It’s an interesting week in the Slidell Johnston’s house. First, we’re at the end of the month, which means we are operating on what is left in our envelopes. (More month than money!) We went grocery shopping on Saturday armed with $45 cash and determined to get everything we would need for the week with just that. We did it. We even bought dog food! (Lucy is thrilled!)
Second of all, I have a new employment status as of Friday. I resigned from my job today in order to spend more time doing some other things. More on that in the future. Just be praying for us during this transition. I heard a quote this morning that I love and is especially applicable for me today: “A year from now, you may wish you started today.” -Karen Lamb.
Sunday – Jarrod had a bowl of cereal and I had a corn muffin. We both had crazy busy days and when we finally got home, we crashed.
Monday – Baked potatoes and salad. I’m putting salsa on my potato because I love the wal-mart brand corn and black bean salsa. I can go through a large jar alone in a week! Jarrod has cheese, sour cream, and bacon for his potatoes. Our current dressing of choice is wal-mart’s salsa ranch.
Tuesday – Left-overs. Maybe black bean nachos from Sunday night.
Wednesday – Leftovers. Probably black beans and quinoa with salsa.
Thursday – Pasta (gluten-free for Jarrod) with alfredo sauce. We buy the cheap jar of alfredo and then doctor it up. We saute garlic in olive oil, add spinach and simmer the sauce. Jarrod wants to add bacon… We’ll see about that. 
We’ll eat that with salad or broccoli, whichever I can get Jarrod to eat…
Friday – Jarrod’s mom and grandma are coming into town for the weekend, so I’m thinking we’re going to take them somewhere good for dinner!!
Saturday – Probably the same as Friday night… We have to show them a good time!
Sorry this week’s not very interesting… Hopefully next week, when our envelopes are full, we’ll have more interesting recipes!
Then we decided to do the more extreme version of a simulator ride we’d done earlier in the week. The less extreme version was very mild, so Jarrod and I assumed we could handle the more extreme ride. I was pretty nervous because the warnings were pretty intense. I get motion sickness and do not like spinning rides. This ride really did me in. I tried to compose myself after the ride, but could not and we ended up leaving. We were fine, just feeling pretty awful. We went back to the hotel and relaxed in the lobby until it was time to board our airport shuttle.
The journey from the couch in the lobby to the airport gate was about 2.5 hours long. The airport is not very far away, but we had to wait for the bus, stop at several other hotels, drive to the airport, unload, wait in line to check in, went through the most insane security line ever, took another shuttle to the gate, and walked the length of the terminal. The flight was delayed, but we’d made it and were thankful. While we were very sad to leave, we were ready to be home.
We woke up early on Thursday with plans to go straight to the Animal Kingdom for breakfast and fun. We arrived at the park shortly after it opened, grabbed a quick breakfast and went straight to the Mt. Everest experience. The ride looks like a tall, scary rollercoaster…and it is! It was very fun, but definitely scary. After that, we went over to a Dinosaur ride that Jarrod described as a slow movie-type ride. He was unintentionally lying. This ride might have been even scarier than any other ride we’d been on at any of the parks!! It was an awesome trip back in time in a jeep to capture a dinosaur before a meteor hit the earth. It was dark, scary, and very realistic. At one point Jarrod even grabbed me and told me to get down. The dinosaurs were really close to the car! It was a GREAT ride, but as we exited, Jarrod said we’d not bring kids on that one! We got through both of those rides very quickly, so we decided it was time to hit the African safari. This ride is unlike any other Disney ride because it actually has very real elements. The animals are all real and live in an environment created intentionally to resemble the African countryside. We saw elephants, rhinos, giraffes, and gazelles. It was awesome and absolutely gorgeous. Jarrod worked the video camera and I took still shots.
My sorority sister, Emily, lives near Orlando and volunteered to drive with her sweet 10 month old boy to meet up with us. We had hoped the weather would cooperate so that we could take Liam swimming in our hotel pool. Sadly, lightning, thunder, and rain prevented us from doing that. We did have a really nice time together; Liam was so well-behaved! We played in our hotel room for a while, went downstairs for a snack, and came back to the room to clean up. Liam didn’t fuss at all, even though he was so excited to swim.
Disney world. We rode the hotel elevator to the top floor; the view was incredible as the sun set over the Magic Kingdom. The food was absolutely incredible and the atmosphere was sophisticated. We enjoyed wine, sushi, pork chops with polenta, grouper with rice, lemon cheese cake, and chocolate ice cream. Of course everything had very fancy names, but there’s my version. After a delicious dinner, we went out on the observation deck to watch the fireworks. The California Grill is on the 15th floor of the Contemporary Resort, one of the closest hotel to the Magic Kingdom. Watching the fireworks from such an ideal location was magical. Jarrod and I loved seeing them from so close. Disney does an incredible job coordinating the fireworks with music, which makes the show seamless. (Same goes for the fountains at Epcot!)
After the rides, we walked over to the other side of the park to journey around the world. We went on a silly Donald Duck ride in Mexico, got some fruity drinks (I got a delicious adult raspberry 
chiller and Jarrod got a mango iced tea). We ate chicken and rice pancakes from China and sushi in Japan again. We just enjoyed walking slowly through the different cultures, checking out the different food and drink options. It was fun to relax and not worry about rushing through to get to something else. When we were ready, we walked back to the monorail and went back to the hotel. We weren’t too terribly tired, so we spent our afternoon break checking out the hotel, buying stamps, and getting maps for the Animal Kingdom. After a quick rest, we showered up and headed to Downtown Disney.
Downtown Disney has several incredible and very popular restaurants including a few Wolfgang Puck restaurants, House of Blues, Planet Hollywood, Rainforest Café and T-Rex, a restaurant dedicated exclusively to dinosaurs. We had reservations at Planet Hollywood at 8:30pm and got down there at 6pm or so to wander, shop and check things out. There is an indoor amusement park called Quest at Downtown Disney that can be added on to the park hopper or purchased individually. We opted not to add this, figuring we’d have plenty to keep us occupied. While we were shopping, I received a call from a college sorority sister who lives in Orlando and works at Disney. We made plans for her and her boyfriend to meet up with Jarrod and I. While we waited for them to head over, we shopped for some souvenirs. We hadn’t purchased anything except postcards and had a few gifts to buy. We also stopped by the photo shop and picked up our free 5×7 picture that we had taken at Disney a few days prior. It will look great in the new Disney frame we picked up at the shop.
Soon our friends were there and we sat down for a drink and to catch up. I didn’t have my ID, so I got a Shirley Temple. 
It was delightful to talk about college and hear everything going on with the Florida Gamma Phis. Soon it was time for our dinner reservations. We invited Katy and Ney to join us for dinner so that we could continue our delightful conversations. We had a loud, but very fun dinner. Katy drove us to the front gate at Epcot and we were off. Epcot had extended hours that night so we were able to ride the rides without much competition. We went straight for Test Drive again and it was AWESOME. Even more awesome than in the morning. After that, it was getting close to 11pm, so we took the monorails back to the hotel to get some rest.
Tuesday morning we woke up and I hit the gym. We’ve been walking a lot here, but I wanted to get in a few extra miles and some stretching before the day really began. After the gym, I brought breakfast up for Jarrod and I to enjoy in our room. We watched Regis and Kelly while enjoying eggs, juice, and a breakfast burrito. After breakfast we showered up and hit the monorail for Epcot. We weren’t sure what to expect, neither of us had been to Epcot in decades, but it was incredible. We started by getting a fast pass for Soarin’, a ride we’d heard was incredible. After that, we went on a tour about sustainable living that included a trip through Epcot’s gardens. They are coming some really revolutionary things like growing plants without soil. Jarrod and I loved the gardens. From there, we went to the Finding Nemo under sea adventure. Jarrod was so excited to get there because of his love for aquariums. It was a short trip searching for Nemo that ended in an aquarium. We wandered through looking at fish, manatees, and dolphins. Very cool and not at all what I expected from a ride! After Nemo, we went back to the front of the park and rode the classic Spaceship Earth, the ride that is inside the Epcot “ball”. This ride was even cooler than I remembered. They take your picture at the very beginning of the ride. Then you journey through the technological advances in communication. Jarrod and I are nerdy, so we thought it was very interesting. On the trip back down we got to play on the screen in our car. We made a few choices on the screen about what we would want in our home in the future. After a few minutes, we got to see a video with stick figures with our heads on them riding bikes and eating food from our sustainable garden. Totally awesome.
Epcot is celebrating a wine and food festival in the area of Epcot dedicated to celebrating different cultures. After we finished with Spaceship Earth, we headed to check out food and wine from around the world! I remember visiting this section of Epcot as a kid, but thought it was so boring… Today I was very interested. In addition to the typical cultural restaurants, shops and rides, there were small food and wine carts stationed all around each of the countries. We were on a mission to Japan, so we didn’t get to taste any of the other food or wines. We went on a short ride in Norway before we landed in Japan. We ordered to small plates of sushi from a cart in Japan. The carts in every country are only serving small appetizer plates, apparently to encourage people to go from cart to cart, country to country ordering small plates of food and small cups of wine. We decided as we rushed through the countries that we would have to come back tomorrow and eat our way through the world.
After picking up our wristbands we went back to the hotel to relax and clean up. We both made some phone calls and enjoyed the air conditioning and quiet. After cleaning up and changing clothes, we took the monorail back to the Magic Kingdom. The park was absolutely nuts. It was almost 7pm, time for the park to close to those without tickets. Children and adults were dressed in costumes, ready to trick or treat throughout the park. We made our way to Cinderella’s Castle in the rain in plenty of time for our reservations. Cinderella’s Castle came highly recommended but we had no idea what to suspect. After we arrived, we got our picture taken with Cinderella. Shortly after, we were taken upstairs to a large room buzzing with families. We ordered a three-course meal and watched the merry go round out the window. After eating our delicious dinner, we were delighted to see characters come out to dance and sing. Cinderella’s mice and Fairy Godmother entertained the crowd and celebrated birthdays, anniversaries, and marriages. All those celebrating received a delicious cake BEFORE dessert came out. Amazing.
n Monday we woke up to the sun shining in our huge windows. We cleaned up and went downstairs to breakfast. We ordered from a menu at a touch-screen kiosk and received our food quickly. Jarrod had a meal of eggs, potatoes, bacon, sausage, and a biscuit. (which he, of course, gave to me.) I had oatmeal and turkey sausage. After breakfast, we loaded on the monorail and went to the Magic Kingdom. The park was much less overwhelming in the daylight. We got to see the park all decorated for Halloween! Our day started with a show (Mickey’s Philharmagic Orchestra) before we hit the classics: it’s a small world and Peter Pan’s flying ride. We also discovered how powerful Disney buttons are. We wore our Just Married button and people congratulated us all day. We saw other people celebrating birthdays, engagements, and anniversaries. Very magical!
When we were done at Disney, we decided to go over to Hollywood Studios for lunch and play. We took the monorail to the bus station and a bus to Hollywood Studios. We were starving so we went straight to the first place we found that had salads. Jarrod is gluten-free and while he does have pills he can take before eating gluten, we’re trying to avoid it at any cost. The salads were delicious and we were on our way!
Prince Caspian was a waste of time and wasn’t really a ride at all. It was the trailer to the movie, which we’d already seen. The Great Movie ride was a tour through the movies of all time. Very cool, especially if you really like movies.
Thankfully we made a reservation at Hollywood Studios because when we arrived, everything was all booked up. We ate at a delightful buffet before walking to the amphitheatre for Fantasmic, the most amazing show ever! The amphitheatre is HUGE and the “stage” is a large mountain surrounded by a river. The show included pyrotechnics, boats, climbing, fireworks, music, and characters. Fountains were used as screens to project more action. Jarrod and I both agreed that it was the highlight of the day.
The flight to Orlando was uneventful and quick, as Southwest flights usually are. We got to the Orlando airport and followed the signs to our Disney transportation. We had already registered our luggage so we didn’t even need to stop at baggage claim. After a short wait in line, we were off to our hotel! In true Disney style, we watched a video explaining check-in, tickets, and other amazing features on the trip to our hotel. After a few stops at other hotels, we finally arrived at the Contemporary. We checked in at about 8pm and received our room key/meal plan/park ticket all-in-one card. We also received buttons proclaiming that we were just married. We went up to our room on the 11th floor, dropped our carry on bags, and headed straight for the monorail. The monorail stops right in our hotel, so getting to Disney (and everywhere else we could imagine!) is very easy.
Leanne Johnston