Disney World Trip

Here are our pics from Walt Disney World.  We stayed in the Wilderness Lodge which is created to look and feel like the Pacific Northwest.  It was very charming with a "geyser", a beautiful lobby and a lake.  The service at the entire resort was pretty amazing.  Once we landed, Disney took our bags directly to our hotel and left them in our room.  The whole place has mass transit: the monorail, boats and buses that run regularly to all hotels and theme parks.  Everyone is ridiculously friendly and helpful.  I should have known what was in store when we walked across the red carpet to get on the bus and the guy scanning our tickets was wearing a huge Mickey mouse hand! 

This is D., Mr.'s sis.
These boats took us from our hotel to the Magic Kingdom.  
The first night we were there, the park stayed open until midnight.  We rode the Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, It's a small World, Snow white's scary ride, Mickey's Philharmagic, saw the light parade and also the fireworks going off!

Things to Do

School is out.  We are back from vacation.  I have many things that I want to do this summer.

1. Scholarly reading

2. Greenmarket cooking and exercise

3. Crafts and organization

4. Spending time with friends (especially Mr.)

Here is one big thing off our list.  This year's garden.  The object is to plant things that are pretty without a lot of attention and will not attract thieves.  I think that these flowers will fluff out and fill in nicely.  Plus none are that large to be tempting.  We bought a big beautiful bag of dirt for the tree planter and I am hoping it will make everything grow like mad.

Danger

This is my latest craze. I t is a modified Martha recipe, a brown butter toffee blondie. I cannot find toffee bits anywhere in this town, so I have been making them with pecans and butterscotch chips. Groan....so good....so much butter....I try to make them when I know that I can take them out of the apartment for consumption. I planned a little get together tomorrow in the park- but it may rain.School is pretty much out- I have one large paper to write. I just realized that I have been procrastinating quite a bit- yikes. This is the first picnic of the season under the cherry blossoms.
Last year I got a go-ped and mostly it just takes up space in the hallway. But every once in a while we go out with Sparks and scoot around. It is funny and a little dangerous.
I couldn't resist these peach blossom branches at the green market last week, even though they are probably driving our allergies crazy.

Food

Can I just talk about food- I have been pretty adventurous lately. No knitting, none at all. So I have transferred my mania to dinner. Today I braised a pork shank for 6 hours! It was so good. Now I am turning the leftover into broth. I have never had a recipe call for pork broth- but I am thinking of trying to make a cassoulet. Last week, I also made my own blue cheese dressing from scratch and lots of salads with interesting grains like millet, quinoa, and bulgar wheat. I bought this cute little lunch box from www.reusablebags.com so I have been pretty excited about packing lunch...I will post pics soon.

Sparks herding

Slightly blurry but soo cute. Can you see his little sheep?

GO JAYHAWKS

Whee! I admit I don't usually get too involved with school spirit...but KU won the National Championships! What fun! I realize I don't have a single photo of home to post or a sweatshirt or even a sticker to wear tomorrow....so here are some sunflowers to celebrate! It is the best I can do.

my new favorite thing

www.freerice.com