 10 minute wait. The American kids are back in school, so we didn't even buy the front of the line pass today. We had wanted to do both coasters, there is fire and ice, we tried fire, but never made it back to ice.... next time. As Dean said, save some stuff for next time :-)

we did get to see the Sinbad's 8th Voyage show tho' that's impressive also. I thot more of this area was closed down to make room for Harry Potter, but we were happy to see most of it is still here, I think the only thing we noticed missing was a Unicron Roller Coaster. It will be interesting to see what they do to duelling dragons since it's on Potter land. I think they should paint it all black and we can fly like the death eaters, or make it a Quiddich game?? Time will tell, Maddie says they should do snakes, Slitherin and Griffindor.

we saw our fair share of characters today... Captain America was the first.

I was thinking of Dean.... awwwww

we walked into a store and Popeye and Olive Oyl were just walking around like shoppers! They gladly posed with Maddie :-)

too bad Maddie didn't have her Wolverine shirt on!

but then she would've missed being kissed on the head by Spiderman, he liked her shirt too, said she had great taste! I had already put the camera away so I missed the kiss....

Spidey asked Maddie if she wanted a sexy pose, I did get that one.... does Mary Jane know?

Kennedy Space Center

The Internet connection seems to be co-operating tonight so I'm just gonna keep bloggin' this is from Kennedy space center, all I had time to talk about the other night was Jon McBride, that was the highlight, but here is some stuff from in between that lunch.....

On July 16, 1969, more than 30 stories above the launch pad for the huge Saturn V Rocket, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins walked across this service Arm from the launch tower to the command module of Apollo 11. Their next stop: the Moon's sea of tranquility.

they have a launch simulator here that is apparently very similar to take off. We don't have to sit lying back for 3 hours, they skipped that part for us, but it shakes the hell outta ya!! Then when the fuel thingy disconnects the ride is smooth, it feels like you have lost power, when you are in the right position the window opens on the roof and you can see earth. Very kewl.

in the background is the Shuttle "Discovery" ready for launching on Aug 25 @ 1:36 AM it was originally supposed to launch on Aug 18 and we had tickets, but that date was scrubbed.

this is the actual setting, the chairs, computers etc of the room the day they landed on the moon, this was where they watched the famous first steps.

Rocket Garden. These things are HUGE!!