Month: April 2017

Working 6 months in Shanghai gave me a chance to meet other Disney leaders from across the world.  My HOH partner in China heralded from Disneyland, CA – Adrienne.  This is actually her second visit to WDW since we came back to the states.  She came in the Spring for business but this trip was a vacation, with a half marathon thrown in.

She ran the Star Wars half marathon early Sunday morning and then we picked her up  with the intent of seeing Florida wildlife and nature on the East coast.  However, first on the agenda was lunch at Dixie Crossroads in Titusville.

We haven’t been there since I began to eat shrimp.  Through the years we have gone with family and friends to the restaurant, but I always ordered fish.

At the beginning you get a basket of fritters (covered in powdered sugar) and both Eric and Adrienne ordered a bowl of seafood gumbo.

Then came the shrimp!  Eric had a chance to order the ‘royal reds’ since they are being caught now while we both ordered the rock shrimp.  Adrienne got them broiled while I had mine fried (of course!).

 

We planned on driving through ‘Black Point Wildlife Drive’ however it was closed due to a burn that still had some hot spots – bummer.  We drove to the Haulover Canal boat ramp and a large group of manatees were putting on a show.  I can never get any good photos of manatees but I included a decent one.  Couldn’t resist a photo of the sign.  Really – who waters the manages.

Dinner was at the Crooked Can Brewery in downtown Winter Garden.  Beverly joined us and the four of us enjoyed some craft beers and pizza.

Plans were to go fishing on Monday at Crystal River, so Adrienne spent the night ensuring an early start.   We put in at Pete’s Pier and motored down the river and out the end of the channel.  Lately, we’ve been fishing near the power plant canal and have had some incredible luck.  While a bit chilly on the ride out, when the sun peeked out from the clouds we could shed our coats.  Adrienne did really well for never casting a rod but unfortunately didn’t get any fish.  Both Eric and I caught a mangrove snapper.

The ride going back in was a much different story.  The wind had definitely picked up and the ride back turned into a E-ticket ride, with both of us getting soaked.

Monday’s catch turned into dinner later in the week.

We met up with two of our other Shanghai group for dinner at ‘Jiko – the meeting place’, located at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge.

We started with the bread sampler of Africa.  The ladies ordered the filet mignon while the guys both ordered the short ribs.  We were too full for any dessert.

We finished the evening with a selfie in the hotel’s lobby.  The meal was enhanced by the company present.  It was a good evening with a re-telling of many of our Shanghai stories and memories.

 

After work on Saturday I drove up to Ponte Vedra to have a long weekend with Karen – primarily to make jewelry.  The following week is the boys spring break and Rich & Connor drove down to The Keys for a Boy Scout scuba trip.  Hunter is staying with Karen.  Since I came up on Saturday evening, I got to see them before they left early (really early!) sunday morning.

Supper Saturday night was pepperoni pizza from Jonas.  Its one of two places they pick it up from and both places are good, but this one is closer.  🙂

While both of the boys were playing their favorite video games, Connor spent some quality time with me after eating supper, before we all headed to bed.  I was bushed.  For some reason, the previous night I woke up in the middle of the night and kept tossing and turning – thus losing sleep.  Connor was trying to explain his game (and it looked interesting), but my eyes kept closing.  I went upstairs to bed before 10 pm.  That night was the time change and I ended up sleeping over 9 hours.  I didn’t even hear Rich and Connor leave.

Rich has a Keurig coffee machine and I’ve been bringing up some Community Coffee K-cups so I don’t feel so guilty drinking multiple cups.  I like the convenience of K-cups, but they don’t give you the chance to make a stronger cup of coffee.  Unfortunately Community doesn’t have a coffee cup with chicory, but I’ll survive.  We’re taking it easy sunday morning and had lunch at Newks (my request).  Its a nice local restaurant that has sandwiches, soups and salads, but one of the sides is a portion of mac & cheese – delicious.  Hunter wasn’t exactly thrilled to be going, but he made do and was able to find something to eat.

We stopped at Publix on the way home to pick up a few ingredients for supper.  The last several weeks at home on Sundays……….I’ve been cooking. I told Eric that’s our new tradition.  He meets with his friends on sunday afternoons and they usually share food amongst themselves at their local hangout (Vineyards of the World) in downtown Clermont.  One of those weekends I made the most amazing lasagna. Eric doesn’t really like lasagna so he’s never cooked it for us at home.  I found a recipe using a small cast iron skillet and it was a perfect size for me and Beverly, and maybe some leftovers for work.  It was delicious!!!!  Even Eric said so.  🙂  He had a small taste when he got home.    I looked at several recipes and made a dish that suited my tastes.  So, when I knew I was going up to Ponte Vedra, I asked Karen if she would mind me making it again – she didn’t.  🙂  She made some garlic bread and we had a nice meal.  Hunter had leftover pizza – he was happy.

We did some preliminary work with jewelry on Sunday.  I brought things that I had made on earlier visits and really didn’t like and had not worn them.  I took them apart and incorporated some of the beads in new earrings.  I had also bought some beads and accessories on-line and at Michaels, so it was show & tell with Karen.  I need to keep better track of what I’ve got and purchase things that complement each other.

After dinner we watched a movie on Netflix – Enchanted.  It was a cute (Disney) movie and had a lot of hidden nuances and took shots at Disney.  I probably didn’t catch half of them, but it was nice and light-hearted.

Monday we got down to work with making jewelry.  I call Karen’s upstairs the ‘room of creativity’.  While I usually come home with a variety of pieces made (all earrings thus far). Karen spends more time helping me finish things and find ‘just the right bead’ for the earrings I’m making, she doesn’t get a lot of time to focus on her own things.  Below are some recent earrings made at Karen’s.

There are 8 pairs of earrings on the frame that I didn’t make, but they are some of the ones I wear frequently so I put them with the others to keep everything within easy reach.

Lunch on Monday was just Karen and I and we drove to a place that specializes in biscuits.  It was too much food!  The fried green tomatoes sounded good so I got them and it was enough to share amongst a family.  My biscuit sandwich had bacon and fried chicken.  It was big and tall and much too hard to pick up – had to use a fork to deconstruct it just to eat it.  We’ll be back again.

  

They had a dessert biscuit with raisons and icing.  I was too full to order one but Karen let me take a bite of hers.

It seemed so easy to take photos while I was in Shanghai but I have gotten out of the habit.  There were several places in this posting that I wanted a photo and didn’t take one to include.  However,  I can’t believe I was able to get Karen in a photo outside of the biscuit restaurant “Maple Street Biscuit Company”.  She is usually very elusive.

While at the restaurant, we met their vivacious manager in training and turns out that she was on the College Program at Disney last Fall.  In between customers she stopped by our table and shared her CP experiences.

I stayed until Tuesday afternoon.  We finished a few jewelry pieces that morning then drove over near their Publix to a place called ‘The Loop’ for burgers and fries.  AFterwards I packed up the truck to drive home.  I like to beat the rush hour traffic in Orlando and the goal is to be on the road from Ponte Vedra by 2pm.

Before my 6 months in Shanghai, I visited Karen’s by myself at least once and upon returning made several visits in last Fall.  I’ve got to keep planning these trips.  I think it’s good for both of us and I’m just sorry it took me 8+ years to figure that out.  We’re trying to plan jewelry weekends every two months or so.