Mia's Birthday Trip - Day 2

Our Monday started early as we caught the bus to Animal Kingdom at 6:45.  One of the perks of staying on Disney properties is early admission to the parks.  We were ready to take advantage!

We headed straight over to the Avatar area.  This was new since we last visited Animal Kingdom many years ago.  Mia has watched the movie and loves it.  She couldn't wait to see this in person, and it did not disappoint!  This area was beautiful and super cool.

We immediately jumped in line for Flight of Passage.  We had heard from several friends how amazing this ride was, and we also knew how long the line could get later in the day.  We only had to wait about 15 minutes which was fantastic.  The details here were amazing!

That ride was unreal.  You sit on a motorcycle type piece of equipment and put on your 3D goggles.  As the ride begins, it looks and feels like you are sitting on a banshee as it flies around Pandora.  You can even feel it breathe under you which is crazy.  This was definitely a top ride of the trip for us.

From there we went to ride the Na'vi River Journey which is a calm slow boat ride through Pandora.  It was a good one to go on.

One of the items Mia had saved up for was a banshee stuffed animal.  Unfortunately, they are totally sold out right now!  There has been a ton of shipping issues all around the world right now, and it seems even Disney is feeling that.  Mia was also excited to have her face painted like a banshee, but Disney wasn't doing that either as a covid protocol procedure.  What a bummer!  Mia was disappointed, but she recognized this was out of her hands, so she kept her chin up and we kept going.  Mia's ability to accept situations and keep going make me proud.  Instead, we found a really cool Na'vi shirt for Mia that she changed in to quickly.

After taking in all of Pandora (well, we didn't want to ride the water ride and be wet all day), we headed over to the Africa and Asia areas of Animal Kingdom where we loved Kilimanjaro Safaris and the walk through area to see animals.  We saw so many awesome animals!  They were all pretty active too as it was still fairly early and cool outside.

Soon it was time to stop for a little snack break.  Mickey ice cream sandwich for Mia and chocolate dipped Mickey ice cream for me.

We explored the park some too.

Saw a couple of fun little water parades; they aren't doing the big street parades right now to avoid having large crowds gather.

Mia has always been scared of roller coasters, ever since she was little.  She's always been willing to try them thinking "maybe this time, I'll like them."  She's always been a brave kid, so she decided to give Everest a try.  That's not a small coaster!  Thankfully the line wasn't long so she didn't have too much time to get nervous before we got on.  She absolutely loved it!  So much so that we rode it again!  We of course had to buy the souvenir picture and even a t-shirt to commemorate.

Soon we ate lunch and took a little break.  After that though we decided to head back over to Pandora so we could ride Flight of Passage again.  It's such a cool ride!  We took another little ice cream break because it was a fairly warm day and really, is a Mickey ice cream ever not a good idea?

After some more time in Pandora, it was the middle of the afternoon, and we were getting pretty tired.  We decided to head back to the hotel for a slower paced evening.  We stopped in the lobby and picked up a game of Clue, Disney Villains edition, and then found a nice little area to sit outside and play.  It's a fun game!

We decided to eat a little picnic in our room, so I picked up dinner from the quick serve restaurant in the lobby.  Then we decided to spend a little more time outside since it was such a pretty evening.  Mia was so excited about her new viperwolf from Pandora who she named Tie-Tie.  How cute is he?

We then found another nice spot outside to watch the sunset and play more Clue.  It was a beautiful evening.  Then we decided to take a little ride on the Skyliners so we would know more about those.  We just rode over to Hollywood Studios and then turned around to come back.  It's a neat transportation system.

It was getting late by this point, so we headed on back in to shower and head to bed.  We were pretty tired so we wanted to rest up to be ready for the next day.  We both slept really well that night!

Mia's Birthday Trip - Day 1

Mia is turning 13 very soon, and that means something awesome...she and I get to go on a Mom-Daughter trip!  We talked about all sorts of options, and finally decided that several days having fun at Disney and Universal would be perfect.  We were exactly right.  We had a blast!

We actually left on Saturday afternoon and drove all the way down to Lake City.  This just gave us a jump on the drive so we wouldn't be exhausted to start the trip.  On Sunday morning, we ate breakfast at the Fairfield Inn and drove the remaining couple of hours to Orlando.  We were excited to stay at Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort which was a new one for us.   We were in the Trinidad area.  We both really liked this hotel.  It felt a little quieter than a lot of the Disney resorts, it has the new Skyliner transportation, and the pirate room theme we picked was awesome!

Right after we dropped our things off, we pretty much turned around and took the bus over to Disney Springs.  Magic Bands were on (though Mia later bought a Grogu one and switched).  We were ready to get going!

We headed straight to Rainforest Cafe for lunch.

We always enjoy the food here; Mia had a cheeseburger while I enjoyed a chicken salad.  It's so fun when the restaurant starts to come alive from the storms too.  Such a fun way to start our adventure.

After lunch we decided to walk all around Disney Springs.  Look at these amazing Lego designs!

I made Mia stop at the chocolate shop.  I can't NOT go.  They were so good.

Always love a visit to the big M&M store!

We visited the Marvel store, the Avengers store, the Christmas shop, the candy store, the biggest Disney merchandise store ever, tons of window shopping, and eventually we made our way back to the Lego store.  This place is so neat.

Mia had saved up over $1,200 of her money for this trip.  She saved birthday gifts, Christmas gifts, picked up bigger chores at the house (like pressure washing), and worked every weekend as the janitor at my office to earn this money.  She did a bunch of research before our trip to know what she wanted to buy; she had a few specific items in mind, but wanted to have extra for all the fun extras she knew would be available.  She was ready to start spending at Disney Springs!  

We decided to have dinner at T-Rex.  We were seated right next to this guy, and Mia had a lot of fun taunting him the entire meal.  He seemed to give it right back which was pretty funny.

Soon, we knew it was time to head on back to the hotel.  We wanted to settle in and sleep well so we would be ready to hit Disney Park #1 early the next morning.

What a great start to our trip!

Fall Fun

 We love Fall around our house.  School and its activities are back, football is starting up, baseball is going to the playoffs, the weather is turning beautifully, and it's birthday season in our house!  First up is Ryan; we are always happy to celebrate this guy.  He's the best!

I'm still loving getting a Goldbelly delivery (or two) each month.  In August, we received a Bo Ssam and fried rice kit from Momofuko in New York.  This Korean bbq took a really long time to cook, but it was so incredibly delicious.  It was so similar to Wayne's ham that we love, but the flavors were totally different as they had a definite Asian flare to them.  The fried rice came together in minutes and was so tasty.  It kind of makes me want to get a rice cooker and do this more often.

Ryan and I bought tickets to go see Hamilton at the Fox Theater for mid-April, 2020.  We had heard about this show and wanted to see if it was worth all the hype.  Of course the pandemic happened, and the show was postponed.  In the meantime, Hamilton was released on Disney Plus.  The girls and I fell in love with it.  It's an amazing show!  Here we are now in September, 2021, and the show has finally been rescheduled to run in Atlanta.  Mia and I still sing these songs often, so Ryan graciously let her have his ticket instead.  We had so much fun together.  It's always wonderful to see live theater, and they were fantastic.  It took everything in us not to sing along!

The girls started volleyball with Stonehaven again in August.  Both have improved so much over the last few years; it's so much fun to watch!  Mia has proven herself to be quite the leader of the middle school team as their captain which is cool to see. 

One of the more fun games was when Stonehaven played Johnson Ferry Christian Academy, and she got to play across from our longtime friend, Macey Henderson.  A little rivalry couldn't get between these friends!

Lily started playing on the JV high school team this season.  She has become a great setter for them, and is learning the intricacies of her position.  It's so fun to watch her!

A couple of Varsity high school girls were required to quarantine last week; thankfully, they are all fine.  This gave Lily the opportunity though to get called up to play Varsity.  She came in as libero which is a totally new position for her.  She willingly jumped right in and gave her best efforts which we were so proud of.  As the other Varsity players came back, she asked to stay on this team.  Coach Anne agreed, so she's playing double duty these days.  She's working hard!

She loved playing with some of her best friends!

What a great team!

Front row: Addison, Lily, Hannah

Back row: Kate, Mary Preston, Raegan, Lauren, Emma

Welcome back Fall; we're so glad you're here!