back to bloggin'

Last week was a bit crazy and I didn't have much computer time - I'm back! I have over 300 e-mails in my hotmail account and have yet to plow through them. Way too much of it is junk. Blogging is way more fun. So where was I? First Minneapolis for work. Not much to comment on that one. Then I flew to GRR - Grand Rapids! I stayed with Kelley and her family. The girls are getting so big! Almost 2 and so tall. Being twins they have their little moments. One is good and one is bad - and they switch at the drop of a hat. I took them gifts - Minnie Mouse pj's and Maren wore hers all day Friday and most of the day Saturday until they finally hit the laundry. If they were off she would say "pajama's" over and over until she put them on again. Quite the hit. Hayden is also growing up and was fun to play with - good imagination. Both girls are snugglers and were great with me even though it had been a year. Kelley was a great hostess and her house is so cool! Way better than a hotel and we also got to spend tons of time visiting.
I also got to see Michelle and Katie - fun night out with the girls! That had been a long time coming. Lisa met me for lunch in a raging snow storm on Saturday and then Kim came to Kelley's at night for drinks and snacks - lots of brownies and wine! Sunday I went to breakfast at Real Food with Stephanie. Yummy! Their pancakes are so good and I now Steph is still probably eating them! Two is good for at least 3 meals if not more.
Now I'm back home and back to work - I'll get caught up with the rest this weekend! I'm hoping the rest of our snow melts this week! Spring - bring it on!

flying thoughts

so I left at the butt-crack of dawn this morning - 4:45 to be exact to catch my 6 am flight. And yes I did make it with a few minutes to spare. So the flights aren't very full and on my second leg from Detriot to Minneapolis I was thrilled to again have the whole row to myself. I could sleep and maybe kill off this raging headache that I had! woohoo. And then I hear the voice. The voice of a little boy who is about 8. He is sitting right behind me reading a story out loud to his mommy. Not quietly either - he's very loud. You can tell others are hearing him and are a bit annoyed. His mother says nothing in fact she encourages him by asking really DUMB questions about the story. Imagine my excitement when he say's "the end". Then he starts reading it over! OMG! I was ready to reach behind me and yank the book out of his hands. And then I remembered that I had ear plugs in my purse. Leftovers from Nascar weekend. Yep, I stuck them in! She saw and I could have cared less what she thought. First of all what makes you think that everyone wants to hear your child stumble over a story that he's learning to read and it's quiet on this plane. Get a clue. I'll take that screaming baby any day - they can't help it.
So after checking into my hotel and meeting the local HR person here I tried to take a nap. Failed. Time to shop! I didn't go to the Mall of America - there was another one closer that had all sorts of cool stores listed. Guess what? It was outside! I tried to tough it out and gave up. It's freezing cold here and way too windy to walk around outside. I can see that place being empty in the near future. Hello this is Minneapolis - freezing capital of the US and you put a mall outside? Even in Orlando they have roof covers are the outside outlet mall. The upside... there is a PF Changs that we are to dinner at tonight there. Yay!
So tomorrow I'm off to Grand Rapids after my meetings! I can't wait!

spot on

Our new favorite cat sitter is 9 and he brings his mom or sisters with him to feed Cali when we are gone. He's a good kid. We do pay him and this time around I got him a little thank you gift too. After much thought I knew it couldn't be the usual Disney tee in bright colors - he's a boy after all. So I found a Pirates of the Carribean - it's got the skull and cross bones and it quite cool in the boy sense. At least I was hoping I had it figured out. I was worried he wouldn't like it. Silly me. I gave him the t-shirt last night and had to run over his money tonight and he was wearing the t-shirt. In fact he announced he even wore it to school - I had to laugh. I did good with a gift! Woohoo!

Orlando Restuarant Find!

Bogards rocks so if you're headed down to see Mickey and Minnie anytime soon put it on your list. Don't let the biker theme scare you off - it's just stuff on the walls. We were surrounded by lots of business people dining out. It's near the convention center. The person at our hotel recommended it. The food is awesome! They specialize in four things... a bit much in most cases, but they pull it off. BBQ, Steaks, Shrimp Boil, and beer I think - wait I see it's oysters, but the beer was good too. I had mahi-mahi wrapped in oak paper with tomato's, capers, and spices - it was excellent! I don't cook fish at home and mahi-mahi really doesn't have any fishy taste. Mark had the ribs and they were wonderful. Tender and tasty - perfectly smoked. Better than at home - lots of meat on them too. I did see the shrimp boil (and heard it too) and it looked very good if I was a shrimp person and I'm not. Instead of bread you get mini-corn muffins with jalepeno's chopped in them. My salad had olive tampenande (chopped olives and stuff) on top. The salads were huge for side salads. We ate half - she told us to save room for dinner. We split the side of mashed potato's and they offered a lot of options for sides - mac-n-cheese, veggies, fries, etc. - way more than I can remember. A side is good for 3-4 people. 2 if you are piggy and we were not. As tempting as dessert looked we did not have any room and had enough left for another meal. Sort of wish we had gone there earlier in the trip so we could enjoy the leftovers, but oh well, next time.
It's located on International Drive and is worth the hunt to find it.

Disney Photo's

the test track ride

my penguin

Well we only planned to do one day at Disney on my birthday, but since the water park was not open at Sea World we went to Epcot for the afternoon on Monday. We knew which rides we wanted to go on and forgot that some were at Disney World. Oops! It was fun anyway to blast off like an astronaut and also soar like a bird. I think we even found a few we missed last time. We went to dinner at the Mexican place at Epcot and again enjoyed a very good meal. I had mahi-mahi with peppers, onions, olives and stuff. Mark chicken with creamy sauce and new cheese. It's pretty popular and for good reason. Even caught part of the fireworks - they fed us and had us out the door in less than half an hour. I figured we would miss it, but our waiter was awesome.

Epcot ride??

Tuesday we went to Hollywood Studio's for my birthday. We had not been there together before and I hardly recall the trip in high school (shamrock shake Julie?) - that is my memory of that trip. The Rock-n-Rollercoaster was quite fun and even more fun was the fact Mark didn't know it went upside down. I think most people didn't know that. It's not like you can see it because it is so dark in there, but still you go upside down. We also hit the Tower of Terror - think elevator nightmares. Except you get to sit down and wear a seat belt. The thing I noticed the most about Disney is almost all rides are inside unlike Cedar Point where you can see everything you are doing. I really wanted to see the American Idol show, but they cancelled the 2:oo pm show. We ate lunch at Mama something or other - Italian and I got a phone call from Goofy wishing me a happy birthday. Pretty funny. Not so funny is they thought my name was Mary because I didn't catch her writing my name on my birthday button. It's not like I will answer to that when someone says my name. Now I'm going to see which photo's I can upload - I got a couple fun ones.

is his hat big enough?

Day at Daytona!

The race boy!

I'm having blogger issues so this is a bit funky of a post. I can't make it look "right" so enjoy! Saturday was race day at Daytona - pre Daytona race week. The ARCA race was in the afternoon then we had wings and beer in the Hooter's tent (did I mention this was Mark's day?) and then we watched the Budweiser Shootout after. It's not quite a full race and they get a break after 25 laps and then go back out for another 50. Tons of crashes and delays - at least half the field in the first race crashed out and quite a few in the next. It was warm up until race time and then I could have used a snowsuit. There were little boys wearing just polo shirts in the suite behind us. I guess they thought it would be warm out?

And who is my favorite driver?

These are the Bud horses.

Any guesses as to who this is?

Dad's next job?

The stairs behind me are the scary kind with open backs and it went up at least 6 stories or more.

sunshine update

Since I'm short on time I will just say for now that we've had a great time in Florida and it's gotten warmer each day until today's high of 80 something. Probably just 80. We hit Daytona on Saturday for the Bud Shootout and Arca Race. Sunday we hung around the pool and stuff. Monday we did the pool and then Epcot (this was not in the plans, but Mark really wanted to go do something fun and fun it was) and Tuesday we went to Hollywood Studios for my birthday. Even got a "happy birthday" phone call from Goofy while eating lunch. Hilarious! Loving the no lines thing. Mark even survived the upside down roller coaster because he didn't know it did that. LOL! He doesn't even remember the music on it - and we rode it twice. The 2nd time I sang along to "Dude looks like a lady". It was the Rock and Rollercoaster. Fun, fun - Kelly was right. The Tower of Terror was Mark's favorite I think because he made me ride it back to back. So pictures will come tomorrow or Thursday. We fly home tomorrow.

COLD, COLD, COLD!

The ground is still covered in the white stuff - way too much snow here this year. It's unusual for here, which is exactly what I want to hear. I can deal with a bit less snow. I haven't seen the grass since before Christmas! We've had more issues with the driveway and the non-AWD car (not my car of course) and we can't wait for a little melting spell. I am hearing 40 by this weekend. Now it's freezing cold still. 5 F this morning - shocker as I thought we were past that level of coldness. I thought the guy on the radio was joking, but my car said it was just as cold out as he claimed. So tomorrow we are leaving it BEHIND! Jumping on a plane and going to somewhere nice and warm. Now it was 33F there this morning, but is a fluke for sure. I hear by Saturday it will be back up in the 70's and that is plenty warm for us. I still packed my swimsuit! If you leave a few nice comments maybe I'll ship you some of the warm weather we hope to enjoy! LOL!

cat rebellion

Marley, I mean Mani is on a roll. He has a new naughty trick that only happens when he's pissed at me - literally pissed. Last time we came home from vacation I was unpacking our suitcase and I turned around and found him squatting in the suitcase and at first I was like "get out!" and then I figured out he was peeing! In the suitcase! He only hit a pair of Mark's socks. Best case scenario. Fast forward to today I am changing in our closet and this is also where we hide the cat feeder during the day. He comes in and was fishing his food out and I kicked him out of the closet and went to do laundry. I'm almost done folding and I hear the telltale scratching sound that he makes when he is done peeing and he's not in his box! He peed on a pair of Mark's underwear that somehow got left on the floor! Only on the underwear, which is ideal. I'm furious and he knows it and hides under the bed. So the feeder - it's still in the closet as I refuse to lose this pissing match! Wonder if he has figured he's off to cat camp this next week? Not about to leave him home while we are away!