Closing time

For the last weekend in January, we got snow. In North Carolina, one inch of snow means the world shuts down. All activities and events are cancelled. Church is cancelled. It seemed like the perfect time to unpack from all my trips, get caught up on laundry, upload pictures, and post some blog entries. Judging from the backlog of pictures on my camera, I have been busy living life instead of writing about it.

I think it is ironic that last weekend I was enjoying 80 degree weather, and this weekend it is snowing. It explains why I have a cold :)

Other than my trips, January has just been busy with work. Every January we get our appraisal for the work we did the previous year. My boss started out explaining how the economy was still bad, and the business climate resulted in lay off's so there was fewer people which means it is more competitive to get a good rating, etc, etc. So I was thinking, oh darn. And then I got a good rating, so I was happy. A friend took me out to a fancy dinner to celebrate, which was fun. The scallops were melt-in-your-mouth good. Other than that, work has been busy with presentations to executives, build breaks, customer's who are unhappy, and the usual stuff.

The Happiest Place on Earth

My one friend is a big fan of the weekend trip, mostly because vacation time is precious, and generally used to visit her family who lives on the other end of the country. So when a great airline deal came through, my two friends and I decided to do a Winter getaway for just a weekend. The debate was between Niagra Falls and Orlando..... I am so glad Orlando won because Niagra in January is not my idea of fun.

Then we saw a commercial for a free Disney pass if you do a day of service. Having already bought the airline ticket, we were locked in to going the third weekend of January. We found a service opportunity the week before our trip, and I was a big skeptic that we would get the free ticket in time. But to our good fortune, we were able to get the free pass.

Friday night after work we met up at the airport, and flew to Orlando.

Saturday morning we got up, and after a brief debate on whether we could take a detour to the Kennedy Space Center (2 hour drive is not a detour), we hit the Magic Kingdom!

It was unbelievably magical. Seriously. One of my friends also had never been to Disney, and we just had a blast. Hearing your dreams can come true, and meeting princesses has a way of awakening the inner princess, and this trip proves I am a princess. I was attempting to sleep one night at the hotel, when my friends cell phone kept going off. After the second time, I said something to her about how it woke me up. She then turned it to vibrate and stuck it under the pillow. But I could still feel the vibrating ring, so I am exactly like the princess and the pea. We also found some Mickey rings, and this song was stuck in my head.

The second day we went to Epcot, and it was really cool. My favorite part was the test car track, and all the celebrities like Ellen who created rides. It is amazing how happy people are at Disney. We had gorgeous weather, all the cast members were very helpful, no one was shoving in line or running through the park to get ahead of anyone. It was a very chill and happy vacation. Going to the airport Monday morning was a very rude awakening that we were no longer at the Happiest Place on Earth.......

What would you do...

For a trip to Disney! I am sure you have all seen the Miss Piggy commercials, where she is having a wonderful time at Disney World, and then is rudely jolted out of the daydream by a set of wood falling at her feet.



My friends and I got up at 5 AM last Saturday to drive to Charlotte to volunteer for Martin Luther King Jr day. We helped raise awareness about fire safety in a poor neighborhood. This consisted of walking up and down streets, knocking on doors, and ensuring that the residents had smoke detectors. I thought it was ironic that my mom's washing machine burst into flames the day before, and her house was saved because the smoke detectors went off and she was at home to stop the fire.

All our hard work paid off, because we now have a free ticket to Disney World! We found some really cheap airline tickets a couple of months ago, and it has all come together perfectly. I am off to the happiest place on earth!

Alien Abduction

I drove down the road, the same way I always do. I can see the building up ahead... but the upper story lights are dark. Odd. I pull into the parking lot.... there are no cars. Hmmm. No sign on the building. No lights on. It shouldn't be closed at this time.... So I get out and look to see if there are hours on the door. Did I make the whole thing up? Was that ab class just in my head? Was I really a card carrying member? Come to think of it, there were no cards, just a thumb scanner. Queue XFiles music......

Alright, it is just the recession. Apparently there weren't enough people in Cary to support the big gym with the pool, so it went out of business without any notification. That is the weird part. You would think they would tell you they were closing.

Hot-Lanta

For New Years Eve, some friends and I decided to go to Atlanta. I was surprised at how smooth the drive was.... Basically you get on 85 south for 6 hours and you are in Atlanta. Having worked with people from Atlanta, I had heard about all the terrible traffic. We didn't encounter any. We did get a bit turned around on the freeway exits, but we didn't get majorly lost.
We arrived New Years Eve, and kicked things off with the Chik-Fil-A bowl game. (In case you were wondering, it used to be called the peach bowl). Most of you who know me know I am not an avid sports fan, but this is the benefit of traveling with friends. You get to do things and see things you wouldn't normally get to see. I had forgotten how fun it is to cheer with thousands of other people at a game. Then we went to see the Peach drop. Unfortunately it was so crowded, we couldn't work our way around to the front, so it sort of looked a little flat from the side. Then we went to the Waffle House for some late night (early morning?) food.

The next day we got up and went to Coke World. If they tell you to try the Beverly, ignore them. The best part was watching commercials. "Always Coca Cola". Then we walked to a lunch place that was horrible. The worst food ever. Seriously. It was so bad, I have blocked the name of the restaurant from my memory. The funny part was dancing to Wicked on all of our ipods. Then we walked back through the Olympic park, and went to the CNN building, and chilled until the NBA game. Watching the Knicks play for the second time ever was cool, but we were all cheering for Atlanta. The next day we went to the aquarium. The cool part was a moving sidewalk underneath a huge tank, so you could see into the tank. Then we got our free chick-fil-a sandwiches, and we went out to the fancy shopping center with an Ikea. Ikea is the funnest store to walk through. We ate at a cheesecake place, and it was delicious. The food was so filling, that we brought the cheesecakes back to the hotel. Luckily we had a mini fridge. The next day we went to church. It was awesome because all of the boys were dressed to the nine's, suits, vests, etc. Super cute. And everyone said good morning to the person at the pulpit, so we got a bit of Southern Baptist mixed in with a Mormon testimony meeting. Then we went to a natural history museum and saw an exhibit on gold. Then we drove back to Raleigh. The one thing I learned on this trip was that when you travel with a larger group, you need to plan the food better. But it was fun to go somewhere for New Years.