Taco Smell

Thunder Mountain

Small Iconic World

Tomorrowland

Hot tub

Pool

Tuesday

It's a COLD Tuesday here in Orlando. So cold I was forced to go to the Oilily outlet store and buy Sadie a new outfit. I just hated that. And I hated getting it at half price too, you know? We dropped Dan off at his convention this morning and went to the sunglasses store to replace the nosepiece on Dan's fancy cycling glasses, then were dragged by forces beyond our control to the Oilily outlet, and now are contemplating swimming in the pool. I'm sure Benny can brave the cold but I'm not sure about me and Sadie. The thing is there's a 50 foot water slide shaped like a python and you come shooting out its MOUTH into the pool, and it's very hard to NOT in it, you know? Then we're going to have serious, definite resting time and then we're going to MICKEY'S NOT SO SCARY HALLOWEEN PARTY which will be the first time the kids see the Magic Kingdom. Dan's convention is over today so he'll be coming with us and then we ALL have Wednesday and Thursday to play. Hooray.

Dolphin

Dan's convention hotel

Sadie

Loaded up with lots of Mouse gear!

It's 11:30

The wind has died down a lot. Now it's just raining. The kids are eating lunch.

Wilma Continued

Getting extremely windy and crazy here. Dan just set off with his sport coat in a garbage bag and a raincoat over the rest of him, to go to the convention center and do his work day. We're not going ANYWHERE today. We have the playstation, with games and DVDs to watch on it, we have Ahno's laptop with games to play, we have the violins, we have workbooks, Sadie has her dollhouse and all her animals -- we are prepared! And we have food enough that we don't have to leave the room for that either. Seriously, outside our door is a BAD storm! Orlando is pretty much shut down. Scary stuff. I'm glad we got our stuff done yesterday. Supposedly by the end of the day the hurricane will be gone and who knows -- maybe we'll be picking debris out of the pool and shooting down that python water slide again. Right now it's cold and insane and Benny just launched "A Dog's Life" on the Playstation -- he's in for the long haul.

Hurricane Wilma

We're getting a lot of rain, wind, and a general blustery feeling. I woke up at about six and couldn't sleep anymore because I could hear the storm outside and was nervous -- came out here and turned on CNN. Benny joined me about 30 minutes ago. The hotel sent out a notice that the pool was closed (duh) and they've taken in all the outside furniture and told us to bring in the patio chairs too.

Both the children were coughing during the night -- I think the rest day will do them good.

Epcot Center

Today we did Epcot Center. Dan had to work and so the kids and I went with Verena, Bob's completely excellent and perfect girlfriend. Verena is a wonderful, marvelous specimen. The children adore her. ADORE her. Benny came home saying "Miss Verena is my favorite." And by the end of the day, Sadie, when I said, "Do you want to go to Ms Verena?" said, "YESH." At first I was staying with Sadie while Benny and Verena went on the rides, but after a few hours I had determined that Verena was the salt of the earth and we started doing the "Child Swap Pass" where you can switch the baby from one adult to the other, while the other adult rides the ride with the older child. So she'd go on with Benny while I watched Sadie, then I'd go back on with Benny while she watched Sadie, and I got to go straight to the front of the line, and Benny got to ride everything twice. Some rides even had a neato play area at the exit for the younger siblings to hang out in while they waited for big brother.

The children were so well behaved, it was epic. Benny never complained, never said one negative thing, was a perfect dreamboat all day. Sadie never cried for one second. They were just magically delicious. We did everything in the first half of Epcot -- we didn't do the world pavilions but we're going back on Wednesday to do that and see the fireworks, which were cancelled tonight because of... you guessed it... LIGHTNING!!!! :) Shocking. The rain held off until the very end though, which was swell. We got wet on the way to the van again. Big whoop.

We had a GREAT time. There were prety baby rides that we all enjoyed including the greenhouse boat ride that Sadie REALLY loved. Then there were the more thrilling adventures like Mission: Space and Test Track and Soarin' that Benny relished. All good. I can't stress enough that the children were excellent. Consider that from 9:30 until 11:30 they played in the pool at the hotel, and Benny went down the waterslide about 589 times. Then we had lunch and went to Epcot and stayed until 8:30. AND NEVER BAD BEHAVIOR. I continue to not learn my lesson. Tomorrow we're taking a rest day to allow the hurricane to engulf the region. And we're going to lounge around and drool all day.

At one point we were riding "Test Track" which simulates a test track that GM uses to test their cars. It was bumpy, fast, crazy, lots of turns and zaniness, and at the highest speed where you go swooping around the outside of the building, with everyone screaming in terror, the most stressful moment (FOR ME) Benny was yelling, "I LOVE IT! LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!!!" Priceless. He had the best time ever. My precious adorable babies. Seeing so many other children really makes me appreciate my own.

Tomorow is rest day. My phone ran out of batteries and I forgot my wall charger, so we'll see where the moblog goes from here.

Test Track

Cold mist

Land

Spaceship earth

Epcot

Pool

Orlandoland

Gosh it's interesting here.

Things I learned at Sea World:

1. If you want to be the audience volunteer in the Shamu show, you have to wear tennis shoes. I was so close! It could have been me getting that kiss from the whale -- Dan was sitting there next to the guy that was choosing people and he volunteered me, but I had sandals on. We had the most awesome seats though -- it was crazy. RIGHT in front and exactly right by the place where the whales come up out of the water onto the platform to pose and flip their tails.

2. I really do not like roller coasters. We went on "Journey to Atlantis" -- Benny and I. It is all very nice boatride through interesting scenes and then suddenly you get cranked up to the top of a giant drop and hurled out into oblivion -- terrible!!! Then you get turned around, dragged through a pool that drenches you with water, then cranked up another hill, and just when you think you're safe and you're in the total darknes, you get hurled down another precipice. The whole purpose of it is to shock and terrify you -- it is a "thrill ride." Well. I will not be doing that again.

3. Benny is RIDICULOUSLY BRAVE!!! We went down that miserable abomination of a roller coaster/water thing and he NEVER PEEPED. In fact, *I* was clutching *HIM* as he sat there calmly absorbing it. When we finally finished up, he turned to the people in the boat sitting in the rows behind us (yes we were in front, by his request) and said, "Is everybody okay back there? Wow that was a WILD RIDE!" I mean, this ride was quite scary -- to the point that I sort of disagree with them letting kids his age on it... and he was completely IN LOVE with it. Had it not been shut down because of lightning, he would have cheerfully ridden it 65 more times. WITH HIS DAD.

4. Both of my children are incredibly reasonable and uncrabby, even when they're way overstimulated and in unfamiliar territory. Benny got a tiny bit crabby a couple times, mostly when I was demanding that he eat/drink/rest because I knew that he needed those things to continue his day, but he was able to think through it with me and comply with my wishes and never pitched a fit. Impressive. Sadie did pitch a bit of a fit, but bless her, she was well past her nap and she wanted to do the six storey rope climb with Benny and Dad, which would have certainly killed her, so she just had to pitch a fit a little bit, and then sleep. :)

5. Sometimes you can take your small children to an amusement park all day, then drag them out to dinner in a nice restaurant with all your husband's business associates, and then will behave PERFECTLY and be a DELIGHT. This doesn't teach us our lesson very much, but both Dan and I were so impressed and charmed with our children yesterday -- we fell in love with them all over again. SWEET PERFECT WONDERFUL CHILDRENS. They got a nice big stuffed Shamu to take home and they've even been POLITELY SHARING IT which - who could imagine that?

Have to figure out what we're doing today. Might go to Magic Kingdom or maybe not -- what to do, what to do? The plan was to take a rest today and go tomorrow but it looks like tomorrow is the hurricane. *PONDER PONDER*

Dry and drawing

We give up!

Raining still

It is thundering.

Plummet

Kids

Shamu show

Sadie's favorite

Atlantis ride

Soak zone

Seaworld

Breakfast of pears

Pajamas

After bath

In our hotel

Hotel

Orlando

Sweater

Done.

Last 1 Hundred Miles

We ate a leisurely IHOP dinner so B&S could decompress; here's Dad getting diet Coke for our final leg. B&S have been a delight!

Gas

Jacksonville

628 miles

One sleeve done

8.5 hours in

Welcome to Florida

Truckload of generators...

Going to Fla.

559 miles down

Look

I am making a sweater.

Georgia

Another

Electric company truck en route to FL

Cap'n Dan

Benny

SC

Breakfast

Waiting for Karate

Late

Writing his variation

Benny's Variation

Benny got a piece of paper and told me he was going to write down his Twinkle variation, which he performed at his recital but has never committed to paper. He had a marker and was toiling away with making lines for the staff and I came in here and got online and found a template for musical notation and printed him off a page of staff paper. I took it in the kitchen where he was toiling away and handed it to him and said, "Will this help you?" and he said, without looking up, "Oh thanks Mom." Then with his left hand he just casually swept everything off the table and onto the floor, and put the new paper down, with his right hand began making the G clef on the first staff immediately.

Why do I keep trying to homeschool this child? Why don't I just let him homeschool himself? I make lists of things for him to do, and then the actual schooling takes place in the part where he's in between things on the list.

Sadie, by the way, has Final Tooth poking through, and the little ANGEL went down for a nap without even a peep -- just laid down in the bed and tucked up with her blanket and went to sleep. Perfect, perfect, beautiful child.

I got a haircut, finally.

Today

Today it is raining again. No one is surprised. Dan is moving his servers over to his new office, since the world has today off. Then we're going to get Benny some shoes. He coughed all night, poor little bug. No other symptoms.

Warning: Sentiment

I was sitting at the table with Sadie Grace just a while ago and watching her eat chips and salsa, and I felt so lucky to be sitting there with this person who is going to be such an interesting adult with such an enormous personality and so much charm and magnetism and whatnot, and I thought, I'm lucky to be sitting here with her while it's still very engrossing for her to process chips through a bowl of salsa and get them into her mouth, and while she's happy to converse on the level of "Look, there's a cat." She's such a perfect, tiny, darling little daughter. She's so engaging and we fiercely, fiercely love her. She's PERFECT.

Somewhere wet in DC. I can't remember where this was, but it's possibly the wet White House.

Maryland

Ride cancelled - rain! :(

Benny

Amazon Science Gallery at Nat'l Zoo