I look at the blog, and I say to myself, "I should really put up a new post. The good people out in Disney Monkey Land want to know of our adventures. But we have done so much lately, and I tell such long and wondrous tales, that it would take forever to get another post up. Maybe tomorrow...."
And so it goes, day after day. But today is Easter, and I have acquired the day off (see the first line of this post for reasoning). And we have been on A LOT of adventures since my last post, and all my camera's memory cards are filled up, and I should do a post before I back-up and delete them. When I say full, that means well over a thousand pictures in total, just so ya know. Putfile.com’s utility may well explode. You’d think with 2 GB’s of RAM, I could reasonably upload some pictures, but it may well be the internet connection.
So, you might wanna go to the restroom, get a snack, put a turkey in the oven, you’ll be here a while.
As mentioned, we went to the last Pirate and Princess Party on my birthday, March 8th. Before hand, Becca and I went out to eat breakfast at my restaurant (I think you all know what it looks like by now) and out to dinner at Boma at Animal Kingdom Lodge. It was a very nice buffet, and I got a cupcake. :)
The PPP was a lot of fun, but of course, I got inside the park and snapped one picture before the camera battery died. :( So, yeah, those other monkeys’ pics are all we have.
The next week, as many of you know, Becca and I flew home for a (mostly) surprise visit. We will call it a Spring Break / Granddad’s 90th Birthday / Reverse Vacation trip. Secrecy was, for the most part, strictly enforced, with only the more loose-lipped and paranoid folks figuring anything out before hand.
Starting with Bec and I in Orlando International Airport (MCO) headed out. My little terrorist of a wife tried to take her perfume and hair gel on the plane, and I had to hike back out to the truck with them so they wouldn’t be confiscated.
Some of the folks we visited with:
Granny and Granddad, who were completely (and delightedly) surprised when my Aunt Anne and Uncle Earl picked us up at Jackson International Airport (JAN) and brought us to Ebenezer.
Ken was quite surprised when we drove up in Hesterville the next day.
AlliCat got a new horsey.
These sneaky people already suspected we were coming, we just showed up a couple days early.
Rachel wasn’t quite as surprised we were coming as she would have you believe...
Though she was naturally very sad to see us go.
Hayley is already a diva, but I think Hudson is perhaps the better dancer.
Honestly, how many times have you seen Jim look like this? I can count a few...
Yeah, Jim knew we were coming, though the choice of shirting could be subconcious.
Banjo is ready for us to be home too.
On Granddad’s birthday (March 16th), we stole a “sleepy” Hayley from daycare to go visit in Ebenezer. Apparently she’s no good to anybody until she’s had her morning Gatoraid...
We met up with Mollie, Banning, Granny, Pat, and the birthday boy at Homeplace restaurant (J’s) for lunch.
Hayley and Banning are of course true connoisseurs.
Mollie Moodles. I’m well aware of how strange the straw looks.
He looks ecstatic huh?
See, he’s happy. Blinded by the flash, but happy.
Everything’s better when there’s a card anyways.
Cuteness runs in the family, naturally.
Back at Wren Plantation, she was asleep the first time we came in, which enhanced her surreal disbelief of our arrival. On our return though, she had been very busy preparing this fruit and vegetable, um, garden thing for Granddad’s party at the Holmes House (which we had to come back to Florida before).
But of course, we all know who you’re waiting to see....Punky!!
As cute as always of course, with only moderate belly expansion thus far while on the Bubby diet.
Of course, all good things must come to an end, and this trip was no different. Back at JAN, or maybe even Houston-Hobby Airport (HOU), it’s hard to remember, much less judge by the carpeting... Dead Man’s Rule is an excellent novel that the in-laws sent me for my birthday, signed by the author. Still haven’t heard the story behind it though actually...
Well, the next week, we all (eventually) made it out to Cocoa Beach for a day of fun in the sun and surf.
The three of us able to get up in the morning started our day in the sand with a picnic of sorts.
“I think the ocean’s that way....”
Dessert? No, but Becca is a friend to all animals, including sea snails.
“Those are big waves..... Perhaps snorkeling isn’t the best idea...”
Hey look, they do exist...
“I <3 Cocoa”
Yes, that’s a bloody lot of tiny shells sifted out of the shallow surf and sand.
Beachy.
Cute, but this is only the beginning...
Jennifer is preparing to re-enact the ancient Egyptian practice of mummufication. Yeah, that must be it.
Even Bigfoot enjoys a good coastal sabbatical once in a while. (Sorry, couldn’t resist).
We left the beach and headed to Ron Jon Surfshop for some shopping, and to ask the locals where to go for seafood. They pointed us to Florida Seafood. We concurred but soon discovered we just cannot escape Disney.....
(Nemo, duh)
It was all good, but pretty sure Jennifer’s food might have weighed more than she did....
*There has to be something specifically funny about this, but I’m outta ideas, so insert your own caption here.*
The next adventure would of course have to be Gatorland!! Very nearby plus completely non-Disney equals a good place to visit. Not all of us were able to make it up in time to go though...
Gators are interesting, and very frightening creatures. In multiples, this increases exponentially.
“Mmmmm, tourist”
Flamingos and buzzards really can be friends, who knew?
I’d rather she did it here than back home...
This guy’s seen some things, but he ain’t talking...
They’re sorta cute when they don’t weigh hundreds of pounds and dream about eating us.
They’re big, they’re slow, they’re old.
Becca’s are short for their own good, otherwise they could fall over fences...
And that would make this guy WAY too happy.
This seems like a direct, apparent, and intelligently placed sign to me:
But these guys have broom handles, so, um, yeah, it must be safe, or so a Becca would have you believe...
Yes, that’s Becca’s arm, and yes, it just threw a big chunk of meat at hungry gators.
Gator equivalent of “Mine! Mine! Mine!”
“No thanks, I’ll just have a salad.”
“Hello, little girl. Wanna pet me?”
A battle of wits...
Perhaps we’ve been using the wrong bait when we go fishing...
Becca the bird lady.
“Mmmm, that’s good Becca.”
Rico here might not be the smartest wrangler, but he does sing a good lullaby.
We survived. :) Moving on.
We have missed getting to go to church, a lot. We work Sundays, and haven’t found anywhere, so we have had to do without, which makes us sad. Also, we are in a major metropolitan area that gets some big name concerts, which we aren’t exactly used to back home. Put those two things together, and you find Becca and Thomas at First Baptist Orlando (HUGE!) on a Friday night for Lift Orlando, a Christian concert. We got there early enough to get a pretty good seat in the center at the back of the first floor. That plus a big camera lens made for some pretty good pictures.
The bands were an interesting mix, but the opening act was Family Force 5, sort of a punk rock Christian band, as strange an idea as that is.
Next up was Building 429, quite a bit mellower than the first act, but very good. Couldn’t get any good pictures of them performing, but we managed to catch the lead singer outside after their set.
Scott and Tyler are the morning show hosts on Z88.3, an excellent Christian station down here that sponsored the concert. Wish we had a station like this back home.
Next up was Thousand Foot Krutch, another really good, sorta harder rock Christian band.
Then there was an “intermission” message by Joe White. It was a really powerful demonstration message where he actually built a large cross on-stage. He chopped out the groove, put the two logs together and nailed it up. Was really cool.
The headline act was Toby Mac. The whole concert was part of his Portable Sounds tour.
He has quite a large, energetic show. He was pretty good overall, including covering some popular Christian songs very well.
So, since we’ve been on all these extra-Disnicular activities lately, we thought, hey, maybe a good change would be to go to a Disney park! Animal Kingdom, to be exact.
This is a very infamous lizard. Trust me.
Jiminy Cricket in patented stand-nearby-and-take-a-picture-before-the-character-leaves style.
Oh look, goats. Yay, goats.
You just can’t take her anywhere.
*Insert white boy / funky music joke here*
Yeah, we did the bird show. Impressive.
Next up was Kali River Rapids. Huge line, short ride. Still fun though.
She’ll never make it as a spokesperson without learning to turn the label towards the camera...
Hey look, Primeval Whirl!
Quick, jarring, vomit-inducing, but oh so much fun.
So, you remember the whole missing church, being sad, etc? Well, we couldn’t miss Easter services. And, as before, Orlando is an interesting place, for churchness included. So, we were up at 5:00 AM headed to Sea World for their Easter Sunrise Service at Bayside Stadium. Oh, and a cold front just came through the area....
Cute, cold Becca.
The speaker was Kirk Cameron of Growing Pains and Left Behind fame.
He had an excellent message.
Z88.3 sponsored this as well, and there’s Scott and Tyler introducing again with the musical guest Echoing Angels, who were an excellent praise band as well.
We got to meet Kirk Cameron afterward, and he signed our three Left Behind DVD’s. Very cool.
Well, ladies and gentlemen of the intarweb, we have come to the end of another long journey through Disney Monkey Land. Hope it was worth the wait. We’ll try to do a bit better with updates of our final time here. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I just got carpal tunnel...
Holla.
T.
