so I have been really bad at keeping people up to date, I am sorry. Saying I have been busy is a bit of an understatement. I have been here for almost ten weeks now which is amazing! and the other girls from WOU will be arriving very soon! like in the next two weeks! I am so excited to see them! I have been either working all day or been running around the park for 12+ hours a day. I am a bit burnt out on working at animal kingdom lodge, however I got a deployment to a new pool, so that will be a change of pace. I am going to All Star, which is one of the craziest pools here. It will be a stressful week, however it will hopefully be the change of pace I need. I am also finishing up my summer classes here, so I am trying to get all of the projects done... Its my friend monique's birthday today, so we had a two day celebration! Day one we went to frozen summer event at hollywood studios, here is a brief photo tour of our day.

A guy handing out "free snowballs" aka water here in Florida

meeting Minnie and other characters!

Rock n roller coaster, twice

we even got the red timer card on our second time through! 

One mans dream with some of the amazing prototypes for attractions. 

And then today we went to class and to magic kingdom! We got ice cream and wandered around. The entire ice cream shop sang happy birthday to her which was so sweet! Sadly I have to go back to reality tomorrow. six days of work in a row! here it goes! 

My last real week of easy shifts for the next couple of weeks. We are just entering what is called the cp gap. Meaning everyone from spring is going home but fall students haven't arrived. So we get extra hours starting soon. I had one of my classes in magic kingdom this week which was really cool. Wish it would have been longer. I am spending a lot of my free time wandering around the parks because they are still really awesome! I love people watching at magic kingdom. I am also starting to understand the lay of the land down here, which is super nice. Sunday is my next day off, so I am excited to be able to do whatever I want for an entire day!

 So my mom's birthday was a few weeks ago, and due to my work schedule and the postal service messing up, her gifts finally got back to Oregon only a week and a half late. So we got to celebrate her birthday over facetime. She got her own pair of disney ears, a drink tumbler, and a pillow pet, which koco stole. Family pictures over facetime actually worked for once :)

Koco really loved the pillow pet, apparently she is still sleeping with it :) she is a cutie. 

Today (tuesday) I went with Leah to look for characters. We first met Anna and Elsa from Frozen. The wait was long, at just over an hour, but was totally worth it! Anna had the most amazing personality and Elsa's dress was stunning.

Then we went looking for male characters. We missed Gaston, so that will be another day, however we did find Aladdin and get photos with him and Jasmine.

 Then we found peter pan, but I already had that photo, so we found Prince Naveen. So the search for more characters continue, tomorrow I head back to magic kingdom for one of my leadership classes! Two days of Magic Kingdom in a row!!! I ate a huge chilli dog at Casey's Corner, tasted so good, but I will be full for the next several days...

So I just woke up form a nap, becuase of a crazy heavy rain storm plus very loud thunder, and since I don't really want to get ready for work a extra hour early I will show everyone some additional things around Disney :)

This is the main street electrical parade. It is an amazing parade that I got to see the entire thing last night after visiting a friend at her attraction! keep the volume low for the first few minutes  because of the people next to me yelling for the tall guy in the front to sit down because he was too tall. 

I also am making bulk breakfasts instead of buying things at the cafeteria. Coronado's cafeteria is affordable, but Animal Kingdom's is not. So for $2.75 I made about 12 days worth of french toast for my extremely early morning shifts. Otherwise I am starting to get tan... I am not sure what I think about that :p

Work has been the name of the game for the last few days. I get up at 5 am to get to the bus by 5:15, to get on the bus and make it to work by 6, work until 4:30 pm, catch the bus home and get home just before 6pm to make dinner and get to bed by 9pm. I have one more opening shift before I switch to closing ones. I like my days off because I can relax, though not in the summer sun like olaf. I am trying to stay out of the sun as much as possible because I don't want to get tanner or get sunburned. I got a terrible bug bite by a yellow fly (think horse fly but more guerilla style attack method). I am watching it closely and trying to get the welt to go away and for it to stop itching!! that  is the worse part. We had our first housing inspection and thankfully we passed which is nice! And as a parting message here are some fun insults and comebacks, disney style.

Another photo filled post

So here are some photos from another one of my resorts, Animal Kingdom Lodge Jambo House. Here is the interior of the lobby both looking out at the wall of windows (left) and looking back at the lobby (right)

Here are some Savannah view rooms. The animals were being fed at this time so no zebras or giraffes.

here is Uzima Springs pool, which i work at. 

here are the flamingos that are about twenty feet away from the pool. 

me at another savannah, this one located about twenty feet from the hot tub. 

There is a hidden Mickey in the Vines, see if you can find it ( located next to the presidential suite)

An now jumping back to the park, Disney's Animal Kingdom. Lillie and I got in at opening and rode Everest three times in a row.

first time (above) 

Second time (above)

and raindeer ears for the third time. 

Then I met Pocahontas

and Daisy Duck during a thunder storm.

And then adventure Minnie and Mickey.

And here are some great photos that made me laugh this week:

security needs to be dressed up like this :p After my week because of so many different languages I got to know security a little too well for my liking. 

And as the last photo for this post:

slide op, bug bites, and you just did what in the pool?!?

So.... Interesting times at work... First of all the huge thunder storm on thursday night, which shut us down and  messed up many different things around the pool, we now have a new position in the rotation. The lightning took down the light at the top of the slides that tells the kids when it is safe to go, so now a person has to do it until it is fixed. you get to say "go ahead" or "wait", over and over and over and over again. You also get a bunch of bug bites when working up there, so my legs itch. Then we skip ahead to sunday night. Now at Coronado instead of animal kingdom lodge. Over the course of one shift, we had a little boy pull down his shorts and pee into the pool, an AFR, a lightning closing, security being called for a fight, and drunk man trying to set me and my coworker up, another drunk man that could not get over the fact that I had freckles and two different colored eyes, and so many language barriers that we started communicating through charades. I was glad when that shift got over with..... I decided to sleep in after that experience. I work there again tonight, then get two days off!!!!! thank goodness!

So today was my day off this week, so instead of doing laundry and housework I decided to go over to Hollywood Studios. I watched the Frozen Fun Parade, which was cute. Then i went over to art of animation to do the drawing class.  while waiting for the class I met Wreck-it Ralph and Vanellope. Two more characters to cross of the list. 

and in my class we learned how to draw Goofy. I think that he turned out pretty well for not having an eraser :)

I have early inservice tomorrow, so its  early to bed for me tonight.

me and Belle :)

and here is the video from the Festival of Fantasy Parade incase you want to see it :)

if the video is not loading, which happens for some computers, here is the link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O89BtfSvv6g

So after six hours of class my group and a spur of the moment trip to go get mouse ears and walk around magic kingdom. So here we are mouse ears and all in front of the castle. 

 Then we wandered. From Gaston's tavern to Haunted Masion, Pirates of the carribean, Belles enchanted tales, little mermaid, circus to ride the barn stormer and meet some of the characters (goofy and donald, the lines for the girls were extremely long :( next time!)

Then we went and saw wishes. The photo is dark but all of us getting ready for the show.

 and more projection and fireworks photos. Enjoy:

 And then we kept going. Finally at 11:45 we left the park after doing space rangers and laugh floor!

I have been here for over a month now, which is amazing. That month seemed to fly by. So far I really like living here. There is a lot of work so this is not for the faint of heart. You do at least an 8 hour shift five days a week, and your days off are for classes, which is what I am waiting for now. A lot of people are self terminating and leaving the program because it was not what they have expected, because we really do work the worst hours, on all holidays, and 4th of july was crazy. For me all of the sudden it seems like there is no one in the pool, because it was so crowded that there was no place to move. I have also worked the last 6 days so I am looking forward to shopping tonight after classes for some new park wandering shoes since my tevas that I have had for over a year bit the dust after my last twenty mile park hopping day. And since I do not like bruised feet it is time to get a new pair.

catch up post.

Sorry for not posting anything for a while. This week has yet again been crazy. With the 4th of July Holiday being one of the busiest days of the year, most college programers work crazy hours. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I had off, but then I have 6 days of 10 + hour shifts a day. So on tuesday I went to Magic Kingdom with the sole purpose of riding splash mountain. I was able to ride splash mountain and it was better than I remembered :) and I ended up soaking wet which was also nice because of the heat. Hurricane Arthur luckily did not hit florida, but it did produce some nice breezes and a bit of cold rain, which I enjoyed! Of course you can't just do one ride at Magic Kingdom, so i did a few others as well as meeting some characters. 

including Marie, from the aristocats. And Mary Poppins and a penguin! In the train station above main street USA. 

and want to see the crowds for a couple days before 4th? This was still early in the day and the crowd leading up to the castle is amazing. We have reached capacity at Magic kingdom for the last couple of days now (writing this on sunday).

and I loved the movie tangled. and here is the Rapunzel area of Magic kingdom with the wonderful suns. 

OK, now on to wednesday. I went to the Florida mall, and incredibly large mall that had many stores that we had never heard of. My friend here is Emma from Scotland. There was even an M&M world in the mall (where the photo was taken.) probably our favorite non clothing store was the Apple store which was huge and really fun to play with. I am thinkning about a new IPAD soonish....

Then I worked long shifts meaning getting on the bus at 5am and getting home around 7 pm. I have been at animal kingdom lodge. I have done several assists, but not jumped in yet. I got a visual audit on my guarding and a passed which was good. And for 4th of July I went to Epcot with the roomie to see the fireworks. I have the whole thing on video so I dont have many photos, but here is one. They were amazing and I will post the link to the video soon.