Happy Birthday Mommy!!!

Today is my beautiful mother's birthday!!! Last year I drove to Missoula to surprise her and scared her and made her cry in the process...hehe...I wish I could have pulled off a surprise this year but it would have been a little pricey. None the less happy birthday mom!

So I just finished watching the USA lose in overtime to Canada in hockey...dangit...what a great game though!!! I am hoping to make a trip to Tampa in the next month or two and watch Ryan Miller play for the Buffalo Sabres!!!

So I survived the week and have the next two days off :) This morning I had to be at work at 7:15...gross...but we had "The Story Unfolds" class which explains the back story of the whole park. It was pretty cool and I learned a lot and had plenty of laughs because there were about 12 ODF kids in there with me. The class is set up about 6 weeks after you arrive to help you interact with the guests...as if I had a problem with that. I got off at 1:15 and came home and took a nap! It was wonderful :)

Tonight I am going to the House of Blues with some girls from work. It is a club in Downtown Disney that we get into for free on Sunday nights and get free drinks until midnight! The ideal night out for the paid-by-the-hour poor child that I am.

I have my first class tomorrow morning and I am looking forward to it. It is People Management and is supposed to cover how Disney handles all of its employees. I am hoping that it will offer some good networking opportunities. And we might even have a backstage tour or two :)

Have a great last day of February and hopefully you can watch the closing ceremonies of the Olympics.

Death Week

In a matter of 12 hours I will have survived my self titled "death week". Why was this week death week you ask? Well Chris left Monday and Tuesday I was back in the swing for 4 days of funnel. Yes of my 5 scheduled days this week 4 of them were in funnel. UGH UGH UGH UGH!!!! The kicker is I was scheduled to close funnel those 4 days...not just work there but close the location UGH X 4 again.

Today is the fourth one and I will be the happiest camper when I get to come home and go to sleep tonight. Tuesday wasn't too bad I kept it pretty clean all day. Juan was training Alex and they had an hour after closing before they were scheduled to go...well instead of staying and helping for 30 minutes like you are supposed to they bolted and didn't even take things like bottled water and garbage back to base which is what you do if you aren't the closer. It is just a little thing to help the closer out. So I spent three hours cleaning by myself. However when my gram reads this I am sure she will have to do a double take and my mom will probably tear up...but I got an "award" for how clean my area was! It is called a service fanatic and you get one for great service or good attitude or good cleaning. A leader has to approve of the card but anyone can nominate you. Well Dan who is a coordinator checked my area at the end of the day and I got the card yesterday. :)

Wednesday was flawless with cleaning funnel because I had help so I got to leave a half hour early :)

Thursday...oh Thursday...Juan was training Alex in funnel again and it was their turn to close. I was scheduled to help them close but some people called into work so I had to give two breaks during the day. And then I had to help close the coffee stand...which is a piece of cake or coffee cake if you prefer...hehe. Well I got back from giving breaks and it was Juan and Alex's turn to take their break...they left at 1:20. They got the approval to bank out before coming back since they had to close. No one was in the GT's office so it should have been fast. If the office is empty I can bank out in 10 minutes, 15 tops. Well Juan comes back at 3:40. It was no time to go close coffee so I would only get like a twenty minute break instead of my hour. I was furious! It had taken him over an hour to bank out...when no one was in the office. I am not one to complain at work too much and especially not to the leader's. But one of them knew that Juan had ditched without helping on Tuesday. So I told the leaders that he took over two hours for his one hour break and bankout...and that I didn't get my break. (So I got paid for this time). This is not the first time they have had issues with Juan and all of my friends that had him for a trainer hated it...so we will see what happens.

Yesterday was great. I worked in campfire treats with JiYoung. We had a system down and rocked it and rarely our guest were waiting for their treats. Katie and I had plans to hang out with Scott, Lisa, Ashley, and Mikey...the family we stayed with when we first got here. We were supposed to meet at 6 and I was scheduled to get off at 5:45. So I wanted to get out on time and I had to close by myself so I banked out during my break to save me time at the end of the day. I started cleaning at 4:30 and everything was great until 5:30 when the ice cream machine still hadn't thawed. I finally got it thawed and it was now 6 but everything was clean...all I had to do was have a leader come check off my area. 2 calls waiting and 45 minutes later I walked back to base to ask for a walk because no one ever came. I finally got checked off and left work at 7. Over an hour later than scheduled...grr...Lisa and Scott didn't care too much. Katie met them in the Rainforest Cafe (outside of Animal Kingdom) and they had drinks while they waited.

We finally met up and went to Epcot and walked around the World pavilion and I got the Mexican food I had been craving all day!!! We had a good time filled with plenty of laughs and griping about how cold it has been here. It was almost 25 degrees colder than the average yesterday...ugh.

I had no clean costumes so I got up this morning early to do laundry before work. We have an inspection on Monday. I think it is basically an excuse to steal more of our money...as if $85 dollars for half of a room per week isn't enough. If it isn't how they like it they will fine every person in the apartment $30...absolutely ridiculous. Whatever. We are a pretty clean group to begin with but we are all scared to get fined so Sunday will be a cleaning frenzy.

Hope all of you are well. Feel free to write to me and let me know how you are doing :)

Pictures From Chris' Visit

Rasta Chris in the make your own toys store.



An elephant friend from the safari



Chris won me this octopus in Dinoland



On his way to Dinoland



Chris entering Epcot



At dinner in Germany



A Pirate's Life for Chris



Chris with his friend Mickey Mouse from the original Steamboat Willie



Waiting for PhilHarMagic...a 3-D concert cartoon.

It Can't Seriously Be Monday Night Already?

So after a month's worth of anticipation Chris' visit has come and gone. He arrived Friday evening and had enough time to put his suitcase down before we were off to the Boardwalk. We ate dinner at ESPN club and of course every television had a billion shots of Tiger Woods' apology. Chris and I shared a cheese and black bean dip that was pretty tasty and I had a Salmon BLT minus the bacon. ;) As we were leaving the board walk we stopped to watch a street performer do a few "magic" tricks. We caught a bus over to Downtown Disney and I showed Chris the chaotic nature that Downtown Disney is every night. I even saw a few stores that somehow had been hiding from me...probably a good thing too or they would have all of my money.

Saturday we got up bright and early and set out for Animal Kingdom. I can't imagine having had a better safari. The animals were all active and I saw way more than before. The teenage elephants were even out. Chris was convinced that the crocodiles were fake but I beg to differ. We headed down to Expedition Everest and survived unscathed with a near miss of the Yeti. I screamed like a little girl and I think I heard a little noise of out Chris but he won't be too quick to admit it. We rounded out our time at Animal Kingdom visiting with a few friends. Crazy Lady gave Chris the once over and gave me a high five...hahaha...I think that means she approves :)

We headed over to Epcot and did Mission Space (simulation of space mission) and Test Track (test driving of cars---one of my favorites). We than did a grand tour of the world pavilion. We watched the British Invasion Band for a bit and watched a French acrobat do a balancing act on a bunch of stacked chairs. We were both quite impressed. We had dinner at the Beirgarten in Germany. It was buffet style...with excellent food and a polka band. The dance floor was filled with hyped up children busting their best dance moves. My grandpa would have been right along side them if he were there and leading everyone with the chicken dance. Turns out when he was here he got up on stage and led the band. A minor accomplishment for him and I am sure a major embarrassment for my grandma which I am sure prompted some head shaking. All part of the Zupan charm :) We watched the fireworks show and fought our way out with the other park guests to the buses.

Sunday morning we were up early again and off to Magic Kingdom. We did Big Thunder Mountain Railroad 4 times and Space Mountain 3 times, both personal records in one day for me. Chris and I walked all over the park about a billion times and even counted our steps from Big Thunder to Space Mountain once. 850 for him and 960 for me I think. Darn those long legs...just goes to show how much harder I have to keep up. Dinner was not anything to write home about but we both ate our share of mashed potatoes, stuffing, and mac n cheese at the Old Tree Tavern in Liberty Square. The fireworks were wonderful and I was exhausted.

It was great having Chris here and it went by way too fast. I am not looking forward to the plunge back into work life tomorrow.

Thursday and Chris Comes!!!

First off Chris comes today!!!

I finished my blog from Tuesday so you can finally read it.

I survived the late night Wednesday and actually got out a half hour early :) I had to be to work at 10:30 yesterday morning and was supposed to go work at the ice cream cart at Rafiki's Plant Watch. It is almost a separate part of the park. If you are a guest you must take a train up there. The train is cool because you get to go by the animal houses. So on you way you may see a variety of things. When I got to work my name was changed off of the board for Rafiki's and I was scheduled to be a breaker. My break sheet was ridiculous and I wasn't supposed to get my break until 4:20PM I protested a little because I can not go that long not eating and stay upright. I got denied but one the coordinators was nice and took of my breaks so I could stop and eat earlier.

First break=funnel...ugh I don't know how I will survive in there for four days next week...I was there for an hour and a half and hated it!!! I got to skip the second funnel break because the 3rd person that was working there came and so they didn't need me. I did an ice cream cart break in Camp Minnie Mickey for Omega and then I was off to break Rafiki's.

Wwhen I rode the train I saw an ostrich, a white rhino, and my favorite or course the elephant :):):) The break scheduled allows for five minutes in between breaks to get from one place to the other. It took me twenty minutes to get up there so even though I skipped the 2nd funnel break I was now right back to the scheduled time. A breaker's bank only starts with $100 dollars while a regular bank has $300. At Rafiki's everyone was only paying in twenty dollar bills so I ran out of ten's, five's, and one's. The only thing I had was twenties and a roll of quarters. I would have called down to base but it would have taken them longer to get to me than I was supposed to be there. One boy wanted ice cream and I told him the only change I had was the roll of quarters so he took it. Eventually I built up a little bank and he came back and I gave him ones and a five. Angelina was 30 minutes late getting back from her break because the train stopped working. So now even though the coordinator was taking one of my breaks for me, after the time I got back off the train it was time to get do another break.

I quickly scarfed down some food. Dad it was a both front feet in the trough moment. I could have competed with Tugg for how fast I ate my food. I went and did the and Campfire Treats break and another short break for Omega and I was done breaking!. I banked out both my banks and was even and rather than take my break I told a leader I didn't get my break so I got paid for the hour and I ERed and hour early :)

Last night Jaimee and I walked over to the outlet mall and did a little shopping. One of the girls called me over for fashion advice...because I was obviously so savvy in my layered fleece, sweatshirt, and jacket (So I would be warm for the walk). She was trying to primp up because her maybe boyfriend was coming to visit her at work. I obviously helped her enough that she gave Jaimee her 50% discount so Jaimee got 4 t-shirts for 12 bucks!!!

After that we stopped at the food court so Jaimee could get a sandwich and I ran over to Starbucks for a steamer. The man in line behind me made some sort of comment and struck up conversation with me. Long story short he doesn't work and just plays golf down here, I asked him where I should send my dad when he comes and he recommended a place called Grand Pines that is right by a golf institute. He tried giving me directions but that went in one ear and out the other.

We had a great time at the mall and even get cute pictures of us taken by one of those side kiosk things.

I am off to workout, do laundry, clean my room, and get everything else squared away for my four day weekend!

Ash Wednesday

In Catholic tradition Ash Wednesday is the day after fat Tuesday which falls in February. Everyone goes to church and has the sign on the cross put on their forehead with blessed ashes (thus the Ash in Ash Wednesday). Katie, Natalie, and I ventured out to the closest church which happens to be named something like the Basilica Holy Shrine of Mary Queen of the Universe...quite the mouthful.

It is humongous and sadly there really isn't anything breathtaking or special about the inside. The part that I liked the most was shamrocks that were engraved on the white pillars in the aisles of the church.

The priest was awful. He sounded just like the priest from the movie Princess Bride. Odd voice and he talked so so so fast. Katie mentioned that he must have not wanted to be there to badly because he was spewing out words left and right and left no time in between anything before moving onto the next. The only part of the homily that I understood was that there would only be one collection and it was for the poor community so be generous. Other than that it was mostly mumbling...ahhhh!

It came time for Eucharist and people had no order for going up to receive. People were going out of the aisles both ways into other lines. There was no wine, not like they ran out but no wine to begin with. This was also the case at the basilica in Phoenix. Gram or Gramps do you know why this is?

We didn't receive our ashes in the right order either and it was another scattered mess. Looks like we will be finding a new church to attend because the three of us agreed we couldn't sit through another one of those. The only nice part was that we were out in 50 minutes and Katie and Natalie had plenty of time to get ready for work when they thought they would be pushing it with a predicted hour and a half mass time.

So I have given up sweets for lent. It will be tough but I had key lime pie (leftover from dinner last night) before church as my last little treat. I am now looking forward to Cadbury Cream eggs for Easter :)

I work from in a few hours and I think I will take a nap :) I work from 15:00-1:00 so I think I deserve a nap before I go :)

Good luck with your Lenten journeys everyone!

Mardi Gras

Late Night/Early Morning-I was at work until 10:30 last night and it took me almost an hour to get home, then I had to get up at 7:30 to get back to work today.

Special Assignment- I got to work and immediately "is Kassi here yet?" was being yelled from the leaders' office. Rona (one of the leaders) wanted me to start right away on special assignment...this sounds a lot cooler than it is. What it meant is that I went around filling in for people who called into work. I went to coffee first and helped Milcar. She did bank while I made the coffee drinks and got the food packaged up for guests. I enjoy working in coffee and the hour that I was there for flew by. She actually begged me not to leave...I don't if this was because she didn't want to have Jose work with her or if she just liked that I could keep up with filling all the orders.

Mr. Kamals- After finishing at coffee I went back to base to check in with Rona. I was going to Mr. Kamals and I would have to close. Mr. Kamals ( I think it is a play on camels but I don't know) is in the Asia part of Animal Kingdom so I was kind of excited for a new experience. Plus Crazy Lady always works in Kamals so we got to work together. The one thing I was dreading was cleaning the fryers at the end of the day. Kamals sells corn dog nuggets and chicken nuggets both fried. I can just see my grandma laughing now because she knows how much I hate fryers!!! Heidi (Crazy Lady) and I had a good time and she stayed later than she was scheduled to help me with the first fryer so I would know how to do it :) It will be good practice for all the days I am supposed to be in funnel next week.

Bubba Gumps- I brought extra clothes and after work a group of us were headed to Bubba Gumps for a pre-birthday dinner for Jaimee (she will be 19 Saturday). It was quite that adventure getting there. Olivia was driving and Bubba Gumps is at Universal so we had to use the navigation system. Well we did several cycles and some crazy turns and the navigation system didn't seem to know much better than we did where we needed to park. After close encounters of being hit we finally found the proper parking garage. It was so so so cold, so we all ran a large portion of the way there on the moving walkways just like the airports and Caesar's Palace in Vegas has. I had a delicious mushroom burger which would make Chris cringe and a side of mashed potatoes and in honor of giving up sweets I thought I deserved some key lime pie for dessert. ;)

Lent- starts tomorrow, I am giving up sweets...it should be a challenge especially since all I want to eat is everything sweet that I sell at work.

I miss the good ole days when mom and I would go to mass every Wednesday night after track practice.

Chocolate Milk

I was at work but when I got home Katie told me this...Taryn asked Katie if she thought it would be okay to use chocolate milk to make rice a roni...(really?) Katie asked why and Taryn said it was because she was out of regular...Katie asked if she thought it would taste different (duh!) Taryn thought about it and then decided yeah probably...let's keep in mind she is 24 years old! WOW!

I worked at the coffee stand today...it was a blast, I had no mean customers and nothing went terribly wrong. When I went to bank out the money machine wasn't working right so I had to hand count over $800...yikes!

Work from 9:30-7:30 tomorrow then out with the Bad Girls Club for dinner.

There was a cute door the other day that was watching her dad pay for the food and as he was counting out the bills in his bill fold she said "Daddy, you're richer than mommy" It was super cute!

Pulse and Valentine's Day

Pulse was an experience...let's just keep it at that. They played great music and even had a miniature drag queen show. Omega, Justin, Natalie and I had a blast! I think the best part about my experience was that I was nicely complemented by many guys yet I wasn't creeped out like I normally would have been if it were straight men.


Natalie and I fist pumping like champs ;)



Justin, Natalie, and Omega outside on the patio.


Work was a train wreck today...everyone and their mom had a terrible day at work.

I worked in Campfire Treats (hot dogs and soft serve ice cream). When I came back from my lunch break were out of hot dogs, buns, and there were chips and soda spilled all over the floor. I swear I am the most competent person that I work with.

One women complained to me that her kids would choke on their hot dogs if she couldn't have a plastic knife...we don't have knives...I tried explain nicely and she decided to yell at me. (awesome) Another woman ordered 9 root beer floats and failed to mention she wanted chocolate ice cream until I made the first 7 with vanilla...I am so happy to just be sitting down in my bed not dealing with people right now...it was ridiculous...Olivia gave Jaimee and I a ride home and we compared horror stories of the day. Then Natalie took me to the grocery store. Everyone had a horrible day and everyone got yelled at by mean customers...People need to just be thankful that they are here and appreciate their time with each other.

On a happier not Christopher sent me beautiful red roses and calla lilies. He comes Friday for a fabulous weekend at "The Walt Disney Resort" (imagine it being said in a deep man voice like on the monorail)

Hope everyone had a nice day...hopefully cupid treated you well :)

Rain and Gay Men

The day started off alright. Got on the bus, sat by my girl Jaimee. Some girl decided it was necessary to talk on her phone the whole way to work. She talked loud and I could probably tell you more about her than half the people I work with. She only got her her a coffee mug while , she got every one else two gifts. She has a crush on a bisexual boy who likes Harry Potter, and she was up until one last night doing homework and laundry. She is yet another reason why I hate riding the bus. It didn't matter how loud the volume on my i pod was, I could still hear her. Keep it to yourself!!!

I was a breaker at work today. Meaning that I walked around and gave everyone else their lunch breaks. I had to break the ice cream carts, which normally wouldn't be bad. I know I complained about the cold yesterday but yesterday had nothing on today because today was cold and RAINY...really rainy...I mean really really really rainy. By my second break my pants were wet up to knee high, my feet were soaked, and I couldn't feel my hands. The rain just kept coming and coming and they still didn't shut down the ice cream carts until 3:30. One of the carts didn't sell anything for 3 hours and they still wouldn't shut it down until they saw that girl working it didn't have a rain jacket and her hair was sopping wet. A manager of the park came around and couldn't believe we were still open. He said it was ridiculous and was gonna call our leader. It was just plain stupid to have us out there in the weather, we weren't making any money and I guarantee some people are gonna call in sick tomorrow because of today.

I got on the bus with my friends Justin and Omega (they are both gay...it is pretty obvious). The bus was packed and smelled just like the inside of a ski lodge...that sweaty wet smell...that is kind of disgusting but you are too cold to care. We initially sat by this guy from New Zealand who was super cool. He is here for a year and said that there is a wine in New Zealand called Montana!!! He got off at the first stop and two gay guys sat by us where he had been sitting. Justin's phone started to ring playing the song "For Your Entertainment" by Adam Lambert. (back story Adam Lambert is gay and that song has been the center of a little bit of controversy) I asked Justin who it was. The two boys thinking I was asking who sang that song quickly chimed in "OMG, Adam Lambert, don't you know girl" I knew I was asking who was texting Justin. Tomorrow we are planning on going the gay club, Pulse...I have heard good things about it from a lot of people and hopefully it will be a good time. The boys were pretty excite to hear that we were going, saying that they loved Pulse and they play really good music there.

I got to skype with my mom tonight. It was pretty funny Tugger and my dad ran up so I could see them too!!! Tugg didn't really understand the concept that I was on the computer but he could hear me so he was confused.

Just now, as I was walking to the laundry room in my pajamas some boys who were out on their balcony shouted down "cute pants girl". Can't say I have ever been hit on while wearing my pajamas until today.

I work early tomorrow so I am off for some shut eye. Goodnight.

Brrrrr

So when I left Missoula it was 4 degrees...meaning it was very cold. It was 50 degrees warmer here today than when I left Missoula and I am freezing my butt off. I was shaking I was so cold. It felt like I should have been outside for a football game.
I worked in the coffee stand today...by myself for about an hour of it, it was cold and we were busy! I had some anxiety that something terrible would go wrong and all the customers would yell at me but it was mostly seamless, many of them even called me by name (I wear a nametag if you have forgotten). I didn't have a single void and was only 60 cents short (I think I left a roll of pennies (50 cents) in the register) so really I was only short a dime. I had over 150 transactions in about 4 hours...not too bad!!!

Since Sunday I have been going going going as usual. Katie and I went to Epcot on Tuesday and did some shopping and touring of all the world pavilions. I had some bomb Mexican food and of course a Mickey ice cream sandwich. The highlight of my day was close to the end of our time at Epcot. Winnie the Pooh and Tigger!!! I have been waiting to see them :) I even bought a special Winnie the Pooh picture frame to put our picture in.


Tuesday Katie and I ventured through the puddles and the continuous rain around Animal Kingdom. I accomplished my goal of riding Expedition Everest (Animal Kingdom's biggest roller coaster and possibly all of Disney but I still need to do the Rock'N Roller Coaster at Hollywood Studios). There is a big drop and I am a baby and get scared of Roller Coasters easy. I remember the first and only other time I have been to Disneyworld (with my parents and Thomas) I was scared to do pretty much all of the coasters...now I am going to do brace and do every attraction Disney has to offer...then maybe I will write my own guide on how to survive Disneyworld. Best seller here I come.

We went to the Animal Kingdom Lodge and out the backside the resort opens up to a Savannah with real African animals...WAY COOL!!! I purchased an Elephant wind chime which is my most prized possession right now...I just have to figure out a way to get it home! Mom will you please bring an extra (empty) suitcase...don't tell Dad.

Duke beat UNC last night...I stayed up and watched and cheered :) Sloppy game but good to see Duke get the W.

Congrats go out to my Fall City cousins Luke and Miles as they beat Bellevue in basketball to tie for first in their league! Audrey has senior night tonight and has been having an excellent season. It is really hard to be all the over here and hear about all of my cousins' success and not get to witness any of it in person. I will just have to wait for the summer when we sit around the campfire and hear stories about it.

My mom and I are going to try out skype tonight...I will let you know how it goes.

Dig ya later.

Superbowl Sunday

I awoke from a terrible dream in which people broke into my house. My parent's house where there is a door into the basement and no alarm system so if people really did break in while I was sleeping I would be screwed. Some how I karate kicked the first one and ran upstairs to wake my parents. I woke up my dad who was able to call 911, then I ran down the stairs to fight the others. I was quite successful with kicks and punches to each one. Then the last villain faced me and my dad. He pulled out something black, I thought it was a gun and turned to duck. Then I heard a click and it wasn't a gun click, it was the click of an empty stapler, I kicked it out of his hand, punched him, and he was out for the count. Then I woke up and was still scared out of my mind. I occasionally have bad dreams and when I do they are incredibly vivid, which is why it is so scary for me.

Later on it the day, I tried to imitate the karate kick from my dream and when my leg would only go up half that high I knew it was a (little bit, haha) of a stretch in my dream. Anyaa, maybe in real life you can teach me some tricks from your training. (Anyaa is training in some different fighting techniques right now).

My Superbowl Sunday involved very little Superbowl. Olivia picked me up for work and on our way out of the apartment complex we met a friend in the middle of the road. A crane!!! Just walking, walking in the cross walk. Now there are a billion and one bodies of water in Orlando so he/she probably wasn't too far from home, especially since Little Lake Bryan (yes that is its real name) is our backyard. When it gets warmed and I go play in the lake (which rumor has it alligators live in...gators, gators everywhere) I will take pictures. But starting the day off with a crane was quite unusual.

We got to work and as usual my name was under Nacho on the big board that says where everyone is working that day. Olivia was supposed to be in Beastly which sells corn dogs. By some miracle I talked my leader into switching me into Beastly to work with Liv. She felt bad for me that I was always in Nacho and it was always boring and I guess the girl that was supposedly to work with Liv is really flaky and they thought that she would call in. Liv and I had a fantastic day working together. We were busier than Nacho is but still only had 140 transactions between the two of us. On my lunch I found out that they didn't even open Nacho so I would have been stuck doing something else anyway. This way I got to hang out with my buddy!!!

Olivia and I decided that we were going to head to Epcot since we got off work a little early and do some shopping (because it is our last few days of our big discount. Katie and I are going shopping today so I didn't buy much I just scoped it out. We made it to all of the countries and even had time to do the Nemo ride, Soarin', and a few random rides in some countries including "a slow boat ride" in Norway (land of my dad's side of the family). I am looking forward to taking my dad on it for his take. We left Epcot and stopped at McDonald's. All of my friends here love McDonald's---its kinda weird.

I got home in time to see the last 8 minutes of the Saints victory :) Supposedly we should be getting some of the players here this week, so I will be on the lookout. One of the guys that has worked here before told me that he has seen Brett Farve, Steve Young, and Joe Montana here before. I will keep you posted.

Real Feel

The day started off on the right foot. I had a good little laugh to myself on the bus when I saw a girl's nametag and her head was bobbing up and down because she was asleep. Yurika was from Japan. Now I am not sure exactly how she would say it but in my head I thought "Eureka". Like an "eureka" moment :) Those silly Japanese.

Today was an enjoyable day at work. The ice cream was not melted!!! It started out as hard as a rock but by noon it was nice and easy to scoop. And it stayed in its scoop shape and didn't run all over the cone. It was pretty slow and Pablo and I only had 50 transactions combined. It was so boring that while Pablo was on his break I practiced my dance moves in the kiosk. Today was a cha cha day. One. Two. Cha Cha Cha. Three. Four. Cha Cha Cha...I even got this spin move down that used to give me some trouble. And the best part about dancing in the kiosk is I can move my hips as rapidly and crazy as I like because no one can see waist down from the outside.

I had a first today as well. A woman came back to base and asked for the new black girl. In the past my friend Anyaa would automatically be pushed under the bus seeing as there were no other black girls. However in Florida there are a lot of black girls so it is hard to point the finger in the same way. It is kind of refreshing to not have friends get in trouble because racial profiling is so much harder here :)

On the way home from work Olivia needed to stop at Walmart to pick up pictures and seeing as I hate riding the bus I had to suck it up and go into Walmart with her. On our way out we stopped at the gas station. The Walmart gas station has TV's!!! I had never seen that before and they were nice flat screens...decent size and every pump had one. It was basically a run of commercials and a weather update. The weather update showed that it will get down to 43 degrees tonight :( brrr...The thing that cracked me up most was the Real Feel. They don't used wind chill here but there is wind and it was very windy today. Real Feel is the same thing as wind chill and about 10 times harder to say. Try it fast a few times...tongue twister. If you are like me it sounds like you are asking for a refill on your beverage.

On my way home I saw a sign for Gator jerky...only in Florida.

Melted Ice Cream, Rain, and Gators

So the past few days Nacho has been having trouble with the ice cream freezer. Yesterday when I got to work we had to throw out 5 two and a half gallon containers of ice cream. One was so melted that I could stick my hand through it and pull it out covered just as if I had put it in paint can. I would put the scoop in to get the ice cream and it would just start running everywhere. It was a sloppy mess trying to get some of the containers out because they were so full from being brand new.
Today they were a little better but some of the containers were still very melty. Between myself and the girl i worked with we only had about 70 transactions in a 6 hour shift. Which is NOTHING for here. It was so slow and boring. I was cleaning everything in sight because I was so bored. The afternoon came and as predicted the rain began to fall...hard. All of the ice cream carts were brought in early and everyone was soaking if they hadn't put on their rain ponchos in time. Yet people were still coming to me as I was packing everything up asking if I was open. One woman couldn't understand why I was closed and kept asking me questions in a very rude tone. She asked me if she could just get two scoops anyway. I explained to her that we were closed pretty much because the ice cream was so melted and wouldn't even scoop on the cone...that finally got her to leave. I had to take all of the ice cream out of the freezer in the kiosk and put it in other freezers in hopes of it freezing today and being able to use tomorrow.

A man tried to leave me a tip for the ice cream today. When I told him I couldn't accept tips he just complemented me on Gonzaga basketball...

Tonight Natalie, Olivia, and I went to a place called Gators (Dockside) for Crazy Lady's birthday. Crazy Lady is really Heidi. She is in her mid-forties and she is awesome!!! She works with us in ODF and is always looking out for us and helping us. She invited us to meet her out for dinner and we couldn't pass it up. Gators was a cool bar and grill. The theme was obviously alligators and just like Montana has big game stuffed and hanging on the walls. Gators had alligators stuffed and hung on the walls. I wasn't really in shock but it didn't really seem normal...however in Florida gators are very normal. What really shocked me was what was on the menu. Gator Tails=the most popular appetizer. Yes it is real alligator tail!!! Crazy Lady says it tastes really good. She encouraged me to try it. I quickly informed her of my vegetarian diet and she asked if I ate fish. Well yeah...but gator is not fish. Someone it is??? Whatever! I didn't try it...maybe before I leave I will get up the guts (literally) to try it. I had Bourbon Salmon with sweet potato fries and broccoli. It was delicious and far more satisfying than the gator tails I am sure.

We all really enjoyed Gators and hope to make it a weekly ritual.

41 Missed Calls

I just overheard Taryn saying that she had 41 missed calls from Peter last night...now either she is exaggerating or someone needs to have a restraining order set-up.

On to other business...I wish I could take notes throughout the day to remind myself of the things I wanted to write on my blog. There are several funny moments that somehow I always forget...

We had safety class this morning at work. Snooze-fest. It was about how to properly lift things. It may have been the easiest $7.46 I have made in my life but it was so BORING!!! I was a breaker at work today. Meaning my job was to give people their breaks throughout the day. I broke the kitchen, an ice cream cart, and Dino Diner. It was a great day that went by at a good pace and I got to walk around the park a lot and see a lot of guests which is really fun. Sometimes guests ask me to take pictures of them in front of things which I am always happy to do. I was taking a picture of a family today and the sun was really glaring down. Somehow I couldn't really see one of the children and I think I missed him in the picture. I took a second trying to get him in but because there was no viewfinder it was really hard to see if he was in the picture or not due to the sun. Let's just hope the family didn't take down my name if I messed the picture up.

Tonight we went to B-Dubs (known as Buffalo Wild Wings out west). Of course the Bad Girls were all in attendance along with Laurein (who also works with us) Caitlyn and Beka (Olivia's roommates) and Sam (Natalie's roommate) the night was rather uneventful until it was time to leave. My friends were too distracted singing High School Musical songs to notice that our waiter was running after us in the parking lot, we almost got hit by an SUV, and then a group of dudes started yelling after us (probably thought we were cute...what else is new). Turns out Jaimee had forgotten to sign her receipt so thus the waiter running after us. Well as Jaimee and said waiter were attempting to figure out the receipt issue Olivia had accidentally taken her foot off of the break and we heard a thud. The waiter had moved out of the way but Jaimee got knocked right in the knees..ouch!

Surprise ER

So yesterday I was scheduled to open Nacho. I got there cleaned out the freezer that I had thawed out the night before and went back to base to check in and get the approval to open. The Duty Manager informed me that we were not going to open Nacho but she would put me somewhere else. I waited a few minutes and she came out and gave me two options I could either ER (early release) and go home or I could stay and get put somewhere else for the rest of the day...I promptly took the ER as one of the places they were trying to put someone was Funnel and I did not want to end up there. Plus Katie's parents have been in town and I hadn't seen them yet.

On top of the Browns being here, Katie's foreign exchange student from high school, Marina (Ma-Reen-Ah), and her family are here visiting from Brazil. So I met them at Magic Kingdom. Marina, here twin sisters Fe Fe, and Ta Ta, Katie and I hit up Space Mountain twice and did a few other things around the park. They moved in between everything so slow because every moment was a picture moment. They would find things that give us Americans no amusement and make it into a five minute photo op. Their mother and father speak very little English but her mother managed to tell me that she loved Americans and she loved Montana...even though she has never been there and doesn't know where it is...hehe.

An unplanned part of our day was the "Shake It, Move It, Celebrate It" parade...which I think I will force Chris into participating. All the floats go around the circle in front of Cinderella's castle and stop and then there is this little dance session with some of the characters. The girls and I broke it down and had a blast dancing with all the little kids and their videotaping parents (usually dads...they always seem to get the short end of the stick).

Katie and I topped off the day seeing the original Minnie and Mickey Mouse!!! I have seen a billion other dressed Mickey's (adventure, celebration, space, etc.) We took a great picture and immediately went and bought a special Magic Kingdom frame to put it in!!! It was a great day but it was soooooooooo cold...especially for here. I had on a sweatshirt and jacket and had goosebumps (I did not sign up for more cold weather).

Minnie and Mickey Mouse with Katie and I :)


Minnie Mouse in the parade.


Donald Duck in the parade.


My shoes on color accent.


Fe Fe, Marina, and Ta Ta in front of the castle.



Tonight we went to France for dinner, France in Epcot that is. The food was pretty good and our waiter was fabulous. He spoke 5 languages and had a great sense of humor. We topped off the night with the fireworks show. Last time Katie and I went we watched from Germany because someone had told me that was the best place to watch. Well after watching from France tonight I know why. The view was better and there was wind tonight so all the smoke was getting blown in the direction of France :(

The Pro Bowl was in Miami yesterday and so today there were a bunch of the players at Epcot. I didn't see anyone that I recognized but Denise (Katie's mom) said she saw Tony Romo. The players had a private event in the back of England.