Almighty Travelogue - Edition 5th
DISCLAIMER: Like hopscotch, only better.
December 31st, 2008 - Wednesday
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When we finally woke up, Bro wanted to try out caching but I didn't have any of my stuff. So I ran home, dropped J, who wanted nothing to do with caching, and nabbed 'Stas. Then we hit UCF campus with the 4 of us, plus Bro's roommate, and roommate's girl friend. We hit 16 in one day and it was so fun. I'll tell you about one. Because we got the cops involved and this is a great story.
Inevitably when you are poking around a college campus with 6 people, you're going to get a little bit of attention. We were looking for a particular small cache hidden in a newspaper bin, which was being elusive. Roommate's girl friend looked, Bro looked, I looked WITH a flashlight, and then Ry made the find by poking his little head in there. We'd looked there seriously 3 times already! So right as we pull it out and I'm opening it to sign the log, a cop pulls up and asks what's up.
Bro instantly replies, "We're geocaching."
Cop hears "we're Jew catching."
BWAHAHAHA. Cop: "Excuse me?"
Bro: "Geocaching." (cop hears the same thing)
Cop: "That... well that sounds particularly anti-Semitic. You're going to have explain that one. So Bro and Roommate moved closer and explained the situation, this time with the cop being a little more intelligent and a more careful listener. Once he finally understood, he moved on, but was still suspicious of us, and followed us around to the next two caches we went to. Good times on that one.
After a long and arduous day of treasure seek-and-find we headed back to Bro's who was going out for New Year's. Me and the little ones went home. I sat around logging my caches, we played some StarCraft (it worked this time) and then finally (after I'd been asking for like three hours) Krysten wanted to watch The War. This movie is easily one of my top three movies of ALL time, so I reverence it and was so excited to show it to my family. Only it sucked. Ry was loud the whole time, getting ice, eating, commenting, and really got on my nerves. Krys and her BF basically laughed and flirted through the whole thing... when they weren't kissing or texting. J just sat on his computer and didn't watch at all. I thought my dad would like it too, but he didn't bother to come for the beginning and went in and out for the whole movie. I was pissed. How dare they disrespect such a great piece of work! I felt like I had just cast some of my pearls before swine and been trampled upon. Ry made us pause it in the middle because midnight came. We turned on the ball drop for all of 15 seconds, which was 15 too much for me. I didn't want to see Smiley Miley or the Jonas Bros. *vomits* Once the movie was back on, we watched the rest. Ironic thing is that the movie is about fighting and when it's worth it, and when it isn't. Ry continued gabbing and I EXPLODED. Like when I get really angry (very rare) blew up, and I seriously felt so violent that I almost punched the little man in the face. Literally. Somehow I just screamed, and the kid wisely shut up. As soon as the movie was over, (now 1am) I left. Walked out of the house, said I was going for a walk, and I left. Called Turtle all but in tears. Decided to go down the walking path, even though I guess it's closed at night (didn't know that) and there were no lights. I just wanted to sit on the benches over the river and pout. And be pissed. And wish this vacation was over. Well, it ended up being much further than I anticipated, so I eventually doubled back in the pitch dark. Then when I was going I suddenly heard this ruckus in the leaves to my right. A loud and large ruckus which scared me stiff. All I could think was 'giant Gator' and tried not to scream. My parents are under the impression that it was just a raccoon but it sounded 3x too big for that. I thought it was going to chase me, but I kept walking, almost running, and trying to be calm and not scream. There was no way I was going to shine my pocket flashlight and find out what was terrifying me. Once I was back inside my gated neighborhood, I saw a real life armadillo which was sooo cool. I really wanted to scare him so he'd curl up, then I could kick him like a soccer ball and see how far he went; but I didn't. Just went home and slept, angry that I had wasted such a good movie on such as they.
The only thing I can't complain about is the food. The food was good.
January 1st, 2009 - Thursday
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was so mad the night before I slept until 10am. Then I went caching with Ry and 'Stas again. This time by car because I wanted to hit so far away caches that had bugs in them. Some bugs were there, others weren't. After that back into town and a quick illegal park job later we were making a find under a footbridge. Nice! Then back home for the family event of the day.
ICE.
Really? My family has officially lived here too long. They wanted to drive 30 minutes to see something that I can get outside my window. LOL Whatev. Family event. So I went along. We had to stand in line for a freaking hour and 15 minutes. To see ice and snow. Bwahhhhh.
In ICE's defense the whole thing took an hour and a half to walk through, and some of the ice sculptures were pretty freaking sweet (my bro and mom have pics... check back frequently and I'll hopefully get them soon).
At the end they had these ice slides and we were going to race, but they were different heights so it didn't work out. My sister Krys took pictures of us sliding and didn't get to slide, then we were all the way at the end she told us that. She said it was fine that she didn't, but Bro and I wouldn't hear anything of the sort, grabbed her and drug her back into the exhibit where we talked through in about 30 seconds, lol back to the slides. After that we went out to eat at Golden Corral, which is almost as bad as McD's. But I will admit they had good Okra and even better spinach. But the Mac N Cheese was NASTY.
After that I either puzzled or played StarCraft until bedtime.
January 2nd, 2009 - Friday
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Frisbee Round 3. Except everyone came this time, and there were 40 of us. 40. So we split into 4 teams and had a frisbee tourney. J wasn't on my team, but I had a cool captain and played hard anyway. This time I even scored. Yes! We easily beat all 3 teams and were the champs. Go team! Home, shower, then cook like crazy. Last Sunday I signed up to have the missionaries come over, because fun. And an excuse to cook.
I made Chicken Squares (a triple batch), my specialty asparagus, and candied oranges. My mom made some holiday punch to top it off. My dad entertained the elders while the cooking finished then we sat down to eat. One of the missionaries had been transferred since Christmas Eve Frisbee, but the other one was still there. We asked the usual questions and settled in for good grub, which they loved. And E. Shepherd thought I was freaking hilarious. :)
After they went back to work, we managed one game of StarCraft before 'Stas came in with her friend and wanted to play Manhunt. Night games with little kids, lol. I'm bigger, and can run way faster...yeah, I'm in. ManHunt devolved into Sardines when she only managed to round up 5 people, three being our family. Ry's friend had to leave before we even played through one round which left us four. We played mostly in our yard and I, of course, had the coolest hiding spots, including when I climbed up on top of our playcenter and lay on the roof. Ry found me, but it took the girls like 10 more minutes to do so. Nice hiding. When Turtle called I quit and went inside, and talked to her til I went to sleep.
January 3rd, 2009 - Saturday
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
J was supposed to wake me up early so I could go to the beach but the punk left without me. LAME. When I got up no one was home. I called my parents and they were at their parents down in Leesburg. I woke Ry and 'Stas up. Today was the day to fulfill their wants from me. 'Stas wanted most to eat at Waffle House since no one else in the family will go. So I googled it close to a cache I still needed to hit, and we were off. Google Maps is a dirty liar! There was no Waffle House anywhere nearby! 'Stas didn't want to go caching, but I needed to make the grab. It was super hot, and back in a wilderness area filled with spiderwebs and not far from a lake full of gators. Yergh. We were supposedly looking for a "shack" but we looked all around the coords and saw nothing building-like at all. Argh. I started decoding the extra-help hint...look up? No way... it was in a freaking birdhouse up a tree! 'Stas made the dash even though she's afraid of heights and we followed her up. Cool hide. On the way out we ran into a guy just trying out his GPS with his wife and daughter doing a cache we hadn't tried for. I don't know what was wrong with his GPS but it was messed up. After the trek out we drove super far to the next nearest Waffle House (thanks Bro for the location). Candice called me on the way and I screamed into the phone more than once about traffic or missing my turn lol. The whole time we waited for our food I listened to her boy dilemmas, then chowtime. Service was decent, my food was way better than in Ohio, but my Pops called saying they were home so we had to eat and run.
After the rush back home, I plugged in to download more hides, but the printer wouldn't work so we went with some close to home I already had. Mommers and Pops joined the hunt and we were now 5 hunting for treasure. At the first one, there was a pile of dirt I thought it might be in, which turned out to be a colony of fire ants... ow ow ow! I only got bit twice though before I got them all brushed off thankfully. Then we hit one at the gas station which was really funny because it was totally a LPC and my mom thought it was super suspicious of us finding a pill container hidden there, thinking we looked like drug dealers. LOL Nice.
Then we hit a nearby park and the fire station. We were driving back home and my parents opted it was time for me to do what Ry had been begging me to do since day 1 I'd arrived (we tried once before but it had been closed). So they ditched out at a stop sign near our community and I jumped into the driver's seat and off we went to Oviedo Rec Center. Rock Climbing. I encouraged him and he watched me. He made it up the practice wall easily, then worked on others. He completed two walls and so did I, but we both got beat by our nemesis walls. His was one that I did, mine was the 3rd from the hardest. The wall went up, came out, then jutted out into a ledge type thingy. It was just the right angle that I could get my hands on the next hold, but couldn’t pull myself up over the lip. And the more times I tried it, the less able I was. Sigh. It was a good, brutal hour.
Then we had two hours to kill so we just vegged and played SC for a while, ate dinner, etc. Then we went glow bowling. Krys had been talking it up for days, then ditched out on us to be with her BF, lammmmmme. But dad, J, and Ry all came. J couldn’t bowl at all on his bad ankle, so he went home to get his brace. My first game was abominable. Dad got a 113. He said his first game is always his best. So we were going to pit his first against my second but I only got 106. Ugh. So I decided to bowl a third game by myself; because I knew I could beat that. But I have this crazy knack for just buckling under pressure. True to color, I could get the first bowl but never made up any of my change. 7-,8-,9-,8-,8-, etc. I think I got two strikes... ended up with a 108. If I had hit ANY of my 2nd frames, I woulda beat him. Agh. I was so annoyed with myself (I think I've mentioned my self-hate sports complex I don't like to talk about before, that's a glimpse). I talked to Turtle on the way home, logged my caches and went to bed at like 2am.
One more...
December 31st, 2008 - Wednesday
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When we finally woke up, Bro wanted to try out caching but I didn't have any of my stuff. So I ran home, dropped J, who wanted nothing to do with caching, and nabbed 'Stas. Then we hit UCF campus with the 4 of us, plus Bro's roommate, and roommate's girl friend. We hit 16 in one day and it was so fun. I'll tell you about one. Because we got the cops involved and this is a great story.
Inevitably when you are poking around a college campus with 6 people, you're going to get a little bit of attention. We were looking for a particular small cache hidden in a newspaper bin, which was being elusive. Roommate's girl friend looked, Bro looked, I looked WITH a flashlight, and then Ry made the find by poking his little head in there. We'd looked there seriously 3 times already! So right as we pull it out and I'm opening it to sign the log, a cop pulls up and asks what's up.
Bro instantly replies, "We're geocaching."
Cop hears "we're Jew catching."
BWAHAHAHA. Cop: "Excuse me?"
Bro: "Geocaching." (cop hears the same thing)
Cop: "That... well that sounds particularly anti-Semitic. You're going to have explain that one. So Bro and Roommate moved closer and explained the situation, this time with the cop being a little more intelligent and a more careful listener. Once he finally understood, he moved on, but was still suspicious of us, and followed us around to the next two caches we went to. Good times on that one.
After a long and arduous day of treasure seek-and-find we headed back to Bro's who was going out for New Year's. Me and the little ones went home. I sat around logging my caches, we played some StarCraft (it worked this time) and then finally (after I'd been asking for like three hours) Krysten wanted to watch The War. This movie is easily one of my top three movies of ALL time, so I reverence it and was so excited to show it to my family. Only it sucked. Ry was loud the whole time, getting ice, eating, commenting, and really got on my nerves. Krys and her BF basically laughed and flirted through the whole thing... when they weren't kissing or texting. J just sat on his computer and didn't watch at all. I thought my dad would like it too, but he didn't bother to come for the beginning and went in and out for the whole movie. I was pissed. How dare they disrespect such a great piece of work! I felt like I had just cast some of my pearls before swine and been trampled upon. Ry made us pause it in the middle because midnight came. We turned on the ball drop for all of 15 seconds, which was 15 too much for me. I didn't want to see Smiley Miley or the Jonas Bros. *vomits* Once the movie was back on, we watched the rest. Ironic thing is that the movie is about fighting and when it's worth it, and when it isn't. Ry continued gabbing and I EXPLODED. Like when I get really angry (very rare) blew up, and I seriously felt so violent that I almost punched the little man in the face. Literally. Somehow I just screamed, and the kid wisely shut up. As soon as the movie was over, (now 1am) I left. Walked out of the house, said I was going for a walk, and I left. Called Turtle all but in tears. Decided to go down the walking path, even though I guess it's closed at night (didn't know that) and there were no lights. I just wanted to sit on the benches over the river and pout. And be pissed. And wish this vacation was over. Well, it ended up being much further than I anticipated, so I eventually doubled back in the pitch dark. Then when I was going I suddenly heard this ruckus in the leaves to my right. A loud and large ruckus which scared me stiff. All I could think was 'giant Gator' and tried not to scream. My parents are under the impression that it was just a raccoon but it sounded 3x too big for that. I thought it was going to chase me, but I kept walking, almost running, and trying to be calm and not scream. There was no way I was going to shine my pocket flashlight and find out what was terrifying me. Once I was back inside my gated neighborhood, I saw a real life armadillo which was sooo cool. I really wanted to scare him so he'd curl up, then I could kick him like a soccer ball and see how far he went; but I didn't. Just went home and slept, angry that I had wasted such a good movie on such as they.
The only thing I can't complain about is the food. The food was good.
January 1st, 2009 - Thursday
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was so mad the night before I slept until 10am. Then I went caching with Ry and 'Stas again. This time by car because I wanted to hit so far away caches that had bugs in them. Some bugs were there, others weren't. After that back into town and a quick illegal park job later we were making a find under a footbridge. Nice! Then back home for the family event of the day.
ICE.
Really? My family has officially lived here too long. They wanted to drive 30 minutes to see something that I can get outside my window. LOL Whatev. Family event. So I went along. We had to stand in line for a freaking hour and 15 minutes. To see ice and snow. Bwahhhhh.
In ICE's defense the whole thing took an hour and a half to walk through, and some of the ice sculptures were pretty freaking sweet (my bro and mom have pics... check back frequently and I'll hopefully get them soon).
At the end they had these ice slides and we were going to race, but they were different heights so it didn't work out. My sister Krys took pictures of us sliding and didn't get to slide, then we were all the way at the end she told us that. She said it was fine that she didn't, but Bro and I wouldn't hear anything of the sort, grabbed her and drug her back into the exhibit where we talked through in about 30 seconds, lol back to the slides. After that we went out to eat at Golden Corral, which is almost as bad as McD's. But I will admit they had good Okra and even better spinach. But the Mac N Cheese was NASTY.
After that I either puzzled or played StarCraft until bedtime.
January 2nd, 2009 - Friday
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Frisbee Round 3. Except everyone came this time, and there were 40 of us. 40. So we split into 4 teams and had a frisbee tourney. J wasn't on my team, but I had a cool captain and played hard anyway. This time I even scored. Yes! We easily beat all 3 teams and were the champs. Go team! Home, shower, then cook like crazy. Last Sunday I signed up to have the missionaries come over, because fun. And an excuse to cook.
I made Chicken Squares (a triple batch), my specialty asparagus, and candied oranges. My mom made some holiday punch to top it off. My dad entertained the elders while the cooking finished then we sat down to eat. One of the missionaries had been transferred since Christmas Eve Frisbee, but the other one was still there. We asked the usual questions and settled in for good grub, which they loved. And E. Shepherd thought I was freaking hilarious. :)
After they went back to work, we managed one game of StarCraft before 'Stas came in with her friend and wanted to play Manhunt. Night games with little kids, lol. I'm bigger, and can run way faster...yeah, I'm in. ManHunt devolved into Sardines when she only managed to round up 5 people, three being our family. Ry's friend had to leave before we even played through one round which left us four. We played mostly in our yard and I, of course, had the coolest hiding spots, including when I climbed up on top of our playcenter and lay on the roof. Ry found me, but it took the girls like 10 more minutes to do so. Nice hiding. When Turtle called I quit and went inside, and talked to her til I went to sleep.
January 3rd, 2009 - Saturday
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
J was supposed to wake me up early so I could go to the beach but the punk left without me. LAME. When I got up no one was home. I called my parents and they were at their parents down in Leesburg. I woke Ry and 'Stas up. Today was the day to fulfill their wants from me. 'Stas wanted most to eat at Waffle House since no one else in the family will go. So I googled it close to a cache I still needed to hit, and we were off. Google Maps is a dirty liar! There was no Waffle House anywhere nearby! 'Stas didn't want to go caching, but I needed to make the grab. It was super hot, and back in a wilderness area filled with spiderwebs and not far from a lake full of gators. Yergh. We were supposedly looking for a "shack" but we looked all around the coords and saw nothing building-like at all. Argh. I started decoding the extra-help hint...look up? No way... it was in a freaking birdhouse up a tree! 'Stas made the dash even though she's afraid of heights and we followed her up. Cool hide. On the way out we ran into a guy just trying out his GPS with his wife and daughter doing a cache we hadn't tried for. I don't know what was wrong with his GPS but it was messed up. After the trek out we drove super far to the next nearest Waffle House (thanks Bro for the location). Candice called me on the way and I screamed into the phone more than once about traffic or missing my turn lol. The whole time we waited for our food I listened to her boy dilemmas, then chowtime. Service was decent, my food was way better than in Ohio, but my Pops called saying they were home so we had to eat and run.
After the rush back home, I plugged in to download more hides, but the printer wouldn't work so we went with some close to home I already had. Mommers and Pops joined the hunt and we were now 5 hunting for treasure. At the first one, there was a pile of dirt I thought it might be in, which turned out to be a colony of fire ants... ow ow ow! I only got bit twice though before I got them all brushed off thankfully. Then we hit one at the gas station which was really funny because it was totally a LPC and my mom thought it was super suspicious of us finding a pill container hidden there, thinking we looked like drug dealers. LOL Nice.
Then we hit a nearby park and the fire station. We were driving back home and my parents opted it was time for me to do what Ry had been begging me to do since day 1 I'd arrived (we tried once before but it had been closed). So they ditched out at a stop sign near our community and I jumped into the driver's seat and off we went to Oviedo Rec Center. Rock Climbing. I encouraged him and he watched me. He made it up the practice wall easily, then worked on others. He completed two walls and so did I, but we both got beat by our nemesis walls. His was one that I did, mine was the 3rd from the hardest. The wall went up, came out, then jutted out into a ledge type thingy. It was just the right angle that I could get my hands on the next hold, but couldn’t pull myself up over the lip. And the more times I tried it, the less able I was. Sigh. It was a good, brutal hour.
Then we had two hours to kill so we just vegged and played SC for a while, ate dinner, etc. Then we went glow bowling. Krys had been talking it up for days, then ditched out on us to be with her BF, lammmmmme. But dad, J, and Ry all came. J couldn’t bowl at all on his bad ankle, so he went home to get his brace. My first game was abominable. Dad got a 113. He said his first game is always his best. So we were going to pit his first against my second but I only got 106. Ugh. So I decided to bowl a third game by myself; because I knew I could beat that. But I have this crazy knack for just buckling under pressure. True to color, I could get the first bowl but never made up any of my change. 7-,8-,9-,8-,8-, etc. I think I got two strikes... ended up with a 108. If I had hit ANY of my 2nd frames, I woulda beat him. Agh. I was so annoyed with myself (I think I've mentioned my self-hate sports complex I don't like to talk about before, that's a glimpse). I talked to Turtle on the way home, logged my caches and went to bed at like 2am.
One more...
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