Short Post is Short

It's Short.

You may be asking yourselves, "why is it short?" Well let me tell you.

I didn't do anything yesterday.

I had plans to be productive and get stuff done and I didn't. Am I upset at myself for being so lazy? You betcha. I hate days when I do that. I should have been hard at work doing things and keeping myself busy and I didn't. I laid in bed until about noon, got ready for the day, went to work at 4, ate dinner, had Family Home Evening, watched some TV, and went to bed. Not cool. I hope I have more to talk about tomorrow. I am visiting an inactive family in our ward tonight, we're going to do a couple of missionary lessons so I hope everything goes well. It should be a great experience and should give me more to write about tomorrow.

Lo Siento.

AMS

The Beginning of the Week

I wish I could do this.

Well, so begins another week. Another week of mindlessly searching for work. Another week of wishing I were back at school. Another week of waiting to go on my mission.

Bleh.

I should recap my weekend since I didn't post the last couple of days. Friday, Mackenzie and I went to the Orem Library to read children's books to each other. It was a simple, silly thing to do, but we had a whole lot of fun. The Orem Library brings back a lot of fond memories. It's a huge library, especially compared to the Spanish Fork Library, full of tons and tons of books, CD's, and films. How many public libraries have a movie section solely devoted to silent pictures? This one does. I remember going there as a kid and reading books next to the big stained glass window. To me, this library was a castle full of adventure. So, when I go there now, I feel like I'm a kid all over again.

After that, we watched the ever classic Johnny Lingo. If you haven't seen it, here it is for your viewing pleasure. 

"Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God."

Saturday rolled around with a pleasant morning of sleeping in. I spent that morning lounging around the house, but that evening, me, Mackenzie, Jake, Katelyn, Chris, Curtis, Tyler, Brittany, and Matt went and saw Hugo. Again, if you haven't seen it, reward yourself and go see it. This movie was really well made and very entertaining.

Before you see it though, I would recommend reading the book first, "The Invention of Hugo Cabret." It's the reason I wanted to see the movie in the first place! Really well done book and a movie that follows it very closely. 

We had planned on going to Lowe's Extreme Air Sports, but it was way too full, so we ended up going to Jake's house and watching a couple of episodes of "Impractical Jokers". The show's just about a bunch of guys who go around and see who can be the most obnoxious and embarrassing in public. It makes for a hilariously entertaining show!

Sunday, I had an interview with the Stake President to endorse my Temple Recommend. I'm going through the temple this Saturday! I can't adequately put into words how excited I am. I've been looking forward to this my whole life; it's pretty crazy to think that it's almost here. When the big day comes, I'm sure I'll have some great things to say about my experience!

Well, that's all I really have to report from my weekend. I'm definitely looking forward to an exciting week of unpredictability! Hoping for the best for everyone. Since this post was kind of lame, I will leave with this video of a kid in my ward at Lowe's Extreme Air Sports, which I mentioned before. It's made me laugh every single time I've watched it!

AMS

Making Some Changes

Contradictory to our title today...

The big change mentioned in the title is that I'm going to start posting in the morning instead of the evening. That way I'm much more likely to post.

Yesterday had the makings of a busy day, but it wasn't. It could have been hectic, but it wasn't. Just the way I like it. I love days where I get a lot done in a little amount of time. When I woke up, I laid in bed for a while and worked on mission related things that I could do from the comfort of my own bed. I filled out forms, checked my mission email, etc. I got a call around 11 from my dear mother asking if I would be willing to help a struggling student in her 4th grade class with long division. Now, I haven't done math for 3 years now, but I figured I'd give it a shot. Lucky for me, I could still remember how to do long division and I kinda helped the kid, Austin, understand his math better. I had a hard time making eye contact with him since he looks like a 4th grade version of Kevin Malone:

As I mentioned before, I have had a lot of extra work lately down at the school. I guess the sweepers down there haven't had a willing substitute sweeper in quite a while so they've had no choice but to show up to work no matter what. Now that they have a reliable sub that does a decent job, they're all taking the day off to their heart's content, thus piling the work on me. I shouldn't complain because I really do need the money, but 5 1/2 hours like I had yesterday is the equivalent to cleaning half of the classrooms in the school. Not my favorite. My boss left early which I took as an invitation to do the same. So, I cleaned quickly doing the best speed job I had in me, and was done by about 6.

When I went home, I went to the ward young men's basketball game. Benjamin gets pretty good playing time and is actually a very impressive ball handler. He was spinning around people and breaking a few ankles, he even drained some pretty impressive shots! Why is he not on the school basketball team? Lack of discipline. He gets out there and looks like he's running out of control! When he gets the ball and starts running he gets the funniest panicked grin on his face; we call it the "Benjamin Face". This is the closest face to his that I could find:

It's something to that effect. He also never practices. His idea of practicing is going out and shooting for 20 minutes maybe once a week. No one, I repeat, NO ONE can get good at anything practicing that little. If he had the discipline to go practice hard every day, he would be really, really good.

That's all I really have to report for today. Big plans tonight so I should have some good stuff tomorrow. Maybe.

AMS

For the Sake of Writing

I don't really know why I'm here right now.

Sometimes, you just have to write I guess.

So, here I am, writing in my blog. I don't really know what sparked the urge to write in my blog and I don't have much to say, but maybe as I'm writing, more thoughts will pop into my head and I'll end up with a decent post.  Usually I'm asleep right now since I don't have to wake up at 4 in the morning anymore. I have hours compounded now of missed sleep from those three weeks that you could say I'm trying to catch up on. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

My philosophy is, when you're tired, you sleep.

I had a dream last night where I was going into the MTC and I had forgotten a ton of things; one of which was the book "Jesus the Christ" which my mom's been trying to get me to read for about a year now. I finally took the book off the shelf and I'll probably start it today. Definitely need to get that read before I leave. I have a whole list of things I need to get done in the next couple of weeks in preparation for my mission. I don't want to spend the last few weeks I have here doing all of that, I'd much rather spend that time amongst friends and family since that will be the last time I see them for a couple of years, maybe ever.

Now I find myself laying in bed thinking about things. Mostly my mission. I still hasn't really hit me yet that I already have my mission call and I'm literally 2 months away from putting everything in my life on hold for 2 years to preach the gospel. Big events like that don't really dawn on me until I'm actually living those events.  BYU was one of those things.  I honestly didn't realize I was moving out and heading to college until the day of when I finished packing and drove away.  I looked back and thought to myself "this is really happening".  I like change, and I embrace change, but it sometimes scares me to death.  I think I like to face changes head on as long as I have someone there with me. When I have to enter the unknown alone, I'm pretty preemptive about it. When I went to BYU, I had Ethan as a roommate so it was just a lot of fun. We kinda stuck around each other for the first week until we made new friends and branched out. I'm guessing the mission will be pretty similar to that; get out there pretty nervous and reserved, get to know my companion and the language, branch out and make friends with some investigators, love life in the heart of Texas! At least that's what I'm hoping for.

I keep leaving this page that I'm writing this on to go to other random websites like Facebook, Reddit, ESPN, etc. That's kinda how I write this sometimes; I sit here and write a few things, venture off to different websites until I think of something to write about, then I go back and write about it thus completing the cycle. That's not how I do it every time of course, just sometimes. Anyways, while I was venturing to different places, I did a little bit of snooping on Facebook and was very displeased with the results. People honestly get on my nerves. I don't like liars, I don't like two-faced people, and I don't like people who manipulate things to their advantage. A certain ex of mine whose name we will not disclose at this time was notorious for doing this. She would say anything to whoever to make sure she was innocent and in the right. She would even tell person #1 one side of a story and person #2 a different side of the story even though persons 1 and 2 are best friends. Even though she knew they would get together and exchange stories and trace the lies back to her, she'd do it anyways to get out of the situation at the moment. This came back to bite her many, many times and she is still suffering for it. 

The Picture of Dorian Gray tells the story of a man who sells his soul to make sure his beauty never fades. The signs of age pass through him to a painting of himself. As he leads a life of sin, the painting begins to age and become disfigured; a reminder of the effect each act has upon his soul. Eventually, the burden becomes too much for him to handle and in a rage, he stabs the portrait, thus killing himself. When people come to see what has happened, they find Dorian's body stabbed in the heart and aged to the point that only the rings on his fingers make him recognizable. The portrait however, is reverted back to its original form. The moral of the story is that you can't run from your transgressions. You can't lie to yourself. You can fool everyone around you, but you can't trick your conscience. And it will always come back to get you. It's happened to me, and I got burned pretty bad for it.

Why do we constantly sit and convince ourselves that what we are doing is fine? We waste so much time blindly groping for any justification to our actions. Why is it so difficult for people to own up to their mistakes and correct them instead of constantly trying to cover them up and act like they're not there? Guess what, Champ? They're still there! If you sit there and act like your sins aren't there, they always resurface, usually at the perfectly wrong time. The natural man is afraid of the truth. We always try to run away from it and avoid it when instead we should just take the quick burn now and not have to stew in our own guilt. 

I'm a big fan of the band-aid effect: Get it over with. People have a tendency to drag painful things our and try and take it a little at a time. Like going into cold water; instead of just jumping in and taking all of the cold at once, we dip our toe in, we move in an inch at a time, and we wait for that section of body to tolerate the water before we move on to the next tiny section of body. It's the same with a band-aid, we peel off just a little at a time, every millimeter of pain along the way. If instead we just hurry and pull off the band-aid, all the hurt happens at once but it's over a lot faster than if we pull the band-aid off slowly.  It's the same concept with repentance. When we make a mistake (get cut) we cover it up to stop the hurt (put on the band-aid). But we all know that eventually, that band-aid has to come off (we need to repent). Why do we insist on dragging it out and doing it as slowly and painfully as possible (slowly peeling the band-aid off) when instead we should hurry and get it done quickly (ripping the band-aid off) so while the pain is still there, it's only for a fleeting moment? Its even worse when we don't want to repent (don't want to take the band-aid off) because we're scared of the pain. But eventually someone, usually a loved one, will discover what you've done and will have to help fix it for you (rip the band-aid off for you) and that often comes unwanted and uninvited. 

We all make mistakes, own up to them. Don't hide them, and don't hide from them. Get it fixed, learn from your mistakes, and move forward.

Go, and sin no more.

AMS

A Wild, Wild Week

My unintended hiatus is over.

I started this blog with the intention that it would be easier to write my thoughts on a daily basis. It turns out I'm just as inconsistent as my hand written journal. Either way, this is me starting fresh in keeping the thirsty minds of the readers up to speed on what's going on in my life.

This last week or so has been quite the crazy trip. I continued going to work from 5-3 at the warehouse and my life had settled into an unchanging routine. I knew my work at the warehouse wouldn't last very long, I just didn't realize it would be this short.

Wednesday, I went in to work early as can be, only to see a couple of temps that I work with leaving. I should have known what was coming to me the moment I saw that, but I never would be prepared for exactly what unfolded that day at work. I went in to work expecting I may get sent home, but I didn't. They put me back in the reticketing area instead of my normal spot in receiving, where I usually scan boxes and make sure everything's up to snuff before it's shipped to stores all along the inter-mountain west.  I was just busy as can be putting tickets on merchandise until I was called over to a new area known as GOH. I never found out what that stands for, but it's basically a claustrophobic area of the warehouse surrounded by clothing on hangers, literally, they're everywhere. I felt pretty crowded in there, but I was sent over because apparently they had things for us to do. I went over, got a little bit of training on what I was supposed to do, we sat around for about 20 minutes, and they sent me back! What the heck. So, I went back to reticketing merchandise until my supervisor Rob came over and told me to clock out and head home. I knew I was being "terminated" but just in case  I thought I'd ask what time to come in Thursday. He, being the nice guy he is, kinda beat around the bush but I translated it into "you aren't coming in tomorrow, we don't have work for you anymore."

So, my time at the warehouse is done. I have a lot more respect for people that do that day in and day out. I can't stand the idea that I would be doing that every day for the rest of my working life. Blah. I also can't look at any retail places the same way again. I've been really blessed while I'm short on work by having a lot of extra hours at the Elementary School. I still can't figure out exactly why the Lord had me go through all of that only to have me let go after just 2 1/2 weeks, but I'm sure someday I'll know why. I did make a good amount of money while I was there, which is always a good thing. I'm still searching for another part time job to make some more money, if anyone knows of anything, feel free to let me know.

In the mean time, I'm occupying my time getting everything set to go for a mission. I had to go to the doctors the other day to get a medical record; turns out they had 4 extra shots to give me. I got a flu shot, polio shot, hepatitis A shot, and one called MMR-1, which I'm not sure what it's for, but I do know it burns pretty bad when it goes in. So my arms were pretty sore that day from those shots, but I have a solid medical record ready to send to my Mission President. I also got a driving record so I can drive cars while I'm in McAllen, and I got my temple recommend for when I take out my endowments on February 4th. I can't wait for that.

Other things that have gone on in my life include an awesome date on Saturday. Me, Jake, Kelton, James, and Chris planned a little date where we'd go up to Spanish Fork Canyon and shoot some clay pigeons with our dates. We'd have contests and targets and everything; it was going to be great! Mother Nature had other plans however as we were all ready to go and the snow finally decided to fall. Of all the days in the world for the snow to start falling as heavy as it did, it had to be that day. So we went to plan B where we went to the mall and tried to get people to sign a fake petition that we made up for each other. The person trying to get the petition signed wouldn't be able to know what they were getting people to sign until they actually walked up to someone and started talking to them. It was super funny and we had a great time. After that, we went to Ruby River and ate dinner. I'd never been there before but it was really really good! It was kind of pricey, but definitely worth it. To end the night, we went back to my house to watch Jurassic Park on Blu-Ray. If you haven't seen a movie on Blu-Ray yet, you may want to check it out. I was a naysayer at first until I saw one, and it pretty much blew my mind. The image is incredibly clear and even though I've seen Jurassic Park a million times, I was hearing lines I'd never heard before because the sound was so clear as well! We had a fun time laughing at stupid moments in that movie, and afterwards called it a night and took our dates home.

I'd be a fool if I didn't mention my beautiful date Mackenzie. We were laughing and poking at each other pretty much the entire night which made for a lot of unforgettable moments. She is such a sweet girl. She had borrowed her dad's car on Monday for only that day. The one and only day she has the car, she comes down to Spanish Fork and surprises me. That says a whole lot about the kind of girl she is. I couldn't say enough about her and how kind she is; definitely grateful to have her in my life.

Anyways, I can't really think of anything else to mention right now. Hopefully I'll be more faithful in writing and you'll have new material tomorrow.

AMS

Trying Times

A Storm is Coming

I'm back.

It's been quite a long time since I posted in this blog. In my defense, I gave you fair warning that I wouldn't be posting much until I get used to it. Well, I'm used to the schedule...kind of.

I can basically recap my entire week in one word: Work. I've been working the 5-3 shift all week including Saturday and it has been a whirlwind! Things have changed and shuffled, I've been promoted, I've witnessed firings, laying off in great mass, and a whole lot of confusion and mis-communication. I'm starting to figure out that no one really knows what they're doing there. It all started on a Thursday...

I went in at 5:50 AM, hating life and everything about it. I spent the first hour training and then, it began. I spent the next 7 hours putting stickers on clothing tags. No sitting, no phone, no music, no one speaking English around me. I was really discouraged after the first 15 minute break when I sat alone because I had no one to talk to, so I resolved to find someone to talk to on the next break, it didn't matter who. I sat next to a guy who had big gages in his ears and a lip ring. I was scared out of my mind but I said "hello, how is your morning going?" He answered, and proceeded to get up and leave...wow. I had pretty much hit rock bottom and just sort of slogged through the rest of the day; with the final blow coming when I found out I had to be into work at 5 the next day AND I'd be working Saturday. I got home and sat in the garage just staring at the steering wheel. I wanted to quit. This is coming from someone who worked for over a year and a half conducting phone surveys. I wanted to quit after day one. I went and laid down, wishing I could just run away from life. Mom got home and asked how day one was, I slumped down against the wall and started to cry. I was so discouraged and honestly scared to think that the next 3 months would be this way. We had a good discussion that helped me feel better, but the fear was still there.

I grew up with separation anxiety. When my parents would go out of town overnight, I would get very scared and have panic attacks. I hadn't felt that anxiety and pure fear until Thursday night, when I suddenly was overwhelmed with panic; I didn't think I'd be able to handle the next three months. Is this how my life's going to be? Am I going to have to get up early and go to bed early all because of this job? Will I be able to do anything else? My fears were taking over me and I felt consumed in doubt and despair. It was petty, but it was happening.

I got a blessing from my good dad, and I'm so grateful for his worthiness to be able to answer the call instantly. I still had my fears and the sick feeling in my stomach so I went to bed. I remember dropping to my knees and pleading for comfort. As it has happened many many times in my life, I heard the words from Doctrine and Covenants 101:16

"Be Still, and know that I am God."

Those words always calm my troubles, I looked at a spot on the wall and focused on it, something my dad taught me to do. I focused on the wall and absorbed myself in the moment; I let go of the big picture and thought to myself "the only thing that matters is tomorrow".

The next day, I went to work and about half way through the day, I got a call from my mom telling me that there was a job opening at the school I used to work at, 4 hours a day! I jumped on the job offer and got the job that afternoon! I'm free! I can quit the other job and I'll just get another job to make up for the four hours, I felt on top of the world! I went and talked to my boss...and found out that it's actually only 1 hour a day. Well, I'm doomed. Not only can I not quit the warehouse job, but now I have this job to go with it! I"m worse off than I was before! All of those feelings of fear and being overwhelmed came back and I was thrown back into my pit of despair.

But again, the tender mercies of the Lord reminded me of these words:

"I am the Gardener here, I know what I want you to become."

Alright Mr. Gardener, I believe; help thou my unbelief.

I was ready to go into work on Saturday, fulfill my shift, and quit, immediately seeking out new employment. I was about halfway through the day when I was pulled aside and given, a promotion. I was promoted after 3 days. Well, how on earth am I supposed to quit now?? It looks like I'm here for the long haul. So, here I am. Working 5-3 every day, including Saturday. I'm tired, I'm bored, I'm ready to be done, but I'm humble. I am here at this job for a reason, and I will someday realize what that reason is. Things have been better, I met a lady that speaks English and is very nice. Things just haven't gone right for her lately, and that really humbled me. I'm lucky to have this job, some would kill for the job I have. So I ate my slice of humble pie and started trying a real better attitude about my job.

On Monday, about 40 new temps were hired, putting the number of temps at around 120. They worked Monday and came into work to find out that they were all let go, all 40 of  them. As the day went on I saw temp after temp after temp going home early! Like, 7:00 early! I didn't know what was going on so I asked a supervisor; turns out all but 10 temps were let go, including the entire night shift. Holy Cow. I don't think  it's a coincidence that I just happen to be one of the only people that kept a job there. I need this job for money to fund a mission for the Lord.

That's when it hit me.

Maybe there's a reason this has been so hard on me.

My life has been so great lately. A great job at BYU, school, fun times with friends, life in the dorms, life was so good. Now, I'm at a really crummy job, living at home again, no time for friends, and nothing but work. Why would I be sent from the high life to the doldrums?? Why would the Lord do this to me? Maybe it's because the Lord wants to see just how bad I want to serve a mission. Maybe, Satan wants to see me fall, wants to see me give up. Maybe one person wants me out there really bad and will do anything to make sure I'm ready to go, and maybe the other wants me to stay home so bad, he's willing to make my life as hard as possible to prevent me from going, because I have great things ahead of me in McAllen.

“We’re in a time when we must choose between what is right and what is easy.”

Life isn't meant to be a cakewalk. It's supposed to be hard, sometimes very hard. If life were easy and we were never put through difficult times that try our faith and our endurance, what would be the point of being here? We wouldn't grow and develop, we wouldn't learn anything, and we wouldn't appreciate the good.

"For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so...righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility."

Be brave, be strong, endure, and do not be moved. 

AMS

Just a Notification

Sorry for my absence. Since my job started, my schedule has been really out of whack. Once I get things back in order and my body and mind get used to the hours and everything else, I will return to daily posting. Thanks for the patience until then; I definitely will have much to report next time.

A New Job and an Apology

I know, I forgot again.

So, that's the apology part of this post. Yes, I forgot to post last night. In my defense, I was really tired and didn't even think about it. It went a little something like this:

Journal? What journal?

So yeah. I'm an idiot.

Now to the actual "reporting how my day went" part of this post. Due to the fact that I am not a student at BYU anymore, I was unable to keep working at BYUtv. Not only was that the best job I could possibly ask for as a college freshman, I really really had a fun time working there! So, over the past few months, my parents were looking for a new job for me.

Yes you read that right.

I absolutely detest job searching. I hate the process of looking for a job, I typically freak myself out at the thought of what I'd be doing at the new job, and I lose sleep the night before because I'm so worked up (pun intended) about how much I'll screw up on my first day on the job site. Nevertheless, I did finally get a new job. I'm hired to work as a factory worker. This may be the worst job I can imagine for me. I hate repetitive jobs and all that I'll be doing here is putting new price tags on hundreds of thousands of JC Penny clothes and merchandise for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 3 months. Oh boy.

When I went in to interview for the job, I was the only one of the 7 people trying to get said job that actually dressed up. I honestly thought that most companies value someone who can look nice and present themselves well, but it looks like I'll be working with society's armpit. I'm sure they're nice people, but there's something to be said about making a first impression. There's the excuse that people should accept us for who we are and to not judge a book by its cover, but if the cover has some socially unacceptable or maybe "extreme" content, why would anyone want to open the book to bother to find out what's inside.

Anyway, all I did to get the job was take a drug and background test to make sure I'm not on meth or a predator, and take THE TEST!!! No, the test was just to see if I could put stickers on a sheet of paper neatly and quickly. Sounds easy right? I only got half in the time limit. What's even worse? I had the highest score they've ever seen. Want to know what's even worse? Out of the 7 people that took the test, only 3 passed. Yes, I will be working with an exceptional group of individuals for the next 3 months. So I start tomorrow at....5:50am...oh man this is going to kill me. It was either that or the 3 to midnight shift, and I'll take killing my sleep time over killing my social life.

In other news, I said goodbye to Wesley yesterday as he has left for his Anaheim mission. It was a much harder goodbye than I expected. He has a great testimony and a very brilliant mind. He is a thinker and is very good at articulating his thoughts for others. To illustrate this, this is an excerpt from his last blog post. You can see the rest and much more at wessence.blogspot.com.

"Not every war involves guns and bullets. Not every threat to freedom uses tanks and bombs. There is a remarkable degradation of values and ethics in the world of our day. Poor morals, addiction, and temptation threaten individual freedom in ways which are easily comparable to any dictator in history. The fight for freedom is just as much a personal struggle as it is one which involves foreign powers. We need soldiers who are willing to fight on the front lines of both."

God speed, Elder.

I spent the rest of the evening up at BYU visiting friends as they moved back in for Winter Semester. I really wish I were joining them. I love my family and Spanish Fork, but 2311 Whitney Hall really became my home and I'm sad to not be going back. It was a little weird being there and knowing that I'm not living there anymore. It was weird to leave my FHE sister's dorm and not just walk back to my dorm. I wish them all the best of luck in this semester at college. Wish I were there.

This post does count for today and yesterday, if I do end up posting tonight, it will be very short since I will be going to bed VERY early to prepare myself for my new job tomorrow. Here goes the start of the next three months of my life!

AMS

I'm Back!

After a week in the sun, I have returned.

Wow that was fun!

After a weeks absence, I am back to the Blog scene. I have been in Orlando for the last week at Disney World. That was my Christmas Present this year, which is good for me considering I would have just received Mission clothes this year anyway. We did this trip back in 2009; what a difference 2 years makes:

2009

2011

Crazy.

We spent 6 days at the parks. I'll just summarize each day real quick.

Monday:

Monday was a really exciting day for basically one reason:

Harry Potter World.

Man was this place cool. They really pulled out all of the stops here. The whole area was really well done, the attention to detail was insane; I mean, they really put me in Hogwarts! The ride itself was really awesome, but really in-your-face. There was one point where I found myself nose to nose with a dragon breathing smoke into my face. All in all, well done.

We went on my personal favorite ride, Jurassic Park River Adventure, and didn't get that wet! So we felt bold and decided to tackle Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls. This is the end result:

Bad, bad idea. We spent most of the rest of the day with mildly damp jeans and shorts, and right when our clothes are basically dry, Jarom INSISTS we ride Popeye and Bluto's bilge-rat barges, another soaker. We figured since we were heading home right after, it wouldn't be that bad. We were wrong. Dead wrong. Islands of Adventure is a very wet park.

Tuesday:

Ah yes, the Happiest Place on Earth. We did a really good job of avoiding long lines and using fast passes (special passes that let you cut the line) very wisely this day. We started out on Space Mountain, which is my favorite ride in the park. I got to sit by my Dad who was whooping and hollering in fear the whole time. Those sounds will not leave me for a long, long time. I found it very hard to breathe on the ride since I was laughing so hard. After that, we went on all of the classics: Splash Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, Peter Pan, It's a Small World, etc. Just a fun day at a fun park. We started to notice that there were a lot of people there by the end of the day. We should have taken that as a warning...

Wednesday:

Oh, who am I kidding? It will always be this to me:

Yet another triumph by Disney. This park literally takes you behind the scenes of Hollywood. It's my kind of park. It also has the Tower of Terror, Star Tours, Rockin' Roller Coaster, and Muppets 3D! Lots of good things at this park. Unless of course you're sharing it with 70,000 other people. This was the day of record setting numbers at ALL of the theme parks in Orlando. All of them. The streets were literally full to capacity that day and wait times for rides mounted to as high as 3 hours!! I am sorry, but no ride is worth that wait. The news told us that night that it was a 3 hour wait just to get IN to Harry Potter World, and an additional 2 hours to get on the ride. 5 Hours. No.

We still had a pretty good time that day. Got to go on almost all of the rides I wanted to, including Star Tours-The Adventure Continues!

We rocked our awesome 3D glasses all the way home. Totally worth the 90 minute wait!

Thursday:

Definitely my favorite park, hands down.

I don't really know what it is about this park that is so endearing to me, but I absolutely love it! We spent the first half of the morning in Future World, which is where the big ball is. We rode Soarin', Living with the Land, Test Track, Universe of Energy, and Mission to Mars. After that, we went and checked out the World Showcase, which spotlights the culture of 11 countries such as Norway, Germany, Japan, China, and Canada among others. This is just a really cool culture trip that is very authentic and fun! We finished the day riding the big ball, Spaceship Earth. One of my all time favorite rides, it takes you on a trip through time, studying the history of communication. While you travel "through time to the present" you get a chance to construct your own future. This is mine and Micah's:

Absolutely love Epcot.

Friday:

Also a super great park! Like Hollywood Studios, Universal Studios takes you behind the scenes of your favorite Universal movies like Jaws, The Mummy, ET, and Men in Black. It also has one of the best roller coasters I've ever been on: The Rip Ride Rockit! 

This ride was intense! It lets you choose your own personal music to rock out to on the ride, and it films you the entire ride! So you can watch your trip and even purchase it as a music video for the small price of $19.99! Gotta love theme park prices. We rode almost every ride at the park and had a really full, exciting day! 

Saturday:

We finished our trip at Animal Kingdom. This is a huge park, but doesn't have a lot of rides. What it does do, however, is immerse you in a real jungle. The environment is very natural and looks great! We rode the roller coaster Everest, which pits you against the legendary Yeti. We also rode Dinosaur, which is a lot more intense than you'd expect out of a kids park. We took the Kilimanjaro Safari through the "African Serengeti" where we saw rhinos, elephants, lions, and more! We saw Festival of the Lion King, which is cheesy, but pretty good. We saw It's Tough to be a Bug, which is a very in your face 3D movie about bugs starring the bugs from A Bug's Life. We finally wrapped up our trip where we started: on a soaking wet ride that Jarom wanted to go on.

  

Ironically, Jarom stayed the driest out of everyone so I guess I should consider myself lucky that I was sitting by him. But, being Jarom, he went again determined to get soaked. The Kali River Rapids lived up to their promise to leave none dry and Jarom came out drenched and shivering. With that, we left the last park and started wrapping up our Florida trip. On our way out, we saw this:

You know you picked the wrong park when there's so many people (100,000) that they have to start turning people away because they just can't fit any more in the park...glad we weren't there. That sign kind of sums up the whole week. Very full parks, busy days, long lines, and exhaustion. But I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Before we flew home, we spent New Years Eve at our condo. We went out to dinner that night at Shoney's.

Shoney's must be Ebonics for "White people don't belong here" because I felt really out of place at the buffet. Now, I'm not a racist by any stretch of the word, but any buffet with fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, watermelon, and corn bread is obviously aimed towards a certain demographic. Oh, I almost forgot to mention the collard greens...

This may possibly be the most vile weed I have ever tasted in my life. I decided to try some because I figured if it's so popular in the south, there must be something special about it. There wasn't. It was slimy, chewy, and honestly tasted very fermented. I can't adequately describe how bad this stuff tasted. It was just...it was gross.

Sunday:

We flew home Sunday and were back in the comfort of our own beds. We had a 2 hour layover in Atlanta where we first met the squealing little boy. This kid threw temper tantrums left and right. But they weren't just  tantrums, they were full blown, hybrid squeals of displeasure. Oh man, if I had a quarter for every second I wanted to shoot myself on that flight...either way, we made it home safe and sound! So I'll be back to writing daily (hopefully) and in the meantime, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year. Lets ring it in!!

AMS