slice of life [I heart faces]

The theme over at is slice of life. It's both the most open-ended theme and a restriction at the same time.

This image I chose is a leap of faith for me. It is not perfect at all. I had my fisheye adapter on my lens so I could see everyone as we stood around the grill. We were making s'mores last night during Earth Hour and I decided I wanted to take pictures. There was no way I could pose anyone; I could barely keep them from moving in the time it took to trip the shutter. The light was uneven because it was mostly flickering flames with some ambient light from the streetlights (which I wish they had turned off). No flash, on-camera or off. Not even a tripod. But it was perfect. I was laughing with my friends as we set marshmallows on fire.

Epcot in a wheelchair

Last Saturday was the Honors College's annual spring trip to Orlando and this year we went to Epcot! With the way my heart (and leg) have been bothering me, I opted to do this trip in a wheelchair. It was a hard choice to make but I decided that I was up to taking pictures and riding some of the rides; why not make the chair a bonus ride?
I was slightly heartbroken--although not really surprised--to discover that when I was in the wheelchair, I was either invisible or judged by strangers who couldn't be bothered to let us through, let alone talk to me. Thank goodness the cast members were all super nice.

Moving on... the first thing we saw as we came through the gate were Toy Story topiaries. This month is the garden festival and I was so excited.

Since we were all geeking out about the plants anyway, we decided to start at the Land. And then I talked the boys into doing the Living Seas first. I think this may have had something to do with it.


The awesome marine life also may have helped my case.



Make no mistake, we also enjoyed the Land.

Dave is our resident land-based genius and wanted to do the behind-the-scenes tour. He had to settle for skipping to the front of the line for the boat tour.




I didn't really take too many pictures in Figment or Innoventions but I did manage to get Dave sprayed by a dancing fountain.

I also managed to get one snapshot in line for Mission Space. Green team is go for launch!

I did enjoy some more topiaries as we went but I was counting the seconds until the World Showcase.




This is just a general overview of the World Showcase because I didn't want to bog the blog down too much.










These photos from Morocco are dedicated to Erin Kotecki Vest, who told me that I could do the park in a wheelchair happily. It's nice to have a friend who understands how much limitations suck and how great it is to overcome them. (Lupus sucks, heart conditions suck, and we rule. Just saying.) Doug decided we needed to rest in Morocco, in part so I could have more photos to send to Erin (whose blog post on doing Disney in a wheelchair prepared me for this trip and encouraged me to actually go).






We continued on after Morocco and visited an exhibit on sustainable outdoor entertaining, where Doug met his new muse.

Then, we finished the rest of the World Showcase.







We spent golden hour admiring more topiaries and killing time until our fast pass was ready and we could ride Test Track.




Our ride on Test Track was pretty magical.

It was moonrise and a super moon and I don't have a single picture. You'll just have to trust me that it was absolutely gorgeous to zoom around in the car under that giant moon.

We watched the fireworks from a distance because there was no way to fight through the crowd and ensure I had a good view. I think our hilltop, with ice cream for dinner, was the best way to end the day.



I apologize is this post isn't nearly as eloquent or coherent or awesome as usual. It's taken me a week to get the photos together and write this and I am tired. But I had fun, I promise.

dreaming of a ring [52:12]

At the moment, I'm slowly going through the photos from Epcot last weekend as I feel up to sitting at the desk. In the mean time, I couldn't resist having a somewhat funny entry for my project 52. This week's theme is "from the jewelry box" so I thought I'd share my 'engagement ring' from the epic vacation of doom on top of the sketch of what my eventual ring will look like. (For the story of the fake ring, please see the anniversary post.)


I have yet to miss a week for project 52. I am proud of myself.

hope on wings [52:11]

I felt much better when I posted about spring break. Now I feel kind of cruddy, but life goes on and so must I.

I got this butterfly as part of a bouquet my father brought me when I was in the hospital. When the sun shines through my window and lands on it, I feel hopeful that I'll feel better soon. It heals my (metaphorical) heart, which gives me the patience to let my (physical) heart heal.

one toy soldier [52:10]

I have no idea where he came from. I only have one toy soldier. He usually guards my bookshelf but today I assigned him some weather recon. I wanted to know when the storm broke. I wanted a lookout in case there was a rainbow. I wanted to make the best of bed rest and have a little fun.

surgery and spring break so far

Dear readers,
I mentioned off-hand a few posts ago that I was going in for heart surgery and then left you hanging. Sorry about that. Surgery on Friday went well. My heart is still adjusting to a 'normal' rhythm so it has a few blips here and there but the difference overall is like night and day. I feel like me again. Well, except for the discomfort from them making incisions essentially in my hips. The bruising is something fierce and is entirely too gruesome to post where everyone can see and it's still a pain to be in any position too long or to walk around for long periods of time.

I am so happy to be home. When I left the hospital, the only visible proof of anything was the gauze from where the IV was, my bracelet, and my limp. (And also the balloons and flowers.)


I'm glad that I rebounded so quickly because I uh... had pressing plans to get to. While I couldn't take him to Islands of Adventure as promised, I still wanted to give him the best time in Florida I could. Yes, my best friend Corbin flew in from Virginia the day before I went in for surgery.

He and Doug kept me busy the night before and visited me the second mom would let them into my hospital room (although I did not bring my camera so there are no pictures of that).



On Sunday (despite me overexerting myself in the shower and getting so bruised that I looked like I got hit my a truck), the boys and I went on an airboat ride. While I did not take any photos on the actual boat ride, that was only because I was too busy making kissy faces at the purple gallinules. They are my favorite Everglades bird and I never would have noticed them if I had been looking through my camera. I did get a few pictures during the alligator show.




I felt like such a tourist but it's okay because Corbin actually was one.

I was also equally as excited about the peacocks as I was about the alligators. Once I saw the first one on the roof, I was smitten.






It wouldn't be an adventure without a rear view mirror shot... and this time I have Corbin taking pictures out the window too.


When it came time to say goodbye to Corbin yesterday, I did not want to. I'm pretty sure I clung to him at the airport for ten minutes, trying to figure out how to keep him from leaving.


Doug wasn't exactly immune either.

I may have bribed him with some gator jerky on the way home.


In a nutshell, that's how my spring break has been so far. Surgery, which I am recovering from at an amazing pace. Adventure, which I intend to have more of. Best friends and great memories, which seems to be the majority of my blog posts. And photos, because this is a photo blog.
Sorry all the photos are linked from Facebook. I have to switch positions frequently so I didn't want to make posting photos to Flickr a 2 hour endeavor.