In Which Chella Recalls Her Time Spent In Florida And Rambles On A Bit
Let's see... What did I do on my trip?
I was under the impression that on the day we left out, I'd be crawling into a car sometime just before noon and on my way. So I stayed up very late, thinking that that way I could do some Internet Things I wanted to get taken care of. But somewhere around 3am, I think, I got tired and went to bed anyway, leaving a few minor things undone (or at least, I hope the things I left undone were all minor. No one's left a nastygram in my inboxes, so...)
I woke up again sometime a few hours later, hearing my parents talking. So I got up, thinking that was the thing to do. Because there was the chance I could talk to a few people on IM before I left on my trip, I turned on one of my services and - yay - got to talk to Aria and Vikki and Jeddu before I left out for the trip! Fast-forward to 2pm-ish when my parents finally said, "okay, we're leaving out!" and we all piled into my dad's truck. I got the entire backseat to myself, so I stretched out sideways and drew, I think.
Traffic sucked. We got caught in a traffic jam outside one of the big cities (I think Atlanta, but, to be honest, I've no idea). The only other memorable thing about the trip is I learned that the black skirt I raved about a few entries ago is........ uh... well, it's not something I'm used to wearing, anyway. XD; I'm not used to climbing into a vehicle and then taking a half minute to gather my skirt so it won't get trapped in the door or take up the entire back seat. Still doesn't prevent me from loving it to ridiculous degrees!
Got to Destin, FL after dark. Way after dark. Around 10pm. Ryan had gone down to Destin the night before with Rustin and his crew and apparently hadn't been fed at all that day, so we (my dad and I, Mom stayed behind) took him off to Wendy's to get food. Next door to the Wendy's was an icecream shop, so we parked over there and while Ryan ate, I was sent off to do 'recon' on the icecream store's menu. One of the guys who had previously been sitting out near the dumpster talking to a co-worker came up to the store and popped his head out the window to take my order. And I was all, "I've no idea what I want yet" and he was all, "okay, then I will distract you by flirting with you" and I'm like, "sure, knock yourself out". I talked with him for a good... oh.. 10 - 15 minutes before I was like, "well, I'm going to go back to check on my dad and brother who are around the corner and cannot see me from here and might think I got kidnapped, we'll be back to order something soon" - and I gave him my Side7 website and one of my email addresses. When I came back to order, he gave me his email in return. I had no pockets. This was a loss-of-slip-of-paper waiting to happen. He never wrote me during my entire vacation and I cannot at this point find the slip of paper (I did manage to get it to Orlando before I lost track of it), so I guess it doesn't matter. XD;
The first night we were staying in an upstairs hotel room thing that gave me a bit of claustrophobia. I mean, it was small, but it was made smaller by the idea that I was probably sharing it with far too many people. My parents, my brothers, and three of my brothers friends. Thankfully (I guess?), the boys solved the problem by going drinking and deciding to crash "elsewhere" for the night. I got a bed entirely to myself and my youngest brother took an air mattress on the floor. We didn't wind up getting a huge amount of sleep, but enough that we were refreshed enough to repack everything, load it up into the truck and drive the whole lot two buildings down to re-unpack for another night in another upstairs room. This room was only slightly bigger.
We rested for a few minutes and then went to the commissary to pick up food for the BBQ for after the wedding. Once back, we got dressed and headed off to a "state park" on the beach, where the wedding was to be held.
The ocean in Destin, FL is absurdly blue and beautiful and the sands insanely white. White white white. Blinding white. Fine as sand. And white. It's the kind of beach that can punch you in the face and you'd thank it. It was also windy and the sky had only an artistic arrangement of clouds.
When we arrived, we could see that not one but two weddings would be taking place at that little strip of the beach. To our right was sort of this... luau themed wedding arch, and I was like, "I knew the wedding was casual, but I had no idea Jennifer and Rustin were into luau themes..." and then I looked left and saw a more traditional white trellis wedding arch and pink and white flowers and (green) greenery woven into it and went, "aaahhh..." with a nod.
The pavillion we were holding the BBQ/reception thing on was this sort of grey weathered wood with about a dozen picnic tables. Some random people were having their lunches on it and I think were very confused as to why people were coming there dressed nicely (not formally, just 'too nice for the beach'). They left pretty quickly after people tossed words like 'wedding' around and such.
Not a whole lot to talk about in regards to before the ceremony... My brother was a dummy and left Jennifer's ring in his hotel room. Thankfully two of his friends had only just left the hotel room when the 'pastor' (I've no idea if this is the proper term for the guy - the man who married my brother to my new-sister is a veternarian Jennifer works for who happens to have the ability to marry people) jokingly asked if he remembered the ring. Moops. (That's okay, apparently Jennifer almost left the ring for Rustin back in Alabama.)
Because Jennifer was going by the traditional groom-must-not-see-the-bride-before-the-walk-to-the-altar thing, she hid out in the bathroom for quite a while. When it was time for her to have her 'before' photos taken on the beach, Rustin was told to hang out in the guy's bathroom, but he was like, "Uh, no." and walked a bit to hang out in the playground nearby. After awhile, I went and joined him and we talked a little. I got a photo of him sitting in the empty playground in his white wedding outfit (a pair of loose pants and a nice white short sleeved shirt - like I said, casual) and sitting on one of those child's rocker toys. I was really rather struck by the thought that my brother didn't seem nervous at all. I suppose that's because they started dating in 1998 and have been living together in their own house for nearly the last two years. But I still sort of expected some sort of nerves. Eh. It wasn't long after I got there that we were called back to take our 'before' photos.
Photos were taken (I gave the photographer some degree of fit because of my long hair in the high breeze and because I didn't think to take off my glasses before the photo). Eventually, the actual ceremony began (a bit later, I think, than was desired by everyone, because people kept wandering off when they were needed).
I was asked to do two simple things - pass out little bottles of bubbles for the wedding guests (about... I dunno.. 30 or so) to blow about and to hit the 'play' button on the CD player the moment Jennifer walked down the boardwalk thing. Easy enough, right? So, when cued, I hit "Play". Apparently, I suck at life, because no music issued forth. I sort of panicked a bit because that was all I was asked to do. One of the younger male guests (I've no idea if he was Rustin's friend or one of Jennifer's friend's significant others) tried to help and we figured out that someone had switched the damn thing onto the wrong setting. But by the time Jennifer reached the bottom of the stairs on the boardwalk, we had the song playing. Too bad the wind was so loud, you could barely hear the music, even though the volume was way up.
Bubbles were blown by the guests and by the wind. Jennifer looked gorgeous. Her dress was seriously beautiful. I couldn't even describe it in a way that would do it justice - I'll have to upload photos. I stood in the back of the rows of white benches that were propped up in the white sands. I was far enough away that I was having trouble hearing all the words of the ceremony, but close enough to see quite well how beautiful it was.
The 'pastor' was wearing all black, framed in a white arch with beautiful greenery/flowers. Behind him was a blue, blue ocean and sky and in front of him were my brother and Jennifer in white on white. It was very striking. The vows that Rustin and Jennifer picked out weren't any of those, "HEAR AND OBEY ME" shitty things. They were beautiful. The pastor spoke a little before the exchange of rings and said that he had known Jennifer and Rustin for years and knew them as caring, hard-working people and knew they would be able to handle the stresses of a marriage and work it out between them and such. I can't remember all of what was said, but it struck me as powerful. The only person involved in the wedding who was not a long-time friend or family member was the professional photographer. And except that she kept stepping on me, she was pretty ignorable anyway. Except that because she was the professional, I felt compelled not to 'compete' with her to get shots. (I had my digital camera with me.) I did, however, get a few seconds of video of the ceremony. Too bad I apparently (I haven't seen the footage yet) recorded it 'sideways' and the wind was so strong you (apparently) can't hear anything said. Oh well.
Yadda, yadda, ceremony over, the photographer takes the wedded couple off down the beach for some more photos. The light was fading at this point, so some of them were taken at sunset. I've seen these photos and they are simply stunning in their beauty. It helps that my brother and his wife are attractive people too. Heh. Edit to add: Here are some photos! click! - The first three were taken either by myself or Mom. The others were the pro photos.
La la, la, BBQ. We ate. We (well, my parents and youngest brother) invited Ryan and Rustin's friend Adam to come with us to Orlando. We bullied Rustin and Jennifer into doing their First Dance. We took it all down and went back to that room we were staying at.
Next day we go to the hotel Rustin and Jennifer were going to spend the next few days honeymooning at to drop off their wedding flowers. Jennifer was out on the beach with the ??? of honor (??? = maid? matron? the chick was married, but younger than I am, so I dunno if 'matron' is appropriate) getting some sun. We all hung out in the wedding suite for awhile while we waited for Adam to wake up and drive the half hour or so to the hotel. Wait wait wait. Okay, well, let's wait at the beach, because Adam called and couldn't find his wallet. Wait wait wait.
I'm wore a long skirt and strappy shirt that day. Because it was the ocean and we weren't going to have time to swim in it, I gathered up my skirt juuust short of "omg, pantyshot!" and waded into the surf. I turned to (laughingly) complain to my dad that the water was splashing high enough to get the hem of my skirt wet when another wave rolled up and soaked the crap out of me. So much for not getting the skirt wet. XD;;; I scurried back to the beach chairs and sat down and called Aria so I could yap. We talked for about 40 minutes, I think, before we heard back from Adam in regards to what was going on with the Adam situation. Because I wanted to hear it properly, I said goodbye to Aria, only to find out that we were going to still wait. Argh. Jennifer set up a beach umberella and I sat under that with her until it was time to go. Little did I know that the beach umberella probably saved me from a hideous sunburn. I almost didn't sit under it, either, thinking that Jennifer was the one in a bikini and needed more sun protection than I did. >_>
FINALLY we heard back from Adam that he wouldn't be riding with us because he couldn't find his wallet and without his I.D., he couldn't drink alcohol at bars/restaurants so "what would be the point" in going with us to Orlando at all? (.....) Yeah. My thoughts exactly. Anyway, he said he'd drive down with Rustin and Jennifer when they drove down to join us.
So my parents, Ryan and I were on our way (finally) to Orlando. Though Ryan and Mom dropped off in a ballroom on the way out of the hotel to gate-crash an insurance convention. They got MUCH MUCH MUCH swag before one of the agents went, "...so what company are you guys from? ... ... You know this isn't open to the public, right? Just insurance agents and their families?" Three or four teeshirts, two pairs of flip-flops, candy, a first aid kit, lip balm (mine now - yoink!), a light-up frisbee, a squish-toy shaped like a truck, two chair-shaped cell-phone holders.... that's all I can think of right off. But that was only about half of their haul. They are total con-sharks. I seriously considered packing them into my suitcase to take with me to AX because they were only gone 15 minutes and got more swag than I'd got from two seperate cons put together. o.o;
Anyway. We piled into the truck and drove down to Orlando. Whee. We got there after dark and got a little tiny bit lost. But, who cares? WE HAD ARRIVED AT VISTANA RESORT! I have much love for Vistana Resort. It's a place my parents have owned at since I was about 2 years old. It was a very wise investment and we discussed, this trip, that I would inherit the 'ownership' of it when my parents were done with it. We arrived sort of too late and my dad was grumpy, so we didn't really get a good room. It was a second floor apartment, when we'd requested a first floor for months. (My dad, my uncle and my brother have knee problems. The first two from old age and Ryan from when he broke his knee in his senior year of HS. I guess in a few years we can add me to the list of Knee Problem People, horray for arthritis???) We grudgingly recieved from the Vistana people the promise that the next day we could come by and reserve our two apartments for the next week, so we'd have first dibs. So we went to the first place and unloaded everything into the second floor (including putting clothing in drawers). Next day, we send Ryan and Mom in for the negotations. Ryan is really good at this sort of thing. He wrested from them not only to get two ground-floor, next-door units next to the pool for next week - but we could also move into one of them THAT DAY if we wanted. Dad was dubious about unpacking everything AGAIN (that'd be four moves in as many days), but Ryan and I promised to do the most of the backbreaking work. And so we did the move. Wew!!!
To recap the moves:
First night, second floor room.
Second day - unpack the first room, then bring it all back into another second-floor room.
Third day - unpack the second room, take it downstairs, haul it to Orlando, only to move it into a second-floor place.
Fourth day - unpack the Vistana room, move it into a first floor place.
Dad decided it needed deserved a name, so Ryan dubbed it the "Reaves Relocation Plan". Dad also declared that the next time we did any repacking/moving, it would be to go home, so no more of this nonsense. Hee.
La la la. Eventually Rustin, Jennifer and Adam arrived and brought THEIR stuff into our place (since they were going to take over the second place later in the week). The first night they stayed sucked. I think I want to leave it at that because it involved a big fight between my brothers and Adam. Eh.
Trying and failing to remember anything significant we did during this time. Swam at the pool a few times (my parents would wake up around 8am every morning and have coffee and a swim when the pool opened and would stay there until noisy people started showing up - I, however, was not so industrious). I called Aria and yapped a few times. I spent a LOT of time drawing in Vikki's Sketchbook (which was awesome fun to do). My uncle and his girlfriend showed up. They were nice, but I didn't spent too much time with them because I didn't have a whole lot in common with them. Nice, interesting folks, just entirely different age bracket. My uncle was a teenager when my dad was born, after all. Hmm... Actually, I can't think of anything significantly awesome that happened during the Orlando vacation other than....
...Cirque du Soleil!!!!!!!!! ....!!!!!!!!!
My uncle decided that he wanted to go see it, so he bought four tickets ($84 per seat @_@) intending to take himself, his g/f, my dad and my mom along. Dad was intending to buy me my own ticket, but Mom simply flatly refused to go at all.
I wore my SPECIAL SUPER SKIRT and another strappy top with beading and stuff. The stadium was very very... tall. Steep. Which was good, as it meant that it didn't matter if some tallass mo'fo with a hat sat in front of me. Not that one did.
We arrived early enough that we had examined the stage and the stadium and the audience for quite awhile, figuring out where things were likely to occur and such. We also got to see the 'pre-show' with the clowns. Let me stop here and state: I fear clowns. And for a few moments I was weirded out. Then I realized that they were Cirque du Soleil clowns, and were above fear and put into the category of AWESOME. They did this whole moving boxes routine that was very very funny. There was audience interaction as they stacked boxes in this one girl's lap until they were taller than she was. Eventually the Cirque clowns got the boxes onto the stage - wait, no, oops..... they dropped some of them on the way up the stairs! So the audience helped get them up there by tossing them to the clowns. At one point, two people threw boxes at the clowns, causing the "intelligent" clown to "freak out" and run to stack two boxes up to hide behind. He peered around the boxes and made some sort of "karate" pose, as if to mime, "I'll fight you all! attack me together, will you???" - it was hysterical.
The actual show started shortly after. It was................ amazing. Awe-inspiring. I would have gone to see it again the same night, if I could have. I'm pretty cheap, y'all. I splurge only on books and art supplies. I'm telling you now that I would have paid $84 of my own money to see a show I'd already seen. I want the dvd. I want all of the Cirque dvds. I'm going to have to hit up Ebay after my pocketbook recovers from this trip.
Rather than describe the Cirque show in detail, I encourage you to go see a Cirque show yourself if you've the opportunity. It's worth the money and the time. Particularly if you admire physical and performing talents (such as, but not limited to: acrobatics, ballet, trapeze, high wire acts, arial ballet, opera/other singing, mime, trick bikes, trampolines, etc, etc, etc). And the costuming is fantastic. It was crazy. Whatever 'main thing' was going on on the stage, there was another two or three things going on for you to look at as well. Don't want to watch the ballerina dance? You can look at the acrobat girl dressed like some crazy ass bird mimic the ballerina. Or maybe the Italian clowns (different from the original two clowns) will be nudging each other, or walking into walls or something. Or maybe you'd rather see the opera singer gesture as he(???) sang high above the crowd. Don't like the high wire act? Well, perhaps trick bikes is more your thing?
Cirque du Soleil made me look at the world slightly differently. To honor it, one of my RPG characters (Aleksa/Shroud) is going to switch her job from the "performing at a Six-Flags-type theme park in free shows" to "performing at a Six-Flags-type theme park, only for a Cirque du Soleil type show rather than the free show". My fellow RPGers will hear more about that later. Not here, though.
And other than that, nothing really 'big' happened in my Florida trip. My sunburn I got the day after my brother's wedding was only mildly painful and had mostly finished peeling by the 30th, when my parents and I got up at 3am (Orlando time) to drop me off at the airport and ship me to California.
And that, my friends, is a story for another time. Perhaps tonight!
I was under the impression that on the day we left out, I'd be crawling into a car sometime just before noon and on my way. So I stayed up very late, thinking that that way I could do some Internet Things I wanted to get taken care of. But somewhere around 3am, I think, I got tired and went to bed anyway, leaving a few minor things undone (or at least, I hope the things I left undone were all minor. No one's left a nastygram in my inboxes, so...)
I woke up again sometime a few hours later, hearing my parents talking. So I got up, thinking that was the thing to do. Because there was the chance I could talk to a few people on IM before I left on my trip, I turned on one of my services and - yay - got to talk to Aria and Vikki and Jeddu before I left out for the trip! Fast-forward to 2pm-ish when my parents finally said, "okay, we're leaving out!" and we all piled into my dad's truck. I got the entire backseat to myself, so I stretched out sideways and drew, I think.
Traffic sucked. We got caught in a traffic jam outside one of the big cities (I think Atlanta, but, to be honest, I've no idea). The only other memorable thing about the trip is I learned that the black skirt I raved about a few entries ago is........ uh... well, it's not something I'm used to wearing, anyway. XD; I'm not used to climbing into a vehicle and then taking a half minute to gather my skirt so it won't get trapped in the door or take up the entire back seat. Still doesn't prevent me from loving it to ridiculous degrees!
Got to Destin, FL after dark. Way after dark. Around 10pm. Ryan had gone down to Destin the night before with Rustin and his crew and apparently hadn't been fed at all that day, so we (my dad and I, Mom stayed behind) took him off to Wendy's to get food. Next door to the Wendy's was an icecream shop, so we parked over there and while Ryan ate, I was sent off to do 'recon' on the icecream store's menu. One of the guys who had previously been sitting out near the dumpster talking to a co-worker came up to the store and popped his head out the window to take my order. And I was all, "I've no idea what I want yet" and he was all, "okay, then I will distract you by flirting with you" and I'm like, "sure, knock yourself out". I talked with him for a good... oh.. 10 - 15 minutes before I was like, "well, I'm going to go back to check on my dad and brother who are around the corner and cannot see me from here and might think I got kidnapped, we'll be back to order something soon" - and I gave him my Side7 website and one of my email addresses. When I came back to order, he gave me his email in return. I had no pockets. This was a loss-of-slip-of-paper waiting to happen. He never wrote me during my entire vacation and I cannot at this point find the slip of paper (I did manage to get it to Orlando before I lost track of it), so I guess it doesn't matter. XD;
The first night we were staying in an upstairs hotel room thing that gave me a bit of claustrophobia. I mean, it was small, but it was made smaller by the idea that I was probably sharing it with far too many people. My parents, my brothers, and three of my brothers friends. Thankfully (I guess?), the boys solved the problem by going drinking and deciding to crash "elsewhere" for the night. I got a bed entirely to myself and my youngest brother took an air mattress on the floor. We didn't wind up getting a huge amount of sleep, but enough that we were refreshed enough to repack everything, load it up into the truck and drive the whole lot two buildings down to re-unpack for another night in another upstairs room. This room was only slightly bigger.
We rested for a few minutes and then went to the commissary to pick up food for the BBQ for after the wedding. Once back, we got dressed and headed off to a "state park" on the beach, where the wedding was to be held.
The ocean in Destin, FL is absurdly blue and beautiful and the sands insanely white. White white white. Blinding white. Fine as sand. And white. It's the kind of beach that can punch you in the face and you'd thank it. It was also windy and the sky had only an artistic arrangement of clouds.
When we arrived, we could see that not one but two weddings would be taking place at that little strip of the beach. To our right was sort of this... luau themed wedding arch, and I was like, "I knew the wedding was casual, but I had no idea Jennifer and Rustin were into luau themes..." and then I looked left and saw a more traditional white trellis wedding arch and pink and white flowers and (green) greenery woven into it and went, "aaahhh..." with a nod.
The pavillion we were holding the BBQ/reception thing on was this sort of grey weathered wood with about a dozen picnic tables. Some random people were having their lunches on it and I think were very confused as to why people were coming there dressed nicely (not formally, just 'too nice for the beach'). They left pretty quickly after people tossed words like 'wedding' around and such.
Not a whole lot to talk about in regards to before the ceremony... My brother was a dummy and left Jennifer's ring in his hotel room. Thankfully two of his friends had only just left the hotel room when the 'pastor' (I've no idea if this is the proper term for the guy - the man who married my brother to my new-sister is a veternarian Jennifer works for who happens to have the ability to marry people) jokingly asked if he remembered the ring. Moops. (That's okay, apparently Jennifer almost left the ring for Rustin back in Alabama.)
Because Jennifer was going by the traditional groom-must-not-see-the-bride-before-the-walk-to-the-altar thing, she hid out in the bathroom for quite a while. When it was time for her to have her 'before' photos taken on the beach, Rustin was told to hang out in the guy's bathroom, but he was like, "Uh, no." and walked a bit to hang out in the playground nearby. After awhile, I went and joined him and we talked a little. I got a photo of him sitting in the empty playground in his white wedding outfit (a pair of loose pants and a nice white short sleeved shirt - like I said, casual) and sitting on one of those child's rocker toys. I was really rather struck by the thought that my brother didn't seem nervous at all. I suppose that's because they started dating in 1998 and have been living together in their own house for nearly the last two years. But I still sort of expected some sort of nerves. Eh. It wasn't long after I got there that we were called back to take our 'before' photos.
Photos were taken (I gave the photographer some degree of fit because of my long hair in the high breeze and because I didn't think to take off my glasses before the photo). Eventually, the actual ceremony began (a bit later, I think, than was desired by everyone, because people kept wandering off when they were needed).
I was asked to do two simple things - pass out little bottles of bubbles for the wedding guests (about... I dunno.. 30 or so) to blow about and to hit the 'play' button on the CD player the moment Jennifer walked down the boardwalk thing. Easy enough, right? So, when cued, I hit "Play". Apparently, I suck at life, because no music issued forth. I sort of panicked a bit because that was all I was asked to do. One of the younger male guests (I've no idea if he was Rustin's friend or one of Jennifer's friend's significant others) tried to help and we figured out that someone had switched the damn thing onto the wrong setting. But by the time Jennifer reached the bottom of the stairs on the boardwalk, we had the song playing. Too bad the wind was so loud, you could barely hear the music, even though the volume was way up.
Bubbles were blown by the guests and by the wind. Jennifer looked gorgeous. Her dress was seriously beautiful. I couldn't even describe it in a way that would do it justice - I'll have to upload photos. I stood in the back of the rows of white benches that were propped up in the white sands. I was far enough away that I was having trouble hearing all the words of the ceremony, but close enough to see quite well how beautiful it was.
The 'pastor' was wearing all black, framed in a white arch with beautiful greenery/flowers. Behind him was a blue, blue ocean and sky and in front of him were my brother and Jennifer in white on white. It was very striking. The vows that Rustin and Jennifer picked out weren't any of those, "HEAR AND OBEY ME" shitty things. They were beautiful. The pastor spoke a little before the exchange of rings and said that he had known Jennifer and Rustin for years and knew them as caring, hard-working people and knew they would be able to handle the stresses of a marriage and work it out between them and such. I can't remember all of what was said, but it struck me as powerful. The only person involved in the wedding who was not a long-time friend or family member was the professional photographer. And except that she kept stepping on me, she was pretty ignorable anyway. Except that because she was the professional, I felt compelled not to 'compete' with her to get shots. (I had my digital camera with me.) I did, however, get a few seconds of video of the ceremony. Too bad I apparently (I haven't seen the footage yet) recorded it 'sideways' and the wind was so strong you (apparently) can't hear anything said. Oh well.
Yadda, yadda, ceremony over, the photographer takes the wedded couple off down the beach for some more photos. The light was fading at this point, so some of them were taken at sunset. I've seen these photos and they are simply stunning in their beauty. It helps that my brother and his wife are attractive people too. Heh. Edit to add: Here are some photos! click! - The first three were taken either by myself or Mom. The others were the pro photos.
La la, la, BBQ. We ate. We (well, my parents and youngest brother) invited Ryan and Rustin's friend Adam to come with us to Orlando. We bullied Rustin and Jennifer into doing their First Dance. We took it all down and went back to that room we were staying at.
Next day we go to the hotel Rustin and Jennifer were going to spend the next few days honeymooning at to drop off their wedding flowers. Jennifer was out on the beach with the ??? of honor (??? = maid? matron? the chick was married, but younger than I am, so I dunno if 'matron' is appropriate) getting some sun. We all hung out in the wedding suite for awhile while we waited for Adam to wake up and drive the half hour or so to the hotel. Wait wait wait. Okay, well, let's wait at the beach, because Adam called and couldn't find his wallet. Wait wait wait.
I'm wore a long skirt and strappy shirt that day. Because it was the ocean and we weren't going to have time to swim in it, I gathered up my skirt juuust short of "omg, pantyshot!" and waded into the surf. I turned to (laughingly) complain to my dad that the water was splashing high enough to get the hem of my skirt wet when another wave rolled up and soaked the crap out of me. So much for not getting the skirt wet. XD;;; I scurried back to the beach chairs and sat down and called Aria so I could yap. We talked for about 40 minutes, I think, before we heard back from Adam in regards to what was going on with the Adam situation. Because I wanted to hear it properly, I said goodbye to Aria, only to find out that we were going to still wait. Argh. Jennifer set up a beach umberella and I sat under that with her until it was time to go. Little did I know that the beach umberella probably saved me from a hideous sunburn. I almost didn't sit under it, either, thinking that Jennifer was the one in a bikini and needed more sun protection than I did. >_>
FINALLY we heard back from Adam that he wouldn't be riding with us because he couldn't find his wallet and without his I.D., he couldn't drink alcohol at bars/restaurants so "what would be the point" in going with us to Orlando at all? (.....) Yeah. My thoughts exactly. Anyway, he said he'd drive down with Rustin and Jennifer when they drove down to join us.
So my parents, Ryan and I were on our way (finally) to Orlando. Though Ryan and Mom dropped off in a ballroom on the way out of the hotel to gate-crash an insurance convention. They got MUCH MUCH MUCH swag before one of the agents went, "...so what company are you guys from? ... ... You know this isn't open to the public, right? Just insurance agents and their families?" Three or four teeshirts, two pairs of flip-flops, candy, a first aid kit, lip balm (mine now - yoink!), a light-up frisbee, a squish-toy shaped like a truck, two chair-shaped cell-phone holders.... that's all I can think of right off. But that was only about half of their haul. They are total con-sharks. I seriously considered packing them into my suitcase to take with me to AX because they were only gone 15 minutes and got more swag than I'd got from two seperate cons put together. o.o;
Anyway. We piled into the truck and drove down to Orlando. Whee. We got there after dark and got a little tiny bit lost. But, who cares? WE HAD ARRIVED AT VISTANA RESORT! I have much love for Vistana Resort. It's a place my parents have owned at since I was about 2 years old. It was a very wise investment and we discussed, this trip, that I would inherit the 'ownership' of it when my parents were done with it. We arrived sort of too late and my dad was grumpy, so we didn't really get a good room. It was a second floor apartment, when we'd requested a first floor for months. (My dad, my uncle and my brother have knee problems. The first two from old age and Ryan from when he broke his knee in his senior year of HS. I guess in a few years we can add me to the list of Knee Problem People, horray for arthritis???) We grudgingly recieved from the Vistana people the promise that the next day we could come by and reserve our two apartments for the next week, so we'd have first dibs. So we went to the first place and unloaded everything into the second floor (including putting clothing in drawers). Next day, we send Ryan and Mom in for the negotations. Ryan is really good at this sort of thing. He wrested from them not only to get two ground-floor, next-door units next to the pool for next week - but we could also move into one of them THAT DAY if we wanted. Dad was dubious about unpacking everything AGAIN (that'd be four moves in as many days), but Ryan and I promised to do the most of the backbreaking work. And so we did the move. Wew!!!
To recap the moves:
First night, second floor room.
Second day - unpack the first room, then bring it all back into another second-floor room.
Third day - unpack the second room, take it downstairs, haul it to Orlando, only to move it into a second-floor place.
Fourth day - unpack the Vistana room, move it into a first floor place.
Dad decided it needed deserved a name, so Ryan dubbed it the "Reaves Relocation Plan". Dad also declared that the next time we did any repacking/moving, it would be to go home, so no more of this nonsense. Hee.
La la la. Eventually Rustin, Jennifer and Adam arrived and brought THEIR stuff into our place (since they were going to take over the second place later in the week). The first night they stayed sucked. I think I want to leave it at that because it involved a big fight between my brothers and Adam. Eh.
Trying and failing to remember anything significant we did during this time. Swam at the pool a few times (my parents would wake up around 8am every morning and have coffee and a swim when the pool opened and would stay there until noisy people started showing up - I, however, was not so industrious). I called Aria and yapped a few times. I spent a LOT of time drawing in Vikki's Sketchbook (which was awesome fun to do). My uncle and his girlfriend showed up. They were nice, but I didn't spent too much time with them because I didn't have a whole lot in common with them. Nice, interesting folks, just entirely different age bracket. My uncle was a teenager when my dad was born, after all. Hmm... Actually, I can't think of anything significantly awesome that happened during the Orlando vacation other than....
...Cirque du Soleil!!!!!!!!! ....!!!!!!!!!
My uncle decided that he wanted to go see it, so he bought four tickets ($84 per seat @_@) intending to take himself, his g/f, my dad and my mom along. Dad was intending to buy me my own ticket, but Mom simply flatly refused to go at all.
I wore my SPECIAL SUPER SKIRT and another strappy top with beading and stuff. The stadium was very very... tall. Steep. Which was good, as it meant that it didn't matter if some tallass mo'fo with a hat sat in front of me. Not that one did.
We arrived early enough that we had examined the stage and the stadium and the audience for quite awhile, figuring out where things were likely to occur and such. We also got to see the 'pre-show' with the clowns. Let me stop here and state: I fear clowns. And for a few moments I was weirded out. Then I realized that they were Cirque du Soleil clowns, and were above fear and put into the category of AWESOME. They did this whole moving boxes routine that was very very funny. There was audience interaction as they stacked boxes in this one girl's lap until they were taller than she was. Eventually the Cirque clowns got the boxes onto the stage - wait, no, oops..... they dropped some of them on the way up the stairs! So the audience helped get them up there by tossing them to the clowns. At one point, two people threw boxes at the clowns, causing the "intelligent" clown to "freak out" and run to stack two boxes up to hide behind. He peered around the boxes and made some sort of "karate" pose, as if to mime, "I'll fight you all! attack me together, will you???" - it was hysterical.
The actual show started shortly after. It was................ amazing. Awe-inspiring. I would have gone to see it again the same night, if I could have. I'm pretty cheap, y'all. I splurge only on books and art supplies. I'm telling you now that I would have paid $84 of my own money to see a show I'd already seen. I want the dvd. I want all of the Cirque dvds. I'm going to have to hit up Ebay after my pocketbook recovers from this trip.
Rather than describe the Cirque show in detail, I encourage you to go see a Cirque show yourself if you've the opportunity. It's worth the money and the time. Particularly if you admire physical and performing talents (such as, but not limited to: acrobatics, ballet, trapeze, high wire acts, arial ballet, opera/other singing, mime, trick bikes, trampolines, etc, etc, etc). And the costuming is fantastic. It was crazy. Whatever 'main thing' was going on on the stage, there was another two or three things going on for you to look at as well. Don't want to watch the ballerina dance? You can look at the acrobat girl dressed like some crazy ass bird mimic the ballerina. Or maybe the Italian clowns (different from the original two clowns) will be nudging each other, or walking into walls or something. Or maybe you'd rather see the opera singer gesture as he(???) sang high above the crowd. Don't like the high wire act? Well, perhaps trick bikes is more your thing?
Cirque du Soleil made me look at the world slightly differently. To honor it, one of my RPG characters (Aleksa/Shroud) is going to switch her job from the "performing at a Six-Flags-type theme park in free shows" to "performing at a Six-Flags-type theme park, only for a Cirque du Soleil type show rather than the free show". My fellow RPGers will hear more about that later. Not here, though.
And other than that, nothing really 'big' happened in my Florida trip. My sunburn I got the day after my brother's wedding was only mildly painful and had mostly finished peeling by the 30th, when my parents and I got up at 3am (Orlando time) to drop me off at the airport and ship me to California.
And that, my friends, is a story for another time. Perhaps tonight!