Busy Weekend: Sunday at Universal

Last week, I won tickets to Halloween Horror Nights off a local radio station.  Go me!

I win on the radio a lot when I really try.  Jacob begged "Mom, you have to win me tickets!"  We don't have our annual passes anymore and he really wanted to go again this year to HHN.

Along with the 2 Halloween Horror Nights tickets I won, I also got two park-hopper one-day passes and free parking.  How cool was that prize?  The HHN tickets were for Jacob and a friend. The Universal Orlando passes were MINE!

Sunday morning, Isabel and I got up very early.  I packed our lunches, some ponchos, extra socks and our camera into a backpack and off we went, leaving the men-folk at home snoring away.

WHAT a gorgeous day.  The weather was cool and there was no rain in sight.  To top it all off, the parks were empty.  It was fabulous!  We got there at the 9 a.m. opening and spent the first part of the day at Universal and the second half at Islands of Adventure.  The line for The Wizarding Worlds of Harry Potter?  Fifteen minutes, and those 15 minutes were spent just walking through the queues to get to the actual loading zone.  I'm telling you all, if you can come at a time that is NOT summer vacation, Spring Break, Thanksgiving  or Christmas breaks, you will have a BLAST.  I know how hard that is for parents with kids in public schools.  EVERYONE gets the same vacation and everyone heads down.  It's horrible.  But if you can somehow swing October and the first 2 weeks in November, or the week after New Year through end of February, you will LOVE it.

We ate lunch, got soaked on Popeye's ride (yay, ponchos from home!), got soda refills for 95 cents because we still have our cup from over a year ago and they still refill it (wh00t!) and had fun, just us gals.  I really miss our passes.

Eventually, Isabel's feet started hurting and she asked if we could leave.   We'd been there about 6 hours so we were good to go.  We'd done a LOT.  Thank you radio station and Universal Studios Florida for our free tickets.

Busy Weekend: Saturday Party

On Saturday we headed a little over 2 hours away to the house of  my one sister left on the West coast for a party for her two kids. (The other 3 sisters are all near each other in South Florida now.)

Isabel had a ball with her cousins, second cousins and new friends.

No, I did not make the cake.  It was a picnic theme.  Cute!

My nephew throwing the ball.  

Isabel having fun.

They played "Junk in the trunk."  They had tissue boxes strapped to their rears.  The boxes had small ping-pong/wiffle balls in them.  They had to shake their caboose really fast, in order to try and empty the "junk in the trunk."  It was hysterical.

Junk in the Trunk

Toilet paper race

The party was the impetus for my previous "hot men" post.  My cousin Jessica and I were having a discussion on hot men, and it reminded me of my conversation with my husband that one night watching "The Avengers."  She could not believe I thought Loki was hot.  She said to her husband "She thinks Loki's hot!"  Her husband said "Different strokes, babe."  While she is saying this, my sister Jany walks by and says "Who Loki? He's HOT!" and gives me a high-five.  Yea!

We then went on to discuss all the men on my previous post.  For the record, my cousin and one other gal said Nathan Fillion was gross, David Boreanaz was ok, they did not think Hugh Jackman was cute (WHAT?) but they thought Jensen Ackles was cute to the point of too pretty.  LOL  All the while, Jessica's 13 year old son rolls his eyes at us "old ladies" talking about guys.

Good times!


Happy Birthday to our nephew Kaleb and niece Jocelyn!

Hot Men....According to My Husband

My husband and I were watching "The Avengers" at home one evening.  I sigh and say "MAN, there's a lot of eye candy in this movie."  While I was saying that, the character Loki was on the screen.  My husband says "Wait, wait, wait" and pauses the movie.

"Him.  You think HE'S hot?" my husband asks.



"Um, YEA!" I reply.

My husband just stares at me and says sometimes he doesn't understand some of the choices women make on good-looking men, so we start discussing men I think are attractive and he says Yea or Nay on them.

Nathan Fillion?

Hubby: Firefly-Nathan or Castle Nathan, cause he's put on some weight.
Me: ANY Nathan.
Hubby: Meh.




David Boreanaz?

Hubby:  Yep.  I agree




Jeremy Renner?

Hubby: OK, now you're messing with me.
Me: What?
Hubby:  Come on.  His nose.
Me: Hot.
Hubby: No.





Hugh Jackman?

Hubby: Yes, I'll agree on that one.





And finally, the one man that when I mentioned his name, my husband paused and then stated "Yes.  Definitely. I'd say he actually would go at the top of the "Good Looking Man" list."

Jensen Ackles.

Hi, I'm Kaaren and

• I'm addicted to Gymboree.
• I'm deathly scared of opening biscuit tubes.
• I believe in God. 
• I wish I was wealthy so I could stay home and bake more.
• I miss my Disney annual passes.
• I looooooove reading.
• have kids who think I'm cool.  True story.  Maybe when she goes through her teens, she'll not like me much, but right now, I'm cooooool. David thinks I'm delusional about this.
• my knee is not much better.
• I'm sad my oldest friends don't contact me because they assume I'm checking up on them on Facebook.  I don't.  I call.  and get voice mail that is never returned.
• I can touch my tongue to my nose.
• tomatoes are yucky to me.
• I have 4 sisters and no brothers.
• I don't sleep well.  
• I can't swim.
• I buy milk at the store that is going to expire sooner than the other milks in the case, because I know we're going to use it before it expires and I hate to see waste (people choosing the newest expiration dates available, leaving the old ones to be tossed.  I know. I'm weird)
• I can keep a secret.
• I recycle.  My son's city scholarship was all funded by our city's recycling profits.
• I have nothing cool to post about right now, so you got this.

Happy Friday!

Class of 2016 Picture

And then I was 12

We have a new wellness plan at work.  Fun stuff, actually.  We are all competing against each other and on teams to see who can walk more, eat better, sleep longer, etc.  I even got a nifty tracking device called a Fitbit Ultra.  It's been fun.

Part of the wellness plan has us do some biometric testing, including blood work.  We were sent a home test to get a blood sample and mail back.  I took it to work this morning.  I did not eat breakfast nor had I had coffee; just water.

I go to my bathroom in the office, clean my hands with very warm soap & water, dry them, rub them vigorously to get the blood flowing

and then, I was 12.

I freaked the heck out.  I could NOT do it to myself.  I don't mind when nurses draw blood or prick my finger. The thought of me doing it to myself, though, freaked me the heck out!

I came out of the bathroom and told my boss and another co-worker that I could not do it.  They both started laughing.  I emailed 3 of my walking team members in other states and told them.  They all assured me it did not hurt that and I'd be fine.  My favorite reply from the 3 was "For the love of God, you've had TWO KIDS! You can do this!"

About an HOUR later, I still had not done it.  My co-worker (who is the one that tends to rescue me when cars break down, whose family and wife are very close to my family, etc.)  offers to push my finger on to the lancet while I look away.  I agreed.  The boss came to watch (i.e. make fun).  I was not mad; it really *was* ridiculous!

No countdown, just "poke" and I was done.  No where near as painful as other ones I have had done!  I placed the blood in the tester doohickey, let it set for 15 minutes, packaged it up according to the directions and got it ready for mailing.

Phew.

Just Some More of Panama

My trip this past week was in order to do some training for a new gal that we hired.  The training was spotty at best.  That branch is loco crazy busy and I could not blame her nor myself for the little training we got done.  The branch had been without an admin for a while and I was doing the work from Orlando.  A temp had been called in to help but it was still a lot to catch up on.  We were trying to get orders processed, branch accounts caught up, vendors paid, all while the manager was out of town.  It was, again, loco crazy, and we barely touched the specific computer software and inventory training I went down to do.  They have to do SO much more, accounting wise, than I do in the States.  We have a corporate office that handles all that for me.  They, being in a different country, do not, so they have to do all their AP, AR, payroll, insurance yada yada yada, themselves.  It's A LOT of work for them.   She's coming up to Orlando soon and we should be able to get more done with my portion of the training without the hurry and insanity that is our Panama branch.

Here are some pictures of the week.

Hello!

 This was my 11th stay at the Four Points Sheraton and I still love the place.  The hospitality never ceases to amaze me.

I spent my off-hours time eating at restaurants or bringing stuff back to the room.  Then a bit after dinner, I would head off to the hotel gym and walk on the treadmill for 40-50 minutes.

This picture below, I took on the way to dinner with two co-workers.  I was laughing so hard as I grabbed my camera.  We got to this busy intersection and there was NO TRAFFIC LIGHT.  I said "What??  What are you supposed to do here? That's crazy!"  There was a lot of honking and edging up and up until we cleared the intersection.

This is one of my Panamanian co-workers who was basically my chauffeur all week.  I took him and the gal I was training to a nice dinner to thank him for all the driving around.

The Italian restaurant was dead on a Thursday night.

Pasta stuffed with chicken in a white cream sauce.  It was YUMMO!

I had to take a picture of the restaurant's sink because it was so pretty.  Yea, I'm a weirdo.

I was there Sunday through Saturday.   Amazingly, I slept so well almost every night except Friday night.   It's always a nice time even though I miss my family a lot whenever I go.

Pour Some Sugar On Me

On the non-stop flight from Orlando to Panama City, Panama this recent trip, I was sitting in my aisle seat, having just finished my airline-provided chicken sandwich and minuscule salad (they still serve meals on all Copa Airline flights) and was working on my dessert bar.  I had been given some coffee, with two cream packets and two of the thin, long sugar packets.

I shake and open the cream.  You know what I mean.  You shake the packet so all the contests settle to its bottom and you can tear the top without everything spilling on you.  I stir the cream and grab the sugar.

The first sugar packet gets shaken with one quick flip, gets torn and added to the coffee.

The second sugar packet gets shaken.  And disappears.  I am left holding the small piece of paper I shook it from.  I immediately GASP loudly and look around.  The sugar packet ripped, flew from my hand and proceed to douse the people behind me in sugar.

I was mortified.  I yelled in English (like a dummy; I'm on a Latin American airline) "Oh I am SO SORRY!  It tore right out of my hands! Oh, I am sorry!!"  Then in Spanish, I reiterate my apologies. 

I was so embarrassed.  When the flight landed, I again apologized to the people behind me.  Thankfully, they were kind and told me not to worry about it.

The Seventh Flooooooor

(You have to say the title like "The laaast meeeellon."  You know the movie, right?)


In the hotel we stay at in Panama, I´ve stayed on the 1st floor, the 3rd, the 8th, etc.  But never the 7th floor.  The 7th floor was for the Preferred Guests.  Guests who have stayed in the Four Points chains' of hotels several times.  My two co-workers, who travel to Panama a lot more than I have,  have hit the 7th floor.  It was my Mecca.

Finally, I made the 7th floor.  I MADE it!!

Oooh, look!  I get a newspaper every morning.  Aaaah!  There are extra amenities and "stuff" in the room!  Cool, a sewing kit?  Mouth wash?  An extra toothbrush and toothpaste without asking?  Is that...A ROBE?  I made it!  I'm on the 7th floor.



The following morning I head downstairs and talk to my co-worker.  I ask him what room he's in on 7th floor.

"I´m not.  I´m on the 5th floor.  They gave me champagne and a fruit basket, but I didn´t want to try the fruit so I threw it out" and he heads off to get coffee.

And I sit there and start to laugh and laugh.  I was so excited I got the Preferred Guest floor.  Who knew there was a Super-Duper Preferred floor?

 

Music and Video Goofiness

Nothing new to post really.  Just wanted to share this song that I just love. It's the weird dub-step music playing during the chorus that gets me every time; love it.    Alex Clare's "Too Close."

 

Also, BLR has another FUN video that we've been quoting for like 2 weeks now.






And finally, another YouTube page I subscribe to: Screen Junkies "Honest Trailers."  As a Joss Whedon fan, I love this: