Finally!

I saw Mandi's diptych and was inspired to do my own. However, it's dark when I leave in the morning and I can't seem to remember to do it during the day but finally today I was able to do it. The challenge was to: "Go outside. Hold your camera down a bit and capture a shot of yourself with the sky as your backdrop. Then point your camera down and capture your feet on the ground. Put the images together to create a lovely diptych that reveals a small, telling moment in your day." Okay, so it turned out to be way easier said than done for me. The feet picture was no problem, after all that has become my signature picture. I had the hardest time with the self-portrait part of it! But finally I got one that I think works. Whew!

And if you are like me and wondering what exactly a diptych is, it is basically a work of art made up of two matching parts.

Hips Hold Emotion

They are renovating the bathrooms at work which means I need to walk up a flight of stairs to use the bathroom. The bathrooms on my floor will be closed for probably a month. Even though it is only one floor, it is going to get annoying fairly quickly.

Where has this year gone to? It seems as if it was yesterday it was 2007 and now it's Christmas! Well, at least you would believe it's Christmas from all the store displays and eggnog lattes! For whatever reason, I don't feel it would be right to indulge in an eggnog latte until at least after Thanksgiving.

I went for a run (which again in Emily speak means walk, run, walk, run) on Sunday. I hadn't been running for awhile and I realized two things - 1) I am not going to be ready for the 12Ks of Christmas but good thing they have a 5K option and 2) even though it was a short distance (because I'm still trying to get over a cold) it felt really good to go for a run. Apparently over the course of the last couple years I have become a runner!

And for laughs - what is blue and smells likes red paint? Blue paint, of course!!

I need some Magic!!

"Emily, you just won the (fill in the blank), what are you going to do next?"

"I'm going to Disneyworld!"

And off we went. I took the red-eye and arrived Thursday morning and met Jana at her hotel (she had flown in the night before). After breakfast we made our way to the Magical Express. The line there was incredibly long!! All of a sudden we started wondering if this was a foreshadowing for how our park experience would be. But the line kept moving and finally we were at our hotel. We checked in and were off to Epcot! The food and wine festival was going on and you could have very easily eaten and drank your way around the world!! Last time we were thwarted in our efforts to ride Soarin' but not this time. We got our fastpasses and soon were Soarin'!

Friday we went to Hollywood Studios where we watched the High School Musical 3 Pep Rally! I'm not sure Jana enjoyed it as much as I did! :) At some point we decided it would be really cool to get matching Mickey shirts to wear on Sunday when we visited the Magic Kingdom and so began the great shirt search. We found the shirt we wanted to wear but did not find it in Jana's size at Hollywood, but not for lack of looking! We ended the day by watching one of my favorite shows, Fantasmic! We weren't able to do the newest Toy Story ride but since we had some time on Monday before leaving for the airport we decided to come back then to try the ride.

Saturday we went to Animal Kingdom. I had never gone out to the petting zoo which was a lot of fun! After finishing at Animal Kingdom, where we were unsuccessful at finding the matching shirt we were looking for, we went to Downtown Disney for dinner and to do some shopping. We ended up eating dinner at an Italian restaurant. Sitting next to us were these super cute kids, probably about 3 or 4 years old. The little boy all of a sudden said "I'm Corbin Bleu" and I just cracked up laughing. His mom noticed me laughing and was telling us she had no idea where he had watched High School Musical - turned out his cousin had been babysitting and that's where he had seen it. It was probably one of those you had to be there moments but it was just so funny, probably because he did kind of look like Corbin Bleu. We were still on a mission to find the matching Mickey shirt but once again came up empty handed.

Sunday we headed to the Magic Kingdom. Still determined to give it one more shot before giving up on the matching Mickey shirts, we walked through the stores on Main Street hoping to find the shirt. No such luck. Finally Jana decided to get another Mickey shirt so at least we would both be wearing Mickey shirts. Since we had decided to go back to Hollywood the next day we thought we would try the matching shirts again - this time with a red Mickey shirt that we were pretty sure was in both our sizes at Hollywood.

Sunday was Extra Magic hours at the Magic Kingdom which meant we could stay until 1 a.m. We decided to play it by ear and see how long we made it. We had started off the trip with Halloween cups and napkins but finished the trip with Christmas cups, napkins and decorations!! So much for Thanksgiving. It is no secret I am not the best roller coaster rider but I finally was able to put my hands in the air on a roller coaster (granted it was Barnstormer, which is a kiddie roller coaster but still...). After many hours of old favorites (Peter Pan, Big Thunder, Mickey's Philharmagic) and new favorites (Aladdin's Magic Carpets) it was time to go home. We didn't make it to 1 a.m. but we did make it to midnight.

I do have to say for entire trip we had fantastic bus magic - usually the bus would be pulling up as we walked up to the bus stop. All this ended Monday morning. Granted we didn't wait super long for the bus to Hollywood, but it was significantly longer than any of previous bus wait times. We arrived at Hollywood and were greeted by a very long line, which neither of us expected. Finally inside the park we headed over to the new Toy Story ride only to find the line very long. Oh well, it gives us something to look forward to next time. Next on the list was to find the red Mickey shirt but it was not to be. We decided our magic had run out at midnight, a little like Cinderella. Either that or it had slept in since we were out so late the night before!

It was a great trip! See you real soon!

ETA: I almost forgot the best part!  We were standing in line with a family whose girls had gone to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique and found out it is not just for little girls!  Big girls can get their hair and makeup done like princesses too!!  Guess what I'm doing next time! :)

31 Things Update

Two posts in one night!  I'm on a roll!!

2. Make it back to Houston a couple of times.   I visited Houston last weekend!

7. Back up my pictures on CDs. If I'm really ambitious catalogue and organize!  I finally moved a lot of my pictures onto an external hard drive.

14. Eat at several restaurants I've been meaning to - Greenlake Bar & Grill, Z Tejas, Boka and Salish to name a few.  So my new favorite restaurant is Azul!  It is a bit of a drive but it is really good!

15. Play bingo in Houston.  Woohoo!  When I visited Houston we played bingo - no one won anything, but it was fun.

22. Set aside some money and invest in the stock market.  So I set aside some money and I figured now would be a good time!  I opened up an account but I haven't actually bought an stocks yet.

27. Take a yoga class. (Technically this one is already done since I attended one on 4/20, but since I planned to put it on the list before I took the class I'm leaving it on. Plus this way it will motivate me to take another!)  I took a hot yoga class (taught by my sister).  Wow - it was super intense!

31. And one I'll keep to myself for now.  This was a couple of different things I wanted to do for myself and now I have accomplished one.

What Team? Wildcats!

It's been a busy few weeks!  Work has settled down somewhat, thank goodness!  I flew down to Houston for the premiere of High School Musical 3!  Why Houston?  Well, the fact HSM3 was opening was an excuse to go down and visit.  The movie was great, better than 2 but not quite as good as 1.  I had a great time - watching the movie, playing bingo, eating yummy food - but the highlight was seeing everyone!!

I arrived home on Sunday night and turned around and left for San Francisco on Monday.  I was there for a conference on Wednesday & Thursday but Jessica (my co-worker) and I went down a day early for some fun.  We started off the day heading over to Alcatraz.  What I find interesting is how close it really is to San Francisco, yet so far for those incarcerated there.  And now I really want to watch the movie The Rock again!  My favorite line in that movie is when Sean Connery says "Welcome to The Rock" which I'm sure Jessica got tired of hearing since I kept saying it!  We came back and walked along the wharf.  While we were walking, somehow we talked ourselves into renting a bike and riding it to the Golden Gate Bridge.  It ended up being fun!  We rode across the bridge and down to Sausalito to catch the ferry.  The ferry dropped us off at Pier 1 (we needed to drop the bikes off past Pier 43) so we hopped back on the bikes.  After a stop at Ghiradelli Square we headed back to our hotel and meet up with another co-worker, who had just arrived, for dinner.  Wednesday night we headed back to Fisherman's Wharf so I could have some yummy clam chowder in a bread bowl.

And now I leave for Disneyworld on Wednesday night!!