a heart three sizes too small

I feel like such a Grinch because I just was not enjoying the holiday Orlando trip. I love my family (both by blood and soon to be by marriage), my camera, most of the rides, fireworks, Pizzeria Uno's... and I hate crowds, being dragged around, and chest pain. A Grinch, indeed. But I am going to make up for being so grinch-y by presenting all the photos in this long, festive, what-else-would-a-Jew-be-doing-on-Christmas? post. The hope is by the end, my heart will have grown three sizes and stopped hurting. That, or you will be so impressed by my photos that you'll forget how grinch-y I am.


The first day of the trip was rainy and gray/as the parents waited for tickets, the children did play.

We frolicked and climbed, wandered and swung/and our parents wondered what would become/of my new camera while we were having all of this fun.


The answer came quickly and it was a ball. I did not like the idea of things breaking at all!

So Mr. Andy stepped in, as he is known to do/and brought in ET to lend a hand, too.

Things calmed down for a while until Doug said/"look there, Brenda, there's Twister ahead." We sat in the back feeling smart as can be/although we felt a bit silly when it rained mostly on me.

I wandered down Main Street, camera in hand/wishing I could live in this celluloid land. I saw all the cameras that I wished to own/but this is the only way I could bring them home.


From there we had dinner to get off our feet/although the decor was distracting and I almost forgot to eat.


We passed by the marquee for the show I want to see/but stopped by the globe for a moment or three.


All the was left to do to end the first day/was to bid an elf good night and head on our way.



The second morning dawned as dreary as the first/and I began to believe our trip might be cursed.

Ok, I can't continue in rhyme anymore. It's driving me absolutely insane. The trip was overcast and icky and even Photoshop couldn't fake the sunshine I wish we'd had.


But we did have one ray on sunshine: Cassie, Doug's baby sister. That girl is going to break a lot of hearts one day.

In true Brenda fashion, I had to seek out balloons and the tea cups before I fell into a sour mood. Balloons and tea cups make everything better.


Most of the photos I took that day were for myself, but I couldn't resist getting a few on Pirates of the Caribbean for the in-laws.

By the time we finished Pirates, I had been dragged back and forth across the park too many times. My chest hurt and I resented being dragged every which way so Doug and I wandered off before I strangled someone. (My heart isn't three sizes too small when I'm with him.) We rather enjoyed dancing along with the princesses on the stage.

When we came back, the castle was shooting off fireworks during the daytime. I promised my mom I would photograph the castle with fireworks and I did.


As the castle lit up with its festive icicle lights, the staff herded everyone who didn't pay extra to stay after 7 for a special event out. I snapped off a few shots.


Two hours later, after swearing that the Magic Kingdom is my idea of hell and that the holiday season is the worst thing that could happen to humanity, we arrived at Uno's and Dan made my grinch-y heart warmer with a gingerbread cookie in my caramel mudslide.

As Doug said, I shouldn't need to consume alcohol in order to ease my hatred of theme parks. We also believe it should not take almost two hours just to get out of a theme park.


I was determined to be less grinch-y the last day but alas, we were at Islands of Adventure and the lines were so long that any cheer I had evaporated. We almost got run over in the parking garage. It was a nice view but almost getting run over made my chest hurt so I couldn't appreciate it until I got home and saw this.

It was so crowded that this was my only view of Hogwarts.

We made a brief stop in Marvel Superhero Island where I took a few shots and then proceeded on to Grinchmas in Seuss Landing.


Mom and I were joking that maybe Universal didn't understand the meaning of the Lorax. Obviously not, since they covered everything in (use once and throw away) tinsel!


By the time we got to Jurassic Park, my tiny heart was killing me. I laid on the floor and shot up, mostly because I was in so much pain I couldn't stand anymore. These are some of my favorite shots from the entire trip.


Once I caught my breath and slowed my heart rate to a safe level, us kids explored Camp Jurassic.



We tried to get a drink in Toon Lagoon but they were trying to 'keep the numbers down' or some such nonsense so our party of 7 couldn't stay in the restaurant.
From there, we went back to the superheroes so I could ride the Hulk and brotherface could take Cassie on the Storm cups. Everyone was so tired and so over Islands of Adventure.



Once Doug and his family left, mom waited in line for 80 minutes(!) to get into Harry Potter to get brotherface a Ravenclaw scarf and we waited in Seuss. Being in Grinchmas made me more grinch-y, so we visited the triceratops paddock and then got me out of the park as quickly as we could.

On the way out, I fell in love with the mailbox and the sunset. It wasn't enough to redeem the day but it was a decent note to end on.




I'm sorry I'm such a sourpuss. My heart did not grow but it's okay. I love my family and my photos and that's all I need; I don't need to pretend to love an over-commercialized ploy to get us to leave all our money in the theme parks.

Seuss racing [I heart faces]

This week's theme over at is vroom, vroom. Obviously, a simple person-with-car shot would never be found in my photos and I wasn't going to just take one for no reason... but I did have this amusing shot of Doug from our epic family vacation.



I wish I could be more coherent about this but this week is a bad week for good word usage.

snapshots from an epic vacation

I'm linking my photos from Facebook and not writing too much because I am tired and trying to set up my 'new' computer but I couldn't not share them. And while I was checking Facebook (hours ago, but who cares?), I noticed that Rachel posted the teaser photos from our shoot on her blog.

I already shared with you my shots from Saturday so I'll skip right to the start of the Orlando leg of the adventure.

My boys like to goof off in the back seat. I told brotherface to hit Doug for asking repeatedly if we were there yet. I believe they were practicing for Marvel Superhero Island.

As soon as we got there and got in--which is a story in and of itself--we went right to lunch. As reigning dork supreme, I insisted upon lunch at Circuc McGurkus Cafe Stoo-pendus in Seuss Landing.

Was it worth it? I think so. From there, we rode the Cat in the Hat, One Fish, Two Fish, and the Cara-Seuss-el.




And of course, I would not be me if I did not attempted to move into the Lorax exhibit.


I waited for something exciting to happen at the intersection of Mulberry and Bliss so I could say "and to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street"... but nothing did.


From there, we moved on to exploring the Lost Continent. We did the Poseidon's Fury show and then quickly moved on from there.





Up next was the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It was fangirl central and totally worth dorking out over. I'm slightly embarrassed to admit this but the special effects on the Forbidden Journey ride were enough to set off an anxiety attack.


I wanted to devour my weight in Bertie Botts but I held out because later, I got butterbeer!





There are no in focus photos of me and my butterbeer but Doug wears the foam well.


For the photography nerds, I could not get a decent exposure of Hogwarts castle because the stormy sky was super bright so I opted to go the HDR route. I'd like to argue that there is little else in my life as deserving of such treatment as the castle.

Moving on... Doug and I did Jurassic Park alone. My mother just isn't as into dinosaurs as we are and my brother doesn't really want to be dino chow and/or get wet. We got our own car on the water ride because the staff wanted to be able to be silly with us without anyone complaining. Sadly, the only exciting shot was when Doug was pretending to try to hop in the SUV.



We skipped Toon Lagoon completely because I was the only one who wanted to get wet and went straight onto (into?) Marvel Superhero Island. While riding the Hulk, I noticed a rainbow overhead and made a mad dash for Marjorie as soon as I got off.




We ended Sunday night at Pizzeria Uno's where I left a note for my bartender friend/surrogate brother and we ended up getting to kidnap their Star Wars convention banner.


Yes, mom really did unscrew the screws and pull out the nails with either her bare hands or a pair of scissors. My mother is kind of a legend amongst my friends.


Universal Studios on Monday was a lot more hectic and therefore, I have a lot less photos.


I don't really think the rain helped too much.


Doug was nice enough to stand in the rain with me to pose with Woody Woodpecker and we would have played in the Fievel playground if it hadn't been 'closed due to inclement weather'.


We ended the day at the 50s diner with soaked shoes and onion rings.


And yes, the sky really was that blue in the first photo once it stopped raining.