...and I blog.: Come on over for a vacation slide show

It has now been so long since I've posted that I can't possibly summarize everything that's transpired this spring, but none of it was likely to be the answer to anyone's Google search anyway. I will just say that I am fully recovered from my thyroid removal surgery and the following radioactive iodine treatment, and Annamarie graduated from fifth grade. We have sent her out into the world in search of gainful employment. If a fifth grade education was good enough for Jethro Bodine, it is good enough for us.

After all that excitement, we certainly deserved a vacation, so we spent a week at Walt Disney World and three days in Saint Augustine, Florida. Disney was Disney: enjoyable, magical, blisteringly hot, crowded, and overpriced, and we will surely visit again soon.

In the week before we left, the kids drug out some videos Ron had taken during our 2004 trip to Disney, and we watched those videos over and over for days. My heart was nearly ripped out by the sweetness of those little voices, even in the one which features Annamarie whining and begging for a $65 beaded headdress at Epcot's Morocco pavilion, hollering, "Mom, can I be cute wif it on?" Among the videos was one where Ron had recorded his entire ride on Big Thunder Mountain, and 1476 viewings of that video convinced Annamarie the roller coaster hater that she could "challenge herself" (her words) and ride it. All four of us rode it the first time, and then she challenged herself four more times with Thomas. Thank goodness for Fast Passes. You have to click on the photo below to see their faces.

Of course we saw every parade and show in every park (except for Fantasmic at Hollywood Studios, which we couldn't fit into the schedule), because we love some Disney spectaculars. (I had always believed that "spectacular" was an adjective until we saw the Wishes(TM) Nighttime Spectacular). The photo below, taken during the Celebrate a Dream Come True parade, may be my favorite of the trip.