Right Wing Mom

Epcot is a weird place to me. There is so much going on and so much to see and do there, that I almost feel like its hard to understand the place. I used to hate it. I thought it was boring and a waste of time and space. LOL, ok… maybe it wasn’t that bad, but it was definitely, by far, my least favorite park.

Something weird happened last year though, I fell in love with it!

My favorite thing at Epcot is the World Showcase. Each country has its own area chock full of culture! This year, we had a lofty goal, one that sadly, didn’t get accomplished. Snacking Around the World. We made it halfway, but we just couldn’t hang, well we could have but then we would have had to skip a really yummy dinner at one of our favorite places!

Our first stop was Mexico. We had a churro. It was yummy! So yummy in fact - that I forgot to take a picture

Here we are at Norway. Our snack here was Lefsa - a potato bread with butter, cinnamon and sugar. It was like a Norwegian tortilla It was ok - nothing spectacular.

Next stop - China. There was a little discussion here about what to get. My whole thought was “Let’s try to get as traditional as possible” Marc’s thought was “Strawberry and Red Bean Ice Cream? Eww” Those weird little kids of ours were on my side though! And you know what? It was pretty good. Even Marc liked it!

Up next was Germany. One of our favorites! Here we had, of course, the Black Forest Cake. At first I did not want any, I’m not a fan of black forest Cake. But, I thought back and realized the only black forest cake I had ever had was some funky Betty Crocker/Duncan Hines prepackaged monstrosity from the 80’s. Man, I am glad I decided to try the “real thing” It was awesome! Very Yummy!

Our last stop was Italy. Here we had a delicious Cannoli. Wow - it was so good! I love Jake’s face in the picture. It was his turn to take the first bite… you can see that he really wanted that first bite and was not happy that Mommy stopped him to take a picture. he couldn’t even take his eye off of it.

I have been wanting the opportunity to “eat in the castle” since our first trip to Disney. It just seemed so magical! Eating in Cinderella’s Castle! WOW!!! Well, let me tell you something - first of all trying to get a reservation here is just darn near impossible! You need to get up very early, call 6 months out and cross your fingers and say a little prayer
We tried for a reservation on our first trip, but no luck. After that, we kind of decided that it wasn’t that big a deal. But - we decided to give it another go round this time. I was really happy that we got out first choice of days and times! The girls and I were so excited!

I wish I could give a glowing review… but it wasn’t that great. The food was ok, the characters were ok, the decor was ok, everything was just ok. If you are interested in doing a Princess Breakfast I would recommend the “other” princess breakfast at Akerhus in Norway at Epcot. Same food, same characters. Ok, the decor maybe isn’t as cool, I mean you aren’t in THE castle - but… it’s half price. Yep - 1/2… thats a biggie

We did have fun! Well, almost all of us. Jake was not happy about eating at a Girl Breakfast. As a matter of fact, he was not happy at all. But, most of that was probably due to the fact that he let him go off his diet while we were at Disney. (all together now - BAD MOVE!)

Ok - on with the pictures!

The Princess’s

Emma chowing down on her wishing star. Notice the bruise? Ouch - hotel rooms and cruising babies don’t mix.

How can someone who is so cute be such a butt head?

Beautiful stained glass windows

Ok, is it just me or does Belle look a little freaked out?

Hey! Didn’t I see you the other day? Hmm… you look familiar.

You know, I had this awesome plan to take an obscene amount of pictures while at Disney this year. It was a great plan! I had the batteries all charged up and even bought some new memory cards. It was a good plan. But, I guess I really didn’t think through the whole taking pictures while holding/carrying/wearing a very grabby 9 month old. Which is me trying to say - I did not take very many pictures at all. But - I think the ones we ( I say we, because Marc occasionally grabbed the camera and snapped away) took, we pretty decent!

I am going to break these up over a few days. Today we will be looking at Emma’s first encounter with a character - Snow White and Dopey.

We are back from our vacation - and sadly, I don’t feel very relaxed or refreshed. Oh well! Back to reality.

SO, ya’ll know that we were able to get out of town before Ike hit. Marc’s brother, Dave, was going to hang out at our house and keep an eye n thing for the hurricane. Funny thing is that Dave “hung out at our house and kept an eye on things” during Katrina too… I think he said this was the las time he was doing that!

Haley, Dave’s wife, and our Disney travel companion, got a text message from Dave on Sunday. He mentioned that someone’s chimney was in our back yard. Well, if you know Dave, he is kind big a big joker, and well.. we thought he was joking. Turns out he wasn’t!

I got a little mad and was upset over things for a day or two, but Marc reminded me to be thankful that we still had a house. Perspective!

Now that we are home, I have been able to take a step back and kind of laugh at it all.

Come, take a tour with me

We will start here with a general overview of the back yard. Lots of branches, big branches! I am very thankful we didn’t lose any windows! Oh see that thing on the right? Thats my chimney

A little closer look:

And the other side

Look - a blue tarp… I’ve always wanted one of those! (ok, not really, nowhere even close to really)

Our wonky fence (I love that word - wonky. I’ve been using it a lot lately, not sure where I picked it up from)

And here are a few from our bedroom. We got some water inside. You can’t really see the problems that much - and I don’t feel like messing with photoshop right now - feel free to use your imagination
Ceiling (see the cross shape?)

One part of the wall - this is actually about 10″ long

Another part of the wall - this one goes about 2 1/2ft from top to bottom

Now we are just sitting around waiting for the insurance adjustor. It stinks! You want your house fixed asap - but on the other hand, there are so many more people that have significantly more damage than we do. So, we sit… and wait.

I’ve got tons of Disney pictures to share!!! So, stop by tomorrow - hopefully the subject matter will be slightly less depressing

first off, bare with me, I’m actually typing this post on my iphone.

We made it to the airport and on our flight with no probe. Emma and Jackson both did real well on the flight.

Once we got to Florida, we checked in and tried to take a nap. We all got a bit, with Emma and I getting only an hour and a bit.

I was a tired Mommy! I was looking at about 3 hrs of sleep in a 36 hour period… That really stunk! Thankfully we pulled in about 8 hours last night.

It’s been a little crazy trying to keep the baby entertained in the room. Just not enough room to play freely.

Hopfully I will be able to post a little more I info later. We are still waiting to hear how everyone fared back home, but the phones seem to be out still.

It seems like every time we go on vacation or out of town for something, I always wait until the last minute to pack and end up being up all night.

“Not this time!” promised myself. Well… things sisnt go so well after all.

I was doing ok, planning and some preliminary thinking about packing. I had planned to catch up on laundry Thursday and start packing on Friday, finishing up on Staurday nicce and early so I could get a good nights rest in time for our Sunday morning flight to Orlando.

Yep - it was a good plan, until Wednesday night. We realized that IKE was making a beeline for the Houston area - right where we are. Hmmm - do we hope and pray we can still catch our flight Sunday, risking losing at least two days of our vacation if we can’t fly out? No way! Lets fly out Friday instead.

Oh, it sounded like a great idea… but here I am 1:30 on Friday morning. The bags are packed (finally) and loaded into the car (finally) I am getting ready to go wake the hubby up and in just one hour we will be headed into the city - to the airport. I am so hoping there isn’t any craziness with the traffic or the airport.

I am praying for calm, non eventful, peace - all the way from Houston to Orlando!

That being said, please keep this area in your prayers please I would like to come home to my home as I left it and really hope all my neighbors can do he same.

I will do my best to update and post pics while we are visiting Mickey - but I can’t promise anything… c’mon…. it’s Disney!

Take care!!!

What do you get when everyone on both sides of your family wears glasses?

That’s Mandy. Marc took both girls to the optometrist this week. Kaite - 20/20 Mandy - 20/100

Thankfully she likes them. But, I do offer an apology to any and all of our offspring - It’s genetic… you will need glasses at some time, sorry.

I think she is channeling our girl Sarah a bit… she likes that

As my blog name implies, and those of you that know me in real life can attest to, I am a bit of a political junkie. I wasn’t always like this. My parents were knowledgeable about politics, but aside from working on a campaign once (Please don’t make me tell who - it’s so embarrassing!) I can’t really recall them being overly outspoken when it came to politics. My children however, will not be able to say the same.

My interest with the political process began with the 2000 Presidential election. That was awesome! We got a bumper sticker, watched the debates and even helped out a bit on election day making a few phone calls. I think what hooked me in though was being able to be at the local Republican headquarters on election evening. Now that was fun! It was exciting and electric and everyone in the room was on fire! I can remember Kaitie and Mandy being just 2 years old and having fun too. As a matter of fact those cute little girls stole the show that night by telling everyone their opinion on Al Gore. “Al Gore is Icky” LOL, that still makes me laugh!!!

The election of 2004 was just as awesome! We got a little more involved and even included the kids this time. Jake was just a baby, but the girls and I went to a football game and a fair handing out literature. The high point however, was going out on election day and waving signs. That was such a great time! The girls loved it too!!! I loved it, although I could have done without the John Kerry supporters showing us that they thought we were “number one” or yelling some very colorful language out their car window. Thankfully, at the time my girls didn’t speak “angry Democrat.”

I must say that up till this last week, I wasn’t really feeling this election. I was kind of excited during the early days of the primaries, but I will admit, like I felt a little disappointed in my party’s pick. I liked McCain, kind of. But - he wasn’t the die-hard conservative that I was hoping for.

His choice of Sarah Palin has energized not only me, but I am sure the whole party base! Her speech was exciting and had me whopping and hollering more than once! I just finished watching McCain’s speech and he has done the same - energized me and my faith in the Republican party.

I suppose there will be many posts from now till November about the election and campaigning process. But hey! What did you expect from a Right Wing Mom?

So - what do you think? Did Palin win you over? Did you need winning over? Do you know anyone actually voting Obama? (If thats you - please seek help ASAP!)

With my inconsistent blogging lately, I have fallen very behind in both updating and posting pictures. I thought I would try and break things down a bit - so here goes:

The last month we have celebrated both Kaitie and Mandy’s 10th birthday and Jake’s 5th birthday. Both were celebrated very differently. The girls had wonderful tea party, while Jake’s birthday was a little more low key - dinner, cake and presents.

I present you: Birthdays Part 1; Cake

So - if you can’t read (or tell) this is Kaitie and Mandy’s cake. Homemade Vanilla cake with butter cream frosting, filled with Strawberry preserves.

See those? Gum paste flowers…I made those Sorry - a little proud there. I had never worked with gum paste before, I think it turned out nicely! The girls loved it!!!

And it sharp contrast:

Jake’s cake. Homemade chocolate with butter cream frosting, filled with butter cream. Dusted with Cocoa and decorated with Star Wars figures. It take a little creativity to decorate a cake for a boy who can’t eat artificial colors.

Monsieur Jacob - from the great country of Batter Bowl, showing off his stylish batter bowl mustache.