Miami

For Francisco's birthday we decided to check out a new city and drove 4 hours to Miami.  We stayed for two nights and had a lot of fun but it was definitely more expensive than I planned.

At this point in the drive we still had 270 miles to go..oh geez it was a long ride without the AC :(

(don't mind my thumb) It isn't a roadtrip unless you stop halfway at Crackle Barrel!  Man I haven't been here in years! And it was so yummy!

Still not over seeing Palm trees and I have been here almost 7 whole months! This is a pine tree grove 

AH after 4 hours I see Miami!!!

The cool tree art on some of the buildings!

More palm trees :) we are now in Miami Beach. Which is right off the main land of Florida.  You have to drive over a bridge to get to this part of town.

Finally after a day of driving we make it to the actual beach.  It was so aqua blue and pretty!

Smile! 

The next day, we spent the whole afternoon on the beach.  This was pre-burned Erin.

This is the same day but a bit later in the afternoon..I started to feel my burn so I put a shirt on..but it wasn't soon enough.

Next day at the beach...let's just say the Miami sun is a bit sunnier than I am used to...this is me trying to keep away from the sun's rays..I was hurting bad from this burn...

Good-bye Miami! 

Ahh..the drive home...it was much better than the drive there.  And we didn't get lost so it only took us 3.5 hours to get home.

Back in Orlando.  And these trees are so weird and everywhere but I don't think I have yet to put a picture of what they look like..Oh Orlando...I am going to miss you!

Universal Studios!

Hey ya'll,

I was able to switch a day and go to Universal Studios with 2 of my roommates.  We had a lot of fun.  It was the last day all three of us had off and was able to spend a whole day together.  We walked through both Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios (the original park).  It was super hot and muggy out and its now peak season for Florida tourists so there were lines for just about every ride.  I really wanted to go on the new despicable me ride but the line for that ride was over 2 hours...so we passed on that one. We definitely didn't take that many pictures but we did have fun and it was nice to have some roomie time since we all have such different work schedules...we rarely see each other for more than 10 minutes at a time.

Here is a picture my roommate, Amanda took on her phone, while we were stopped on the Cat in the Hat ride.

Me, Amanda, and Diamond :)

I am going to miss these two lovely ladies!

A Magical Fourth of July

For all that don't know, 4th of July easily beats out any other holiday for me as my favorite.  Its all about having a great time and seeing amazing fireworks in the sky.  Sometimes even a good BBQ and icecream is involved.  (not the bbq for me this year but thats a-okay with me since I am in the happiest place on earth.  I was suppose to have this day completely off, but then my manager asked if I could come in for 5 hours (I said "of course, but as long as I am out in time to see the fireworks!).  The day started out very gloomy.  & by this week it had FINALLY stopped raining but then it poured and poured and poured some more in the afternoon.  I was on the bus and the highway was literally flooded over within minutes of the downpour.  Cars were pulled to the side of the road and our bus just kept on trucking (he had a schedule to keep).  It was kind of cool for us, not so much for the cars but the waves we were making were splashing up over all the cars..it was just a wall of water the bus was giving off.   But anyways after I got to work it finally stopped raining and I got to go see my fireworks with my roommate, Amanda, and Francisco.

The rain on the drive to work.  I should of took a picture of the wall of water the bus was splashing but I didn't think of it.

Finally, Francisco and I made it to Magic Kingdom to find my roommate and we had to navigate through all these people to find her.  Let's just say it wasn't the most happiest of walks I've had.  

And there are even more people in front of us.  The park was completely packed with sidewalks about the only things that were cleared.

Here is a nice pixelly picture of Francisco and I....Oh and above my head is Amanda's crazy face :P

Oh and here is a lovely picture of Amanda and I...with Francisco's hand in the back..

Fireworks have begun!

Niceee!!

My roommate is into photography (she is actually photopass for her program role) and has an awesome camera and she got some great shots,  So I stole one to show you guys.

And back to my iphone camera.  This was the end! and such a beautiful show.  I forgot to take pictures but behind us there were fireworks and if you were at any of the resorts around Magic Kindgom they also had the same fireworks going off at the same time so it was an amazing experience for the firework lover like me :)

Happy Fourth! 

Animal Kingdom

I have a month left of my program left and I never had fully experienced Animal Kingdom.  So Francisco, his friends and their baby joined us in effort to stay hydrated on this hot hot day outside.

The Lion King Show.  This is pumba on a float

There is Simba!

Some Monkey dancers.  The show was okay...I liked the broadway show much better but this one at animal kingdom was entertaining to say the least.

Next we went on a safari! Here is a really cool picture of a giraffe :)

Elephants trying to keep cool!

And of course flamingo island

Oh hey there, Mr. Rhino!

I forgot what these were called but it made me laugh they were so close to the ostrich eggs.  Our tour guide made sure to tell us these animals do not lay eggs. haha

Not a complete day without some character pictures!  This was by far the best character meet and greet I've had.  Tigger was all over the place.  In this picture he took a kid's autograph book and put it on his head.  How silly! 

Tigger then had the idea to make us into a heart and have him jump through our arms.  It was really funny the poses he was having people do.  Definitely a magical moment for me!

Have a great day! :)

Rain rain go away come back after I leave...

I guess Florida hit its rainy season...except instead of every other year where it only rains for a little while In the afternoon.. We have been having rain almost everyday for hours on end. When it not raining the sun is still no where to be found.  But the last week it has been raining even more...if you can imagine.  But there is Tropical Storm Debby out in the Gulf making a lot of peoples' lives unhappy.  Tampa, Florida is flooded and I heard there has been many tornado touch downs around central Florida..Orlando has only been under a tornado watch since last night (which is tornado weather, not it has been spotted) but this kind of makes me uneasy but I am just gonna try to stay safe and not drive to unnecessary places right now.

What Florida looks like right now with rain..

A picture of my day..I didn't go anywhere yesterday because it really rained ALL day .

Me going to work last week and sad because I bought new sunglasses but I didn't need to wear them except for this lovely picture on the bus.

That's it for this post.  We were suppose to go to the beach Saturday and Animal Kingdom yesterday (Sunday) but the weather didn't quite cooperate.  I do feel bad for the tourists that are here right now.  Hopefully they find some entertaining things to do inside!

Hey everyone,

Sorry I haven't posted in the last month.  I have been non stop working since my parents left in May.  I was deployed to Riverside again (the resort with the brown and yellowish costume.)  And the week after I was deployed to another resort, Pop Century.  That resort was rough to work at because all they had me doing was trash.  And 6 hours of that in the space I was in is really hard to do.  But because I was deployed they said they didn't want to try and teach me stuff in the kitchen because I was only there for 5 days..But I thought that was silly because every other place I have been to I have been able to pick up the way they do things very fast.  But no big deal I am back at my original resort now.  Which is kind of crazy.  It has definitely started picking up.  I have been at the pizza station making fresh pizza per order.  I am getting close to 60-80 personal pizzas a shift.  I've timed myself and it takes me 4 min to make 2 pizzas.  But it gets crazy with pizza because you won't have any pizza orders for 5 min and then all of a sudden you will have 7 or 8 all at once.  Then I have to restock my station because I run out of ingredients pretty fast but I don't have enough time to go and get more.  My shifts in the last week have been pretty stressful but time goes by really fast so that is the plus.

Anyways,  I have a picture of my Pop Century costume, it's pretty plain.  The shirt I believe is suppose to look like its made of denim and the pants are royal blue and I have an apron and a "denim" bandana.

A couple weeks ago, My boyfriend wanted to go to the car show at downtown disney.  They had 60+ cars.  Some were really nice cars and some were really old cars and there were cars for everyone.  It was pretty cool but it was super hot that day so we only stayed for about an hour.  Here are just 2 pictures I took of some of what they had.

I thought this one was pretty cool just because it was a wagon.

And this is some of the cool cars they had.  Sorry I didn't get more pictures I was definitely being a midwest girl and sweating and being really uncomfortable...Here comes the Florida heat..

Barefoot Beach

Our last morning in Naples, we went to Barefoot Beach..I thought it was an ironic name because the whole beach was full of sea shells making walking barefoot a bit painful.

There is sand under these sea shells I promise :)

Smile Dad!

A great picture of us on the beach.

Airboating :)

Our second day in Naples, we went airboating.  This is a boat ride but it is more wildlife based.  We saw alligators, cows, and all sorts of birds.

This is the airboat.  If you can see the motor is on the back because we go over shallow waters and having it in the water would get us stuck.

Aw Mom and me :)

The motor could get kind of loud so we had these ear muffs to put on.

Some of the trees.  Not typical nature to us midwesterns.

More water trees.

Here we go, in between the everglades! You can't do this in a speed boat.  You can thank that motor for that! 

A neat little bird who dives but doesn't have the normal oil on his wings to repel the water so he does this little dance to air dry his wings so he can fly.

Lily pads I believe! 

Cows in the water? Watch out there may be alligators!

See there is one! we were so close I could touch them if I wanted.

The airboating place gave us each 25$ in credit to the casino.  My parents or I never had been to a casino so this was definitely a new experience! 

So how do we play?

We didn't make out too well though..I won $13.25, Mom won $12 something, Dad $17, Aunt Pam won the most with 40 something.