Vay Cay Shun..Three

Friday and we went off....to Walt Disney World!

Remember when I mentioned that my ex-father-in-law/Jake's grandpa Al met us at the Navy Exchange on Thursday? He was helping us buy our Disney Florida Residents Passes. As Florida residents, we get 365 days a year, plus free parking for LESS than an out-of-state person can buy a two week park-hopper, NOT including the free parking we get. As a relative of a military man, we get about a 10% discount and no tax. (If you buy a one-day park hopper, you are nuts, and are spending over $116 to do so. The more days you buy the cheaper it is, but really, who is going to buy a two-week consecutive park hopper. I digress).

We talked and talked about going for years. It's cheap considering the daily price, but it's expensive too when you have to plop out a chunk of change for 4 people. Jacob and I used to have them ourselves when it was just us two. Buying for four is a different story. But we saved and saved and saved, and took Isabel to her first visit ever!

(Hey Desi, what's Darren doing there? heehee. He reminded me of pictures I've seen of Darren out of the corner of my eye. But Darren's wife is way prettier. LOL)

Here she is, walking into the Magic Kingdom Park. It was HOT. Of course.

Here they are, watching a duck family walk out of the castle.

Her first ride HAD to be the carousel. She loves them. She did not quite understand "lines" and "having to wait in them." She whined and cried a few times, pushing me in the butt, trying to get me to move already. Poor thing. We did Aladdin's carpet ride, the Dumbo ride, she ran through a water play area, another kids play area, we walked the Swiss Family Tree House and watched a parade.

We were tired so we took a leisurely ride on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority ride. We caught a show at the castle, and then headed home.

The sign of a successful day.

Yay Jesus!

Jacob and I are upstairs. Isabel and David are downstairs bowling on the Wii. Suddenly, Jake and I hear a very vociferous "Yay Jesus!!!" coming from downstairs.

Curious, Jacob and I stop what we're doing and head downstairs.

On the Wii, when you are playing sports or games, you get to create your own character. If you are on-line, you can also share characters with anyone on the net also using a Wii. You can "Import" them. Jake loves to import funny ones.

Hence, "Yay Jesus!!!"




He'd just bowled a spare, but notice....Isabel was winning. He's so nice, letting her win.

Vay Cay Shun..Two

Thursday. We got up early and got ready to meet Jake's grandpa Al down at the Navy Exchange. He was doing us a favor (THANKS AL/POPPA!!!! You Rawk!) by taking time out of his day to meet us there. For what? I'll tell you tomorrow!

After that we headed to IHOP for brunch and then drove around the city of Orlando, I-4 and then hopped off into Winter Park. This is a shee-shee beautiful, rich city, with a wonderful downtown area. We found a spot on the main road, parked and walked through the park by the train station and down the busy streets full of beautiful shops and boutiques.

They are hosting this art project right now. Artists from all over got to paint on these "ArtyGators." The Gators were all over the place; on street corners, in the middle of sidewalks, down side streets. They were amazing. The artists are very talented. We went out sans camera, so here are some Gator-Shots taken with my camera phone.

(sorry: Was working on the blog on the old computer and it froze. Here are the pictures)





Here's a surfing one. Forgot what it was called, but you can see Isabel there. She loved them all.






This one's for you Heather. It's called LitiGator. :)

This one was beautiful. Something about Grapes.

And of course....GatorGator. GO GATORS!

Lost in Translation

I've been reading a lot of classic books lately (Crime and Punishment, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dante's Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise,) and stating how good/bad they were for me.

I read an introduction to one of them and got to thinking about these works I have been reading lately. These books are all translated; respectively, from Russian, French and Italian. I am basing part of my opinion on the translator of these works. One book even had the person writing the introduction disagreeing with the translator on some turns of phrases.

Things do get lost in translation. I see it all the time between English and Spanish. Slang that does not translate, idioms and dialects can't be explained well in another language and get lost.

It's too bad that we don't become more learned in other languages like other countries do. It would be great to read a Classic in its original form.

By the way, my book posts are going to be a little slow in April:

I'm reading the Russian epic, "WAR AND PEACE."

Vay Cay Shun..One

Yay!

Jake's on Spring Break this week, so back in January, I filed for vacation for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of this week.

The vacation has started off with a BANG! *eye roll*

I took the Jeep to the dealership because they got in a part they had to order from the last service I got. The service was going to take forever and I was stuck in the waiting room because a certain someone was griping about the 40-minute one-way drive to the dealership to pick me up. I was disturbing his beauty sleep. Luckily, I had a book with me, but then Ben the repair guy comes in the waiting room and tells me that free car rentals are included with my Jeep as part of the contract when I bought the Jeep new from them. SWEET! Off I rode in a 2007 PT Cruiser.

(I change the blog color yet again. I cannot find "me" in the color schemes. I want it to be "me" ykwim?)

No plans for today, just NOT working is fun enough.