To All:

May 2012 see you happy and healthy.

To my children - I love you a lot. Just know that as the next year will be a bit crazy, for reasons beyond our control.

To my sweetie: I love you. And I'm STILL younger than you.  ;)

Merry New Year. I'm off to fix our favorite meal - homemade pizza for dinner. Hopefully, I'll stay awake for the ball drop this year!

joke

So a surgeon was rounding at the hospital and needed to catch the elevator before it closed. He stuck his foot into the door, it opened up for him. A medical student on the elevator asked "Why the foot?"

Surgeon replied, "I don't use my foot to operate."

Next floor, an internist waved his hand into the door. "Why the hand?" asked the student.

"I don't need my hands" replied the internist.

Next floor up, the orthopedic surgeon used his head to open the elevator.

Universal Studios

I'm a Harry Potter fan. So is the hubby & our daughter. Yes, we had to go to Universal Studios to see HP World of Wizarding.

We get there early & head for HP first. It is a level of detail that true geeks would love. Had fun at Ollivanders buying a wand. Drank butterbeer (it's very good!), wandered through Honeyduke's and bought Bernie's Every Flavor Beans. I am VERY good at finding the gross tasting beans. Hubby was wondering why I kept running for the trash, as he didn't get a bad one.

Next, went to Jurassic Park themed area. The flume ride is super cool. We're floating around for awhile, enjoying the gentle dinos. The boy (who was sitting next to me) was enthralled. Then we hit the building. We went up a loooooong ways. My hubby (who hates long drops) is giving me the stink-eye. Then the boy sees the T-Rex and it looks like we are headed straight for its mouth. He looks at me completely seriously and says "We are going to die!"...right before we plunged about 100 feet down the flume. We got soaked (this will become a recurring theme of the day).

We then wandered into the gift shop and bought yet another stuffed dinosaur for the boy. Downstairs is a pseudo-museum with exhibits and animontronic dino babies. We watched an egg crack and a dino come out. The boy thought this was the coolest thing ever & talked up the staff forever. Later in the exhibit, my daughter mentioned that the hatchling dino was a robot. "Is not!" "Is too!" "Is NOT!!! That's a REAL dinosaur, right Mom?"

The Popeye ride has a sign that says "You will get wet." What it REALLY meant is that you will look like a drowned  rat upon exiting the ride. Your jeans will be plastered to your legs, your t-shirt can be wrung out, and your dignity will be shot. It was FUN!

After naptime in the hotel, we come back to explore Dr. Suess's world. While waiting in line for the overhead tram, I decided Dr. Suess was like Eischer on acid.

Ate dinner at the Three Broomsticks. More butterbeer!

Leaving tomorrow to head for our hometown before going back home. Been a busy week & a lot of fun.

Animal Kingdom

GO TO THE LION KING AND NEMO SHOWS!!!!!!!!

They are wicked awesome! Ballet dancers, puppeteers, acrobatics...wow. The girl said that the Lion King show was her favorite thing all week thus far.

Nemo always makes me cry. It's that whole parenting thing of wanting to protect them and how far one would go for your child.

Oh, and the dinosaur ride WILL scare the crap out of your kids. It's not the ride, it's the animatronic T-Rex chasing you.

My feet are hurting after 3 days...

Magic Kingdom

I am crazy. MK in a day?

Head over to Adventure Land. Last year, the kids LOVED the Aladdin ride, so it was the first thing we hit. Last year, the spitting camel was working and the kids took WAAAAAAY too much joy in aiming the carpet so that the parental units got wet. Camels today were only drooling, not spitting. No wetness for me!

Walked onto Pirates of the Caribbean.  Yep, walked on. As in no wait. Awesome! No, we are NOT buying a toy right now, it's early in the day! Splash Mountain was down.  :( So we rode the train. Did you know that it is a steam engine that goes through ~200 gallons per hour? Yep. We were on the ride where it got refilled, which was interesting.

OK, off to Tomorrow Land. Why, oh why do my kids remember the lame-o People-mover? Because that is what they wanted to do next. Can't convince anyone to go on Space Mountain with me. Wusses. We then go to the Speedway, where the girl proceeds to prove that she should not be driving. I then challenge the kids to Buzz Lightyear. I get 41K points...beating them both. Old lady still has something!

Go back to the hotel to eat and rest. This will hopefully prevent a meltdown like one child had last night at dinner.

Now off to Fantasy Land! We hit the Mad Hatter Teacups, where evidently the plan was to make Mom as dizzy as possible. It was so much fun, we did it again without having to wait in line (WTF is up with that?). I stagger off to sit. We split up for awhile, the boy & I going back to the racetrack and DH and DD doing something else. Dumbass hubby turns off his phone, so it is difficult to hook back up again.

I then insist on Small World, telling the kids it will be fun (LIAR!). Gave them an earworm...made worse by the damn ride stopping in the middle and having to listen to that damned song in German over and over and over and over and over...you get the idea.

We end the day at the Haunted Mansion...I remember this scaring the crap out of me as a kid.  It's cool as an adult. Had the boy in my car & he was fine with it.

Back in the hotel room, beer opened. Life is good.

Seaworld

First park we hit is Seaworld. This was a hit last year, where we got this monstrosity:

We vowed that it would never happen again. So first rule before entering the park was "No giant pink whales are coming home with us." We also forbade them from playing the games.

We went to the stingray area. Evidently, they eat shrimp. Expensive tastes.

We then fed the dolphins. They like herring. They also like blowing out of their blowhole directly in front of me to get me wet.

Seaworld has a kids water playground, where we went to next. The kids ran around and got wet while the grownups sat.

Next was the show at Shamu stadium, where we saw many orcas working hard to ensure everyone in the splash zone was wet. Yes, that included us.

Back to the kids area to ride some gentle rides.

My unadventurous kids wanted Olive Garden for dinner. It was easier to go than to try & convince them to try something they had never heard of...especially since we could see the signs of a tired meltdown coming on from our daughter.

Both have sacked out quickly. Cans of beer are now opened for the adults.

I am crazy

First day of vacation. Traveling with the kids to Orlando. Flew at the ass-crack of dawn out of big airport, which is a drive.

I hate turbulence. With a passion. Got a lot of it on the first leg...bad enough to cancel the drink cart!

And then the layover in O'Hare. Why, oh why do we land at gate "as far away from our next flight's gate as is possible while still being in Illinois"? Get used to walking kids!

I love my son, but he did not stop talking the ENTIRE flight between Chicago and Orlando. My ears are tired.

Hotel has pool. Hot tub is broken. Oh, well. Hubby took the kids down so I can nap...

Not my fault

OK, so this patient saw me in the grocery store today...and proceeded to scream that I was the cause of her divorce while following me through the store. No, ma'am, your husband finally decided that he had had enough, not that I operated on you 4 years ago. I can guarantee that an old surgery is NOT the cause of your divorce.

There was a reason I discharged you from my practice...because you are a level 5, bat-shit crayzee who sucks the soul out of everything you encounter. Life is too short to have to deal with people like you.

I'm nerdy even by med school standards

My final rotation in medical school was radiology. And you can probably guess the reason why.

Anyway, the site I was at had a large number of us...all 4th years who had matched and were counting down the days until graduation. So we had these weekly lectures with cool images.

One abdominal film goes up. The attending asks us what we see. I promptly say "Bezoar."All of the other students are staring at me with a WTF look.

"That's right! How did you know?"

I didn't want to admit I knew it from reading Harry Potter...