Archive for December, 2010

One Taste of Africa, Two Cob Salads & TRON

Thursday, December 30th, 2010

We woke the next day to a freezing 32 degrees and full sun. After going through the morning bathing and dressing rituals we jumped back into the Kia and drove over to the Animal Kingdom Resort. The high temperature for the day was suppose to be 71. Silly weather channel.. Still we held on to our heavy coats and jeans.

We had 9:00am breakfast reservations at Boma. We got a little lost on the way to the Resort as the road wasn’t clearly marked, so we arrived a bit late, but they took us right in. Boma is a buffet, they take you to your seat, take your drink order then send you off to the buffet. We kinda were expecting something more African and food weird. But everything was pretty american normal.The most daring menu item was a corn beef hash furtada. Oh that and jungle juice…. the waitress came by while we where eating and asked us if we would like some jungle juice. Weird images from our youth came quickly to mind of teenage parties where jungle juice was a weird mixture of strawberry flavored boones and cheap beer. So we asked what is it, the guy sitting at the next table to us chimed it, “Oh it’s great! You’ll love it!” The waitress said, “It’s passionfruit, orange & guava.” We both yelled out a bit relived “Oh it’s POG!” Only to get sour faces back. Both the waitress and other diner clearly preferred to call it jungle juice and looked a bit miffed.

After breakfast we headed over to Animal Kingdom theme park. Now this park in the past visits has been our least favorite, so we had no intention of staying to long. Plan was to hit Expedition Everest a few times, have lunch and then go take a long nap. Turns out as we left the park later that afternoon, we found ourselves reflecting on a nice day. We skipped the Kilimanjaro speedway Safari and the water rapids ride (too cold to be wet). Got two good rides in on Expedition Everest and were happy that some age on the tracks has help make the ride feel a bit more like a runway train rather then the super smooth ride it was before. On our last visit we didn’t make it up to the train ride to the conservation center, so it was our 2nd attraction on the list.

The short train ride takes you semi-backstage to see some animal pens and allows you walk around and peek in to the vet treatment rooms and watch procedures being performed. This was nothing new for Joshua since we works for Banfield. So we moved pretty fast though this area, but it would be very cool for a kido who is into animals. Lunch was at the Tusker House, which turns out was another Buffet. We didn’t stuff ourselves on breakfast so we had some room for lunch. The buffet selections were good. Again nothing weird or adventurous. After lunch we wandered down and out of the park and headed home for a long nap.

After our nap we decided to cancel our dinning reservation we had back at the Animal Kingdom villas and try to do a walk up at EPCOT. We had skipped illuminations the night before to the weather, so the new plan was to find some dinner and some fireworks. We got to EPCOT about 6:00pm and after a ride on spaceship earth we walked up via mexico to Italy to see if we could get a seat at one of the new italian restaurants. Turned out to be a big no, so we started walked down towards England and walked right into a lady standing in the street in Morocco. Turned out this is a good thing as she was promoting the Moroccan restaurant. She wrote down a little note in Arabic and gave us directions on were to go. A few minutes later were sitting at our table.

After another americanized meal we found a great spot down in England and watched the illuminations fireworks and the special holiday fireworks ending.

Friday Morning we got our first long sleep in. We had lunch reservations at 11:50am at the 50’s Prime Time cafe and nothing on the books for breakfast so we slept in and took our time getting over to Hollywood Studios. With a high of 77 we finally broke out the shorts!
We got to Hollywood Studios with plenty of time to spare for lunch so we made a beeline for Pixar Place to get fast passes for Midway Mania. We got the passes but for 6:45pm, tonight was our 7:00pm showing of TRON. So we decided with a small tear that we didn’t like that ride (complete lie..) anyway and jumped on the Great Movie Ride.Lunch was at the 50′ Prime Time Cafe. Which is a cute restaurant that has 50’s TV’s playing video clips. All of the staff pretend that MOM is cooking and make sure everyone follows moms house rules. No elbows on the table, no games at the table… ect. Anthony had lunch here back in the 90’s and wanted to share the cool place with Joshua. WOW was that a mistake.

The first hiccup came when our name was called. Half way to our table (in the good area) the server realizes that our table already has guest at it. So back we all go to the waiting room to wait. A moment later we get taken to what can only be an after thought room. The server pulls apart a 4 top table and converts it to two 2 tops with a 3 inch gap between the two tables. The room is bare, white. One TV in corner that we can’t really see. No cool theming like the main restaurant. So we were a bit bummed but played along, not everyone can sit in the cool area and at least we are not in the bathroom like our dinner at the Blue Bayou. We as we looked at our menu the server came out again and seated two more people at our table, or rather the table that is 3 inches from our table. SO begins the uncomfortable non-verbal lunch by both tables.

What food we did get was not worth any hype. Joshua ordered the chicken pot pie and Anthony the Fried Chicken. Instead of the wonderful lunch Joshua was expecting he got the meatloaf. Our waitress was also a walking mess as she seemed a little perturbed.. Lunch took over anhour and 45mins of that was us waiting for her. This was the only restaurant for our whole vacation were we left ZERO tip. This was the worst dinning experience we had for the whole trip! So now came the hard part of the day and the main reason that Hollywood Studios is now our least favorite park. After lunch there was nothing to do…. Well almost nothing. Joshua did Tower of Terror once. But the lines for Midway were over 90mins and so we the Aerosmith roller coster. Even star tours was closed.

So we did the short backlot tour and checked out the animators area and demonstrations. The real highlight of our day we Dinner at the Brown Derby, a restaurant we LOVE. Problem was killing time between lunch and dinner. We ended up doing a lot of walking and pre-shopping. For dinner at the Brown Derby we had a mission… Cob Salad.

We love the Brown Derby’s Cobb salad. And joy of joy it is no longer served as a 2 person appetizer. Which really would not have matter too much as we both wanted it. Problem was the single serving is still the double serving portion. So we ending up with 2 HUGE bowels of salad! It was so funny as both of us tried to eat as much as we could, just like two little kids, as we loved it so much. So you know what they say don’t fill up on bread you will spoil your
dinner. Well we kinda did. When our main course came we both kinda poked at them, they were good but the salad was SO much better. Josh had the double bean vanilla creme brûlée for dessert and was in seventh heaven.. Next visit we are going to get the Cobb Salad as our main course and split one order between the two of us!

So after dinner at the Brown Derby we headed over to  the Osborn Lights. They were very very pretty! Over 3 million LCD lights! The streets were packed and just
as we got to the middle it dawned on us that we only had 40mins to get to our movie! We speed walked all the way to the furthest parking lot in 10 mins! We burned off most of dinner LOL!

TRON legacy was showing at the Downtown Disney AMC theater, which was about a 10min drive from Hollywood Studios. We both are Sci-Fi geeks and Anthony LOVED the original TRON movie as a child. So seeing TRON legacy on Disney Property on opening night was like a little kids dream come true.We have a large screen TV in our home and rarely go see movies in a theater. We find it too noisy and hate the high cost. But we where really impressed with this theater. Super comfy seats and the picture quality and sound was amazing.

According to Disney… “The AMC Entertainment upgraded auditorium one to be the first Enhanced Theater Experience (ETX™) in the United States. The ETX auditorium includes a 20 percent larger, floor-to-ceiling screen, 3D technology, 12 channel audio and digital projection that delivers higher resolution than HD.” The extra tech really was noticeable! We LOVED the movie, for once the hype matched the movie. Fingers crossed for a third film!

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Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party

Tuesday, December 28th, 2010

As the tempature dropped and the sun faded, we drove down I-4 towards the Disney World resort area from Universal Studios. To save some money on our trip we decided to drop down a level to a Value resort but upgraded the dining plan to Deluxe. In the past we have only stayed in the moderate resorts so we really didn’t know what to expect. We picked Disney’s All Star Movies. To cut to the end, we were not really impressed. It felt like a large Motel 6, which is not a bad thing, but we kinda were expecting it to have more of the Disney level of service and quality.

Our semi-sour impression started at check in. We did the online check in, which promised to make check in quick and easy, it wasn’t. Seems they had just started a 3 day computer switch over and no one seemed to know how to do anything. Because of the computer change over we got stuck with 2 double beds, which meant we slept apart for 5 nights as the doubles are more like large twins. Not the arrangement one wants when you on vacation looking for  1 on 1 time….

The room as clean but very worn. Unpainted wall patches, rusty patches on the bathroom tile and the rooms furniture was very dated worn and on dresser drawer was broken. But we were at Disney and the room didn’t really matter that much, or at least that was what we kept telling ourselves. By the end of our vacation we knew one thing very clearly, we would never stay at anything under a Disney moderate hotel again, this hotel was not for us. Every time we where by the Magic Kingdom the conversation was “Which of these Deluxe hotels shall we stay at next time?” Not, should we, but which one…. It was kinda funny. Oh, by the way, Polynesian was the answer.

After inspecting our “room” and unpacking a little. We got back in the car and drove up to the Magic Kingdom. We learned after our first trip that having a car is a huge plus. The Disney bus system is great, but there is nothing like being able to just get in the car and go and not rely on a crowded bus. When your tired or wet, the bus never comes or goes fast enough.

We parked at the transportation center parking lot and opted for the ferry boat crossing to get to the Magic Kingdom. Bay Lake was cold but smooth and glassy.

The park was all decked out for Christmas. Sadly a lot of the flowers and trees where wrapped up to help save them from the frost, but all the other decorations were up and glowing in twinkle lights. We got into the park a little after 4pm, got our wristbands and started to explore.

The Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party is a hard ticket event. Which means they close the park to only those guests who buy the party tickets. For us it means less crowds! We love Mickey’s not so Scary Halloween party. So we were really looking forward to the Christmas party. The party began at 7:00pm, so we had 3 hours to kill.

Since we are Disney nut jobs and had JUST visited Disneyland in LA a short 6 months ago, we found ourselves lost for things to do. So we headed over to the People mover, which is not in Disneyland anymore and it became our first ride of the night.

It took us a bit to get into the swing of things mostly do to the cold, but by the time we got to the Haunted Mansion the Party had begun. One of the highlights of the party are the free hot cocco and cookie snack stations dotted around the park. Which we took advantage of all night long with the temperature dropping to 28 degrees!

We skipped the first Christmas parade and rode Space Mountain, But we did watch the second Christmas parade from our favorite spot in Frontierland (same place where we watched the Halloween parade). We love Halloween parade and the Christmas parade was just as good! One thing we noticed is that Disney must have hired every short dancer on the East coast. Row after row of short gingerbread men, short toy tin soldiers, short, short short.

The Christmas fireworks were very nice. The accompanying music was a mix of secular and religious music and done very tastefully. The Fireworks themselves were impressive!

The party run until 12:00am, but at about 10:30ish we were cold tired and worried about our 7:00am wake-up call for EPOCT. So we called it an early night and headed back for the car.

CHECK OUT OUR PHOTOS!

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The LIGHTS, gasp!

Tuesday, December 28th, 2010

We woke Monday morning tired. This was our first day dealing with the 3 hour time difference. So our 8am wake up call was really a 5am one. We took turns showering and getting dressed. We also broke out the long john’s Anthony had picked up at Target the night before our trip. They proved to be a trip saver!  Layered head to toe, we  headed downstairs for the free breakfast.

The free breakfast wasn’t bad. Several favors of yogurt, bagels, toast, english muffins, juices, assorted cereals & hotel brand coffee. The popular item as the fresh waffles, which we skipped on the first day. The breakfast room was very empty, perhaps 3-5 other people, it was a hopeful sign to us that we would have the park to ourselves today.

We finished breakfast and exited out the side door to our rental car. It was then the weather introdused itself. HELLLOOOO ANTHONY AND JOSH, I AM COLD, YOU CAN CALL ME 49 WITH A 20 MPH WIND. Which at that point we both decided even in our layers to drive and park and pay rather then walk over to the park.

After parking our first stop was to the second floor Starbucks in Citywalk, where they didn’t seem to know what Soy milk is. After picking up 2 Venti caffeine/hand-warmers we walked down to the park walk way. We stood at the split where you walk left for Islands of Adventure/Harry Potter or right for Universal Studios we paused and judged the crowds. 95% were heading left, so we of course headed right.

Universal Studios was EMPTY, we arrived about 30 mins after rope drop. Parts of the park were not open yet and the park staff  had parts of the street closed off. The whole park was decorated for Christmas and looked great. We did every single ride as a walk on, no waiting at all. Men in Black, Mummy Ride, Simpsons Ride and Shrek all ZERO wait.

The best part of the day came when we rode the Men in Black ride. The theming of the ride is very cute. It’s setup as a copy of a 1960’s world fair attraction, you enter and start to hear a tape play back of an announcers welcoming you to the worlds fair, the lights go out and the taped voice garbles out and you find out that you have been selected for Men in Black testing and a hidden door opens and you travel through. Now the funny point came from the Universal Studios cast member. His job is to drop the rope and make sure we all move into the hidden door way. Well, as the lights dropped and the taped annoucer voice trailed off. The cast member said in perfect dead pan monotone voice “The lights….gasp.”. We both burst out laughing. The first thing that ran through our heads was, you really should not read stage direction out loud. “The lights….gasp” became our mantra for the whole day.

By noon we had done the whole park so we decided to walk over to Islands of Adventure and see how bad the lines were for the new Harry Potter ride. We wandered up though Islands of Adventure and did a quick walk through of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. The Themeing was AMAZING, it’s like being on the set of any of the Harry Potter movies. What was a downer was the crowds, the Harry Potter land area is VERY VERY small, In fact of all of the themed areas in the Islands of Adventure this felt the smallest and did not absorb the crowds at all. Long lines for the wand shop 3 min show (which we skipped).

Hungry, we skipped the 50 wait for the main Harry Potter ride and walked over to an adjacent land “Jurassic Park” and had some fake garden burgers for lunch. It was during lunch we had our first encounter with what we called “Abandoned Grandmothers”. Right across from our table was a little old lady in her wheelchair, clearly left behind by her family because she could not kept up. It was one of the saddest things we saw over and over again during our trip. The senior most member of the family unit, stuffed off to the side ALONE to watch the bags as everyone else had fun. Over the course of our trip we saw it again and again and kept saying, “Oh there’s another abandoned Grandmother…” We even joked that we should take photos to make a shame on you website. The worst was a case of this was on our final Sunday in Orlando. Grandfather in his wheelchair, in the freezing cold, placed alone at the head of the standby line for Candlelight processional at 11:50am, (first show is at 5:45pm). Come on people, what are you thinking?

After lunch and our first abandoned grandmother we decided to bit the bullet and stand in the cue for Harry Potter and the forbidden journey. First impression of the cue line…. WOW. We hit the line with posted 20 min wait which stretched to 40ish minutes due to the ride breaking down. But wow the theming in the cue line is amazing. You walk under Hogwarts castle, and then out to the gardens then back in, past moving and talking portraits, the headmasters stairway and finally run into Harry, Ron and Hermione who explain the story line premise of the ride to you. Harry and the gang are NOT animatronic, they are video done in such a cool way that you swear they are standing there.

After Harry and the gang you then get on the actual ride itself, which is not a roller coster as much as it is super high tech dark ride. You ride most of the time on your back facing the action, movies and animatronics. The seat/bench your on is at the end of a robotic arm that moves you up, down and side to side. There are no inversions and you do not travel upside down. The story is a bit cheesy and they try to pack a bit too much content into the ride, but it was fun. We both did come off the ride feeling a bit light headed and woozy, so be warned.

We spent the rest of the afternoon over in the Islands of Adventure. Joshua loves the Hulk roller coster which Anthony refuses to board. About 5pm we left and headed back over to the Universal Studios park for the Macy’s Holiday Parade. Which we ended up watching twice. Once as it came down and then a second time as it did a loop onto itself. After the first viewing we tried to get around it to get to the mummy ride and ended up stuck on the wrong side of the street across from the Parade termination end point. So we got to see the parade twice.

For dinner we left the parks and drove a block to the Cracker Barrel. We had never eaten there before, but we like country cooking so decided to give it a try. The pick turned out to be a good one, we loved it! We even liked the southern waitress that non-committally served us.

After dinner we stopped off at Walgreens and picked up some snacks for the room and some lotion. Both of us had wind burn on our faces from the constant all day cold wind. Our faces looked like we had been skiing all day. Once back at the hotel we curled up in bed and watched an old movie “Guess who is coming to dinner”, before passing out for the night.

The next morning was also our last day at our hotel. We packed put our bags and headed downstairs for a late breakfast. Having skipped trying the waffles the day before, they were top of our list. Unfortunately, we got cut off by a rude staff member. Anthony headed over to the SELF SERVE waffle bar and begin to make 2 waffles, one for himself and one for Joshua. Anthony got the first one loaded and the staff member walked up and shoved herself in front of Anthony, which took some doing as he was standing 3 inches from the hot waffle makers. The staff member then proceeded to make a waffle for another hotel guest. WE both got a bit vocal about how rude she was and we gave up on the waffles. It was pretty clear how steamed we were as retreated to our table. So after she made the other guest waffle for him at the SELF SERVE waffle bar she them made another one for us. You know to do us a “favor”. She was the only negative thing really about this hotel.

Day two  at Universal Studios was another cold one, but not as windy. So it felt much warmer even though it was colder. We left the hotel and it was in the high 30’s. Having done everything multiple times the day before with no lines, it was shocking to see crowds. We had to wait for 4 or 5 mins for several of the rides. We did Harry Potter again and also tried butter beer. Anthony says it tasted like the uber-cheap generic diet cream soda his father would get when he was little kid. They fill the butter beer glass with the soda and then squirt some foam on top to make it look more like beer with a head on it. The foam is very gassy, the one tablespoon they squirt on top foams up quite a bit and in turn made us both burp quite a bit. It was good, very sweet tasting, kinda pricy but worth it for the experience.

We left the parks about 3:00 pm and headed down to Disney to check into our hotel and to attend Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party.

CHECK OUT OUR PHOTOS

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Our 2010 Disney World trip

Monday, December 27th, 2010

For our family Christmas present this year we decided to go to Disney World. As normal, this was kind of a last minute  plan, which is not always a good idea when doing Disney as things book up quick. We only gave ourselves about  about 2 months to book and plan. Since we started on our adoption journey we have been very hesitant to use up vacation time. But after some of the stressors we have had recently, we desperately needed some 1 on 1 time together.

In the past, we have only ever traveled down to Orlando during the hot late summer months. So we were looking forword to the cooler but warm weather and the Disney Christmas Events; Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, the Candlelight Processional & the Osborne Lights.

We booked 2 nights for Universal Studios Orlando at the Marriot Fairfield and 5 nights on Disney property at Disney’s All Star Movies Resort. This was our first time in a Disney Value resort (more on that later). But with the discounts that we got from booking a cheap Disney resort we upgraded to the deluxe dinning plan which gave us 3 sit down meals a day. With Dining reservations in hand and paid, cheap airfare booked and a car rental for $8.00 a day, we started off on our trip pretty jazzed thinking about all the Disney Pins we could afford to buy.

Our flight down as on Sunday December 12th. We got Sam up early and took him to the airport with us then intrusted him with our car for a WEEK! We underestimated the airport lines…. which where a bit more backed up then when we flew to Phoenix last month for Thanksgiving. We got to the gate with only a bit of time to spare.

Our air carrier was Delta. We both like Delta a lot even though traditionally it  “Doesn’t Ever Leave The Airport”. Free internet on the way down was great and our seats were comfortable. Although, we did not  get a window seat, which at first was a bit of a concern as Anthony really likes the window seats, the short travel times and comfy seats made up for it. Portland to Atlanta then Atlanta to Orlando.

Our first sign that the weather might be colder then we would like was in Atlanta, or Hot-lanta as a Facebook friend called it. It was snowing as we landed in Atlanta. The snow didn’t stop for our whole 45 min layover. We stopped by our terminal’s food court and got coffee and pizza for lunch. The African (from South Africa) Barista asked if were from Europe, guess he had never heard a NW American accent before, we were in the deep south….

We got into MCO at about 4:30pm with no delays, walked out like pros to the car rental lot. In past trips we have gotten pretty lost and confused. This time no issues, even figured out the short cut. Grabbed our Alamo rental, a Kia Rio and headed off for Downtown Disney.

The weather, well it was cool. When we left Portland it was in the 50’s. Orlando was about 60ish. So still nice in our book. but on our last trip is was in the high 90’s with 100% humidity. This new weather was a bit of a shock and added to our weather fears a bit . The weather forecast for the Orlando area for the next few days was SCARY, 20-30 degrees overnight with highs not much higher. Luckily we had overpacked to be prepared for any weather, lots of long pants and shorts!

We ate dinner at our tradtional first night place, the Raglan Road. Joshua ordered the Shepard’s Pie and Anthony ordered the Pie in the Sky (chicken pie). But the appetizer stole the show. We ordered the Flat Mate – Guinness banger, caramelized onions, tomatoes and Dubliner cheddar cheese flatbread. YUMMMY! It was quickly devoured as was the complimentary soda bread and honey.

After dinner we walked the Downtown Disney area and pre-shopped all the pins we were going to buy for our pin wall before the week was out. Tired and jet lagged, we drove up to the Universal Resort area and checked into our home for the next two nights, the Marriot Fairfield.

The Fairfield was cheap and right across the street from Universal. We got a king bed on the fifth floor with a view towards the park and  perfect view of the backside of the Wallgreen’s parking lot. The bed was comfortable but came with very very small pillows for some reason. Also the free in-room wireless was nowhere to be found. Our first night the temp dropped to 46 with high winds which continued all the next day.

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Thanksgiving 2010 – Phoenix Style

Friday, December 3rd, 2010

For thanksgiving this year we headed down to Joshua’s Parents home in Phoenix Arizona for a grand gathering of the Sorensen relatives. We left Portland Wednesday afternoon. Joshua had the whole week off, but Anthony had to work a half day. So we met up at the airport.

Our flight was on US Airways… not our favorite air carrier. US Airways was the airline that left us overnight in MCO back in 2007.  Airport security was quick and painless. After all the news about nude scanners and groping TSA workers.. No body scan, no pat down. Even the lines were quick. So much for the busiest travel day of the year!

The flight down was quick but cramped. Anthony got stuck with the center seat next to young woman of size. Causing him to sit for 2 hours with his arms crossed on the seat crack between his and Joshua’s seat. But Joshua had ripped all of I, Claudiusto Anthony’s iPad, so he was happy.

Even though it was a short 5 day trip we took two checked bags down. Joshua packed 5 bottles of wine to take down to his parents for thanksgiving and their anniversary party. It ending up costing us $40 bucks to check both bags. This felt totally silly as it seems none of the other passengers checked any luggage.  It was shocking to see how many people tried to board with HUGE overstuffed suitcases. All of this hassle to escape having to pay the dumb bag fee.

US Airways should take note and kill the bag fees. A huge amount of time was spent by the flight crew trying to find room for all the unpaid bags. It made us feel like we had been taken in some sort of bag scam, since we were dumb enough to pay the fee.

We rented a car from Thrifty and had signed up for the free blue chip program online, which meant that we got to skip the line and just walk right down to the car. They had our paperwork all printed out and picked the car we wanted and drove off. It was a nice treat as we were both a bit tired.

Now for a word on the Phoenix drivers… There seems to be three types: Fast 50mph-65mph, Faster 65mph-90mph and “That guy is going to get people killed!”. All the main roads seem to be 6 lane highways, no really, they have 6 lanes. Our guess why is to accommodate all three types of drivers in both directions.

We got to our hotel, Hyatt Place.  The time change had kind of messed up our internal clocks and at 8:30pm we realized we needed to eat. We drove over to the mall area and while looking for food found a Disney discount store! Of course we had to stop and buy some pins. They were mostly picked clean but still had one Stitch pin and 4 O-pin house key pins. We of course grabbed them right up.

After an ok dinner at Chevy’s we headed back to Hyatt Place. Our room was nice, the bed a bit hard. The only real issue we had with the hotel came at 3:30 in the morning when we were woken by the hotel’s fire alarm blasting. We of course did exactly what you should never do; we got dressed, grabbed personal items (our iPads, wallets & keys) and exited our room. We did check the door for heat before opening it, so I guess we get some safely points back.

The hallway smelled of smoke, and several other hotel guests had their doors open and seemed to be looking to see what to do. From this point forward we were a bit smarter then the pack and ignored the elevators and headed for the stairs. Fourth floor to the ground floor to 20 secs and 10 secs more we had exited the hotel to the assigned evacuation point. We looked around and we were all alone. Not a single other hotel guest was in sight. Stranger still, no fire trucks, no response trucks, no ambulances. Not even an overweight rent-a-cop security officer to help control the nonexistence crowds.

So we sat on a bench outside for a few minutes, jet-lagged and still half asleep. We didn’t know if we should drive away, stay put or go back in and go to sleep. So we headed back in and over heard the front desk person on the phone yelling at someone it was just a burned out light fixture and everything was ok. So we took the elevator back to our floor and sure enough a few doors down from our room a gentleman was cleaning a burned wall sconce. We returned to bed only to wake a few hours later, exhausted. We headed down stairs for the free toast breakfast then headed right back upstairs and when back to bed. But by 11am we were dressed and headed out to Starbucks.

One of the best people watching events of the trip was watching the Phoenix natives “pretend” it’s cold. It was 63 degrees and sunny, everyone was walking around in heavy sweaters and snow jackets. One lady even did the “shiver body” cold dance, hugging herself for warmth as she came into the Starbucks in a fur hooded ski jacket, long pants and fur trimmed boots. The irony of it all to us was we were a little mad for not packing shorts to wear! It didn’t even dawn on us to pack then as it was 17 degrees in Portland the night before we had left. Seems in Phoenix they pretend it cold wet and Portland we pretend it’s warm and dry.

We spent the Turkey day visiting with the extended family. There were 15 for dinner. Joshua’s father cooked Turkey, ham, sweet potatoes, broccoli with cheese, mash potatoes & stuffing. Which is funny as Joshua’s father doesn’t really like to eat turkey…

http://www.desoren.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/clfood.gifThe next day, Friday, we had breakfast at Millie’s. We picked it because it was close and that there is a Millie’s in Anaheim right next to Disneyland, we thought it would be cute to eat their since we are two weeks out from our Disney World trip. It turned out to be a mistake. The food was kind of gross. We also got sat next to the espresso machine and for some reason Arizonians must love burnt milk. We got to hear cup after cup of milk being destroyed via the espresso steamer. It was like nails on a chalkboard for both of us as former baristas. They did have nice warm muffins and it was pretty cheap. But we will be skipping this place in the future.

After breakfast and another run to Starbucks to cancel out breakfast, we headed back to Joshua’s parents house. Today was their 30th anniversary party. We got over to the house early before the other guests arrived and dug out a huge box of Legos. The Legos are the combined remains of all 4 of the Sorensen boys’ childhood Legos. We claimed them for our future kiddo and shipped them home. The anniversary party was nice and very laid back. Paul, Joshua’s dad served a Mexican food buffet. We started up a Texas hold-em game with Joshua’s Grandmother, Sam & Kelly and 2 Sorensen cousins.

The next day we slept in and were nice and lazy. We did brunch/lunch with Joshua’s mother at Macaroni grill. (Yes, the hated Italian butter place.) When we walked in and the smell of melted plastic wafted in from the kitchen. So our hopes of an edible meal died pretty fast. But, it turned out to be an ok meal, the company was much better. After lunch we headed over the meet up with Sam and Kelly for a movie and saw the latest Harry Potter,it was good. What was better was how cheap it all was. Kelly had the inside scoop on getting discounts. But even before the discount we were shocked at how cheap the drinks and snacks were and this was not a discount theater. Seems Portland just costs more…

After the movie we headed to a private dinner with Joshua’s Grandparents and Parents. Somehow our private dinner turned into another family gathering. We ended up eating leftovers.

The next day we flew out on US Airways again. Short flight again and Anthony got a window seat!

We both were a little worried that Thanksgiving would be hard on us emotionally because of the adoption and our recent experiences. And it was a bit tough at times. We only really got hit with the”How’s the adoption going?” question twice. Both times we quickly rattled off some facts and justifications and quickly changed the topic. Turns out the hardest thing was watching 3 year old cousin Grace run around being all cute, adorable and not ours.

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