StreamTeam

Note: as a reminder, I am part of the Netflix StreamTeam and am getting compensated for sharing with you. As always, all opinion are my own!

So, in addition to knitting a lot this weekend, I also took full advantage of my netflix subscription! Because that was a lot of knitting and pacing in my living room so I needed something on the tv!!

So, I started Saturday morning by watching some Freaks & Geeks. Now, I didn't watch this show when it aired. Okay, I didn't even know about this show when it originally aired. But I had heard some chatter and was told that this was a must see. So I watched it.

The show was great, I admit it was fun seeing some of the actors and actresses and I like today earlier in their careers (especially little John Daley!)

After finishing that show, and since it was Saturday night, I flipped on Bag of Bones. I'm not a big scary, scary movie fan, and I hesitated to watch it, but had been told by my 14yo (who LOVES scary things) that it wasn't actually that scary.

She was right and I enjoyed it. And I was able to actually sleep after watching it, which, um, I'm sad to say doesn't always happen when I watch "scary" or even "sort-of-a-little-scary" things LOL!

Sunday was another day and so I sat down to watch The Guild. I heard about this on twitter and since a lot of my fellow Doctor Who, Firefly, etc lovers said it was good, I decided to watch it. I gotta say, I wasn't sure at first. But then I cracked up. As a former World of Warcraft player, and member of a guild or two, the show cracks me up. It kind of makes me miss the days of raiding and gaming and farming and playing.

Bonus: This month netflix is giving away a three-month subscription to one of my readers! Leave a comment here to be entered and make sure that I have a way to contact you! This is a quick giveaway and will end April 30 at noon! So enter now! 

Knit-a-thon done!

Well, this weekend's knit-a-thon was, what I would call, a smashing success!

My fingers are slightly cramped and I might not knit much today, and I slept like a rock last night but that is a small price to pay!

I updated at least hourly over on instagram this weekend, so if you're following me there, this might be repeated information, but here's some stats about this weekend

29 hours knitting (in a 37 hour period)
$1000 raised
11 washcloths knit
36 photos shared (on instagram)
Over 20 miles walked (yes, I walk and knit at the same time)

Whoa! You guys, I'm pleased as punch over this! It was so much fun. And everyone was so supportive. My spirit is happy, my heart is happy.

There's still work to do. I need about $1500 in donations to meet my personal goal, and the walk is a month away. I also need to train more for the actual walking part!  

Knit-a-thon

basket of yarn ready to go!

It's here! It's here! It's finally here!

In about 12 hours I will sit down and begin part I of my knit-a-thon!

I thought of this idea last month in an effort to help raise money for my Avon Walk (which is just over a month away! Yikes!)

Anyway, I started today very far from my final goal. But I'm going to go to bed much closer, which feels great!

Tomorrow I will knit.

Tomorrow is also the three-year-anniversary of my diagnosis.

My goodness. Three years. I'm hoping that tomorrow can be a way to help change the memory of that day.

Three years ago, April 26 was the Tuesday after Easter. Tomorrow is a week after Easter - they aren't perfectly matched, but pretty close.

So I will reclaim the day and at the same time try to do some good for the world.

Though, I admit, deciding to sit and knit all day is a very selfish decision, but it's also what I can do! So I will do it!

I will definitely be sharing pictures on instagram (you can follow me here). I still haven't decided if I will live blog the day or not. I know, not a lot of time to decide LOL!

Anyway, thanks in advance for all the support and love!

Universal Studios

The family and the world!

So, almost 2 weeks ago, we hopped on a plane to go to Orlando, Florida.

Yes, the surprise trip my husband sprung on us less than 48 hours before we had to leave!

Now, we've been to Florida before. We've also done Disney, but we've never done Universal Studios before.

So we headed to the airport, excitement in the air! Also, maybe some anxiety. Okay, in my case a lot of anxiety. I don't like planes. I don't like flying. I'm not a good person to sit next to on a plane. Especially if the plane hits turbulence. Or makes a noise. Or starts to turn. Or goes up. Or goes down. Well, I think you get the picture.

The boy was so excited to be on the plane!

My younger two children weren't entirely sure what to make of it either. They have flown before, they were just so young they can't remember it. So for them, it was essentially like flying for the first time. Mister Man was way more excited than nervous. Miss M takes after me and was feeling more anxious (but also excited).

However, they flew like champs. They are both willing to get in a plane again - which is good! I also flew like a champ thanks to xanax (and if you ignore the couple of minutes during turbulence when I thought I might pass out from forgetting to breath).

Cabana Bay Beach Resort Lobby

We headed to our hotel: the Cabana Bay Beach Resort. It's a new hotel that looks old. No, it's themed to look like the 1950's and they did an incredible job with it! It was 50's without being over the top 50's. Lovely pool. Great food cafe area. We did have one hiccup - we got to our room and realized it was missing  bathroom door! But they were able to switch us very quickly (again, new hotel, so some kinks to work out)!

The upside to a new hotel is there were plugs everywhere. Tons of plugs. Also, a few USB outlets too - which is so nice. I would gladly stay in this hotel again in a heartbeat!

Then we were all tired so it was to bed so we could get up nice and early the next day because we would be able to get into Harry Potter world an hour early since we were staying on property.

Alright. Sunday morning. Headed to the park. Straight to Harry Potter.

Me with my butterbeer!

Have I mentioned I love Harry Potter? Since the second book was released? Before the movies? That I got most of the books at midnight releases and then stayed up all night to read them? And have been to more than one midnight showing of a movie.

Walking into Hogsmeade was AMAZING! I know it's not real. But they did such a good job with it. It felt just right! I was in heaven. Just in heaven! It was so fun to see. The whole family loved it! So we did some rides, and walking around. And I had butter beer! Yum! I'm sure I looked like a kid in a candy store!

Dinosaurs! Awesome!

After time there, we headed to the Jurassic Park area - which was a perfect area for Mister Man! He loved it! We spent some time looking at the dinosaurs and he did his first big kid ride!

The husband and the girls took this time to go on some bigger roller coasters - they had a blast! We had a lot more fun - that is blurring together in my mind LOL! But then some of us (myself) went to the hotel room to relax and check out the pool! Which was so great after the winter we've had, err, are still having!

Upside down Underwater Selfie!

Monday was much the same! Lots of fun, lots of walking, lots of rides. We encouraged everyone to pick the one thing they wanted to do because we saw that Tuesday was predicted to be rainy.

I also, bravely, went on the Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit Roller Coaster. It was intense. I'm too old for rides like that! But it was fun and I'm glad I tried it. Even if the husband had to sort of carry me off LOL!

On Dueling Dragons

Tuesday started clear, so we started out by going on a few rides! Then we had a nice treat: we ate breakfast at Three Broomsticks in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. The food was good, but the atmosphere makes the breakfast. The whole thing was just magical (see what I did there? ;-))

We had time to do a bit more around the park, but the rain moved in.  Husband and I had a back-up plan though - there is a movie theater at City Walk. So we took the kids to see The Lego Movie. It was a cute movie and a good way to spend the rainy afternoon.

After that, it was time to head to the train station to begin the next part of trip to DC {I'll save those stories for another day}.

My things =)

All of this to say, our time in Orlando was fantabulous! I would go again in a heart-beat. Universal is such a great place to go. The hotel was great. I loved the areas of the park and there was stuff for the roller coaster riders and the not roller coasters riders. Universal definitely gets two thumbs up from all of us!

Forgive Me

I realize it's been much, much too long since I last posted here. More than 20 days!

It's terrible, I know.

I've thought about posting, I swear it! There has been so much going on around here.

The end of March/beginning of April saw us getting the house ready to sell. There was a lot going on - cleaning, purging, packing, cleaning, more cleaning, and oh, did I mention the cleaning?

We scrubbed this house top to bottom! Like spring cleaning on steroids. I knew when we listed, I wanted this place to look as fabulous as possible.

A big part of that was just getting things out of the house, so we were also working to get where we are moving ready to start receiving an influx of boxes from us.

We went on the market April 1. Now, last time we sold a home, we had very few showings, it wasn't a big deal. I'm so glad we had this place in tip-top shape. Once we listed, the showings started. I'm also glad we packed and purged a lot of things. It's much easier to keep this place sparkly without all the clutter!

In that midst of all of that, I got to go visit this sweet little baby! And his mama and siblings. So sweet. It was a lovely break in the midst of everything.

We cleaned the house, the left to go visit (with food - and made a mess at their house for lunch LOL). My goodness, is holding babies was a job, I'd do it in a heartbeat!

Thursday of that week we were out a bit late during a showing. I know we technically could stay home, but no, we do not stay home during the showings if we can help it at all. But we got home.

My husband sat us all down and told us he had something to tell us.

Yeah, I wasn't quite sure what to think at first. That is when he surprised us with the news we were going on vacation. Saturday. Like not even 48 hours from when he dropped the bombshell!

It's been a stressful 2014 so far - so many things going on, so many things to coordinate. He's been busy. I've been busy. We were all feeling the stress. In early February he decided we needed a trip and so he planned it and said not a word. Not even to me!

So last week we spent the first half of the week in Florida. Then we traveled to Washington DC for the second half. The kids, okay me too, have referred to this trip lovingly as the Florington DC trip!

It was awesome. In Florida we did Universal Studios. I've never been. But I've wanted to go see the Harry Potter stuff. It was amazing.

And for roughly 10 years now, I've been wanting to go to DC with the family.

I still don't know how he pulled it off! But I am so grateful he did!

We got home Saturday and just took it easy for a bit. We've spent a bit of time at the new place and though we don't need a lot of new furniture there, I bought my first bits of furniture! I stayed up almost all night the other night to see the Blood Moon and I fought a horrible awful migraine this week.

So, I haven't blogged in 20ish days, but it's been a wild ride around here for sure! A fun, awesome, much-needed wild ride!