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