WDW Day 3

Originally we planned to spend this whole day at Animal Kingdom, but before going to bed the night before we realized that Monday was "Extra Magic Hours" morning for AK, meaning everyone staying in the Disney resorts would be crammed into the park at 8 a.m. for that extra hour and it would be crowded. So we decided to take our chances, and the possibility of bigger local crowds for the holiday, at another park that morning. We didn't tell the girls about our change of plans.

We got up on time and walked down to the boat launch, but then realized the boats don't start until 8:30 a.m. so we walked around to the bus stop, but apparently had missed the most recent boat. The buses going to Animal Kingdom came every 3-5 minutes and were full, reinforcing to us that we made the right decision. We also knew this would be our last "warm" day in Florida, since a massive cold front was heading down.

The girls were very surprised when the bus pulled up at Magic Kingdom! We even made it before the opening show. One of the cast members went around giving the children a handful of sparkly confetti "Pixie Dust" for the show. The Mayor of Main Street welcomed everyone and the actor sang and danced, then the train roared into the station loaded with Disney Characters.

We counted down the opening of the park and threw the confetti up before joining the crowd going in.

Walking down Main Street, you can see the castle before you and it's really spectacular. To go into any of the lands: Fantasyland, Adventureland, Tomorrowland, Liberty Square, etc. you have to pass the Castle. A lot of people stop there first and take photos and look around.

We knew exactly where we were headed: Fantasyland and Peter Pan's Flight. We rode it twice without any line at all. (Later this ride had a 90 minute wait.) Then we went across the street to It's a Small World, where the girls said "Mom, take a picture of that!" non-stop. (Yes, I have a lot of photos of the Small World ride.) Then we went to ride the Tea cups, poor Bryan.

We had a short amount of time before the park filled up, so we hopped on the Indy Speedway. Cameron drove with me and loved it. Bryan and Brenna rode together.

Indy Speedway led us into Tomorrowland where we saw the Monsters, Inc. floor show. We all loved it. The premise is that laughter is more powerful than screams, so Mike Wasowski has to make us laugh and they interact with the audience, similar to Turtle Talk with Crush. The animation picks people out of the audience and picks on them. A cast member goes around with a microphone so you can "talk" to the Monsters.

Then we rode the Buzz Lightyear blaster ride, but it was not as much fun as the Midway Mania. Coming out of that we ran into Stitch! Brenna was a little afraid of him, but Bryan triple dog-dared her to give him a hug.

And she did! I think this day we also rode the Snow White Scary Adventures, but I can't remember now the exact order.

Now that it was after 11 a.m. we decided to grab some lunch on Main Street at Caseys (1900 style baseball, hot dogs) and head over to Animal Kingdom, figuring that the morning crowds would be thinning a bit.

To get there we rode the monorail in the front car over to the TTC and then took a bus.

Right outside the park, Cameron met with four characters. Brenna feigned indifference, but she was really a little bit afraid of them.

I can't honestly say that I blamed her. That Governor from Pocohantas would scare someone very easily! This park is laid out similar to Magic Kingdom except instead of a castle they have the Tree of Life.

Our first order of business inside AK was to race to Africa and obtain a Fast Pass for the Kili manjaro Safari ride. Once accomplished, we walked through the Pangani Forest Exploration trail. This is where we were when Lisa called to tell us that President Bush officially commuted the sentence for Ramos and Compean. My favorite part of the trail was the gorilla. I always liked the gorilla in the Houston Zoo, who died about 4 years ago.

Next we headed into Camp Minnie-Mickey to see the Pocohantas show. Unfortunately, after all our walking we found out they cancelled the show a few weeks (months?) ago and haven't decided what to do with the theater. Still, we were pleasantly surprised to meet Pocohantas.

I think we headed over to the Dino-Land section next and were able to pick up a Fast Pass for the Dinosaur ride. (Fast Pass allows you to pick up another Fast Pass about an hour to two hours after the first, even if you haven't ridden the other ride yet.) I'm not sure exactly WHY Cameron wanted to ride the Dinosaur ride, but we all got FP for it.

Finally it was time for our Kilimanjaro Safari, one of the most popular rides at Animal Kingdom (after the roller coaster). Your safari truck bounces along the dirt path observing a wide variety of African animals. We saw elephants, giraffes, rhinos, ostrich, lion, crocodiles, flamingos, okapis, warthog, and wildebeests.

I don't remember if we did something else between the Safari and the Dinosaur ride, but the next photo is from the ride. The premise is that you go to a dinosaur museum that sends you back in time to see living dinosaurs and something goes terribly wrong. Think Jurassic Park. I hated this ride as clearly evidenced by the photo.

We're in the second row. On the right you can see Bryan looking mildly impressed at the T-Rex roaring, Cameron is under his arm, holding her ears but still peeking out and looking. Brenna and I are completely bent over. I have my hands over her ears and am saying, "Don't Look! Don't Look!" (to her or myself??) Not that it mattered, because we didn't LOOK again for the rest of the ride. It was super loud, jerky, and there was that breeze they do to imply things moving around you and Bryan said the dinosaurs were really impressive and quite scary. Cameron loved it.

The Animal Kingdom parade started at 4 p.m. and we had dinner reservations at 4:30, so we picked a good spot near the restaurant where we could watch the parade. The girls whined and complained about having to wait for the parade and I realized they have never seen a parade in person.

Once the parade started they really enjoyed it and Brenna loved it. She jumped up and down, waving and giving high-fives to the characters who danced down the street. After the parade, we went to dinner at the new restaurant Yak & Yeti. Hands down this was the best food that I ate the entire week in the park. I enjoyed the Miso Salmon and Fried Wontons for dessert. The fried wontons were so creative and delicious! Wontons with sweeted cream cheese and grilled pineapple on skewers with a light sauce on top and ice cream on the side. A unique blend of flavors. I want this again!

We commented to the waitress how much we enjoyed the food (remember we'd only had dinner at the Sci-Fi place before, which isn't know for the quality of their food) and then she told us the "secret". "Thanks, we're new and we're part of the LANDRYS corporation!" You could have knocked us out of our chairs we were struck dumb and then laughed and laughed. We went all that way to Disney and ended up eating at one of Tilman Fertitta's restaurants!! Maybe that's an inside joke for those of you know us really well. If you don't get it and you want to, send me a comment and I'll email you the story.

After dinner we had just a bit of time before the last show of Lion King, so we went back to Dino Land. Bryan took Cameron on the Primeval Whirl and I took Brenna on the TriceraTop Spin (think Dumbo with dinosaurs). Finally it was time to go see Festival of the Lion King.

All we can say about Festival of the Lion King is WOW! Amazing. Beautiful. Fun! I'm so glad we saw this one. If you have the opportunity to go, don't miss this spectacular show. Singing, animatronics, fire-batons, monkey acrobats; a very engaging show. When the show was over, the park was about 10 minutes away from closing, but we still noticed that characters were available at the Camp Minnie-Mickey Greeting Trails. So popped in very short little lines to meet Goofy, Minnie, and Donald.

This was definitely my favorite Minnie - the jungle safari outfit was too adorable!

We left after the park closed again and rode the bus back to the hotel. We were tired, but glad we were able to spend the first two days seeing two of the parks (Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom) in case we didn't get back to them all week. We also were pleased that we snuck in an early morning to Magic Kingdom while it was still warm, though we didn't TRULY appreciate just how fortunate we were to have made that decision until later in the week.

WDW Day 2 Hollywood Studios

Sunday morning we woke up early because all of the guidebooks told us that to get the best bang for your time you simply must be at the park about 30 minutes before they open. Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM Studios) opened at 9 a.m. We headed down to the bus stop about 8 a.m. Despite the cool weather, we didn't wear anything heavier than a fleece jacket because we knew it would warm up. We were really excited at the prospect of going to our first park. The hotel bus stop has 3 stations with buses arriving about every 10-20 minutes taking you around to the different areas of "the World". We arrived at Hollywood Studios about 8:30 a.m.

Your hotel room key card is a master card that manages all of your activities including charges back to your account, Dining Plan, and park admission. The entrance resembles (to me) boarding the Metro in DC because=, you slide your key into the slot and it pops out the back giving you a green light. Adults also have to put their index finger on the fingerprint reading pad.

When the park opens they have you assembled in the main street area and they put on a show to officially open the park. Even waiting at Disney World involved a pre-show production. We didn't realize what was going on, so didn't pay attention. When they finally opened, we headed straight for Star Tours and were on the first ride of the day. On our way we passed a few characters but didn't stop to meet them.

After the ride, we crossed over to Pixar Place to get a Fast Pass for Toy Story Midway Mania. On the way, the characters we passed coming into the park were being led back indoors. While we couldn't stop and talk to them or get autographs, Goofy gave us a big thumbs-up, making him officially our first character interaction.

Fast Pass is a wonderful Disney invention (patented). It allows you to go to a specific ride, insert your room key into the "Fast Pass" machine and you get a little slip of paper with an hour block of time allowing you to come back to the ride and go straight to the head of the line. So if a ride has a 2 hour stand-by wait and you have a FP, you only wait about 5-10 minutes, which is how long it takes to walk through the pre-show/queing area, get past a certain point, and queue for a seat.

After getting our FP for Midway Mania, which turned out to be my all-time favorite ride of WDW, we stopped in front of the Sorcerer's Hat and watched the High School Musical 3 song/dance act. Then we went up Streets of America and Brenna got the first two autographs in her book.

Oh yeah, it was the Power Rangers! First we had to meet Red.

Then Yellow. We could have met Pink and all the others, but their time was almost up and we didn't want to spend any more of ours just meeting Power Rangers. Character interactions are very well controlled. Each character has a "handler" who manages their situation, especially for non-face characters (like Power Rangers, Goofy, etc.) who don't talk. They have specific amounts of time to be available. The characters sign autographs, give lots of high-fives, and pose for photos. The park time schedule gives you the times and locations where you can meet characters. You could spend all day in a line to meet this character or that and still might not see all of them working the park that day.

We headed back down Streets of America to the Muppet Vision 3D show, which everyone enjoyed. Looking at the time schedule, we wanted to go to the 11:30 showing of Indiana Jones Stunt Show, but we were also getting pretty hungry. I scoped out the Indiana location and learned we could bring food in, so we decided to try and get pizza from Toy Story's Pizza Planet and bring it to our seats and eat while waiting on the show. Unfortunately, the timing was completely off. Pizza Planet, which was supposed to open at 11 a.m., had computer issues and opened about 10 minutes late. By the time we got our food and rushed over to the Indiana show, the stadium was full and we couldn't get in. So we settled down on a park bench by the water and enjoyed some really delicious hot and fresh pizza.

Disney Dining plan allows each person one snack (ice cream, a drink, rice krispie treat, bag of chips, etc.), one quick-service meal (entree, dessert, drink), and one table-service meal (sit down, entree, dessert, non-alcoholic drink) per night. We loved using it and figure it saved us money in the end. However, we did end up walking around with desserts in our backpack and stashed in our room, because we didn't always eat all of the desserts though it came with the meal. (At this moment, I still have 1 rice krispie treat and 2 brownies in the kitchen.)

After lunch we went to see the Voyage of the Little Mermaid show. Both girls loved the show, but I rate it pretty boring. However, after the show let out, we were able to go back to Pixar Place and use our Fast Pass to ride Midway Mania, which is a new fairly simple ride with awesome interaction/graphics in 3-D. You use the toy cannon (with a string, like Woody) to shoot as you would at a Midway carnival. Rings, darts, etc. There are fabulous effects when you hit something. It was much better than a similar ride in Magic Kingdom.

When we came out of there, wishing we could ride it again, we walked into Journey into Narnia, which was another complete miss for me. It simply told the story of the Prince Caspian movie with some effects. Then we walked through the tribute to Walt called One Many's Dream. This museum of sorts included a look at Disney's life, career, and vision for his parks.

After One Man's Dream we picked up some ice cream and went over to the Indiana Jones Stunt Show, allowing ourselves a good 25 minutes before the start time to guarantee we'd find a seat. The show recreates most of the exciting Jones stunts, then shows how they were set up. The girls loved it!

We headed back across the park to Animation studio, which involved a short show, but exited to a character meeting area where the characters of Bolt, Incredibles, and Mickey Mouse were available for autographs. The Incredibles had left for the afternoon, Bolt had a long line, but we were happy to wait for Sorcerer Mickey.

We left the character greeting with just enough time to see the Lights, Camera, Action show way at the back of the park. This was another big hit with our family, involving awesome precision driving, car stunts, and then they showed how it was done, how the cars were modified.

After the show we had dinner reservations at the Sci-Fi Dine in Theater. What a cool place!! Disney really knows how to do themes and create magic. The whole eating area looks like a drive in at dusk. You eat in cars with a dashboard light and the "show" is a 45 min loop of campy sci-fi flick trailers, space cartoons, futuristic shorts, etc.

Unfortunately, this restaurant doesn't have very good food, with the exception of the dessert.

After dinner it was getting dark and we only had time for 1 or 2 more rides. We hopped on one of the last Great Movie Ride turns, then decided to end our day as we had started - with the last ride on Star Tours. (Again, no line.) Bryan didn't want to ride the simulator again since it gave him a headache in the morning, so he hung out in Tatooine Traders gift shop.

After the park closed, we took the bus back to our resort and the girls spent about an hour choreographing a "stunt" routine with their light sabers. Eventually we got them into bed because we had a really big day planned for Monday.

Walt Disney World arrival

If I've been quiet, it's because we've spent the past week at Walt Disney World. Bryan and I started planning for the trip when Cameron was born and last year we decided that it was the right time and the girls were just the right age to book the trip.

Saturday (the 17th) we flew to Orlando via Southwest. At the airport we found out it would be a full flight and it wasn't hard to guess where most of us were going. We were just one of many families, most with small children, and we were probably the only family not wearing a Disney t-shirt or other Disney outfit. When we arrived in Orlando, my first introduction to Disney was a very long line. It turns out that Saturday is their busiest arrival/departure day.

Disney has a great program called Magic Express, where they pick up your luggage from the baggage claim and bus you straight to your Disney resort on property. (The luggage is delivered something later that night.) But the line at the airport is something like checking your bags at the airline counter, with a lot more people. Only one person per family is allowed to stand in the line, while the others wait in a waiting area. You present your vouchers to a very cheery "cast member" who checks you in and tells you to gather your family and report to the "red carpet" (a tiny square) where you are sorted into lines for a specific bus going to your resort area. This is also initiation for the one question you will be asked at every park, in every line for every ride: "How many?" Four. 4. (hold up four fingers)

Disney does transportation very well; they are experts in moving people all over their property. The bus ride took about an hour, maybe a little more, and they played a "Welcome" movie as they drove all of us (full bus) to three of the four Magic Kingdom resorts. On the way to our resort we caught an outside glimpse of the Polynesian and the Grand Floridian.

But our stay was at the Wilderness Lodge. We loved it and honestly have to say we kind of wish we were still there tonight. In attaching the link just now I looked at their photos of the Lodge. I love how when you've been to a place, you know just where the photo was taken and you try to remember everything you loved about that place.

During check-in, we were asked if we had dinner reservations for all seven of our table service meals. Um, no... was it really necessary during this "off-season" time of year? Yes, we were told that if we didn't have reservations we might not be able to get into any specific places. The only problem was that I hadn't figured out which day we would be doing which park.

Our room was on the fifth floor in the left wing facing the swimming pool.

It also gave us a fairly decent view of the lake.

Though the hotel is really big, we discovered that our room was in a darn good location. We were about halfway down the hallway from an elevator that put you on the first floor right next to the Roaring Forks eating area, a little "quick-service" location offering a grill, freshly made sandwichs, grab and go options and drinks. We also purchased the refillable mugs allowing us to pop down and fill up with hot chocolate, coffee, or cokes at any time of the day.

After seeing the room (no luggage yet at this point) we had to figure out what to do. First order of business was to get some lunch. It was 4 p.m. (eastern) and we hadn't eaten since breakfast and a snack on the plane. We used our first quick-service credits (Disney Dining Plan) to get hamburgers and cheese pizza.

Immediately after eating, I received a phone call from Sue M., a dear "internet" friend whom I've known for ten years now and met twice before. She and her family live on the eastern side of Orlando and they were coming out to visit with us this evening. Even though we have only seen each other twice, the kids picked up right where they left off two years ago. I'm so amazed at how much Sue's older daughter has grown. The first time I met her she was about 7, and now she's a teenager.

For about three hours we explored the hotel courtyard and let the girls run around the pool, dipping their feet into the kiddie wading pool. Bryan went to make some dinner reservations and see if the luggage had arrived (it did) and unpack. Sue and her girls hadn't eaten so we popped back into Roaring Forks to get them some food and continue visiting. Her girls both have cell phones and Cameron & Brenna were thrilled to play with them, taking photos, "texting", and Cameron even talked on the phone to one of K's friends.

Finally about 8:30 p.m. we said goodbye for the third or fourth time and went back up to the hotel room. Bryan had made dinner reservations for the Sci-Fi Drive In restaurant at Hollywood Studios for Sunday, so we knew where were were heading in the morning.

50 Years of NASA Imagery

UHCL held their opening reception for the JSC exhibit "Fifty Years of NASA Imagery" this afternoon. The program consisted of UHCL President Dr. William Staples, JSC Center Director Michael Coats and yours truly.

Originally scheduled to be a small affair with thirty or so images and maybe 40-50 guests, it exploded when over 220 people sent in RSVPs. The University Advancement office pulled it all off brilliantly, expanding the exhibit (for the reception only), ordering more food, and moving the main location to a larger space.


This morning I pulled together about fifteen photos, with captions, from our JSC History Collection to put in a locked display case to be a part of the exhibit also. I'm so glad that I did, because I saw many people, especially what you might call the old-timers, pointing and chatting about the images.


Dr. Staples spoke and Mike Coats announced the new UHCL/JSC Space Act Agreement, but what stands out is that Dr. Staples praised my work in the Archives. It's very gratifying to hear those words come from our University president. I had three minutes to speak about the Archives, our MOU, our growth, and photographs. Many people told me I spoke very well - slowly (at last!) and with enunciation. Whew.




EDITED to add the text of my talk:

Today’s exhibit honors 50 years of NASA Imagery. NASA photographs have united the world in a unique way ever since the Apollo 8 Earthrise, that extraordinary moment in 1968 when the whole Earth first saw the whole Earth. While photography documents or records subjects in a visual format, it also evokes emotion and interpretation based on the viewer’s own personal experiences.

In 2001 UHCL became the home of the Johnson Space Center History Collection through an MOU signed with NASA and the National Archives. Housed on the 2nd level of the Neumann Library, the collection consists of more than a million and a half memos, reports, oral histories, publications, and photographs documenting manned spaceflight.

While the material upstairs is not the formal, official, record copy, the collection nonetheless is extremely valuable because of the item-level and folder level indexing on two databases maintained by Johnson Space Center. With these databases, we are able to assist both scholars, and NASA employees and contractors with their requests for information. Whether it’s writing a PhD dissertation on space suit development, reviewing lunar landing sites not utilized during Apollo, or compiling information about command service module umbilicals or EVA handholds, in the past seven years our records have been accessed by over 800 people in person and another 1700 requests via email.

This collection continues to grow through the generous donations of retired JSC employees. Records are being added annually by men such as Aleck Bond – who worked to develop heat shields, Sam Nassiff who managed the LLRV/LLTV project, and Michael Reynolds, who worked in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory. We’re working with NASA Johnson Space Center to continue collecting from retirees across the area.

Though the most popular NASA images may be found on their new nasaimages.org website, the JSC History Collection contains a surprising number of lesser known images. The photographs housed at UHCL were collected because of their use within a specific JSC department, such as the Technical Services Division, whose 12 boxes of black and white and color photographs from 1959-1972 include images - from seemingly ordinary equipment, tools, and parts housed in the machine shop, to an individual carefully crafting an early Shuttle model.

The Flight Crew Operations boxes contain folder after folder of training and simulation activities, including rendezvous and docking, desert survival and Skylab era Neutral Buoyancy training.

Though what I’ve briefly described may not seem as exciting as those images in this exhibit today, they are also capable of bringing great pleasure when they are rediscovered and utilized by our researchers in the Archives. I invite you all to come and visit the Archives.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to me.

Happy Birthday to me.

Happy Birthday to me, the mom, who is still in her thirties.....

Happy Birthday to me!

For my birthday this year Bryan and the girls took me out to dinner at BJ's. Then a few people from work took me to lunch the next day at Wael's. For dinner, Mom and Dad took us all out to Carinos. Then Saturday after working all day cleaning out Cameron's closet, I made the "executive" decision for us to eat at Don Picos.

Recycled Desk

When Cameron moved into her new room last year the only thing missing was a desk or place she could sit to write and do homework. Bryan had this old desk that had belonged to his mother.

Do not adjust the color on your monitor, you're correct. It's a late 1960s mustard yellow.

In June I took it outside and sanded it, primed it, and painted it a very faint pink color. Naturally, this project took me about six months. On New Years Day, before we planned our marathon painting weekend (see next post), I did take this desk out of the garage to put on the second coat of paint.

Tonight she did her homework at her desk.

Painting Marathon

Saturday Bryan and I agreed it was finally time to paint Brenna's bedroom. We originally painted this room in yellow with green trim and pink curtains for Cameron (then age 2) in late December 2001. We moved both girls into the room on Dec. 28, 2004.




Last year Cameron moved out of this room and into the "guest" room leaving Brenna in the yellow bedroom. (Photo was taken before we evacuated during Hurricane Ike.)



When Cameron moved out, Brenna wanted to know when we would re-do her bedroom. To be fair, we did pick out the paint a few months ago. She chose "Bridal Blue" with white trim.



I invited Lisa & Leah to come over and paint with us because both of them LOVE to paint. Not only are they good at it, they're fabulous at picking out colors and getting motivated. They spent the last week at SBR painting the new enclosed porch room and kitchen and playroom. The suggested colors for my house included Behr's "Baked Scone" and "Cup of Cocoa" for an accent wall.

Leah couldn't make it (sickies in her house), but Lisa came over pretty early, and Mom and Dad came out for the rest of the day too. It turned into a fairly intense painting marathon.

Since they were coming over, we agreed to also paint the kitchen. When we bought the house I liked the busy wallpaper, but now it's finally gotten annoying. We tried pulling some down and surprise - more paper and behind that is wood paneling. So we gave up pulling it off and taped it up for the primer and textured paint.

Before (above) and After (below)

That's sort of where it all exploded. I'm not really sure of events, but I helped tape Brenna's room and the kitchen, then Lisa rollered the wall while I cut in the edges, corners, etc. While I was finishing that, a whole bunch of things just sort of happened. Dad helped Bryan repair some places in the wall, and we couldn't paint the kitchen until those spots were dry.

Next thing I know, Lisa has taped and is painting the foyer. I start cutting in that area and she starts an accent wall in the dining room.

To be honest, I think she would have taped the living/dining areas and painted those too except we had moved all of Brenna's furniture in there so we could paint and rearrange her room. Lisa did paint the bookcase white in the middle of the living room.

Meanwhile, Dad and Bryan fixed a crack in the hallway and the next thing I know, there is paint going up in there too!

Before photo - white walls and off-white trim and doors, possibly original? (the trim and doors)

After photo. Now in a warm cookie color and white trim. Actually, I should confess that at the present it's very odd-looking as the walls match the doors and trim since I only managed to paint this one doorway trim. There are nine doorways in this hallway.

By the time everyone had left, Bryan and I realized we had been working on the house for 17 hours only stopping to eat. Sunday we felt hungover but still had to finish a second coat here, trim work, bookcase, put Brenna's room back together, etc.


However, all in all - in the end - we have some really updated looking rooms. As bad as I felt yesterday, I do love the clean look that comes from new paint, and nothing on the walls. (But what to do with all of the frames we took down?) I also am faced with the daunting task of all that door and trim work in the hallway. If you know me, you know how much I hate to start a project I can't finish within my time frame.


Perhaps this summer we'll finish the hallway.




ps - THANK YOU LISA, MOM, & DAD!!!