It’s a Small World. . .

There are many things that I could have made the title for this week, but the events that transpired Sunday afternoon inspired this title. Lots happened this week, so I hope it doesn’t get too long!
Tuesday morning Tiff and I went to Typhoon Lagoon since we get in free till the end of the month. It was fun and it got most of it down in less than 2 hours. The wave pool there is so awesome, the waves are so high. We rode about 5 of them. Then Tuesday night was so much fun! I made reservations for a room at the Grand Floridian, which is a place I have wanted to stay at for a very long time, but it is very expensive it is the nicest resort that Disney has. To help make it reasonable we got a big group of girls and split it so that it was something that we could afford! We had a grand time; sat in the hot tub, watched wishes from the beach, played games and other things that you do at Girls Night! We went to bed at about 2 and got up at 8 to get us all ready to go stuff our faces at the delicious breakfast buffet and then go play. It was so good, we all ate to much but is was so worth it!
After checking out we headed over to play at Universal Studios. We had 5 hours to do both parks so we had to pick and choose what exactly to do. Luckily they weren’t too busy and our longest wait was like 15 minutes. I love the roller coasters at universal they are so much fun! I also love how Universal makes fun of Disney. It doesn’t bother me at all, it makes me laugh hysterically! There is a huge difference between the two, and it is fun to do something not Disney everyone in a while.
Thursday night we went and saw 17 Again. It is a cute movie, and has a really good story to it. We were laughing nonstop for most of the movie. I then went home and went to bed because I got to be at work at 5:30 am for the marching band and auxiliary performances. It was a lot of fun. My groups were fun to work with, they are a Christian School from Alabama and were pretty good. Then when that was done I headed over to the specialty choir venue to host a choir. There were some really good choirs and a really tragic one. My group was pretty good and one of the kids ended up winning a solo award from the judges. When I finished with my groups I went home and slept I was so tired and didn’t want to do anything. I ended the night watching another movie on the beach. We watched Beverly Hills Chihuahua. I hadn’t seen it, it was pretty cute but Tiff didn’t really like it. Oh well that’s her problem not mine!
I got to sleep in a little Saturday morning which was a good thing because it was going to be a super long day! The awards ceremony was awesome. Since we couldn’t use Hollywood Studios because of the last weekend of Grad Nite we got to use the Finding Nemo stage. I was in heaven. I love the show and we got to see a lot of the puppets, dressing room, sets and such. I wanted to take pictures but I didn’t I was a good girl. There was a Nazi tech backstage and she probably would’ve flipped if I took any pictures. We did however get floaties and rings to wear when Rene introduced us to have a little fun since we were on the Nemo stage. It was great fun. After we finished with awards we went over to studios to tour Grad Nite and see what all was going on since we helped make calls for this blessed event. It was great fun. We got to hang out and see Hayden Panatierre and Katy Perry at a question/answer event with Junior class officers to make them excited to get their class to come next year. It was cool to be in the same room as the celebrities. Someone asked Hayden what her favorite movie is that she has made and she said remember the Titans. I loved her in that movie, but now she is a little too much for me at times. We then watched the awesome fireworks for the class of 2009 and then watched Katy Perry’s concert. She is one odd girl. She was all over the stage and doesn’t have the greatest live voice. I left before here odd song about kissing a girl and liking it, and at the end she kisses a girl. I went and watched White Tie Affair, they were much better than Katy. We then went and saw the dance parties. They were crazy but the kids were having fun. I am just an old women and don’t like that music.

Now that brings us to Sunday and the 5 hours of sleep I got last night! Today was stake conference and we needed to go early because Elder Holland was here and you know how people get when General Authorities are present. Conference was amazing and we were spiritually fed. Before conference started Tiffany was wandering around and found her good friend Elder Lussier from home who is serving in the Orlando mission. It was fun and a little weird to see him, and then he asked us to stay for a baptism afterwards and we said sure, it would be fun. Tiff has a friend visiting who was a CP last semester and she has a friend serving here also, she saw him before it started and then he invited her to stay for the same baptism. Turns out they are companions. Crazy huh, the world is so small, especially where Disney and the Church are involved! As we were walking into the baptism, which was originally supposed to be for 4 people, turned into 6 people an Elder asked me a question about Tiauna seeing where she was from and what her name was. Turns out they went to high school together. So we are now 3 for 3 of people knowing missionaries serving in Orlando. But just you wait, we end up going 4 for 4 because one of the sisters serving here is a girl that was at EAC the semester I got back from florida the first time. It was crazy. The word is so small!
So anyways we finally made it home and ate we were dying of hunger, because the baptism was quite long. Quick side note on the baptism, during conference the mission president announced the baptism and challenged anyone else that has been investigating that they could come join. One did and so she was kind of spontaneously baptized today. One thing that made me laugh really hard at the baptism is that since there was the spontaneous baptism some people didn’t have towels. One guy came and asked a lady in the stake relief society presidency who was sitting in front of us if they had any in the building, all they had were dish towels. Oh how I love the church. The church is true!
We didn’t have much time to rest and eat because we had to get back to the stake center to practice with our ward choir for the fireside. The fireside was amazing and the musical number turned out pretty good. It was pretty neat; they opened up the floor for questions. Some people asked some really good questions, others asked some odd ones. But I did learn some good stuff. That is the lowdown on my week and all the stuff I did. I am tired and will post pictures later from my many adventures!

Intense

Hi I am still alive. This past weekend was killer! If you read my previous post you can get a glimpse as to how crazy festival weekends can be. Friday was even crazier than Thursday and I will spare you all the details, but I will say one thing. If you are ever planning a trip, only have one person in charge! We had a group that had a travel planner from the travel company, a travel coordinator from the school and they brought their band, choir and orchestras. I believe they had like 6 groups traveling on 4 busses. I had to tell all the instructions to both ladies. It was so annoying. There were some really good groups, and I had so much fun listening to choirs all day!

Saturday was crazy getting all the scores in and awards ready for the awards ceremony. We couldn’t have the awards ceremony at Hollywood studios like we always do, we were at Epcot so we had to load the truck and head over to Epcot and hope that we have everything. Turns out we didn’t and one girl went back like 3 times. The place where we had the awards ceremony was decorated so cool, it was world showplace where we did stuff for the Jazz Celebration. I left my camera in the car that was left at the place where I picked up the mini van to drive around for the day. We had to have 2 awards ceremonies and it was crazy. I was so tired after the 1st one, I wasn’t sure how we were going to make it through the 2nd. Amazingly we did and then some went to a game night, I went home and crashed! I’m kind of not looking forward to next weekend, total sleep deprivation but it will be worth it. After we finish with awards next Saturday we are going to explore grad nite for a while, and then it is stake conference and we have to go early because it is about a 30 min drive to the stake center and Elder Holland will be there so you know it will be packed! I will also have tons of pictures because we are having a girls night at the Grand Floridian! Well it is my bed my bed time good night.

A typical festival day

So this week is a crazy festival weekend, we have 87 groups coming, which is our biggest ever. We can't have our awards ceremony at Hollywood Studios like we usually do because of a lovely event called Grad Nite, that got moved from the Magic Kingdom because people are lame and thats a whole other story.

I have worked with some really cool directors and then some crazy ones where I have no clue what planet they are on and I don't even want to know what they are thinking!

Here are some examples of things that happened today!

I had the first 2 choirs of the day, and they were cool. Guests started mocking me and my "5 more minutes" that I get to do. While I am hosting that group I am informed over the radio that my afternoon group had arrived about the same time that the next group of about 100 boys had arrived. The director of this group was crazy she told me she was planning on arriving at 1:30 not 10, and they were arriving on Disney transport not chartering a bus like they should.

Everyone goes in and sits I take my awesome group out to the bus using the back door since there are now about 200 people trying to get into the theater and the people at the hotel where the performance hall is gets kind of cranky. They get on the bus and say goodbye. They have a bus driver who is a little special and took a while maneuvering out of the parking lot and I had to move so that I didn't end up under the bus! When I walk back in they were cleaning up the stage after a protein spill (Disney lingo for throw up). The kid said he was fine and finished the performance, which he did just fine. I am then told that half of my group is still outside and that they are rehearsing. I get my manager and we kindly go tell her that they really can't be rehearsing right now and moved them to a place out of the way so that they don't get in the way of the "real" hotel guests.

After the huge group it was lunch time, and then my crazy director comes up and asks me if her accompanist can go practice on the piano because they are singing some tough songs and she starts naming all these composers. I tell her no that they have to wait until their warm up time. She didn't like that but oh well, thats the rules! She then has her group go to Downtown Disney for lunch because we can't have the festival guests eat at the resort because they get cranky. About half of them go and they other half just stay there and find benches to go sleep on outside. Then people from the resort come and get mad at us, oh well again not my problem! The rest of the group barely made it back for the performance.

After their performance I go to pick up the signs since the last group had arrived for the evening. We then hear on the radio that at the other choral venue that the boy who threw up earlier, threw up again. We were laughing hysterically! When I walk back inside I see that during the other groups warm up time my group had gone and changed which they were told not to do, there are no changing facilities at the venue.

They were ok, I've heard better, but they thought they were really good. The best thing is they stayed to watch the group after them, who were really good. During the last group's clinic one of the adjudicators stated that they were they best group she had heard all day. My group kind of gasped in shock that the group was told that and not them. So it is now time for everyone to leave and I walk with my group outside to hear what they are going to do because they don't have buses to come pick them up like everyone else. I was so shocked as to what this lady was telling her students. "Take a bus to any of the parks and let your chaperon know which park you are in. Meet at the TTC at 11:30 (the TTC is the parking and bus depot for the Magic Kingdom)." I was shocked how could they do that, let 40 high school students loose on 47 sq miles of freedom and unkowns. They all leave and she is left with some chaperons and everyones clothes in which she then goes looking for a taxi. At this point I don't care I am just sitting there laughing to myself! I am so done and don't care anymore I just wanted to be done with them. If you hear of students gone missing on their school trip to Disneyworld, they are probably one of mine from this crazy group!

Today was just the first day, we shall see what the next 2 have to bring! haha. Not to mention someone fainted and a girl had to sit down because her feet were hurting from her heels. Silly girls that think they have to wear really high heels for performances. This turned out really long, I didn't mean to write this much but I just had to share these funny stories!

Happy Easter!

The last few weeks have been crazy fun! I had a great time playing with Andy and his family. It was so much fun to see Cali and Chelsey enjoying their first trip to florida. Andy has a nice camera so there are some cool pictures. We were on the Disney dining plan for a few days because there was an amazing cast member special, and we pretty much were eating free food. For $21 a day we got a table service meal, quick service meal and a snack. It was so good and we ate so much food! At the sit down restaurants the meals are about $25 or so a person, and then we got more food for the day.





We managed to hit all the parks, but sadly I wasn’t with them the whole time because I had to work, but such is life. The first day it rained quite a bit so we got the watered down version of the parade. It was fun seeing the parks from a child’s perspective, we met a lot of characters. I waited for them to come to wait in line for Tinker Bell and her fairy friends. They have a fun dance party called “Move it, Shake it, Celebrate!” we had a blast dancing in the streets, definitely a work out!







It was sad to see them go, but it was kind of time. Little kids can only take so much stimulus. The poor girls would be so tired at the end of the night, and be asleep so fast as soon as we stopped. I have spent the last week recovering because we didn't have a festival this week since not too many groups travel easter weekend. It was nice for work because all of us were in the office and we were able to discuss what has gone on and how to tweak things to make things smoother. We also took time to discuss our cruise. I am so excited to go on a cruise and it was a stinking deal. I hope to have fun, but it may get kind of weird because I will be the only one not drinking in the group. It will be fun no matter what!

Easter today was great. I was sad I didn't get to see the Easter Pageant at all this year. I missed not helping being a Pageant Warrior, but I love what I am doing and wouldn't trade it for anything. The parks have been super busy this week. So busy that 3 days this week they have had to close the Magic Kingdom because it reached capacity. DON'T EVER COME TO DISNEY FOR SPRING BREAK AND MAJOR HOLIDAYS, NOT WORTH IT! After church Tiauna and I were sinners and we went to the Magic Kingdom to see the special Easter stuff they had before the parade. We were so surprised to see how empty the park was. It was busy, but not crazy like it has been, there was room to walk and not be trampled! We just watched the pre stuff and then left. Yeah we are weird, we know it.



When we returned we went and joined some friends at a picnic. It was nice to be outside and hang out with them because a lot of them are leaving this week. Dumb BYU and their short semester. Church next week is going to be interesting with them not there! While at Mickey's Retreat for the picnic we went and walked around the lake. I went to sit in a hammock, and this is what happened! Not sure what happened, but it was funny. I just sat there and Tiauna made me stay until she got a picture. Needless to say I had sand all down my back.


(Modeling our Easter dresses for mom)



That is all of my adventures for now, until I get pictures off Tiffany's camera of us eating a Kitchen Sink. I won't give any details, just stay tuned for what's in store, but it is intense!