A slideshow from our trip ...

is here.
Laurie, if you have any questions, Laura's available to answer them.

Some random Disney World moments

I'll post a link to photos later, but among funny quotes:
Laura, on our next trip to Disney World: "We're going to ride the "It's a small world" ride again and again and again and again and again."
Another day, when Kevin outlined her dessert options as chocolate, vanilla or spumoni ice cream: "Bologna's not an ice cream flavor!"
Sam Eagle, in the Muppets in 3D show at MGM Studios: "It's a tribute to all countries, but especially America."

To the land of mouse ears and magical princesses!

Thursday morning we leave for Orlando for a long-awaited trip to Disney World. Long-awaited by others, at least; I'm mostly dreading having to get up at some horrendously early hour that I like to pretend doesn't exist.
Strangely enough, this will be the first time I've spent any nonairport-layover time in Florida. You'd think that having lived in South Carolina for all those years would have meant at least an excursion over the border. But no.

Not a gerbil rocket scientist

This afternoon I was vacuuming the nastiness out of the bottom of the gerbils' cage. There wasn't much nastiness, of course, because they fling it out onto the family room floor before it has a chance to accumulate.
Nonetheless, Midnight decided that it would be fun to get near the vacuum hose. It's a small attachment, so she wasn't in any real danger, but there was a giant sucking sound for a moment as the vacuum anticipated getting a gerbil.

An important homework assignment

Laura's teacher has a notebook that she sends home with students who have just had haircuts. The kids are supposed to draw a picture (using at least five colors) and write a story about what happened.
So, here's Laura's entry about Thursday's event:


It was picture day. Mom said I needed my bangs cut. There wasn't time to go to the haircut store, so Mom used her scissors with the pink handles and trimmed my bangs. We did it at home. Then we used a paper towel to wipe the hair up off the bathroom floor.

Random rodent news

Yesterday, Petco was having hamster ball races. We were hoping our neighbor, Madelyn, would be able to go with her hamster, Nibbles, but a family garage sale prevented it.
So, we didn't go to watch. But here's a video I just found online of a similar event.

Taste of Papa John's

On Monday, we went to Taste of Colorado in the Civic Center downtown. It was very, very crowded, but there was good food. Not that Laura cared. She demanded pizza. Papa John's plain cheese to the rescue.
We also had a very good Nutella biscotti ice cream sundae. It was the highlight of the day for me.

Parade of Homes

Saturday we went to the Parade of Homes, which is at Reunion in Commerce City. Simplified directions: Go to the airport and turn left. It's really in the middle of nowhere, but there were some cool houses on the tour, and the nearby houses that normal people would live in look neat, too. There's been discussion about whether we'd consider moving out there, and I think we would, but I hope they build at least a grocery store at least sort of close by in the year before we have to decide. (Right now, there's a convience store/gas station that hasn't opened yet and a Sonic.)
Each year, there's also a display of playhouses. You can't go in them, but Laura likes peering in the windows to see if there's anything cool. Some have lofts with little sleeping areas, and some are decorated almost as nicely as the $1.5 million houses on the surrounding lots.