On Our Way Home

Today is a very sad day.

We leave our beloved Disney and come back to reality.

Have we said how much fun Disney is for our family??? Way fun.

Last night we were so tired, but we had to go back just one more time. The conference was over in late afternoon and we went to Epcot for the last time. We ate at our favorite restaurant, but Sam wasn't working last night, so we didn't get to see her. The food was good and the fellowship was great. As we left, Princess cried when we got to the center icon, the large golfball-looking thing called Spaceship Earth. So we sat underneath, took out the video camera and 'journaled' our leaving and what a great time we had. It really pulled at the heartstrings of Mom and Dad as we walked through the parking lot to our car, Princess kept looking back over her shoulder. :(

This morning as King and I were stirring around packing the last minute items, Princess laughed out loud in her sleep. She told us when she woke up that she had been dreaming of some friends at school. I think we are all ready to come home, but not ready to leave this week of togetherness and family time.

It's been a great trip!

These are pictures from the conference. This was the largest turnout that we've seen! We loved the Orlando location as, obviously, others did as well. Also pictured is the nicest neurologist that I've ever met. Dr. Frank Lehman-Horn is so smart, so nice and so caring. Princess, King and I gave our blood for genetic testing. We'll find out in a year or so what the results are. Woo-hoo!

What it's all about...

Family time!!!

The United Kingdom and Sam

This is our favorite place to eat at WDW ... Epcot in the UK at a place called the Rose and Crown Pub and Restaurant. These folks go over and above to serve. We've eaten there twice and both of our servers were so sweet, but we were especially fond of Sam today. She is from Stamford, England and we found out at the end that she is a Believer as well. Princess wanted some potatoe leek soup, but it didn't come with her meal. No worries. Sam brought some for free. Princess also wanted some chocolate coins that she had with her sundae the other evening and again, no worries. Sam said she'd bring one. Well. Sam brought a plate of chocolate coins!!! She even asked "Minnie" for her autograph at the end of the meal. Here is Princess giving her first autograph as "Minnie" in Sam's autograph book. Such a sweet time! Sam told King that even if we do not eat there again on Sunday that she'd love it if we just stopped by to say "hi". Have I said that we love WDW?!!

So Much Character!!!

Magic Kingdom Episode

If you've read the Frog Blog post then you know what a delightful time we had at the Magic Kingdom on Wednesday. We stayed until the end of the fireworks and were leaving the park with the innumerable crowd of people when (a long way away from the exit) I realized I was starting into a Hypo episode. Estimating from the front gate (0ur exit point) to the castle, there were about 20,000-40,000 people. Not a good place to lay down and have an episode. We were shoulder to shoulder with the unwashed masses. Then ... it began to rain. Now, many people would be intimidated by these obstacles, but not my King. He began working us toward the edge of the crowd and found a porch to sit under, a cold bottle of water to take medicine and a brownie for Princess during the wait. God is so sweet to provide what we need! We sat and waited for the episode to pass and eventually we walked to the exit of MKingdom. We walked to the point where we could see the line for the monorail (to take us back to the car) and my heart sank. All those thousands of people that we were shoulder to shoulder with were now in line for the monorail. It was at that moment that I realized I was going into another episode ... or at least the first episode was coming back. Either way, we headed back inside the park for a resting spot. Now things were getting a little more interesting because they said they would stop running the tram through the parking lot at 10:30. It was about 10:00 by now and I couldn't walk. King found a wheelchair and we proceeded out to stand with all the folks in line for the monorail. I sat there and prayed, "Lord, you made all the people and the materials for the concrete that we are standing on. Please make a way for us to get to the car quickly." Not 5 minutes later, one of the WDW employees that was directing traffic proceeded to chain off the area to the monorail and directed us to another set of chains. My heart sank. Then it soared as I realized we were directed to a new area for the monorail and would be way ahead of all those other folks!! Sure enough, they loaded us up and the monorail took us to the Transportation and Ticket center where we were supposed to catch the tram to our car. It was 10:45 by the time we could catch the tram and it was already supposed to have stopped running 15 minutes ago and there it came. It scooped us up, took us to our car and we were able to leave the borrowed wheelchair right beside the car for some nice WDW employee to come get it after the parking lot cleared out. By this time, my episode had improved greatly and I was able to climb into the Jeep by myself and walk through the hotel a few minutes later.

The bottom line is that God provides in ways that we can't imagine and in times when it seems completely overwhelming. He always provides a way out and never gives us more than we can bear. He's the abundant Provider. The picture is during the first episode under the porch ... a place to rest, have a brownie and watch old fashioned disney cartoons of Donald, Mickey and Minnie. Life doesn't get any better than this...

NASA Interviews

While waiting for the launch of the Discovery Shuttle, we went into the museum and took pictures under the Saturn V rocket. We also looked for any NASA personnel to "interview" for Princess' Family Project at school. We decided the NASA trip would make a cool project. After taking pictures under the rocket, we asked a lady with a lanyard if we could ask her a few questions. She was so kind, yet declined as she is a contractor with NASA. She said, "You know who you need to talk to is Bob Seik. He was the Launch Director here at the Cape for many years." She then proceeded to give a description and wished us luck in finding Mr. Seik. I thought there was little chance we'd get to talk to such a VIP, yet was determined to find him for Princess if at all possible. There were so many neat exhibits and hundreds of people. Our contractor friend gave us a great description because 1/2 way through the building we found the prestigious Mr. Sheik and sure enough, he was surrounded by old friends. After we waited a while, he noticed us and came over and the "interview" began. Princess, for all of her gregarious nature, really doesn't like to be in the center of attention. She has such a hard time talking one on one especially in a situation like this. I had helped her think of a couple of questions to ask him, yet she was totally not wanting to do it. I can not tell you how personable this man is and how he was so good with Princess. Turns out he has grandchildren Princess' age and knows how to talk "space" on a kid's level. He answered her two questions and then proceeded to give her a great little talk about how important it is to take risks and how to evaluate a risk. He advocated broaching new territories despite fears and enjoying the results. It was a great and inspiring talk and Princess exclaimed after we walked away, "I wasn't nervous at all!!" The reason she wasn't is because this man is a gifted communicator and is obviously passionate about his dreams. We could all stand to be around more people like Bob Seik.

Epcot Blessings

After spending all day Tuesday at NASA, we went to EPCOT for dinner and the Illuminations show. While planning our trip, I purchased a book called The Unofficial Guide to WDW. I highly recommend it as it gives all kinds of great info. We tried out a dining place in the United Kingdom area of World Showcase in Epcot. Our dining establishment was right on the lagoon in the picture and we were hoping for a seat outside by the water. The book said you have to reserve in advance for this kind of table, but we thought we'd walk up and ask if anyone had cancelled their reservation. Now, mind you, this is on the heels of a most blessed day at NASA that I have only partially blogged about. I'll have to really tell the whole story of blessing in another post. For this post, I need to tell you how God went over and beyond and abundantly blessed us. We not only got a table for dinner, but outside! Not only that, but our server took our order and then escorted us out to a viewing area to watch the show. After the beautiful show, we came back to our table and our food was served 5-7 minutes later. The show closes out Epcot for the night, so essentially we were lingering over dinner while the park cleared out. Sweet! The food was delicious, our table had a beautiful view and we felt immensely blessed! We go back for a day at Epcot Friday morning.

Segmented Stories

There are so many individual stories to share from each day that I would overwhelm you if I tried to fit an entire day in one post. Consequently, I will post stories from our days in their own blog posting. This picture was taken after a show this morning at the castle in Magic Kingdom.

Frog Blog

Wednesday night while seated at the foot of Cinderella's Castle watching the evening parade, I was enthralled with the intricate beauty and details of the individual floats. Each character had their own float complete with thousands of lights and it's own theme music. King was on my left and Princess in front and to my left. The only thing to my right was my backpack. Again, we were sitting on the concrete with thousands of others. In the middle of the parade, I felt something on my right thigh and unconsciously reached down to brush it off. Well! I just happened to gently lay my hand right over the top of the "thing" on my leg. At that precise moment, I frighted the object on my right thigh and the thing decided to leave it's new resting spot. In 4-5 split second moments I had laid my hand on a very wet frog, he wriggled and jumped through my hand!! As the wetness and "aliveness" entered my conscious thought I screeched and flung my right hand (poor frog) toward the right. King started asking 3-4 rapid fire questions along the lines of "are you okay???" Followed by his comment to "just calm down". Everything was so beautifully intense ... the beauty of the parade, the loud music, sitting at the base of the Castle, watching Lauren enjoy the parade and now to go to the opposite intensity of "GAG! Something alive and wet just jumped and wiggled on me!!!" I had a huge adrenaline rush. When I got my words, I told David, "I *am* calm. You don't know the restraint I used." Ok, so I managed to only disturb the people around me during the screech and the flinging of my hand. For the next few minutes I just worked on not having an episode from the adrenaline rush. All was well. The parade ended and we turned around from facing toward the street to facing the castle. Turns out that this was the ultimate spot for viewing the parade and the evening fireworks 30 minutes later. Tuesday night, we watched the evening show at Epcot ... amazing. Really beautiful. However, there's nothing like sitting at the foot of the castle and seeing the firworks over the castle and backlighting it. King video'ed the whole thing and I'm so thankful. It was incredibly special. I'm not a magic person as I think there are two kinds of supernatural powers: those of God and those of His enemy. So, some people would use the term "magical" for our evening Wednesday and I would use the term ... blessed. If, however, you go with the magical idea, you could begin to see a theme here. I was approached a second time by Mr. Wet Frog during the fireworks ferpete'ssake!!! He jumped in my lap this time!! Either it was a prince who wished to be released from his magic spell, or I had one terrified frog in a throng of people who just wanted a safe place to sit for a while. As nurturing as I am, there was not enough room for me and a wet frog in my lap at the same time!! I jumped again and screamed. Thankfully there were new people around me this time or they might have called security. I explained in 7 words or less that it was the second time he'd jumped on me that night. They didn't care. They just wanted me to sit down, shut up and let them enjoy the magical show. Alas. I will never know if that prince had his spell broken. There were so many people in that park that no one would have notice a new person suddenly appearing from a frog.

Space Shuttle!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tuesday was NASA day and boy were we blessed!!! I'm so thrilled that King wrote our senator and got the VIP tickets. We'll set up a digital scrapbook of the day. Ya'll, we were only 2.5 miles from the shuttle. You could see the shuttle on the pad from where we were (with a telephoto or binocular). The tickets we were given were in the VIP section of the viewing stands. When we viewed liftoff, the three of us sat at the fence (as close as you can get) and took pictures. King had the video and I had my new Nikon. Oh, ya'll. It was amazing. I set the camera on continuous shooting mode and photographed the entire launch from T minus 1 until the shuttle was out of sight. I even got the solid rocket booster separation and the main engine cut off. It's so cool. We kept saying over and over how blessed we were.

Pardon the haphazard nature of the post. We had A/C trouble again last night and are functioning on little sleep. They replaced a fuse once and the A/C twice between 11:00 and 3:15. (yawn!) After replacing it at 11:00, we woke at 1:48 to an engine locked down quickly followed by "boom", a flash of blue light and smoke in the room. I had an episode while King called guest services and we did the whole "pull the a/c out, put in another one" routine until after 3:00 a.m.

I woke at 8 and peeked out the window to see the cool front looming to the north. We are up and the girls are bouncing up and down trying to get King to wake up and take us to the Mouse House. I'm trying to throw this post up before we leave. Today is Magic Kingdom day!!

This internet connection is as slow as trafffic on MoPac at 5:00. I'll post photos later. Only one episode so far (the one at 1:48 this morning). Woo-hoo!

Travel, Epcot and Jeep Trouble

It's our first day of vacation. King got up at 2:15 a.m., I got up at 4 and Princess at 4:30. They slept on the plane some ... I did not. For some reason, I can not sleep when I'm strapped to a moving object ... especially a hollow metal tube with jet engines and a guy named "Murphy" at the wheel. :)

We arrived in Orlando, got a Jeep Grand Cherokee from Enterprise, got some lunch (at 3:30) and found our hotel room. After a bit of freshening up, we headed out for Disney. The lateness of the hour determined that Epcot was our only real option. We enjoyed a couple of shows and all of a sudden Mommy became tired. Very tired. Exceedingly tired. It was 8:00. Thankfully, we arrived so late that we were able to obtain a close parking spot. If you've ever been to a mammoth amusement park like Disney, you know the relative term "close". We finally found the silly Jeep among the thousands of other Florida license plates and the goofy thing wouldn't unlock. We tried everything. Princess even resorted to tapping on the windshield with this little voice, "Won't anyone let us in??"

Finally, we decided to call Enterprise. Oh, the kicker is that the key fob is one of those new things with no key. It's a plastic nub that is absolutely useless when it comes to locking or unlocking the door. King gets Enterprise on the horn and after being transferred all over central Florida, an "enterprising" employee told King to push a button on the fob and pull the end. V-I-O-L-A! A key appeared. In 2 minutes we were in and driving. Ahhh. Technology.

Shuttle liftoff is tomorrow morning. It is unrealistic how many people are here just for the shuttle launch. We'll update tomorrow.

ATTENTION prayer warriors: I have been up 16.5 hours with not a single episode. God is incredibly gracious and compassionate. I can only think of the KJV of this verse and can not think where it is, but it comes to mind regarding you guys who prayed today ... "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" Thanks for praying!!!!!!

Health

I haven't updated on my health lately. I am still watching my food intake and am hanging in at 34 pounds lost so far. I really want to make it to 40 lbs, but I'm doing great, so I can't be too frustrated with myself.

Paralysis is pretty good. When I have episodes, they tend to be whoppers. I haven't had to use the oxygen in a while though, so that's good.

Princess is sick again this weekend. Another horrible cough and a sore throat this time. We have to get her healthy because we leave a week from tomorrow!!

D40

So, my sweet hubby bought me my birthday present a bit early. Because of our trip to Florida, we decided to update our camera situation in order to capture Princess' birthday next month and all the Disney/NASA stuff in a couple of weeks. I'm very, very excited about the new present. Here it is ... my Nikon D40!

This is one of the first pictures I took. It's from the rose bush in my back yard. Below are some others we took at the nature center at Princess' school. How very blessed

we are!

Disney, NASA, Periodic Paralysis, oh! my!

A week from Monday, we embark on a mind-boggling 7 day adventure from Texas to Florida and back again. Monday is travel and Disney. Tuesday is the shuttle launch and lunch with a real-live-for-real astronaut! Tuesday night is Disney. Wednesday is Disney, as is Thursday and Friday. Saturday the Periodic Paralysis conference starts and goes through Sunday. Sunday night is Disney. Monday is pool, sleeping in and flight home.

Whew.

We will be posting pictures and videos during our trip. Stay tuned!

S-N-A-K-E!

A bonus! After a drought of two weeks and no blog postings, I am posting twice in one day. The reason for this second post is ... the snake.

So, my friend, Jamie, and I are having a picnic at lunch today by the little pond in this shopping center. It's mid-eighties outside, sun-shiney and we're having a great time. The only wildlife around are the fire ants that have decided to picnic on ME! We finish lunch and are walking back across this large grassy area, all the while talking of, yes, tarantulas! I'm describing a tarantula that my brother and I found as children. Just as I got to the part where the tarantula raises his front legs in a defensive posture, Jamie goes shooting directly sideways ... screaming. Geez, I thought. The tarantula... Then I thought, "TARANTULA!!! WHERE??" (This is all split-second timing, mind you) As she screams again, I am still looking for the tarantula when out on the sidewalk in front of us (our intended destination after the next 2 steps) slides a 15 inch snake! Yes, a SNAKE! So, it's my turn to jump and scream ... twice!

Poor little snake, he was minding his own scary little business until these two noisy girls approached. He tried, successfully I might add, to get away from us by sliding back into the grass where he instantly disappeared. I mean, like, gone. As we walked away, I almost wanted to look back over my shoulder to see if he was following us, but he didn't. Praise God!

So, remembering that it is a beautiful day, I start my 3 minute drive home. Windows down. Michael W. Smith on the CD player, thumping out a great beat. Life is good. I'm not dead from a snake bite and my tummy is full. I start down my street and notice that I have a passeger!! There is a yellow jacket waspy-thing IN MY CAR!! Right beside me on the passenger seat. Looking at me! AAHHH! After screaming at him, I realize he is ignoring me. I shoo him and he flies toward me. I am in front of my neighbor's driveway and as he flies at me, I slam the car in park and jump out. So, tauntingly, he flies to the doorpost of my open driver door and just sits there. I can't get in and I can't get him to leave.

Mind you, adrenaline rushes are triggers for my paralysis episodes. So, after my little excitement with Mr. Snake, I'm really not into having any more wildlife challenges!

I rang the doorbell and King came to my rescue. Of course, when he came, the waspy-thing was gone. Nevertheless, he drove the car to the house and parked it for me. :)

I'm safe now and no episodes!

Quiet weekends

Bacterial Bronchitis. That's the key phrase around our house the past three weeks. God bless the makers of Z-Packs! Both Princess and I had bronchitis and we both were very improved within 36 hours of taking our azithromycin. Woo-hoo!

The real fun has been her lincoln logs. Every weekend, for 5 weekends, we have played lincoln logs all weekend. We turn on the tv about 11-noon and begin watching football games and playing l.logs in the living room floor. It's creative, fun, great fellowship. This past weekend, the Polly Pockets came to the Old West for a visit. Very cute!