Mr. Sunshine

SO I went to the mall with my cousins tonight and a thought occurred to me...Why do we go crazy buying material things for family for Christmas? 

My cousin was worried about what to get everyone, who to get for, how much she had to spend on each person, and I basically feel bad because I don't have a child like she does to worry about, and I only buy for the people in my immediate family. I don't kill myself buying gifts, but I tried to drill it into her head that Christmas doesn't need to be all about the gifts and the materialistic stuff...

And I understand that everyone likes to give and feel good, but with today's economy and the fact that money is soo tight is there anyone out there who feels that it's okay if there aren't a bunch of presents under the tree? I mean really, you could buy gifts like that all year round, why even stress out trying to buy them all at once and for multiple people...

So my whole opinion on this is that Christmas might be about giving instead of receiving, but it should also somehow be tied into giving LOVE and/or togetherness and then we wouldn't have to stress out about buying all these presents and making sure everyone is pleased with their gifts. 

I mean, yes, at a time when I was younger I could never imagine a Christmas without a lot of presents, but of course now that I'm older I appreciate the other aspects of Christmas, and I am just blogging to say that before the actual Christmas season comes in full swing, this is what people should be considering. 

Vacation part II

Okay so continuing on with the vacation story...after we left Orlando on Wednesday, we drove three hours south to West Palm Beach to a community called Wellington, where it is gorgeous.  R's parents were very accomodating and generous to us.  The parents house is absolutely beautiful, even though the gated community has like five models to choose from and they all look like cutout cookies, but the decorum is pretty and they were situated in a great area with a marsh looking thing behind their house, and every day I saw pelicans, cranes, egrets, ducks, and even an otter. We saw the sunrise again each morning, it was beautiful. There was a huge duck that waddled right up to the back sun room and it was cute, I really wanted to feed it but I couldn't. 

So I sat by the pool for like two and a half hours one day cause it was absolutely beautiful out, and I got burned a little, but it was just enough color to bring back to Connecticut.  The flight home was a bit hairy cause I was having like a freakin panic attack for some reason over 10,000 feet. But all in all, I was fine, the trip was great, great vacation. I hadn't had a vacation in like seven years so it was long overdue and much appreciated. Can't wait for the next vacation, hopefully will be ITALY. 

My vacation

Hey people!!! So I'm back from Florida and I had an awesome time, there were a few ups and downs but nothing major. 

So starting with the Plane ride....it was fine. I'm just not at ease when it comes to flying, I don't know why. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you are squeezed into the cabin like a pack of sardines without lube and gliding 10,000 feet in the air...that might be it!  

So first off I went with my uncles wife (my aunt)...we'll call her R. I know some 24 year olds wouldn't consider going on a vacation with their 40 year old aunt fun, but she's cool so we had a fun time. The vacation was planned with five days in Orlando, to visit the four Disney parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios), and then R's parents, who live in West Palm Beach (in a gated Jewish community) were going to come up to Orlando to stay with us for two nights so we could visit a park with them and then take us back to their home in West Palm Beach, and we would stay with them for the following four days, and leave from WPB instead of Orlando.   So we arrive in Orlando on Friday night and it is like 70 degrees and sticky outside, so I immediately changed my jeans and hoodie that I wore on the plane to shorts, polo shirt, and sandals pronto! Our hotel room was amazing, it had a full kitchen, dining room, living room with 32 inch plasma t.v., balcony, washer, dryer, two bedrooms each with a 27 inch t.v. and a bathroom for each room, it was beautiful, so we went to the grocery store down the street and bought some good groceries for like breakfast and munching on, coffee, juice, snacks, etc. It was better than having to go out for breakfast or anything like that. 

So as part of our vacation package, we got park hopper passes, and for those of you who aren't familiar with them they are inclusive to the four aforementioned Disney parks, and it means that you basically pay around $150 I think, and the pass will get you in and out of any of the parks as many times as you want for the days you are there. So take us for example, usually people who go to Disney without park hoppers, might do one park each day and that is it. They buy the passes for the parks each day, but with the park hopper you can choose to go to Magic Kingdom for a few hours, go back to the hotel, rest, and then go to Epcot for the later half of the day...then maybe the next day you want to do Epcot again, then Animal Kingdom, or Hollywood Studios then a little more Magic Kingdom...they are interchangeable for however many days you buy them for. We had four day park hopper passes, so one ticket got us into the four parks two or three times in that number of days. 

We had a lot of fun, I took sooo many pictures, we basically hoofed our way through all these parks in a matter of like three hours, we saw all that needed to be seen, the only thing is that my aunt walks like ninety miles a minute, and I, uh...don't. So every picture I have of her is her back view cause she was always at least a mile ahead of me. I got a picture with Jiminy Cricket, but not with a lot of other characters cause we didn't stand in the long lines for like Pooh, Tigger, Pluto, Goofy, I did not ONCE see Mickey up close, but I did see him on the stairs of Cinderella's Castle doing a show with the other characters, but I couldn't get a close enough shot. 

Oh and the hotel was very accomodating, they had a bar near the pool, a grill/cafe thing, a beautiful pool with plenty of palm trees, a gym, a daycare, all kinds of stuff, and they offered round trip shuttle service to and from the parks. The only beef I had with them is that they only had three departure times in the morning, and two at night for return. They offered an 8:10, a 9:10, and a 10:10 shuttle, with only a 6:15 and a 9:45 pm return shuttle. I would have liked an earlier return, or maybe the option of leaving for the park at noon, or around 2, and then coming back later. I didn't get to see any Firework shows, or a parade or anything cause we always were gone early, however we were always beat by like three oclock, so I couldn't imagine even staying until 9:45 let alone 6:15...just the same I wish I had seen the fireworks and parades...

So R's parents came up on Monday night after we got back to the hotel from Animal Kingdom, and we went out to dinner, now I don't eat a lot of fish, and we went to this place called "The Crab House".  where everyone else ordered salmon or trout...I ordered...fish and chips. I felt a little out of place..Then on Tuesday we went to Downtown Disney which seemed fun but again, we sort of just walked from one end to the other without looking at a lot of things, and I would have spent all day there except I felt like I was being timed...

That's all for now, I'll continue this blog after dinner...