Magic Kingdom

OK, Its been awhile. I've been very busy with school. But I have now cut way back on my work. I will now just be substituting and filling in whenever they need me. I would like to be able to help out with my In-laws and be able to go spend time with my own Mom as well.

Alrighty then....on to the Magic Kingdom. This was my H's favorite place so we decided to spend the whole day there. It was SO much fun.

The first picture is of Snow White's cottage. The new Mine Train ride is fabulous!!! Luckily we had a FastPass. The line was horrendous! The next picture was of the opening ceremony. My H cried. Yes, she is 19 and cried at Disney. She was so happy and overwhelmed. Then we have the Be Our Guest Restaurant. Again, fabulous!!! We really felt like we were in Beast's castle. Then we have Cinderella's castle all lit up for Celebrate the Magic. I have so many more pictures but I am still trying to get them all organized. And I'm sure you really don't want to see them all :)

Disney!!

WOW! I'm exhausted. It's been a long month--or there about. The last week of July through today has been a whirlwind!!! Especially these last three weeks. Disney one week and school orientations one week and school in-services and start of school for me. And I wont have a break til Christmas. It's good to be busy! Idle hands you know.

DISNEY. Oh my lovely Disney. We had a magical time. My daughter cried the whole time. Tears of Joy and Happiness. I don't really have the words to express it so I'll start with pictures and see what words come.

This is at the rest area just as you come into Florida from the Alabama side. It is just before Pensacola. Pensacola. My first adult home. I was married there and my first daughter was born there. It was hard not to stay there for a couple of days...maybe next time.

Ah, my "room key" from my last visit to Disney. It was my souvenir from Tower of Terror. My favorite ride. I just had to bring it along this trip.

We stayed at the All Star Movies resort. Toy Story was H's first Disney love. Actually Buzz and Woody were some of her very first words. We took this as soon as we checked in and put our bags in the room. It was late, about 10 pm. We had driven from Texas to Louisiana to spend the night with my sister. Then from her house to Disney. It was a long trip, I was beat but it was a fun drive.We listened to Disney songs the whole way....really, what else would we have listened to?

 First order of the first day....always have to get the Mickey waffle. There is no other place that can have a better waffle(ok, so some waffles may...just may...taste better at other places. But, and I mean But, NO OTHER WAFFLE IS BETTER THAN A MICKEY WAFFLE!)

Our first park visit was Animal Kingdom. My poor H. She wanted to desperately  to see and get Pocahontas' autograph. We couldn't find her anywhere.

 Our first ride. Expedition Everest. I was unsure if this should be our first ride. H is(was) not a roller coaster type of person. She was NERVOUS to say the least. It was early and there was no line. There was no time for her to prepare herself or even get worked up about being scared. Which she was. But excited as well. One thing that helped is the fact that she loves all things yeti and sasquatch. Oddly enough we had just watched an episode of Finding Bigfoot about the yeti a few days before we left. So we get in and she is nearly shaking...off we go. I have never in my life heard my H scream like she screamed. Oh it was priceless. She loved every minute of it. She was terrified yet we had to ride it again. We rode it three times. It was amazing.

We didn't do much at Animal Kingdom. We rode the Kali River Rapids...yes we got wet...and just basically walked around a bit and then headed on over to Downtown Disney for our afternoon reservation at T-Rex restaurant

T-Rex is just a dinosaur version of Rainforest Cafe. It was a must for H. Rainforest was one of her favorite places to eat as a kid. I would have to drive her nearly 3 hrs so she could have her birthday lunch there. I know, I know. That smacks of spoiling my kids. But it was summer time and all my girls b-days were in the summer so we would make a day of it. Also, dinosaurs are her favorites as well. Seriously, she could name nearly all of them when she was 5. Jurassic Park is one of her favorite movies. Yeah, dinos are her favorite. So naturally we had to eat there. It was SO crowded and typical of the restaurant genre. But it was fabulous....I must confess....dinos are my favorite too :). While there she had to get the build-a-dino. Yes, she is 19 and had to build-a-dino. It was really cute. And I love what she named it. Crichton. After Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park.

After we ate we walked around a bit at Downtown Disney....jeez louise was it ever crowded. There was so much construction going on. And by that time our legs and feet were hurting so bad. Note: if you are going to Disney start preparing yourself a year in advance. Walk, walk, walk!!

I found the legos fascinating! Especially since I never had the patience nor the talent to put more than two or three pieces together myself. And of course, I had to take a pic of the pirate!!!


After DD we headed back to Animal Kingdom to use our last FastPass on  Dinosaur. Oh, if I could only show you the ride picture. H wouldn't appreciate that :). Again, she screamed like no one has screamed before. And again, she loved it.

So that was pretty much our first day. I'm going to stop here and do our next day in another entry. Our first day at Disney was good...a bit sad because H didn't get to see Pocahontas but it was still great!

5 Days

Yep, 5 Days. Only 5 Days. That's how many days until we leave for Disneyworld!!! We leave Sunday for the 8 hr drive to my Sister's. We will spend the night and get to visit with my Mom(whom I haven't seen since May). That alone is worth the trip. But then we are up bright and early and driving another 11ish hours to the Happiest Place on Earth!

Some of you may wonder why I chose to do all that driving. I'm sure you are thinking flying would be so much easier and quicker. Maybe. But we are die-hard travelers. I was raised taking road trips. My kids too. What with all the moves we had to make plus visiting family my girls practically grew up in the back of a vehicle. We love road trips. So that is pretty much the # 1 reason for us driving. Plus it comes out a bit cheaper. And...I'm a bit claustrophobic so I don't know how I would do on a plane. I've flown before but that was more than 20 yrs ago. I always joke that I would have to make sure I'm on a flight that serves alcohol. So driving it is!

We will be staying 4 days/5 nights.Our resort of choice is the All-Star Movies. We are going the cheapest route because we wont be in the room very much. All of our time will be spent in the parks. We chose the All-Star Movies instead of any of the others because we wanted to stay by the giant Buzz and Woody.

Here is my binder that has helped me stay a bit organized. I am not a very organized person so this has truly helped me. Though if I opened it up to show you, I don't think you would find it all that organized. For me though....it works :) You can see a hint of another little Mickey book to the right of my "magic" binder. That is my journal that I will be taking into the parks with me. I put my dining and room reservation #'s, and my itinerary...very rough one...we want to take it easy and go with the flow, and all the hints etc that I have found through the gazillion websites and discussion boards I have perused over the months. I will also be using it to jot down all the fun stuff I want to remember.

Magic Bands. The day these arrived was one of the best EVER. I wanted to jump up and down and squeal like a little girl. Seriously, I almost did. Right there in the middle of the post office. Mine is the red one and H's is the green one. I chose red because it's my favorite color and H chose green because it's Peter Pan's color.
This is what I did with mine:

I put a bit of sparkle to it. I used black nail polish on the Mickey head and glitter polish on the band. I have had several people wonder if it will affect it in any way but from all I have read it doesn't. Here's to hoping it doesn't.

Tomorrow we are off to the dentist...gotta get a filling for H. Then back home to finish off the laundry and start getting last minute stuff together. I've pretty much packed everything but our clothes and toiletries. I just need to get snacks and pic-nic stuff for the drive. Ok, so I even have some of my clothes packed. I think I 'll get the girls to help me clean out the van....maybe even wash it. Sounds good...put them to work.

5 Days!!!!!AARRRGGGHHHH. I can't stand it. I'm so excited.

Last Week

Last week we went to visit my in-laws. We only stayed for the day. They are having some health issues but it was so nice to get to spend the day with them. They live about 5 hrs away so we got to have a mini-road trip. Of course the girls slept the whole way.

Now, I LOVE antique shops. There are some pretty cool antique shops on the way. My husband, we'll call him C, always points them out. And always NEVER stops. Surprise, surprise, surprise, he stopped this time. Seriously, I don't know what got into him. But I certainly wasn't going to say anything and ruin my chance to do a bit of shopping :) Luckily I had 30 bucks in my pocket, a decent amount to have when looking at vintage goodies.

The bowl and the blue willow plates are what I purchased. Oh, but there was so much more I wanted. The cook book was my Mother-in-laws. She got it when she was married in1950. H (the middle daughter) was the lucky granddaughter who got to bring it home. The bowl was $5 and each plate was $4. I really should have bought more plates. I will eventually have enough to outfit a table.

While we were there we just sat around a visited. I mostly worked on my Harry Potter blanket for my niece...here is a bit of what I did.

You can see the Griffendor and Hufflepuff colors. 

On the way home we did a bit of site seeing. We stopped at someplace I haven't been too since I was a little girl. And a place H has been wanting to go see. My youngest (S) really wasn't too interested but she was stuck, nothing she could do about it. Oh, where did we go? San Jacinto Monument and the Battleship Texas. It was awesome. San Jacinto is the place where Santa Ana was captured after The Alamo and Goliad. Check out the monument here and The Alamo here and Goliad here. 

It was hot and muggy but we weren't outside much. And yes, we were able to go to the top. One little factoid that I just love is that it is taller than the Washington Monument. From the ground to the top of the star is 570 ft. Which is 15 ft taller than the Washington Monument. So, yes, everything in Texas IS bigger :).

 After we spent a bit of time there( it was difficult to drag H away from the actual, real knife that Davey Crockett owned...her personal hero) we went on over to the Battleship Texas. That was SO awesome. I am very claustrophobic but I sucked it up and went aboard....and down below. Though I didn't go all the way below deck. Take a look here. With my Dad having been in the Navy and my husband in the Coast Guard I just couldn't help but love the ship.

If you look real close you might be able to notice that the deck is wooden. That is just amazing to me. It is the only battleship to have been in both WWI and WWII.

I thought this was pretty cool. Don't know how old it was but Texans always show their pride.

And this is my favorite picture. Toward the bow with the monument in the background. We really had a great time. C and S (the youngest) really were in the zone. They could have stayed till closing.

These are just two more reasons I'm proud to be a Texan!

It's That Time of Year Again

Wow, two blogs in two days!! I'm on a roll. Ha!

Yes, its that time of year again. What is that you ask? Birthday Month. My sister, both her daughters and two of my daughters were born this month. My youngest was born next month. So every year we would gather for one great summer of birthdays. I would usually make(try to make) really unusual/fun cakes for the girls. Oh, how I wish I had some pictures. There was a snake one year(for my middle daughter), a hot air balloon(turned out cool), Spongebob, skull and cross bones( they were in to Pirates of the Caribbeans), a sandcastle(the best one), a sad attempt at a fondant cake, a flip flop( not good but not bad). All in all it was fun coming up with the cakes and seeing if I could make it happen...sure do wish Pinterest had been around!

Since the oldest is 26 and the youngest is turning 16 and we all live in different states and cities we haven't all  been able to meet up in several years. So my middle daughter decided a couple of years ago that she wants Kolache instead of a cake. For those of you who don't know what Kolache are here is the definition from Wikipedia: A Kolach (plural kolache /kɵˈlɑːtʃi/, also spelled kolace, kolach, or kolacky, from the Czech and Slovak plural koláče, sg. koláč) is a type of pastry that holds a dollop of fruit rimmed by a puffy pillow of supple dough.^[1] Originating as a semisweet wedding dessert from Central Europe, they have become popular in parts of the United States.

Most of my heritage is Czech. My Grandmother used to make some pretty awesome Koleche. My Aunt too. So I am trying to pick it up and make it a tradition. I-in no way, shape, or fashion-make ANYTHING as well as my Grandmother or Aunt. But I am trying. I'm also hoping that my daughters will pick it up too. My middle one has takin' to baking, praying for the other two :)

So I thought I would document my go at Kolaches today. Right now I'm waiting for the little balls of dough to rise for the last time before filling them.

Flour,yeast,salt in orange bowl. Milk, sugar, butter(I'm sure I'm forgetting something) in the red pot.Combine it then add the eggs and a bit more flour. Then let it rise double it's size.

Rising away

Form into egg sized balls, brush with butter cover and let rise again

While this lovely dough is taking it's sweet time to rise I made the fillings. Cream cheese(our standard), apricot, and poppy seed. This is my first year to make poppy seed. Fingers crossed it comes out right. Next time I make them I think I'm going to make prune and try pineapple. It gets easier each time. Oh, boy was I stressed and nervous the first time I attempted to make them. I had such big Kolache shoes to fill :)

Here is the poppy seed cooking. Sugar, a bit of water, a bit of milk and a bit of butter. I didn't follow a recipe because I didn't want to make as much as it called for. So, I just kind of winged it.

Cream cheese. Heaven. Cream cheese, sugar, butter. It does call for lemon zest but we don't like it included.

Apricot. Dried apricots, water to cover, sugar to taste, and I added cinnamon

Ready to go in the oven. The dark ones are poppy seed, orange ones apricot and white ones cream cheese

Then with the posypka. Which is sugar, flour, cinnamon and melted butter. In the oven for 10-15 minutes.

All done! Though they don't look like what I think they should look like. I think I need a bit more practice. I think I don't do something right with the dough. BUT, that being said, they are fabulous!!!

The hard part is going to be waiting til tomorrow to have one. I can't wait to try the poppy seed :)

So, my daughter is turning 19 tomorrow. She is my middle child but her birthday comes first. My oldests birthday is the 21st, she'll be 22 and my baby's is on Aug. 14th and she'll be sweet 16. I shouldn't say baby. But they all are my babies. I'm so proud of my girls!

This is what her decorations will be

She absolutely LOVES sharks. Has from the very beginning. She was/is a bit of a tomboy. Her favorite movie when she was 3 was Godzilla. She loved spiders, crocodiles, snakes and pretty much every animal that boarded the Ark. And her favorite man(besides her Daddy and Poppy) was Steve Irwin-The Crocodile Hunter.

Happy Birthday my Sweets! One day you will understand the amount of love that goes into making these kolaches for you :)

 

 

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It's Been Awhile

Yep, its been awhile. You could say I was busy. I was, sort of. Ok, so there were some times that I was busy. Ok, so I wasn't very busy at all. I've just been lazy. I know, I know. Not a good thing.

So life here at Mudgie Pie has been clipping along just fine. Graduation wash smashing. My daughter was beautiful and graceful( she was worried she would be the one who tripped this year). Still getting used to my Mom being gone. It hasn't been easy. Especially on Sundays. That was the day we usually would go see her. After Mass we would head on over to her place so she could cook for us. Right...that sounds kind of selfish doesn't it? But, really, it's not. She loves too cook and since it was just her we gave her an excuse to break out the pots and pans. And I am never one to turn down my Mama's cooking :)

Did I mention the cat we brought home? I don't think I did. Let's go back a bit. We moved here with-in a couple of months of my parents. When they got here a stray wandered up and my Dad said that she was ours. My daughter was begging and begging for a pet( mostly a dog, sometimes a horse). So we said sure. But by the time we arrived Bunny was already making herself at home with Mom and Dad. So I told them to keep her and we'll find some others somewhere else.So fast forward to the move and Mom kept saying that I need to take Bunny. I really didn't want too. Two cats, a dog and a turtle was enough for me. Well, come the week of packing up I couldn't do it. I just had to bring her home. She is just too sweet of a cat.

I must say that she is fitting in quite well. There were some hisses from my other cat but things are just fine now. She is a good cat and likes to stay outside most of the time. Which is nice since I don't want white cat fur everywhere. This winter she will probably stay in more.

DISNEY, yep, DISNEY. We have 24 days til we leave. I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself. My days are filled with last minute, fine tuning of our itinerary, and figuring out what to pack. I'm having a ball. I could go on and on prattling about The D. But alas, I know some of you would walk away shaking your head at my silliness. I really am a goober when it comes to the happiest place on earth.

I coming along on my Harry Potter blanket. I will save that for my next post. I need to take some more pics.(And of course I'm sure I will mention Disney. Maybe just a little bit)


And I just noticed the date. It is the birthday of my best friend from when I was younger. She would have been 48 today. Yes, would have been. When we were twelve she was killed in a car accident. Not a pleasant memory....but thinking of her IS pleasant. It is amazing how you can still miss a person so much after so many years. I often wonder what she would be like now. And would we still be friends. I miss her.

Think Happy Thoughts....Yes, think of Disney.

Getting Ready

So what am I getting ready for? DisneyWorld. Yep. I get to go to Disney. My dd2 is graduating Highschool and that is our gift to her. A trip to Disney. It will be just she and I. Why just the 2 of us.  1) My dh really has NO desire to stand around in the heat ( he does have bad knees so I kind of see his point).
2) We were going to go during the school yr at first and I didnt want dd3 to miss too much of school.( we are now going just before school starts)
3)  I kind of like the idea of spending individual time with each of my girls.
4)  And the main reason :) I had just enough time to scrape together the money for 2 people.
 I decided that I will take each one for graduation. Ooops, missed the opportunity for dd1. She'll get to go posthumously.

Ok, I bet those of you who arent really into the Disney thing are wondering why I am getting ready this early. Oh, you have to prepare VERY early. Ive had dining reservations for 2 months already. And I didnt even get to pick the times I wanted. They really do book fast!!!
Half the fun of a Disney trip is the planning. Ahh, the planning. Getting a binder together, picking which parks to go to on which days ,where are we going to eat, which rides to ride, what to take, what to take into the parks, what to wear( gotta have the right outfit for each park), what fast passes to use, what color for each magic band, the list is endless. Of course, most of those plans will go out the window once we get there but I really am having a grand time of it.

But the main thing I have to prepare are my legs. Oh yes. We will be walking miles and miles. I need to start conditioning myself. Ive been walking at least 3 days a week, about a mile+ each time. My goal is to be able to walk 5 miles before we leave. I'm really not a goal oriented person so we'll see how well it goes.

So this is where I have been walking. At least its part of where I walk. The other part goes through a campground and by the highway. Despite the highway it is a peaceful place to walk. There really isnt another good place to walk close by. I live in a pretty rural area with virtually NO sidewalks. I also walk my neighborhood which also leads down by the water. Other than the water its not an overly pretty neighborhood to walk, but it is safe and quiet.

 

It wasnt a terribly pretty day I took these pictures but it captures a bit of the beauty.