Everything is Awesome!!

Sometimes when I go back through my posts each month and there are so few, its often because we haven't been doing anything fun, or we work a lot and sleep the rest of the time. But lately it has been the opposite. I've been having so much fun that I haven't had time to blog. Also because I haven't used the Canon T2i in a while now that I have my handy dandy iPhone. Michael has very much enjoyed already having two weeks of work under his belt, doing prep work for Halloween Horror Nights at Universal. This top picture of Michael and I is from before we had dinner at YardHouse with his friend, Heather. She is super cool and nice, plus I love her Full Sail/punk fashion sense. The restaurant was awesome too with fantastic little appetizers like deviled eggs. I definitely want to eat there again.

Here are some more Instagram pictures to show what Michael and I have been up to lately:
 My parents drove down to visit for the day last Saturday. I ordered a shirt from Love-Orphans.org and since there had been an ordeal with the account, they shipped a second shirt to apologize for the inconvenience. So now my mom and I can be twins while we both sponsor children in third-world countries. My parents treated us to lunch at Panera where my mom and I shared the uber delicious Chicken Sorrentina and Michael gave me the last part of his cinnamon roll. We drove to a really nice area with lots of stores and I found two new sports bras at Marshall's.

 The next day I drove to Clermont to go to church with my friend Alana and her husband, Cody. Its a church called Real Life and I enjoyed it a lot. It has the live band with lights and projectors that show pictures of clouds and the ocean while the music plays. The pastor was younger and energetic and he said something that I never thought of before: 52 weeks in a year, with one hour of church, only equals 52 hours of church per year. That's barely over two full days!! Cody said he wished Michael had come too, and so did I, but I don't want to push it. I know Michael likes to pray alone. After church I went to a little Farmer's Market with them. I always love the homemade soap vendors, but find it difficult to pay $4 per bar. A very interesting set up was Rent A Hen. The man said he owns a farm and you sponsor a free-range hen. He takes care of it, then you go pick up the eggs every couple of weeks. And you can visit your hen whenever you want to!! The article I just found says, "They rent the services of a hen for $2 a week, and are guaranteed six eggs per week per hen."

 On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of this week I made sure to be home when Michael got off from work so we could walk together around a lake (his suggestion!!) which is in a really nice neighborhood area- one of those places where its like its own little town within Orlando.  Its about a 3 mile walk and the pictures above are some of the views. I have been doing arm work outs on Pop Sugar Fitness, hence my aggressive flexing photo.  I've been eating healthier and drinking more milk too. Gotta build those strong bones!! The first day we walked around the lake, I saw that sign with the African girl on it. We took a picture so I could look up the organization when I got home. Its for Children of the Nations. One donation program they have is for Smile Packs, and that is something I plan to put together once I start getting paychecks again.

 I've been trying to get together with Miriam more often too, but sometimes our schedules conflict. We did meet up on Monday and walked two miles around a lake close to her house when it wasn't so hot outside. She was pushing her baby in the stroller and we were lucky to avoid the thunderstorm that passed by on the other side of the highway. When we got back to her house, Miriam made an amazing (yet quick and easy) meal of Cajun salmon with kale and white rice. Yesterday and Tuesday morning I drove to Alana's house again. We walked at a park by the "beach" the first time for two miles, using the Walk For A Dog app that donates money to animal shelters, but since it rained yesterday we played Wii Fit instead. Those are her two dogs, Scarlett and Oliver. When Scarlett's hair grows out, I'm going to take Dorothy and Toto pictures, but Alana can be Dorothy this time.

Wekiwa Springs II

The last time I went to Wekiwa Springs was in May 2012 with my friend Sana. But lately Michael had been talking about how he wanted to go too, so we went there on Tuesday instead of going to see Guardians of the Galaxy. I heard that movie was really good, but we can always Redbox it later. It wasn't as hot as I expected it to be, so I never got sweaty enough for the 70 degree water to feel good. We only stuck our feet in for a bit -wimps. Even when we walked along the swampy bridge the air only seemed extremely muggy with mosquitoes that reminded me of the huge ones we saw on Jumaji last week, but still not how I describe "hot". It wasn't burning my skin.

Michael says he would love to go back to rent kayaks and to explore trails they have. It made him think of when he was younger and how he would dress in camo and go on "missions". It is a $6 fee per vehicle to get in to the park, but if its for fun exercise and marriage togetherness, then that six dollars becomes a very important purchase! I do feel like I am more adventurous when I am in a strong and healthy exercise mode. I plan to start that with Miriam on Monday. My Instagram pictures will become extra lively and fitness friendly at that point. I'm already excited!! Plus I believe on the 17th we are going to the new Harry Potter park at Universal to see all the brilliant additions.

iPhone & Instagram

For the past few months I swore up and down that I would not get an iPhone and that I could live with my old little Samsung Flight II for the rest of my life. But then I realized how unhelpful my phone was being when I was trying schedule interviews for my 911 job, leaving messages for people asking them to call me back, then my phone not ringing before chiming to let me know I had a missed call or even a voice mail without a missed call at all! It made me look very unprofessional. So Michael took me to Verizon and with some convincing from my dad, I got the white and gold iPhone 5S, instead of the Droid Mini I had previously been interested in that day. Here is a picture incase you have never seen an iPhone before! ;)

I signed up for unlimited talk and text, and 1 GB of data, with protection. The man said that 46% of iPhone users have a cracked screen. Nobody wants to see a picture of your baby on a shattered screen! We have Wifi at home, so I don't mind waiting until my phone connects to use the internet (for Instagram- the main reason I wanted a fancy phone) that way it doesn't use any extra data. I have enjoyed using my iPhone so far. The typos don't bother me as much as I thought they would. Auto correct does not like me using silly made up nicknames like "Shnooks" or being enthusiastic in the morning and trying to write "Helloooo Mommy-o's!"

These are the best Instagram pictures I have taken lately. Some I share on Facebook, some I don't. But here/ above are the 12 I have uploaded so far. And my captions (left-right) ~

1. First selfie with my iPhone!! #shunned // 2. Sleepy Sasha. #babeloos  // 3. I love all the time I have been able to spend with Miaskee lately!! Is this a dream? ☺️ #ubf // 4. Getting ready to watch Mary Poppins at Disney's Fort Wilderness resort. (for free) // 5. At the pioneer wagon snack bar! // 6. S'mores and hotdogs- delish!! 

7. Got my extra special shirts in the mail today!! Can't wait to model them on Saturday!! // 8. I love how she always runs to us when we come home. I told her to "cheese" and she turned her head. It must be her good side! #oohgirl  // 9. Just stopping to smell the flowers. It was windy and the bee was like, "buzzahhh!!" // 10. My dear friends for the next 4 days. ☕️ // 11. #tbt Super awesome tiny Amish house Michael made out of balsa wood for my 27th birthday in June. He is so talented!! // 12. Sheep!! Cute purchase from an Amish town in Middlefield, Ohio. May 2011

Flowers & Greens

I completely forgot about all the beautiful flower pictures that I took at the Alridge Gardens in Hoover before my friend Danielle arrived to meet me for her graduation pictures a few weeks ago. I only remembered about them when I used the nice camera to take a photo of this mini Polaroid of Michael and I today at Downtown Disney before it monsooned. I think both of us forgot how hot Orlando is, but I am still planning to start my health routine once I get hired at 911 again. I really need to get back in the groove of everything. However, with the current downtime, today I was able to write up inventory of my "super unnecessary amount of hygiene/ bath products". That is how I titled one of the boxes for our move! It included full size shampoo bottles, conditioner, body wash, face scrub and various bags including Crest white strips and many samples by mail, plus extra products I had taken from when we stayed in hotels. I still have aloe from when we went to the Bahamas for our Honeymoon three years ago!! *cough hoarder cough*

Anyway, about those nice garden photos ;)

Again, we agreed on not having cable in this new, small (perfectly sized) 850 sq ft Orlando apartment. We didn't have it in California either and because of that, Michael found a lot of cool shows that we were able to watch for free on Netflix instead. We've been watching more movies lately and I do enjoy that. Now we're watching Chamber of Secrets because it's the one Michael couldn't remember when he was trying to list the Harry Potter movies in order. 

 I showed Michael the statue picture and asked if he knew who it was. His response, "Father Julien?" (The priest who married us.) Ha, no! I told him it was Saint Francis of Assisi, in charge of all the animals. Then Michael asked, "Is he the saint of CiCi's pizza?" My goodness, I look forward to all the silly things our kids say in the future.