Nee How Ma? 你好吗?: May 2010

At the beginning of the year, Disney was offering a Florida Resident 4 day Park Pass for $99 so we decided to take advantage of the deal seeing how it's $80 for one day for one park.

First up, Animal Kingdom back in February. We decided we didn't want to go to a mostly outdoor theme park when it was really hot out, so we thought going in February would be a good idea. Too bad, Mother Nature decided to send us a cold front that weekend! It was definitely a cold and cloudy day, but we made the most of it and had a good time checking out all that Animal Kingdom had to offer...minus Expedition Everest and the Kali River Rapids...just too cold for an outdoor rollercoaster and a water ride.

Next up, Epcot for the Flower and Garden Festival for an early Mother's Day weekend. This time around, the weather was nice and hot and sunny. Almost too hot and sunny really. My mom, dad, aunt, David, Natalie and I spent the morning walking around Epcot checking out the impressive topiaries and gardens set up at Epcot for their annual festival. We grabbed lunch at Japan in the World Showcase and then said goodbye to David and Natalie. The rest of us then spent the afternoon checking out the rest of the showcase, taking the water taxi back to the front of the park, and then hitting up Spaceship Earth only to get stuck in it for about 10 minutes when the ride decided to malfunction.

Not Disney related, but we then rounded out the day with a stop in Celebration for the Pie Festival that was going on that same weekend. We bought some wristbands and entered into the Never Ending Pie Buffet. Many many many many many pie slices later (I think upwards of 20?!?), we were finally pie'd out!

Wrapping up our Disney Extravaganza, we ventured to Hollywood Studios on Saturday this past weekend. We decided since it's back in the 90's in Florida, we'd get to the park later in the day and stay later to catch the fireworks/light displays. Unfortunately our plan backfired since Hollywood Studio's Fantasmic Laser Show wasn't scheduled for the night we showed up. That left us with less time to catch all the shows/attractions, but we made the most of it. It actually happened to be one of the Star Wars weekends so that was kinda fun. The American Idol Experience was surprising entertaining too. Leaving the park though, we all collectively decided that Hollywood Studios is the lamest Disney park out of the bunch. Finishing the day, we grabbed dinner (and a lot of it) at Chevy's.

To finish out our 4 day pass, we then got up Sunday morning and went back at Epcot to check out The Land which we missed during our previous Epcot trip. I don't think I've ever set foot in The Land before, so it was pretty cool to check out. I've always said Epcot was one of my least favorite parks since it was boring and mostly "educational" but I have to admit that this was pretty cool. Maybe it's because it was mostly about food :-) And we actually did make it out of The Land for about 20 minutes to catch the Nemo ride.

We took the "Behind the Seeds" tour and got to check out how Disney grows their produce in their greenhouses using hydroponics and other scientific techniques and various methods...all without soil.

So I have 4 Disney visits in 2010 already and it's not even June yet. I think I might be Disney'd out for a while, but definitely not theme parked out...Harry Potter Island (or whatever it's offically called) is opening up at Universal in June :-) Butter beer and treacle tarts await!

Rolling a few Gainesville visits into one post :-)

April 8th - Work recruiting event: I made a very short trip back to UF for a work recruiting event. A few coworkers and I spent the evening at the Career Resource Center talking to some students who came out to hear about working for a consulting company. It was fun to get back to campus and meet some of the students. They're all so eager and bright eyed and not yet jaded by the real world! :-)

April 10th - Yup, 2 days later, I went back to Gainesville for the Annual Spring Game - the Orange and Blue game. Turns out, it should really have been called the Blue and White game since there were no orange jerseys on the field.

May 1st weekend - KATIE'S UF GRADUATION!!!!

This of course is the highlight of this post! Congratulations, Katie on all your hard work at UF and all your accomplishments!!!! Can't wait to visit you at HARVARD!