Magic at the Magic Kingdom

Tuesday was our first day of three that we were spent in the Magic Kingdom. The forecast called for afternoon showers (only 30% chance) so Jen and I thought it best to go the direction of Tomorrow Land and Fantasy Land first. This was so we could do all of the outdoor rides first and then if it did rain in the afternoon we could go on the rides that are inside. As we entered the park I wanted to get a picture of the family on Main Street USA. This so happened to be the same time that several of the Disney Characters came out to sign autographs and have pictures taken. We were able meet Pluto, Chip and Dale, Daisy Duck, Pinocchio, and Jiminy Cricket. The kids loved getting their signatures and pictures taken. I was worried that the characters would freak Dan out so the week before we left for Disney, Dan and I watched youtube videos each day showing other kids meeting Disney Characters and we talked about how big they are but how nice they are. Dan really loved hugging each and every character that we saw. He even cried when he didn't get to hug Buzz Lightyear so Jen told him to run back and do so which he did.









The very first ride that we went on was Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin. We went on this ride three times in a row without a wait each time. The best part was that after the third time we told the kids that we needed to move on and just as we were leaving we ran into Stitch. This made Michael's entire trip. His favorite character is Stitch and he was able to meet him. He was one giant smile. From there we moved through Tomorrow Land and went on the Astro Orbiter and the Indy Speedway. I know why they give licenses at the age of 16 and not 2, 4, 6 or 8. I rode with Sam and Dan and they practically threw me out of the car several times. We laughed the entire time and had a blast. We moved on to the Mad Tea Party (tea cup ride) and on the second time riding the ride, Alice and the Mad Hatter hopped on the ride in the next cup to our family. It was perfect timing.




We planned to work around the park from the right because of the weather but this was also the day that we were eating at Cinderella's Royal Table for lunch and I wanted to enter from the back side of the castle because this is where the reservation counter is located, away from the new stage on the front of the castle. This plan worked out perfectly. We checked in for lunch, were escorted in to meet Cinderella and have our family picture taken with her and a picture of Becca alone with Cinderella. This made Becca's entire trip. While eating lunch we met all of the Disney Princesses and had outstanding food as well. It was awesome knowing that we were eating inside the castle where many people never get to go because it is very difficult to get reservations for this meal. My favorite part is where Dan was flirting with Princess Aurora which she picked up on and gave Dan a big lipstick kiss on his cheek. He wore the lipstick for the rest of the day proudly. I think this made Dan's entire trip.







The rest of the day we finished most of Fantasy Land , Mickey's ToonTown and then headed to Liberty Square to sit and watch the parade. The parade was fun and the Mad Hatter recognized Michael from earlier in the day because he made fun of Michael's mohawk calling him a hedgehog. After the parade I thought it would be fun to let Jen ride her favorite ride since all of the kids went on their favorite rides so we hopped over to the Haunted Mansion for a spin in the Doombuggies. Dan and Becca rode with me and Dan was not too amused with this ride. I thought he was going to crawl into my shorts mid ride.







This was a perfect Disney day at the Magic Kingdom. The park closed at 7 PM this night because it was the first night of Mickey's Not so Scary Halloween Party which cost an extra $55 per person and ran until midnight. We figured it was not worth the money since our kids breakdown at 9 PM so we thought it would be wise to leave a bit early (around 6 PM) to get dinner back at the hotel. This is where my brain kicked in and said let's ride the ferry to the Transportation Center and catch the bus back to our hotel. The idea was that the kids get to ride a large ferry boat on our vacation, not something they get to do everyday in WV. Jen thought it was a great idea since I knew what I was doing. After 30 minutes of waiting and riding the ferry, we went to look for where the bus stops were for the resorts. When we couldn't find them we asked where they were and the Disney person said that resort buses leave from the parks only, not from the transportation center. So we gathered everyone up and hopped on the Monorail to go back to the Magic Kingdom. So now after a large circle on a ferry and Monorail, we were right back to where we left the park 1.5 hours earlier. The kids did get their Monorail driver's license by sitting up with the driver. Oh well, as the motto goes, Hakuna Matata. We made it back to the bus and to our hotel a bit later than we thought but we still had fun.

Back From Disney and Back to Blogging

Wow, what a week we just had. We are back from our first real vacation as a family. We were at Disney World this past week and had a blast. It was the best vacation that I have ever had. We took the kids out of school and I had my grad students teach my classes with Hurricane IKE heading south we had no worries the entire week. The weather was hot and muggy but we had fun anyway. I have so much to share with our vacation that it may take a couple of blog entries to cover it all.

As a quick overview, we left WV on Saturday, Sept 6 and headed toward Orlando stopping in Columbia, SC (our half way point). We made it to Disney World by 3 PM the next day which made me very happy because we had dinner reservations at the Polynesian Resort at 4 PM to eat at Ohana. I highly recommend this restaurant if you like grilled meat. The food never stopped coming and the bread pudding and ice cream dessert at the end was heavenly. We went to the Animal Kingdom on Monday and then spent the next three days at the Magic Kingdom and then did the reverse drive back to WV again stopping in Columbia, SC. This was my third time at Disney World and it was by far the most fun that I have had so far being able to share the experience with my own kids.

The longest we had to wait on any ride while we were there was 15 minutes for Peter Pan's Flight. We walked on every ride while we were there. The kids loved Cinderella's Golden Carousel, Mad Tea Party (tea cup ride), Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin the most. I think we went on these rides seven times each.

With going when we did we received the Disney meal plan for free for our entire family and with Jen's amazing phone skills was able to get us into all of the best dining options at Disney. We had lunch with all of the Disney Princesses inside Cinderella's castle at Cinderella's Royal Table; we had lunch with Mikey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, and Pluto at Chef Mickey at the Contemporary Resort; and we had dinner with Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Piglet and Eeyore at the Crystal Palace in the Magic Kingdom. With the free dining plan we figure we saved around $1000 in food costs while at Disney. Since we had our SUV there with us I went to a local grocery store and purchased milk, yogurt etc. for breakfast. So while at Disney, we did not spend a dime on food and had some of the best food that Disney has to offer.

It was fun to go with a childs perspective of Disney. We hunted for all of the characters to meet them and get their autographs and pictures. I have never done this and we had a blast doing so. We have over 30 signatures from various charactures while we were there.

We made matching shirts for each day while we were there. Each shirt had West Virginia on it. We tie-dyed two days of shirts and had solid for the other two days. It was fun to see how many people came up to talk to us because either they were from WV or knew someone living in WV. It was a blast.

This post has a few of our family shots from our first day at the Animal Kingdom. This was Jen's and the kid's first visit to the Animal Kingdom so it was fun to see their reactions to the park. Sam went on the Dinosaur and Expedition Everest rides with Jen and was terrified of the rides when he got off. I was proud that he tried anyway. Dan fell asleep just as we went to meet all of the characters but he was able to meet them all over the next couple of days in the Magic Kingdom. Michael really enjoyed seeing all of the animals since he is our animal nut in the family. During the parade, Briar Bear pretended to sit on Becca and then gave her a big hug which she really enjoyed. Overall a great day, a hot day but a great day.

I will try to post and comment on our trip at the Magic Kingdom tomorrow. I need to get a sandwich before I head to bed.

Best Day of the Year

For those of you that do not know, August 16th is the best day of the year. Today we celebrated my birthday with helping a friend of Jen's pack their moving truck. This took nearly seven hours. I was very thankful that the Missionaries from our Church were able to reschedule another service project and come and help us instead. This was a great opportunity for our kids to learn about sacrifice and service, both of which are very important to myself and Jen. They saw that we gave up a special day to help others who were in need of help. Jen and the kids bought me wonderful presents for my birthday but just spending a beautiful Saturday with them was enough for me. The one present I really enjoyed receiving was my favorite cheese. It is Wensleydale cheese with cranberries imported from England. This is a special event cheese since it is $25.00/lb. I received other gifts which I hope will help me during the deer hunting season which is just right around the corner. This evening we decided as a family to go to the University and pick Cornelian cherries. Cornelian cherries used to be a common berry but not anymore. They come from a plant called Cornus mas (Cornelian Cherry Dogwood), and are in the Dogwood family. They are a tart berry and they make the best fruit drop cookies you ever ate. The kids help pick so we would have enough to make the jam needed for making the cookies. Yum yum! While we were at the University we took home up a 55 gallon plastic drum that a friend picked up for me so we can make a rain barrel from our downspout. I am very excited about this so we can be 'more green' with our gardening and reduce water costs. The best part of today was being to try out my new camera that I purchased for myself. It is a Sony DSLR which is a 14.2 MP camera and I have one 18-70 mm lens. The pictures that it takes are amazing. I have never had a high quality camera before and this camera is going to be fun that is if I can ever get it out of Jen's hands.

Sleeping, Painting and Riots

Yesterday we went to Target to buy the kids their school supplies and all we could find was a life-size 'Dan' doll. Actually, Dan fell asleep on the way to the store so I held onto him and took the cart to the pet isle and put a dog bed in the bottom of the cart and placed him in. We were able to get all of our shopping done and Dan had a wonderful nap. I did not buy the dog bed though. I was very proud of Becca today. Painting is one of her most favorite things to do in the whole world and she has become quite good. She painted onto a large picture we had of presidents of the U.S. or something like it and she painted within the lines and not crazy-like as she did when she was younger. Speaking of crazy. I found out today that there was a mini-riot on the WVU farm yesterday. It was caused by peaches. I went out to the farm to help sort and bag peaches and to make sure that I was able to purchase some. We start selling the peaches at 1 P.M. and people had already started to line up at 10:15 A.M. The WVU campus police came out to the farm to direct traffic because there were so many vehicles and then part way through the line the peaches ran out. The people that had been waiting that did not get any were quit mad and began screaming and making a big fuss (so I am told) and the police had to calm them down and send them on there way. Crazy. Again, all because of a bit of horticulture.

Ohio and Berries

This past week we met Jen's parents in Ohio at a campground. This was our first opportunity to camp with children and a dog. I highly recommend this experience to everyone. We stayed at Punderson State Park for two nights and there were thunderstorms each night with lightning that lights the night as if it were day. This is always enjoyable when you are staying in a tent in a campground. We had fun anyway, it was really nice during the day. Scooby had not really played with other dogs before and found it interesting to play with Duke (Jen's parent's dog). We celebrated Jen's and Lauren's (Jen's cousin) birthdays while we were there. It was nice having cake and ice cream at the campground. I think Dan enjoyed his smore more than the cake. One evening we went into Middlefield to go to Walmart and KFC and found that Middlefield is a strong Amish community. Part of Walmart's parking lot is for horse and buggy parking only. They even have a barn/shed for the horses to park in when it is hot (see pic). The KFC also had a buggy parking area with horse tethering as well but no barn. We also went to Kirtland, OH to visit LDS church historic sites. This was our third time visiting Kirtland and our first time being able to go through the temple. I took a picture of the kids at the steps of the temple and included the one I took 3 years ago for comparison. It is amazing how fast they grow. When we got back I had to pick berries to maintain a picking schedule for a local blueberry grower who was on vacation this past weekend. We picked berries on Saturday and yesterday (Monday). Yesterday we picked 40 pounds (42 quarts) of blueberries, 10 pounds of raspberries and a couple of pints of blackberries. Again, I really hate horticulture, it is such a horrible field of study.

Sometimes it is Hard to be a Professor

This past Thursday and Friday I had a 2 day meeting with a landscaping company out of MD. Their company covers from PA to GA and grosses about $ 70 million per year. The meeting was at the company president's house just outside of St Michaels, MD which is located on the Eastern Shore of MD on the Chesapeake Bay. On the way there I had to cross the Bay Bridge which I think is the longest bridge I have ever driven on. The bridge is 4.3 miles long and the driving surface is 200 feet up from the Bay. There is two bridges with 3 lanes on each bridge, it was pretty amazing (First 2 pics). I spent the night in a B&B called The Oaks which was built in 1748. The B&B is about a 30 minute boat ride from St Michaels. The cove where the B&B is located was full of jellyfish swimming in the water. The picture before the jellyfish shows the two boats that we were using the two days departing back to the president's house. There were three faculty that were at this meeting from WV (myself), MD and GA. We were picked up by boat each day in a speed boat (worth $60K) for our commute to our meeting. On the commute in on Friday morning there were crabbers all over the bay pulling in crabs, very interesting to see. We ate lunch at the Crab Claw in St Michaels. The restaurant is located right on the water and we tied our boats to the side, got out and ate. We ate a ton of steamed blue crabs. Eating crabs are worth it but a whole lot of work. We noticed at the next table over from us there was a couple with a parrot and the lady kept giving the bird crab legs to eat. I have now found a new vacation spot, St Michaels, MD. It was a very nice trip (and productive too). Sometimes it is hard to be a professor.