Spring Break

As promised, and in no particular order, here are some pics and stories from my family's visit.
This is where I work. Toy Story Midway Mania. Yes, I work in a toybox. :-) It was pretty neat getting mom, dad and les into the parks for free. I was so happy to be able to do that, but also it was really neat walking them into the fast pass of my ride several times. I'm glad we're allowed to do that. We were able to ride Toy Story 4 times. It was a lot of fun.

My toy friend Lorna (or "Lo" for short) from the UK. She was telling dad how to get to Narnia. (Through the wardrobe of course!) Right next to my ride is the Narnia/Meet Prince Caspian area. It's not uncommon for people coming from the other direction to ask us. "How do you get to Narnia?" I don't know who or when it started, but the correct answer from us toys is to assume a British accent and say as seriously as we can, "through the wardrobe." When Lo joined she had an unfair advantage, but we make her say it any chance we get. ;-) Lo is a lot of fun. She can say just about anything she wants to the guest with a smile and they think she is about the most polite toy we have. It is funny though how sometime guest don't seem to understand her. One day she was asking a guest to "move over" to the other seat. She asked him to "Move over" 2 or 3 times and he just looked at her like he was trying to understand, but didn't budge. Another toy came over and said, "skootch over, sir" and he moved immediately. The funniest thing was Lorna's face. apparently she's never heard "skootch" before and couldn't believe the man understood "skootch" over "move". :-)

Everyone knows the Magic Kingdom's Fantasy Land, or Tomorrowland areas, but not many know the "lands" of the other parks. One of them in my park is "Pixar Place" which is where Toy Story is located. Since not many people know the "lands" of my park we hardly ever use them to tell people where stuff is, but we use them to talk with other cast members.

Tea Cups at Magic Kingdom. One night we got into MK just to watch Wishes, the fireworks, from behind the castle. (You should see Wishes for the first time in front of the castle, there is no substitute for that, but then you should see them from behind.) The explosions are on both side of you and are really really close. After watching the fireworks we actually got on 5-6 rides with no waiting at all! Tea Cups (dad took pictures, he doesn't spin without consequences), Aladdin's Magic Carpets, The Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean, Big Thunder Mountain (somebody gave us fast passes) and the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse!

Aerosmith's Rockin Roller Coaster in Hollywood Studios. We rode this one twice (Leslie was brave) and you will have to see the picture! :-) It's one of those that starts off at high speed, and the launch is when they take the picture...Les's face is priceless. But why I'm telling on Les I'll tell on myself too. We rode Dinosaur in the Animal kingdom and they take your picture when the big bad T-Rex comes out to eat you. In our picture mom, dad, and Leslie are starring right at it...and I'm hiding under Leslie's arm. It was pretty funny, I kinda wish we had gotten that one. But oh well. I'm sure they won't let me forget it anytime soon.

Mom and Dad at Epcot. :-) Aren't they cute.

Leslie and I in the stocks at Magic Kingdom. We're cute too. :-)

Coke around the world at Epcot. They have free samples of different coke products from around the world. My favorite was the Watermelon flavored drink from japan. It was pretty good. :-)

Leslie, patiently waiting for Soarin' at Epcot. It's a 110 min wait. Soarin' and Toy Story rival each other for the longest wait time. It's a long wait, but it's really cool.

Waiting at the base of the Yetti's Domain. Mount Everest in Animal Kingdom is the newest thrill coaster in Disney World. It's a pretty fun little coaster. Don't ask Leslie if she liked it or not...she didn't, but she rode it. Good for her.

Dad needed some help with his hat. Waiting for the Block party in Hollywood studios.

Facebook profile pics. :-) I like his hat. He looks good with it. :-)

Dad was hungry...imagine that. ;-)

M&M world store...it was actually closed, but we were there. :-) This was the same day we tried to go to the shuttle launch. It was Sunday and I hadn't been feeling well that day. We had gone to church then decided not to get in a park for the rest of the day so i could rest some and hopefully get better. After a nap we decided to drive to Cocoa to see the shuttle launch. Traffic was horrible. we're talking 10-15 miles an hour on a 3 lane highway. It was obvious we weren't gonna make it so we had decided to turn around next chance we got. It took us an hour to get that chance! It took us 2 hours to drive between 2 exits! So we decided to go to M&M World since we didn't get to see the launch, when we got there is was closed. It just wasn't our day. But we did see the shuttle as is went up. Still cool even though we weren't on the beach with it.

Mom and dad went to Cocoa Beach on their last day while I had to work. Yeah for being an hour from the beach! :-)

Family Time

I just had an amazing week with my family. Thanks to all of you in Oklahoma who loaned them to me. It was so good to see those three people who mean so very much to me. We had a blast despite every single one of us getting sick for a couple of days. I'll post pics and stories soon, but for now I must sleep some. Goodnight! :-)

Rocket Launch

I got up today on my day off with no particular plans. I had some breakfast and decided to start working on making my list. The “list” consists of things that I said I wanted to do when I came to Florida or things that I would feel silly to tell someone, “I lived in Orlando for 5 months…but no, I never did that.” Some things on my list are: Spend a day at Sea World, Take Surfing Lessons at Ron Jons, Spend a day at Universal, Go to the Kennedy Space Center, etc. When I got to the Kennedy Space center one I decided to get online and see if they had any launches while I was here and they happened to be launching a rocket tonight!

It was a nice warm day so I took the top off my jeep (well, not I alone…I and a couple of roomies) and decided to head to the space coast to see what I could see. A couple of roommate were going to come with me, but decided not to when they found out it didn’t launch until almost 11. (It would take an hour to get back and they are running in a 5k at 6:30 in the morning.) By that point everyone had plans for the night so I just went alone. I drove to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor’s Center and asked about where I should go to get a good look at the rocket launch. The guy told me to drive to Cocoa Beach and then to find a nice spot on the beach. He said that the way the cost line curved pretty much anywhere on Cocoa’s Beach would have a nice view.

It was so neat! I got there and set up about an hour early and slowly more and more people trickled onto the beach to watch. About 10 mins after I got there a couple walked near me and we started a conversation. (I wasn’t shy before Disney…but Disney has trained me to be able to talk with anyone, anywhere) They were on vacation from Washington State and happened to visit the Space Center today where they were told about the launch. We talked about all sorts of things passing the time, waiting for something to happen. Then, all of the sudden we saw this…

Okay, yes, I jerked the camera too hard, too soon at the beginning and I’ve been kicking myself for it since I watched the replay the first time, but you do have to take into account this was my first time to video a rocket launch. It was so very, very cool. We were at least 20 miles away. I suck at judging distances, but I’d say we were more like 30-40 miles away and it lit up the entire beach for a long time. Another thing that impressed me was the sound. You can hear us talking over the waves in the beginning then right when she says something about it looking like a fireball you start to hear the rocket. It is so loud that for a few moments you can’t even make out the sound of the waves. It was a very, very cool experience. I’ve never seen anything like it. The ride home wasn't near at warm as the ride out there, but it really wasn't all that bad. I had packed jeans and a hoodie so a layer up and turned on the feet heat. Going to the Kennedy Space Center is still on the list…but something much cooler got added AND crossed off today.

What Will You Celebrate?

What Will You Celebrate? is the Walt Disney World Theme this year and it really is a lot of fun to play with. When you come to the parks you can get an "I'm celebrating..." button. We have several that are personalized like Happy Birthday, Just Married, Just Engaged, Family Reunion, and Happy Anniversary. But there is also just one that says, "I'm celebrating" and you write on the bottom what it is you are celebrating. I have one that says, "I'm celebrating graduation" but my favorite is the one all my roommate and I got alike that says, "I'm celebrating my day off." Disney is big on cast member guest interaction and it is a really easy way for us to start a conversation with complete strangers. There are a lot of cast member who comment on our "day off" buttons then find out we work at Disney too. I think we've started a trend cause I saw one of the cast members who saw mine with one yesterday.

The other day I was trying to help pass some of the wait time with some guests and saw they had the engagement buttons on. So I congratulated them and then turned to the girl and said, "So, did he do a good job?" She goes, "Oh man, he did amazing!" Then proceeded to tell me exactly how and where he proposed. It was so fun because she was so happy with him and it was obvious he enjoyed seeing her so happy to tell a complete stranger about how he proposed to her. Before we knew it we had talked about him proposing, her ideas for her wedding, and some places they had thought about for the honeymoon and passed about 15 mins.

It so neat to work here. Most people will just talk with you like that, if you'll start the conversation. Part of it is because when i have my Toy Story costume on i represent a mouse that's at least a small part of most every one's childhood. But I also think that part of it is because people want to connect with other people. Since I've been down here, I've seen so much spiritual application in what we're being taught to do as cast members. Little things that I would absolutely love to see happening in church. One of them is the way they teach us to start conversations and build little mini-relationships with the guests. But the other that I realized this week is a habit of celebrating.

A few of my roommates are catholic and because lent started last Wednesday I've had some cool conversations with a couple of them about what they believe and what I believe and I'm learning a lot from them. One of them has a daily devotional type of book for lent. She got me a copy and we are reading through it together and we talk about the stuff in it every few days. I really like it because in addition to scriptures and devotional thoughts it also talks a small bit about a specific piece of catholic history or tradition.

Last Friday the devotional thought was from Mt. 9:14-15 about feasting. It started by acknowledging that it probably seemed strange to have a passage about not fasting so close to the beginning of lent. But it went on to point out the reason we feast, basically coming down to a feast being a usual part of celebration. During lent there are certain days that you fast from certain types of food and drink, but Sunday is not one of those days. It talked about how every Sunday should be remember as a mini-Easter and that Sunday was a day for celebrating, a day for feasting. Then it challenged the reader to find a way to celebrate what God has done specifically on every Sunday, but also each and every day of the week.

It was neat to find a challenge to "Celebrate" this week even in something not Disney. :-)