Animal Kingdom/epcot day

the Searcy Quotables:

Liam gets on the viking ship ride and leans over to me and whispers "So when do they pass out our swords?"

Jordy walks into Ron Jon surf shop at coco beach and mom turns to him and says "Now don't worship anything in here."

Since the youngest in our party turned out to be a rollercoaster addict (Liam rode the everest rollercoaster 4 times yesterday) and somewhat less of the wait in line to meet Cinderella type, Mom and i have no little kid to bring along as an excuse to meet characters. However, this made no difference whatsoever when we met Mary Poppins.

Let me tell you folks, it was a big deal.

I feel deeply fulfilled inside, like Disney really is magical afterall. She asked the girl in front of me if she was like Jane and "rather inclined to giggle and not put things away." and she asked me if we travel like her, (only when the wind changes).

I wanna work at Disney now.

Lately I have been not so much of a Disney fan (what with Disney Channel and such) but i loved it. I love the idea that dreams can come true. I know it's pretty ridiculous sometimes, and one would never walk around believing it all the time. But it's what we hope for isn't it? That one day all chains will be gone and all tears wiped away? I think maybe that's what Walt Disney was getting at without even knowing it. There is hope. There is that feeling of promise and goodness, of things being able to be restored.

THe elevator in our hotel is missing the second "e". So he's a scary Spanish elevator named "el Vator" We take the stairs. Often.

Day 3 continued: The Surfboard Question

Last night we watched Chariots of Fire and then i dreamed that dad won a million dollars and bought a red lamborghenni for $400,000 and mom was super irritated. and then Liam wanted to spray paint the interior brown instead of black and i was trying to convince him that it was a bad idea. Then i woke up:)

Today is Coco beach day! The best surfing beach around and the place where I dream of Genie lived. I'm stoked. i watched I dream of Genie every monday at 4:30 on the hallmark channel in the third and fourth grade until we went to choir practice. I feel like i'm going to connect with something deep in my childhood, i'll be on the lookout for Middle Eastern looking bottles.

Also, we've collectively discovered a more appropriate metaphor for the sound that the surfboard makes on top of our car. Think of one entire, over-enthused section of Spain's soccer team's fan base armed with those ever-present noise makers the Vuvuzula. If you're in the dark about this particular brand of earbleed, it's the faint mosquito sound you hear any time you watch a South African world cup games. Imagine this sound multiplied by about 400 and on the top of your car, and you have our drive yesterday from St. Augustine to Orlando. Yes folks, about 2 hours.

We have no idea why the surfboard keeps making this noise and it didn't on the drive here, maybe God was just granting us special grace because we had to be in the car for 7 hours, and we might have lost our sanity. Let's see a show of hands, who thinks we can get this fixed before we drive back on saturday?

day 3. blogging in the hotel lobby on the church

Dad's graduation ceremony was apart of an anglican service. After us white people tried to sing through a somewhat "gospelly" song Liam commented that "If we were all sea creatures, the people this morning would be lobsters, and we would be shrimp."

But it was cool. I don't mind all the form and structure.

It got me thinking on what kind of family we are, that we can go to a black baptist service in the morning and a white anglican service at night. It reminded me of the ninth grade when my family moved from a big city to a small town and after getting in NUMEROUS arguments about race and church denominations with my friends, i informed my parents that my life in Fairhope, Alabama would be much much easier if they had raised me to be more narrow minded.

I wonder what wonderful and complicated things it says about humanity to be able to walk into places with people who have opposite views on many things, and still love them, still affirm them as human beings, and still learn from them. Liam is eleven. The age i was when i went to Kaluga, Russia. I see now the kind of things that prepared me that i wasn't even aware of. They're for the same reason that Liam is allowed to watch Ghandi but not Transformers. I'm very proud of my parents for shielding us from some things (as most parents do) but not from the ways people are complicated wonderful and terrible. Although it certainly makes middle school a bumpier road.

Please post your thoughts on this.

It's 8:49 in the morning.

:)

mal

Day 2

Hello day 2

For Church this morning, dad took us to where a fellow classmate of his leads worship. Bethel Baptist Institutional Church. We're talking 3,000 member church. Our family made up the entire population of white people in the building. it was awesome.

Everyone was really sweet to us, even though Liam could barely clap on the beat. and throughout the service Jordy would lean down to say "did you hear how awesome the drummer is?"

The highlight for me was that mom had one of those cardboard fans in her hand they give out and every time the preacher would get going and everybody was amen'en and hollerin and she believed what the preacher was saying applied to me, (like when the preacher spoke on letting your kids stay out till 12 every night and their grades dropping) she would take her fan and stick it across liam's lap and violently whip air in my face and say "well.". Very subtle mom, very subtle.

After 21/2 hours, we left while old women smiled at us and little girls stared at the white family with their mouths open.

We then got lost going to Athen's cafe

dad "where is it?'

Mom "I thought that you said you'd been here and loved it."

dad " i do love it. i've just never been here. I read the reviews."

So we went to an Indian restaurant.

dad graduates at 6. go dad!

mal.

The Family Vacation Series day 1

blog one

The pretrip briefing

From the time dad got us a single hotel room for our 5 family members on the mexico-us border in Chula Vista, CA (to save money) to the time mom got stranded on the metro in D.C. and took the rail all the way to Maryland, we certainly know how to travel.

So this Family vacation will be carefully documented via blog.

Here is the outline:

saturday to saturday.

two days in Jacksonville, FL and then the rest in Orlando

one mom

one dad

one me (18 years old)

one Jordy (16 year old brother)

one Liam (11 year old brother)

2 surfboards attached to the top of our saturn view

3 laptops

The plan is to stay two days in Jacksonville for my dad's graduation ceremony for his masters program, and the other 5 in orlando, for the visiting of friends, non oiled beaches, and 2 glorious days of disney world.

day one

at about 5 am we headed out. with a quick and somewhat incoherent breakfast stop at 6 and a solid sleep till 9. the trip itself was somewhat uneventful. we arrived at olive garden to spend some gift cards for lunch, and then crashed in the ONE ROOM hotel room until 6.

Then we headed to the beach! Jordy reattached his surfboard to the top of the car, only he put the board too far forward on the car. Now IF you've ever attached a large flat object to a moving surface, you might be aware that if that flat object hangs a foot over the front of the moving object, the wind resistance that is created at the speed of about 45 mph sounds like someone is buffering the object with a professional bufferer thingy. We made sure to shout extra loud to be heard, as jordy tried to pretend like it was barely noticeable.

The beach was fun, with a distinct dead fish smell. Liam even got up on the board a couple times.

After the beach, Jordy and Liam and I tried to persuade mom and dad the necessity of buying us a weeks worth of Naked Juice, P B and J's and Gummy Worms. (sour, of course)

ended up with the Naked Juice, the P B &J's and some fig newtons. (Much to Liams chagrin, gummy worms aren't the healthiest snack.) and getting ready to attend a 3000 member black baptist church in Jacksonville tomorrow because dad is good friends with the worship pastor. Very, Very excited.

Signing out.

Mal.