I'm baaaack! Anybody miss me?

[MorningGlow]

Hello all! We're back from Florida. Five days of Universal (oh gods the rope climbing at the Jurassic Park exhibit...), Disney (oh gods the lines), heat (oh gods it's 40 degrees here), Lego Store, and everything else. I've got to say that Orlando is pretty surreal, but fun in its way. And the best part, according to MG Jr.? The fancy car show down the road that we went to at the last minute! And it was FREE! He reveled in the Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Rolls Royces, Lotuses, and all the rest, PLUS they had cars from movies and TV--the Monkeemobile, the Batmobile, the Munsters' car, Kitt, the General Lee, etc. AND Luke's landspeeder from Star Wars, accompanied by Darth Vader, a contingent of Stormtroopers, Boba Fett, and other characters. Jr. was in his glory (and I thought it was pretty darn cool too), and THEN we heard a telltale "bleep bloop" and there was R2D2, rolling along the road not two feet from us. I thought the kid was going to spontaneously combust! It was geek nirvana for a 5 year old!
:rofl:

The hotel thing worked out quite well--we charged everything to the room once we got to the hotel we had originally wanted, mostly hotel food including one room-service breakfast ($$$!) and parking, and we ended up paying NOTHING extra. I think they still owe US a few bucks, to be honest. What I found interesting, though, was that the original hotel turned out to be quite, QUITE fancy...and I didn't like it as well as the "replacement" hotel. They gave us a suite with a living area and dining room (table for eight!?) but the bed was hard, the shower stall door leaked, and it was noisy as hell because our balcony overlooked the atrium: first night, convention of some sort; second night, a wedding complete with Very Loud Band. The less-fancy hotel was MUCH quieter and the beds more comfy (although the food wasn't as good). So nice--I don't know how they did it, but every time you moved your head on the pillow you'd get a little whiff of vanilla. Mmmm, aromatherapy...

Anyway, time for my third round of hunting for feline vengeance poop that my mom may not have caught (they were PISSED we were gone!), but first here's a piccie of MG Jr. on a hog at the Harley Davidson store at Downtown Disney. I'll be catching up on the forum around lunchtime!

[I Have A Dream]

1. Yes, I missed you, MG!

I'm so glad that things worked out for you as well as they did.

Welcome home! :hug:

[MorningGlow]

3. Aw, thanks, Dream!

:hug:

Happy to be back, to be honest. Vacations are fun, but so is home, after some time away.

[Celebration]

2. sure, you were missed

What a nice vacation!

Isn't it funny how the unexpected things turn out to be the most memorable? Even as an adult I tend to like what I call "minor" tourist attractions. I have a list a mile long by now. Most of them I just kind of stumble upon.

Glad to have you back.

[MorningGlow]

4. That is always true--I agree

We could have saved a ton of money if we had skipped Disney and Universal (Jr. isn't much into rides anyway) and stuck with the free and nearly-free stuff like the car show, Harley store, and Lego Store!
:rofl:

[Sanity Claws]

5. Did you see the welcome mat I put out for you?

;)
It sounds like you and your family had a great time. Let us know how the kitties show their displeasure at your daring to leave them at home.

[MorningGlow]

6. I did see the welcome mat--thanks! Neurotic Cat pooped on it!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

That's gratitude for you, right? ;)

[MagickMuffin]

7. Well of course I missed you

Glad the family had a good time while there.

Again something we have in common, bad kitty behavior. Thankfully I only have one cat who refuses to use the litter box. She will climb in it only to scratch some litter out onto the floor and then pees there :shrug: She ( Kilala ) is the kitty we rescued from my in-laws and I'm guessing since she lived out back in their pasture she just didn't have to worry about digging or scratching the ground. I have to wonder if she was abandoned by her owners for that very reason. I also wondered if she was taken from her mama too soon and never learned how to be tidy.

I now have 3 rescued kitties ( I think they maybe four weeks old) having to hand feed them. I'll probably post a separate thread about our traumas the last few days.

Welcome back, MG :loveya:

[MorningGlow]

8. Gotta love rescues, right?

All three of ours are rescues, and we only know the history of our other female, Jasmine (she was found with her mother and sister and they all went to a vet/rescue center together); a friend of ours found our male kitty, Dilbert, hanging out on their back deck (he was 6 months old and had every parasite known to kittykind). But Clover, our "problem kitteh", is a mystery. A coworker's daughter found her eating out of garbage cans in her neighborhood. She was 3 years old, but everybody thought she was a kitten because she was down to 4 lbs. (she's never gotten bigger than 8 lbs.--she's a runt). She's afraid of her own shadow but also acts very entitled, so I suspect she was a pampered brat (who was also taken from her mother too soon) who got the boot when her owners moved or something. She doesn't like having other cats around, and Jasmine treating her like a chew toy/something to pounce on doesn't help. She'll pee in the litter box but will NOT poop there. I put a big sheet of plastic down in the room with the litter boxes, and when she's in a good mood she'll poop on the plastic, next to the litter boxes, but when she's pissed about something--like, oh, perhaps our going away on vacation--she'll poop in very noticeable places. In fact, when Mr. MG went to work the day after we got back, she pooped by the front door in protest (she owns him).

Sigh. Neurotic. Pain in the butt. Irritating. Gross and disgusting and stinky. But she's part of the family. And even if we were hard-hearted enough to get rid of her, who else in the world would put up with her behavior? She'd be euthanized in a heartbeat. So for better or worse, we're stuck with her and her pollution for the duration. Whee. Good thing we've got hardwood floors in the entire house...

Thanks for the welcome back! :hi: :hug: