The Disney aftershock

I promised more about our trip to Disney, but I've got to say, we still haven't fully recovered. None of us have been fully well since our trip. We're all struggling to get our strength back.

The trip itself was good and bad. First, the good...our flight was great and nobody got in a fight.

Now the bad. It was very crowded. I would not have thought that the first week of October would have been so bad, but it was terrible. To make matters worse, our group of twenty (20) felt like it had to do everything together. Let me explain.

There were twenty of us...thirteen adults, and seven kids. They were:

Me, NJ and the boys (5),
My brother Larry, his wife DeAnna and their three kids (5),
DeAnna's parents (2)
My sister, Terre, her husband Josh, and their daughter, Hannah (3),
Josh's 78 year-old dad, Bob (1),
My mom and her husband, Frank (2),
My dad and his wife, Patsy (2).

All the "grandparents" felt like their entire trip would have been in vain if they didn't get to wtiness every single expression on the children's faces. I guess I understand that, but I bought a great new camcorder; get over it, for crying out loud.

We went six straight days (all day) to the various parks. Here is what I learned.

• Disney World is a very expense place to just stand (occasionally sit) around.
• When 20 people (nine of whom are over 50 and four of whom are 6 and under) are together for a bathroom break, by the time the everybody's finished, whoever went first has to go again.
• Public transportation sux.
• Frank is a selfish asshole who won't give his seat on the bus to a young mother carrying a sleeping small child after a long day at the "Magic" Kingdom.
• If the government ran as efficiently as the folks at Disney, we'd all pay less than half of what we currently pay in taxes.
• Space Mountain is old.
• Bob is a great joke teller. But, I can't demonstrate, because I can't repeat any of them.
• The Rockin' Rollercoaster can go from 0 to 60 in 2.3 seconds. Still, hands down, the best ride at Disney.
• A girl recenlty died on the Rockin' Rollercoaster.
• Epcot's better without kids. I've never actually been without kids, I just image that it would be.
• The Disney Dining Plan is worth the trouble. So is the Magic Express.
• It's never good when you have to stand in line for 15 minutes just to get your Fast Pass.
• It's takes a good bit or coordination to get 20 Fast Passes at once.
• I still love Splash Mountain. "Please Misr. Fox! Whatever you do, don't thow me inta 'da briar patch!" Weeeeee! Splash!!!!!
• You should always sit in the back on the Splash Mountain ride.
• Stroud isn't afraid of anything....except the Tower of Terror.
• O'Neal believes strongly that discretion is, indeed, the better part of valour.
• Lan isn't afraid of Pirates of the Caribbean anymore...or so he says.
• Heelies make getting around Disney more interesting.
• Take band-aids with you if your kids wear Heelies at Disney.
• Neddie Joye has a will of iron.

The next time we go ba.....oh wait, we ain't goin' back!

Back from Disney

My lungs are so full of pixie dust right now (sort of like asbestos, but more painful), that I can't go into detail about our trip. I will soon...

Facing the Giants

So the family and I went last night to see Facing The Giants...it was surreal.

The movie itself is about a coach at a small Christian high school in Georgia that is...well losing. His team can't win, his wife can't get pregnant, his car won't start and his house has a bad odor. He comes to the breaking point and finally turns everything over to God and asks Him to show how big a God He is.

I won't give it away (in case you haven't seen it), but as you might image, God shows up.

What's so awesome, though, is the real-life parallel of the movie's success with the that of the story. This low budget, Chrisitan movie, with no professional actors has turned into a tremendous success in the box office. God has shown up! In fact, before I handed the tickets to the young ticket taker, he said, "...on the left, first theater to the left." I said, "You don't know what movie we're going to see yet." His reply was, "I'm sure it's the same one everybody else is here to see. It's basically the only one anybody else is seeing."

Now I know that we live in Christian South, but how cool is that!