Hatteras Island V.2011

Written on August 10, 2011. Posted in Family, Vacations. 2 Comments.

I believe I’ve mentioned before how much I love my family? Yes? No? Well, I’m going to again. Mainly because last week was our biennial (That means once every two years, doesn’t it? I hope so.) family vacation to Hatteras Island. Well, it’s not always to Hatteras. That’s just kind of our particular favorite.

Unfortuantely, housing was a little more cramped this year- we only had a 9-bedroom house (Because apparently finding a 10 or more bedroom house on Hatteras Island is all but impossible. Who knew?), but really, who cares, because how many families are lucky enough to vacation with 30 of their closest relatives? And if you don’t have 30 close relatives to vacation with… I’m sorry. So very, very sorry.

Anyway, I think we were fortunate this year in that we (at least, I) never really discovered how the cable worked in the house, so we couldn’t spend hours in front of the TV watching NCIS like several of my cousins were rather inclined to do last year. Instead, we found a (in my opinion, much more worthy) substitute. Every night, we watched a different Harry Potter film. At this point, a few of you are probably saying, OK, anyone who hasn’t seen the movies by now is sad.  What you don’t know is that one of my aunts has completely banned her children from reading Harry Potter (There’s some kind of logic in there about it being evil? Yeah, I can’t wait for the day that she reads it herself.) One of my cousins decided to read it anyway, something he told me about LAST beach trip. By this point, he’d finished all the books, but hadn’t seen any of the movies. So I made it my personal mission to show them all to him. (Him, and another cousin, who had never even read the books, but exhibited a mild curiosity.)

Another amazing thing about this year is that the water was amazingly clear and warm- clearer than I’ve ever seen it, and I’ve been spending time at the beach almost every summer since I was a baby. It was actually practical to use goggles in the ocean for the first time I can remember. Because of the clear water, we noticed the fish swimming with us for the first time, too. I’m pretty sure that they were pompano fish, by the description and picture. We would often get groups of 30-40 fish swimming around our feet- it was one of the most memorable experiences I’ve had in the ocean, and, given the amount of time I’ve spent in the ocean, that’s really saying something.

Unfortunately, by Thursday, a hurricane (Hurricane Emily, apparently. Oh, the irony.)  was starting to move up the  coast and the waves got much rougher. The water was much less clear, and we didn’t get to swim with the fish, but the water was also a lot better for body surfing and riding boogie boards.

Anyway, I suppose it’s back to the real world now… which is unfortunate, because the real world means me returning to college in a week and a half. Someone remind me why I signed up for three lab science courses this semester. I think I’m gonna die.

Disney World and some unrelated other stuff

Written on January 27, 2011. Posted in Family, Vacations. 3 Comments.

So, I’m back from Florida! It was quite lovely- the coldest day was in the low 60’s, which when compared to the fact that it’s around 12 degrees outside right now (yes, I know that probably seems relatively tame to some of you, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy it) was practically bikini weather. Well, maybe not quite, but it still felt really warm.

We stayed at the Port Orleans Riverside resort. (By the way, all links in the next two paragraphs will be a picture. From the left, that’s my dad, my sister and I outside our hotel room. Yes, I’m aware my younger sister is like three inches taller than I am. It makes me sad but I’m used to it now.) We’d stayed there once before, when I was 11, and it was nice- our room was pretty secluded, so it was nice and quiet most of the time. My favorite park in Disney World is probably Epcot- specifically, the countries, but I like the future-world part too. (I think Soarin’ is one of the best rides in the entire resort!) We spent some time in the Seas building on one of the days it rained, and my sister posed inside Bruce the Shark’s mouth, even though she is adamant that she doesn’t like Finding Nemo. (If only he’d really eaten her.)

We also spent more time than usual at MGM (well, OK, it’s Hollywood Studios now. But it was MGM the first three trips we made and I can’t get used to saying Hollywood Studios. Besides, it’s longer.) And I know that the Honey I Shrunk The Kids playground is for, well, little kids, but come on. We were in Disney World. They have this giant ant that’s kind of fun to sit on. (OK, left to right: my cousins Chris, Jessica, Samantha, my sister and me.) Our cousins and aunt ended up leaving Wednesday (we stayed until Saturday morning) so we got kind of a lot of time to ourselves as well as being able to spend time with them. Here’s my sister, my mom and I posing on a bridge in front of Big Thunder Mountain in Magic Kingdom. (I’m the short one. Of course.) Finally, of course no trip to Disney World is complete without character pictures, so here’s one of my sister, me, and my mom with Tigger. (Yes, I know. I’m a child. Don’t judge me.)

All in all, though, I guess I’m glad to be back- there’s something about being on vacation that just makes home seem really nice. Unfortunately, being back from Florida also means going back to classes, although truth be told I haven’t been doing a lot of that lately. There’s been kind of a lot of winter weather-related insanity around here lately. We didn’t even get a third of the snowfall amounts that we got in last year’s insane snowstorm, but it seemed like there were a lot more traffic problems than there ever were last year. For example: my dad left work at 3:30 yesterday. He got home after 11PM. (Traffic for the D.C. area sucks under ordinary circumstances, but it doesn’t suck THAT much.) People were abandoning their cars on the interstates. But hey, I haven’t gone to school for two days! Think of the positives…

Also, just a little note- there are a few more photos from my vacation in the Stock Photo section. They’re under Animals, and they’re almost all from either the Animal Kingdom safari ride or jungle walks. I also added some more flower pictures, but they were taken last May and don’t have anything to do with Disney World at all. I added a new web template as well, and that doesn’t have anything to do with Disney World either.