And that was Epcot, Florida pt.4

Full disclaimer, Epcot was my least favorite of the parks.

One of the cool things was that the park was having some sort of Spring flower spectacular, and that was lovely. I'm not really into to gardening and flowers but I can appreciate pretty ones. I kill all the plants but it's nice when other people can make them live.

We bypassed the things at the beginning of the park and walked around the lake looking at all the different lands. I thought that there were rides and attractions in each of the places but nope. There used to be, right? Epcot is the only park I've ever been to. When I worked for a certain bank, my boss was located in Orlando and I;d go down to meet with her. When I did, she took me to Epcot because her husband worked there and it was free. Awesome... Since then, I've pointed out to every one of my bosses that I've been taken to Disney, the ball's now in their court. Most of them laughed at me but I'm pretty sure I can get a trip out of my cuirrent one. When I told him the story he said I could fo to a trade show. :)

In Canada land we saw some lumberjacks performing and in Japan there was a cool drumming trio but for the most majority of the lands it was like this, HEY, you're in France, do you know what else was in France? Beauty and the Beast, that's French because Gaston is obviously a French name... buy ALL the Beauty and the Beast merchandise here!

France....

There were some characters who were definitely missing. I didn't see anything for the Little Mermaid, Cinderella was noticeably absent, but the worst was Norway. Norway isn't even Norway anymore, it's Frozen land. Hey, you're in Scandinavia, but don't worry about where, just know that this is where you buy all of your Frozen gear. Oh merchandising....

In Japan Kev got some fruit sushi that was pretty interesting

Disney bought the Muppets and I'm still not sure how I feel about that. If it means we get more Muppets, that's awesome, but if they become Disney-ified, not so much. At least I saw a Miss Piggy flower arrangement. Now a Muppet land, THAT I would have been down with. I would have bought all the merch there.

By far, my favorite land was Germany, no real reason, it was just awesome and full of beer and pretzels, like I assume real Germany is.

In one of the shops I found this display.

I told Kev he must choose....

He grabbed one of the barrels on the top shelf and said " This is the cup of a carpenter". That's why I married him.

Finally we made it around the lake and headed over the educational parts of Epcot. In the "Land" section I went on a boat ride to learn about how we farm for food. Kev gave a big nope to the boat ride and I went by myself. This is a pretty crappy picture of the boat.

The entire ride, all I could think of was the scene from Willy Wonka when they were on that creepy boat.

It was a big meh for me. We also headed over to the "Sea" building which is where you buy everything from Finding Nemo. I thought maybe, maybe I'd FINALLY see a dang squid in the aquarium. Nope, nada. I did see a manatee and it was super adorable. 

All in all, Epcot was my least favorite place to visit. I felt that it wanted to be really educational and force me to learn something, I didn't want to learn anything and it really was geared more towards kids. Take your kids there to learn something, they'll be fine. For me, it was just OK.

On a high note, the day after Epcot we went to the Kennedy Space center and it was one of the best experiences EVER! Coming next!

In the mean time, linky, linky!

Universal Studios was flipping AWESOME Florida pt. 3

Let's get right into the recap shall we? It was Universal Studios day but first, a trip to another outlet mall. Why? Well, when we checked into the hotel, they gave us an envelope with a coupon book and a $25 gift card for the mall. YES, they gave me a gift card for the outlet mall, just for staying at their hotel! It's like they looked into my soul and saw what made me happy.

Kev decided to pass on another day of shopping and I went on my own. I walked around for a while trying to decide what to use my card on. I finally decided on these 2 shirts from the Loft.

I liked the metallic designs, especially the gold pineapples. They were bogo and with after my card, I think I ended up paying $3 for them. I think they'll be super cute for the summer and I can wear them to work with a cardigan over top.

After I finished, I went back to get Kev and we headed to the park! It was raining all morning and stopped as soon as we got there.

I was super excited to go to Universal and see the Wizarding Wold of Harry Potter. I'm not an obsessive Harry Potter fan but I'd heard it was AMAZING. disclaimer, it WAS.

On our way to Harry Potter land, I got distracted at the Sponge Bob store.

I had to pose with Patrick.

Then I found the pineapple under the sea and Gary was there. Of course I needed to get a picture,

As we made out way through the park, we ended up in Springfield. Seriously, they did an AWESOME job in Simpsons land

Kev found a Homer Simpson donut. We could have also eaten at Moe's but decided to wait a little longer for real lunch.

It looks like Chief Wiggum had an accident.

We didn't eat at Moe's, but we did pose for a picture with Barney.

I really can't say enough about the Simpsons section, again, not a huge fan, I'm more of a Family Guy kinda gal but it was so well done. All of the shops were fantastic and even that giant pink donut was pretty tasty.

Finally we ended up in "London" and walked through the brick wall into Diagon Alley. I thought I took more pictures but I guess I was just walking around oggling everything.

We spent a good 2 hours just in that section. We were in all the shops, and went to the wand selection show. I didn't have a chance of being chosen when I saw all the little kids in there but it was still a blast. I didn't end up with a wand but I saw a lot of people who did.

They have these interactive wands that you can purchase and there are places all throughout Harry Potter land where you could wave your wand and special things happened. If you're planning on going and have kids, they'll want one and it will set you back $49. Budget now.

After hearing so much about it, Kev and I split a glass of Butterbeer. No alcohol folks, but that -ish was tasty! It was kinda like a butterscotch cookie soda. So yummy and I heard the frozen one was even better.

What else, I had a picture taken at Gringotts and I went on the ride.

Kev doesn't do rides so the ones I did, I went on as a single rider. The lines were shorter and I still got the entire experience. I don't care if I sit with 3 random people for 3 minutes.

The Escape from Gringotts Ride was one of the most amazing things I'd ever seen. Seriously, it had a little roller coaster and the 3D story was fantastic, complete with a fire breathing dragon. If you go to Universal, you HAVE to go.

He breathed fire. 

After all of that we were hungry and went to the Leaky Cauldron for some lunch.

Then we wandered around the rest of the park and I rode a few more rides. I went on the Mummy, the Transformers and the Simpsons rides. All great. One of the strange things I noticed was that on every ride (except the Simpsons) I had water thrown on me. Just a little but WTH? I didn't go to a water park,(water parks are gross) I intended to stay dry. 

Loved, loved, loved Universal. I would go back in a minute. 

We went back to the hotel to shower and change, because we had plans to go to Rising Star that night. Rising Star is a karaoke bar that has a full band, complete with back up singers. How could we not??

Before singing, we needed dinner. After much debate, we ended up at the Hard Rock Cafe. I'm pretty sure I haven't been to the Hard Rock in 15 years. I didn't realize that they still existed. Surprisingly, nothing had changed. I might have stepped back in time while we were there.

The hostess seated us under the Bon Jovi memoribelia. I don't know how she knew, but she did.

I don't know that a shirt worn at a golf event is an acceptable shirt to hang on the wall. Can we get something a little more iconc?

Ooooo Slippery When Wet platinum album.

I had a club sandwich and onion rings. It seemed appropriate. Definitely something I would have eaten in 2000.

Finally we were off to Rising Star! I sang "I Will Survive" and Kev did "You May Be Right"

I could get used to a full band behind me. 

It was a really long day but so much fun! I think I logged 20,000 steps that day. By the end of the night, I was definitely looking forward to my bed.

Day 4 and Epcot coming up tomorrow!

Linking up!

Did you know Florida is full of bugs and Outlet Malls? Florida pt. 2

One of the awesome parts of blogging is that when people ask you how your vacation was, instead of telling the same story to a bunch of different people. Just kidding, I'll totally tell you all about any trip / weekend, but hey, you can read the blog too. Ehhhh....

On to the first day of vacay! Bright and early (9am) we woke up and decided to find some breakfast. Fun fact, when we're on vacation, Kev is a super planner and is constantly looking for the best places to eat and things to do. I'm much more of a fly by the seat of your pants person. After several years of this, Kev started to ask that I help with the finding of restaurants. 

THANK YOU YELP! 

Really, Yelp is the best app ever and they have no idea that I exist. This is just a shameless plug because I love them. Looking for somewhere to eat? Check Yelp. Anything 4 stars and over is generally a pretty solid choice. This particular morning, Yelp took us to the Hash House a GoGo. OMG yeeeeesssss, it was amazing! If you've ever seen any of my past food photos, you'll see a trend of me ordering eggs and Kev getting French Toast. Now I'll continue the trend.

There you go, French Toast for Kev.

Eggs and Bacon for me. I wish I had something to compare the breakfast to, because that's about 5 eggs. It was ridiculous!

Oh, they brought me the wrong potatoes, I asked for griddled mashed potatoes and they brought home fries. When I told them, they brought me even more potatoes. They were one of the best potato things I've ever eaten.

We left there thoroughly stuffed and ready for a day of shopping. First stop was one of those giant enclosed flea markets. I needed to get souvenirs for my people and it seemed like a good place... It wasn't. I was ready to leave after one building but since we had to trek 20 minutes to get there, Kev said I had to stay and go through the rest of the buildings.

He did find this shirt...

Want a close-up? That's velour on there. Yep, it sure is,

Thankfully he didn't get it, even though it was only $15 and would have been well worth the one wearing before it fell apart. 

On our way there, we saw a fantastic outlet mall complete with lots of high end stores. That was our next stop. I do love me some outlet shopping and even though I didn't walk out with a Prada bag, I did find a few things. 

First up, a blurry picture of 2 Under Armour shirts. I really, really love these shirts for working out. They're a little bit longer and are a perfect length for me. 

I was also successful at Banana Republic. 90% of the time I'm at a Banana outlet, I find a dress. 100% of the time I'm at the mall, I find 0 things at Banana. At the end of June I'm heading back to Orlando for sorority convention which means I need to start shopping now. You know, 2 months out, time to start compiling my wardrobe.

I found this super cute dress that might be my travel dress on the first day since My flight arrives at 8:55am and my first meeting is at 11am. I need to be dressed and ready to go.

I'm also pretty successful at the Gap and this time was no exception. I love, love, love these super comfy shorts. The check out lady asked  me if I would wear them "out" or just around the house. Oh yes lady, I'm going to wear these out all over town, (aka to Target and Whole Foods). I also FINALLY found a floral skirt, I'd been searching for the last 4 weeks for one. It as the final piece I was missing for the Spring Style Challenge. More on that later, it's part of the -ish I did last month and didn't blog about series. 

Everything was on sale and I scored all 5 pieces for $50. Score

I could shop and look at crap for hours on end, but after a few hours, we decided on a change of pace. We headed over to Disney and looked at the shops in the free part of town. Please don't as me where I was, I have no idea and I apparently didn't take an pictures. 

We did have an impossibly handsome waiter at lunch and I asked him if he doubled as a Disney Prince in his spare time. I would have pegged him for the prince that the Beast turns into. He could have pulled off an acceptable Gaston as well.

Oh wait, I did take a picture of something I saw there.

You don't make that sign unless bad things have happened there. Bad, bad poop things. This is the #1 reason why I don't do water parks. It's nothing but people and bodily fluids and the water washes over them and is recycled up and over everyone. Ugh, it's my nightmare.

After a long day we needed to get to be early and get ready for our day at Universal!

Kev and I finally sprung for HBO and we're re-watching the first season of Game of Thrones and starting the entire series. No need for spoilers, I know everyone dies.

Have a good night!

Orlando.. I love you. Sea World and Disney and Putt Putt Golfing. Florida pt. 1

If anyone is still reading this blog, anyone who isn't a Russian spam-bot, HEY!! welcome back! Oddly enough, I received a message from Blog Lovin' that I was up to 40 whole followers, which is 3 more than my previous 37. Apparently, when you only blog a hand full of times over the last two months, you gain 3 followers. I'VE FOUND THE SECRET TO BLOGGING!! 

Maybe not. 

Anyways, you might remember when I announced that Kev and I were going to Europe at the end of April. We were heading to Munich then to Paris. Well, there was a slight change of plans, we're still going to Europe, but not until later this year. Everything is fine, we're all good, thankfully we were able to reschedule the flight, the hotels were cancelled without a problem and we just have to fly to the same location before January of 2016, no problemo. 

Since flying wasn't happening, we decided to still take the week off and instead drive to Florida. Take a few days in Orlando and hit up some parks, then over to the beach for a day or two. 

Apparently when people go to Disney they take weeks to plan it and have an entire strategy to get around the parks and not spend a small fortune on food and drinks. We instead, decided to plan it with 5 days notice. 

We left Saturday afternoon and drove to Georgia. I really have no idea where we were, but I know it was definitely not in Florida. The next day it was just a few hours to Orlando where we had reservations at The Point resort.

The hotel was about a mile from Universal Studios and it was awesome. When you don't stay in Disney, it saves you like $400 a day. Instead you take the shuttle over to the parks OR you pay $17 to park and leave whenever you feel like it. (that was us)

On Sunday we pretty much hung out by  the pool until the room was ready then we took a giant nap. Pretty exciting, I know....

Sunday night we had reservations at Mama Della's over at the Portifino Bay Hotel at Universal. One of the cool parts was that it had roving singers who wandered around and sung opera. 

One of the down sides of the  restaurant was this:

WHO DOES THIS?!?! The ivy will never match, never, ever and it was all around the entire restaurant. I just don't understand.

We started off with some super yummy bread with some garlic olive oil and some butter.

I had the fish, after that long of a drive I wasn't in the mood for a bunch of pasta. It was pretty tasty, I don't usually get fish when I'm out, but it wasn't bad.

There were some shops around the restaurant, one of them being an art gallery, where I found the most perfect painting ever!

Really, how awesome is this?!?! It has everything I could ever possibly need in a painting, Sadly, Kev said no. I really don't understand what he didn't love about it, it's the most perfect thing ever!

After tooling around, we needed to find ponchos for the next few days since it was supposed to rain. I got this sexy number at the 7-11 for $2.99. Don't be jealous.

I'm totally going to drag this trip out over several blog posts because I'll have a much better chance of documenting it if I don't have dump it all in one giant post. Then, when I'm done, I have an entire series called "-Ish I didn't blog about last month", It's in several parts as well. :)

Time for bed and back to work tomorrow!

Linking up with BLoved Boston!

Runs and Restaurant Reviews

You know, it doesn't really matter how long the weekend is, you blink and it's 9pm on Sunday and damn, I need to write a blog post because I'm going to be a good blogger again. Posting regularly, taking pictures of my food and my Garmin after a run. Heck yeah, that's blogging 101.

Saturday we woke up a little later than usual and made breakfast. After sitting around for a while I decided to throw my shoes on and head out for a run. full disclosure, I thought about going to 10am Body Pump but I didn't get up off the couch in enough time to get there. And honestly, it had bee a while since I ran, I had to get some of my mojo back.

First I headed to JC Penny in search of a few things to round out my capsule wardrobe for the Spring GYPO challenge. I was challenged to find white pants that don't make my thighs look like a busted can of biscuits. But more on that later this week.

I went to my favorite trail, the Lake Shelley Greenway to do 3.5 miles. I like it because 1.81 miles in, there's a water fountain and a potty. That way if your morning coffee shakes anything loose, you can take care of things... and get a drink instead of having to ration your water for the entire run. I also like running down Strickland Rd and onto Falls of Neuse because there's a Kroger on the corner that you can refill your water, and potty if needed, but the workers always give me stank eye when I come in all red faced and panting. Now I go to the trail.

Since it had been a while since I'd gone for a run, I decided to ease back into the swing of things with some intervals. I set my timer to run 5 minutes and walk 1.5.

I was pleasantly surprised with my runt times, not too shabby. I also found that mentally knowing I only had to run 5 minutes made it a lot more bearable.

Queen of the positive splits, right here.

I don't know about other people, but while I'm running, I like to think about the food I'm going to eat after I finish. All I could think about was the best sandwich in the world, Breugger's Herby Turkey.

I asked the lady to hollow out the bagel and she sighed and asked if I wanted both sides done... Don't worry about it honey, one side is fine. Then she broke the cardinal rule, she added cheese. Cheese doesn't belong on the Herby Turkey! You don't need it and it's not part of the heavenly creation. 

I gave the cheese to Cleo. She appreciated the mistake.

Quick shower, then it was off to get my hair done. My greys were OUT OF CONTROL. Sorry no pix, I don't pay for a styling after the color because I'm cheap and it's $35 to have someone blow dry and comb your hair. Nope, I'll just have to wash it the next day and bye bye $35.

It was a good thing that I got my hair done because Kev and I had reservations at Saint Jacques. Saint Jacques makes practically every list of the most amazing restaurants in North Carolina and we'd never been. Since we're going to France in a few weeks, I thought we should get used to French food.

Let me just say, everything was amazing and the service was some of the best we've ever had. It's crazy expensive and worth every penny. However, there were a few things that were lacking for me. 

I lurve me some Steak Tartare and since my last tartare was gross, I'd bee craving it for a while. We didn't want to hike to Vin Rouge in Durham and there's an amazing French restaurant 5 miles from my house. 

I made the reservations before I looked at the menu. No steak tartare. Insert sad face. But I decided to soldier on. 

After we sat down, Kev was presented with the wine list, he made his selection and I asked for a Grey Goose Cosmo, only to discover that they didn't have a full bar. Just wine, Sad face number 2. I instead had to drown my sorrows in some Riesling.

I was looking over the menu and got a little nervous that there weren't any prices on it. Then I looked at Kev's and his menu had prices. I guess my delicate self can't handle looking at the prices. I just need to choose my dinner without having to concern my pretty little head with money and other things that men handle.

I guess it's a good idea when you're trying to take your mom out for a nice dinner and all she does is fuss about how much everything is. Then she wants to slip you some money or cover the tip. When mom doesn't know the prices it's just easier.

We placed our order and soon after were presented with an amuse bouche. This was a tiny cracker with apple and cheese with a tiny dot of wine sauce. I was delicate and stretched it into 3 bites. My bouche was amused. It was really good!

The we decided to split the cheese plate. There was a cheese that put hair on my chest, one that was soft and delicious and another that was tasty. It came with honey, grape slices and those little orange squares are the BEST carrot cake I've ever eaten. I just need a bowl full of that to die happy.

It was amazing, and uber French. I see a lot of cheese in my future when we get to France. 

For my dinner I had the sole which was wrapped around a crab / lobster mousse. There were also little fingerling potatoes and super tasty cauliflower. 

I made my way through most of one of the pieces of fish and was super full. Partially because the 2 glasses of wine,  But the manager came over and asked several times if I liked my meal and why I hadn't finished. She offered to make me another dish if I wanted something else. Please don't feed me anything else. Everything was awesome.

We were even so full that Kev didn't even want an apple yummy treat. That, my friends is impressive.

Would we go back, absolutely. It's more of an occasion restaurant but definitely worth a return!

I hope everyone made it through yesterday without falling into a sugar coma and are ready for an awesome week!

Linking up!

BLovedBoston

We Were the C&E Relatives

Happy Easter to all of you who are celebrating today!

Easter was always one of the bigger holidays growing up. Mainly because we were the C & E relatives. That means we only ever attended church on Christmas and Easter. My Grandma said that we could make it to church twice a year and dangit, Easter would be one of those holidays. Growing up in a half Catholic, half Protestant family means that you don't really have one place to go and you get exposure to both churches.

Every Easter we'd get brand new outfits, get up super early, search for our Easter baskets, not be allowed to eat any of the treats,  and head over to my Aunt's house for breakfast. All the relatives would be there and we'd go to my mom's church.

Let me tell you about church, The same preacher was there for as ling as I can remember. Every single Easter he'd do the same sermon and we'd sign the same three songs. Seriously, every dang year, it was the SAME three songs. Now I try to get Kev to add those songs into the service at the church he's the muscial driector for, and he won't do it. Rude.

After church there was usually lunch, then home to devour the best parts of our Easter baskets. For me, it also included taking all the candy out of my basket, sort it but type, then artfully rearrange it in my basket. I guess looking back, this was an indicator of my mild to moderate OCD. But you know what, I'd do it again today and if I had to make an Easter basket, that -ish would be so perfectly arranged.

Some things were always staples of the Easter basket.

 - Starburst Jelly Beans. When those things came out, it was like the heavens opened up and the gods rained happiness son us mere mortals, So flipping awesome.

 - Reeses Peanut Butter Eggs. Who doesn't love PB eggs? I look back on them with fondness.

 - Some sort of foil wrapped chocolate egg. I remember Crunch eggs, Butterfinger eggs (these were awesome) and sometimes plain chocolate (meh)

 - A colored hard boiled egg. Meh... No one wants those mucking up their chocolate.

One time my dad bought the Easter candy and it was nothing but white chocolate

Dad also loves those giant chocolate eggs that are full of some awful fruit cream. Every year he'd try and get us to eat them. Nope...

Easter dinner always followed, and always ham. Ham and scallpped potatoes or macaroni salad. it's what's for Easter dinner!

Holiday traditions are awesome and when you grow up you can choose to carry on the old or make your own.

Kev and I stink this year and Dinner might be frozen pizzas. Then again, it's not like we did a Seder for Passover either. I keep trying to get Kev to do one. One day...

Whichever holiday you chose to celebrate this weekend, I hope it was a good one, full of memories!