Month: July 2006

Animal Kingdom and Downtown Disney

Sarah Disney '06

We left for Animal Kingdom at 8:30 this morning – surprisingly, we managed to get 8 adults and 7 children (under 7) out of the house by 8:30, and were walking into the park just after 9.

We all headed straight for the Safari ride. Carrie and her cousins all loved it! After walking around a bit with everyone else we split off so the older kids could go do older kid things and we could do toddler-friendly things. After a quick snack of fruit and the biggest soft pretzel I’ve ever seen, we took a train ride to Rafiki’s wildlife preserve. Carrie met Rafiki (he blew kisses to her, which charmed her thoroughly) and we went to a petting zoo. She had a great time chasing the goats!

Back to the house for lunch and a nice long nap, and then we headed to Downtown Disney for dinner at the Rainforest Cafe and some serious lego shopping. We heart the Lego store, where we got Carrie duplo-sized people and animals. Up to now we’d only had regular old blocks, now we have a full-blown farm to play with!

Rough Night

Sarah Carolyn, Disney '06

Travelling and missing her nap messed up Carrie’s sleep schedule and she was up for hours last night. I am so tired. At some point we tried bringing her into bed with us, and she was climbing all over me calling “blue? blue? blue?” because she couldn’t find her blue binky. Which was in her mouth. Did I mention I’m tired?

Florida or Bust

Sarah Disney '06

I am *not* a good traveller. Carrie, luckily, got the “good traveller” gene from Denis. She seemed to like being on the plane, although the 30 minutes we sat on the tarmac after landing in Atlanta but before they “parked” the plane wasn’t too thrilling for her. She kept saying “no airplane, no airplane!” The flight had been delayed in the first place, and then we were 30 minutes later to the gate, which gave us 20 minutes to change a diaper and sprint to our connection. And then I had to let go of my parental anxiety and let Carrie ride unrestrained on a bus on major highways to get to the rental car agency. Considering we’d actually gone so far as to rear-face the carseat on the plane, I was freaking out a bit internally.

It was a very long day, but as soon as we walked in the rental house Carrie was thrilled to see all of her cousins!

We had to set up her pack & play in the closet in our room, since there’s not a whole lot of floor space. Don’t worry, we can’t close the doors to the closet with the p&p in there even if we wanted to! :)

Oh, and the promised internet access is not actually working, so I won’t be able to publish any of these posts until we get home.

Leavin’ on a Jet Plane…

Sarah Disney '06

In a mere 12 hours we’ll be on our way to Disney. It’s Carrie’s first time on a plane, and our first time packing checked bags and carrying on stuff for three people instead of two. It’s something of a logistical nightmare, because while we have three tickets’ worth of luggage allowance, there are only two people who can lug/tow/carry/push whatever we bring. Plus, that third person requires a car seat and a stroller.

We think we can tandem two rolling suitcases together. That leaves a stroller to push, a backpack to wear, a diaper bag to shoulder, a car seat to carry, and a toddler to corral – because there’s not a chance in the world she’ll actually consent to sitting in the stroller for more than 27.3 seconds.

The thing is, all of Carrie’s stuff easily amounts to twice what Denis and I are taking combined. How can a person so small need so much stuff?!? There are diapers, dollies, binkies, diapers, straw cups, books, toys, diapers, stickers, snacks, crayons, bibs and diapers. (All those diapers would be daytime diapers, nighttime diapers, swim diapers, and carry-on diapers.) We’re currently arguing over whether it’s really necessary to try to bring the booster seat with us. I vote no. Denis votes yes. The laws of physics are going to side with me tomorrow morning when we try to cram our toiletries into our already overstuffed suitcase. (I’m way better at spatial relations than he is.)

Theoretically, I’ll be able to blog from the house we’re renting. If not, see you all when we get home. :)

Funny Language

Sarah Carolyn

Carrie couldn’t decide whether she liked the fireworks last night or not. I hadn’t intended for her to be up late enough to watch them, but they woke her up. She kept saying “no fie-fur, no fie-fur”, but then would say “yay” and clap after each burst. And for a little bit she was saying “shhh, quiet, shhh” because my mom was telling her to listen for all the people clapping. (You could hear everyone down the hill at the display and all the people in our neighborhood, it was such a clear quiet night.)

We have quite the little parrot on our hands now, so we really have to watch our language. I said “oh, shoot” the other day, and Carrie wandered around saying “oh shoot, oh shoot, oh shoot”. Sigh. I suppose if she’s going to learn these things, it’s better she learn them from me than on the bus, right?

My favorite current mispronunciation is “bee-fee” (barefeet). She says this as she pulls her sandals off her feet or tries to head out the front door without shoes. I swear this kid would go barefoot 24 hours a day if I let her. We’ve had several tantrums in public places because I won’t let her play at the park or walk around the mall barefoot. “No, mama! No! Bee-fee!”

Snowmen In July

Sarah Cross Stitch

I can hardly believe it, but look what I just finished last night:

snowmen_part1.jpg

I’m going to guess that I started this snowman cross-stitch in 2000-ish. It was definitely in the 2 year post-wedding/pre-blogging era of my life. In fact, I started it so long ago that it was before the stick-on velcro stuff that you attach to the scroll bars and fabric – the fabric is actually sewn to the scroll bars.

Of course, this project is not exactly finished. I still have a separate section that hangs below this part to stitch, which says “Snow! Snow! Snow!” all in one color of blue. I’m toying with the idea of bringing it to Florida with me on vacation. We’ll see how much room there is in the suitcase.

I also finally took pictures of the finished pair of falling leaves socks. I finished them up on Father’s Day, right when I was having issues with the internet, so I never got around to posting about it. Sorry about the blindingly white legs sticking out over the top of them. I’ll try to work on those on vacation too. ;)

I Can’t Decide!

Sarah Shopping

OK, so I wanted to see what one of my ads was all about (Knitting Fanatic T-Shirts – how could I pass that up?) so I copied the link, pasted it in another browser window, realized that it still copied all the referrer stuff and I had essentially clicked on my own ad, and then got sucked in by what I saw and decided to stop worrying.

While I can still decide what clothes Carrie wears (well, at least I can decide what to buy, she decides what to actually put on every morning) I have to get her one of these t-shirts. Should I go with Knitter-In-Training, Sometimes Mama’s just gotta knit, or Sheep? (I’d consider Mama is a yarn ho, except if Carrie learns to read early I don’t want to answer that question…) Maybe I could get her two, if I size up so she can wear them for a longer time?

Make Sense?

Sarah Administrivia

I’ve decided to try putting google ads on the crafts portion of my site. My brother was helping me track down when and from where Carrie’s pictures were stolen, and noticed how much traffic I get on some of those pages. Personally, I’m not too sure about the whole idea, but I suppose if the site can pay for some part of the costs of maintaining it, maybe it’s not such a bad thing. Actually, there have been a couple of ads I’ve been interested in looking at, but I’m expressly forbidden to click on my own ads!

In other site news, I know there are some problems with the TypeKey authentication, especially for users of Safari (like me) and Internet Explorer. I’m still working on tracking those down. As far as I can tell, they mainly involve caching issues, and I’ve applied every fix I’ve found with no success. I’m a little frustrated with this whole thing, since it affects my ability to read my own posts, not to mention all of you lovely people who have gone to the trouble of getting a TypeKey account and letting me know about it. Hopefully I’ll get this fixed soon, since I’m tired of spending every evening dealing with my site instead of knitting Christmas gifts! Thanks for your patience. :)