P.S.

My post about Hollywood Studios finally decided to show up in my drafts.  So there you have it.  A month and a half after the trip....

Vacation Day 7: Hollywood Studios

I love Hollywood Studios.

Last time we came to Florida, we did NOT get to ride the Toy Story ride, which was brand spankin' new at that time.  So this time, we made sure of it.  The first thing we did when we got in the park was go and get Fast Passes for it.  The line was already at 80 minutes at that time, and the Fast Pass return time was about 3:00pm.  Talk about crazy!

By the way, it's NOT worth an 80 minute wait.  Yeah, it's fun.  No, it's not amazing.

Here are the things I love about Hollywood Studios.

The Backlot Tour

The Backlot Tour is a behind the scenes look at how they make movies.  First, they film a few movie scenes right in front of you, edit them and then play it back like it's part of a real movie.  It's really cool.  Then you get on a tram thingy and you get a tour of behind the scenes stuff.  We saw a bunch of props that have been used in past movies, including Herbie the Love Bug!  Yes, he's a "prop."

Then, they take you to an actual movie set, which is the picture above.  And then they have explosions.  HUGE explosions.  I could literally feel the heat of the flames on my face.  And then... they do this:

And you get a little bit wet.  It's really cool.  Movies put a lot of detail into their sets to make them look realistic.

Another fun thing to do at Hollywood Studios is take the art class.  An artist teaches you how to draw a Disney character.  Last time we drew Goofy, this time we drew Scrooge McDuck from Duck Tales.  Do you remember Duck Tails?  Man, I loved that show.  I really like how my drawing turned out, and I do NOT consider myself a good artist.  So in this class, anyone can draw an awesome Disney character.

There are two AMAZING rides here.

The Tower of Terror, which is also in California Adventure, but it is not exactly the same as the one in Cali.  Personally, I like the one in Cali better, because the view at night when they take you to the top and open the doors is amazing.  Here it's just a view of the park, which is cool, but, I really love nighttime city views.

The Aerosmith Rockin' Rollercoaster.  This is much like Space Mountain in DisneyLand.  There is a Space Mountain in the Magic Kingdom in Florida, but it's not the same as the Space Mountain in DisneyLand.  Anyhow, this is like Space Mountain at DisneyLand only cooler because it plays Aerosmith music.  Totally fun!  We almost didn't get to ride this one at all.  We were so worried about getting Fast Passes for other rides that we forgot to get one for this ride until later in the day.  By the time we got down to this section of the park, all of the Fast Passes were gone, and the wait time was 90 minutes.  90 minutes!  I can say that this ride is worth a 90 minute wait, but, it's also a ride I want to ride more than one time, without waiting 90 minutes between each ride.

This ride also has a single rider line.  But!  They CLOSED DOWN the single rider line!  I was so upset!

So what did we do?  I asked a cast member if the single rider line was closed down for the rest of the day, and they said that it wasn't, and that it would open up after it cleared out a bit.  So we waited.  And waited. And waited.  We waited for an hour and a half.  Hey, I'd rather wait sitting than standing.  But finally they opened up the single rider line, and we rode this ride four or five times in a row with a very short wait.

It was a great day!

The next day we had to wake up super early (3am Utah time) to catch our flight, and we were home at 2:00pm.

Best vacation ever.  And now... we won't be able to go on a real vacation for a long time.

Random Thoughts

 I've been feeling kind of meh and blah lately.  I don't really feel like being at home, but then I don't really feel like going anywhere.  Just in a slump, I guess.

Lance is at a Vinylmation trading party thing... He is addicted.

I don't really have anything interesting to say.  So I will just ramble...

The other day, I boiled 6 eggs and made deviled eggs out of them.  I ate 8, Lance ate 4.  I love deviled eggs. You know what else I love?  My mother-in-law's potato salad.  I need to steal the recipe from her.  I am so excited that it is summer, because this means I'll be able to have some more often!  Hooray!

I have this co-worker named Richard.  He is really neat.  The other day, I went off about people who use exclamation points all the time, and multiple exclamation points.  It went something like this.

Jenn: Why do people feel the need to use multiple exclamation points all the time?  Seriously, you can't be that excited, that often!
Richard: Oh my gosh yes you can!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I still giggle about it.  Mostly because of the type of person Richard is.  He's not "serious," but his humor is what I would call "smart people humor."  So having him say something like that really makes me laugh.  I'm glad I get to work with him.

He and his wife have decided to become vegetarian.  I think that is cool.  I have decided to have one vegetarian dinner a week, even though Lance does not like this idea.  Hehehe.  This week it is Roasted Red Pepper Pasta.  So.extremely.delicious. Look for the recipe on my recipe blog on Tuesday-ish.

Oh, you didn't know I have a recipe blog?  Well, I do.  There is a link to it at the bottom of this page.  I've had it for a while, but I don't update it very often.  Lately I've been trying to go through my posts and add pictures.  Pictures always make cooking more fun.

Pictures make everything more fun.  So here is a picture of my little brother, who will be coming home in August!!!! (Oh my gosh yes you can!!!!!!!!)

Music

I have an addiction to music and I've had this addiction for as long as I can remember.  I never thought it was a bad thing before last Sunday.

A brother in the ward gave a talk about listening to uplifting music, and it really sunk in.  On the surface I thought that maybe listening to certain music didn't have much of an effect on my life, but in my heart I felt that I should try changing what music I listen to.

While I don't plan to completely stop listening to all of my favorite hip hop and hard rock songs (yes, I love both types of music), at work I've been listening to mostly or only classical music.  And the results?  More patience with co-workers.  More patience with clients.  I feel the spirit more on a daily basis.  I feel more desire to read scriptures.  I argue less with Lance.  I look forward to Sunday instead of having that anxious feeling in my stomach.  Yes, Sundays used to make me anxious.  More so lately because my teaching partner moved and they haven't replaced her yet...  12 kids, one teacher.  Thankfully one of the children's parents has been helping me a lot.  She even offered to do the lesson last week!

Anyway... music.  It affects more than I thought.  I'm not saying classical music is the only type of "good" music there is... it's just the extreme opposite to the degrading stuff I usually listen to.  Yes, I'll admit what I listen to is degrading.  But the rhythms are so catchy, and I love to dance!

So, below are some of my favorite classical songs.  Number one would be Palladio.  So if you listen to one of these songs, pick that one!

Ugh!

Blogger deleted my post about Hollywood Studios!  What do I do to get it back?  It's not in my drafts.....  I don't want to re-write all that stuff. 

Lame!

Coupon Craze!

That's right folks, Lance and I have joined the coupon craze.  I will never again pay for stuff I can get for free.

We planned our first "couponing" trip for about a week before we actually went, but really it only took about 2 hours.

To be honest, I felt really nervous, like we were doing something illegal.  It's not every day you walk out of the store without paying for something.  Good thing we did it without breaking any laws.

Here's how we did:

We went to ONE STORE, and using our coupons and this particular store's (Walmart) price match option we got....
6 boxes of Cheerios, each a different flavor.
3 boxes of O.B. tampons.
3 packages of Stayfree Maxi Pads.
2 Gillette Fusion ProGlide razors (these babies are worth $10 a piece!).
3 packages Carefree Liners (absolutely free).
2 bags Tidy Cats Litter.

We paid $18.16.

Next time I'll do better math on the retail value of what we buy, because every time I do the math it comes out differently.  Regardless, it comes out to above a $60 value each time.  So I'm incredibly pleased with how we did our first time out.

I can't wait for next week's deals!

Vacation Day 5: Rest!

Yes this day we rested, and it was wonderful.  We had nothing planned but to be extremely lazy.

DisneyWorld is a lot of walking.  I mean a lot!

We slept in until about 11, then we got up and got ready for a day of nothing.  We walked over to a restaurant that was near our hotel and ate some lunch.  I had fish and chips.  I'm not a big fan of fish, in fact I can honestly say it's nasty.  But, when you're in a state that is almost completely surrounded by water, you've got to try it.  Fish tastes so much better!  No "fishy" taste at all.  I'm sure the sushi is great too.  I do like sushi here in Utah, so I'm sure it's a million times better there.

After lunch we went back to the hotel and watched some TV.  Lance wanted to play basketball.  He's crazy.  It was about 90 degrees out and quite humid.  We walked over to the basketball court that was near our hotel and there was a group of scary looking dudes playing.

Ok, so all strange men are "scary looking dudes" to me.  But Lance seemed fine.  So I went back to the hotel while he played basketball with these people.

After I got back to the hotel, I took a nap.  Lance came back about an hour or two later, covered in sweat, I mean soaking.  It was gross.  I have never seen him that sweaty before.

Then we watched more TV, including the news and weather.  There were a lot of tornadoes in the surrounding states, so I checked on them each day, hoping they wouldn't come south to Florida.  Thankfully, they didn't.

For dinner we went to this lovely-looking Italian restaurant.  The looks of it were better than the taste of the food though.  I'd give it a 3 on a 10-scale. Over priced and not very delicious.

Then we watched more TV.

Basically the plan was to stay off our feet as much as possible.  At this point we probably had walked 30-40 miles in four days, so our feet very much needed a rest, as well as our bodies!

It was a good relaxing day.

Oh!  We looked into going to an Orlando Magic playoffs game, but the taxi ride there would have been $50 each way.  Plus $100+ for tickets.  We didn't like the sound of that.  So we didn't go.