Surgery & the weightloss

I started this blog to write the adventure I started on January 1st 2008. I wanted to blog while I worked on losing weight and hoped that it would help me in my quest for healthiness. As of this writing, I've lost 57lbs. I've lost it everywhere but ONE place. My breasts. I'm huge. Not Dolly Parton huge but darn close. After many visits to the Doctor, many funny exercises to try to lose the weight there, I've decided to have a breast reduction. My insurance provider (God bless them) deems it medically necessary and will be covering the cost for this life changing operation. There are so many things I am looking forward to after this. Things the average woman doesn't think about. Like....

• buying a ONE piece swim suit
• buying a dress
• RUNNING - think about it!
  
• neck pain relief
• back pain relief
• buying a bra in a NORMAL dept store
• and so on and so on.....

I have many things to do this weekend in preparation for the surgery and my recovery. Wish me luck and watch here for updates......

Thanks for reading.

...and finishing it up with Magic Kingdom

I'm glad I left Magic Kingdom for last. It's quite a bit like Disneyland, but just not the same. It's almost when Walt was designing it he SNEEZED and everything got spread out. It made the trip easier because we didn't do as many things at Magic Kingdom.

Had to go check out Its a small world. After they changed the Disneyland version, I thought they might have done the same at WDW (they didn't). Disneyland added a bunch of new characters (from Toy Story, Cinderella, etc). The weird part is getting used to the big clock being INSIDE instead of the large part of Disneyland that it is.

On the way out of town the next day, we stopped in Celebration, FL. Very cutesy Disney designed town. This is one of their electricity poles:

Next day: Disney Studios

Last time I was there it was called MGM Studios. I love all of the rides, especially Rockin' Rollercoaster. But better than that....and better than the one at DCA is Tower of Terror!! I also LOVE Toy Story Mania!! OMG....probably the best attraction Disney has put together.
We ate at the Sci-Fi Dine In. Food was good but the movies were silly!!! The restaurant is setup like an old Drive In and we get to sit in old convertibles. Such a cool idea.

On to Epcot!!

**Epcot**

I love Epcot. We had fun with my step son here. We called him from "England" and told him we were there....told him we walked there from China. He thought we were totally serious!! Even got mad at us!!! Teenagers.....

Another favorite (and I think the ONLY ride at Epcot beside the PUKE ride Mission Space) for me is Test Track. This year I got to go through the Living Seas and really enjoyed it. I'd missed that the last two times I'd been. I had fun watching a couple of dolphins play chase with us while they were waiting for guests who had paid to swim with them. They were doing all kinds of tricks...even got me to be eaten by a shark!!
I just had to close with this picture....really like the lighting at night.

The LAST thing we did was to ride Spaceship Earth. The big globe you see here. At the end of the ride we got quite a surprise! Once we realized how FUNNY it was, I grabbed my camera and videoed it. Hope you can see it. I giggle every time I watch it!! (video was taking too long...will update later)

Next stop...checked into Pop Century.

This is the hotel we stayed at. It's a value resort (but it was costly because of the time of year!!). We had so much fun walking through the resort looking at all of the architecture. The rooms were nice and clean and Disney like. Had Disney soaps, etc in the room and Disney comforters. Normal Disney room stuff. The busses were quick and that made getting to the resort great! I upgraded our room (extra $30) and we stayed in the 1970's hotel. This got us closer to the busses as well as the main building (the Grand Hall) where the food court was (food was decent) and the shops and check-in.

The Duncan YoYo's held the stairs for the hotel. Pretty cool way to hide stairs!
That's me at the bottom of the Mickey phone (that I own!!). Everything is so cute here!

I'm so far behind!

Life's been a little busy lately...just got back from Orlando/Tampa, my HDI conference in Vegas, and being out sick for a week. What to update first??

ORLANDO: JT had a work conference in Tampa and we flew a few days early to Orlando. I just HAD to go to WDW!!! It was my third trip to WDW and his first. I had it all planned out and we did all four parks in TWO days. Stayed at Pop Century (would definitely stay there again!!!) and started out at Animal Kingdom for 7 hours. Stopping here and adding pictures. I have to make this into a few blogs....the trip was just too cool to make it into one blog!!
The first attraction we went on was the Kilimanjaro Safari. Yes, this is a WHITE RHINO butt. We were this close to him. I didn't zoom in. I could have reached out and touched him....but was a little freaked out how close they were. we also saw this baby elephant.....so cute with his mommy!!
After the safari, we headed to Expedition Everest. JT wasn't too excited when he found out it went backwards but afterwards, he LOVED it! One of the best rollercoasters ever! We also went to the Lion King show. Really good.

Wicked in SF

Last night we went to San Francisco to have dinner at the Daily Grill (MacNCheese to DIE for!!!) and see WICKED. Wow. I knew it was the story of the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda (Ga-linda) the good witch but I didn't know how detailed the story was. I loved it!!! Really strong performances from Teal Wick and Deedee Magno Hall. The Glinda character was hilarious. I just busted a gut during the "Popular" song. The set was gorgeous and really made you feel like you were in OZ. This picture is me and Teal Wick (Elphaba). I just loved her voice and they way she played the character. I almost didn't recognize her when she came out of the stage door. This is Deedee (Nessarose) and me. Funny, when she came out the stage door, I kept thinking she looked familiar. I didn't have my glasses so I couldn't read the Playbill very well so I didn't know her bio. It kept bugging me why she looked so familiar so I googled her when I got home. Duh. She was on the Mickey Mouse Club back in the 90's. I used to watch it with Ian when he was a toddler. How funny was that?
It also starred Carole Kane - Miss Morrible (Guilty pleasure: I LOVED her in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen!) and David Garrison - the Wizard (he played the neighbor on Married with Children). Jeff got a picture with him. We had a wonderful time, a chilly walk to the theater and great memories of a great musical. I hope to see it again SOON!!!!