I'm a huge Harry Potter fan!!! I can't wait until Universal opens up their Harry Potter land. It sounds so neat!
I'll look into Edmund Morris next time I'm at the bookstore.
Oh yeah, me too!! I am so excited for it.
You should...he's really a great author. "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt" actually won a Pulitzer. He's also known for his Ronald Reagan bio, but I haven't read that yet. I'm a huge Theodore Roosevelt fan, so I may be a bit bias. I also really like David McCullough a lot.
I like Carino's better than OG. The atmosphere is better IMO. It has a little bit of that cellar vibe going with dark woods, but also the tuscan feel with gold and red. There are more booths at Carino's too, whereas most OG don't have too many booths. We only go to OG now when we really want THAT salad. I used to buy the salad dressing from them to try to cut down on our eating out. It's the dressing really, that makes it so good.
Sweet Tomatoes isn't too convenient to get too. We have to make a point to go there. Which is probably good.
Ooh, I think I'd really like that atmosphere too. I always get a bit claustrophobic when I go to our local OG. I swear they have crammed as many tables as they possibly could in a tiny little space. That salad, well dressing (you're right), makes it worth it. I actually have a bottle of it in my fridge right now. It's not exactly a healthy option, but it's just so dang good!
Yeah, if we had a Sweet Tomatoes close by I'd probably spend WAY too much money on eating out. It's just so yummy!!
Yep, I would've had to come up with some sort of plausible excuse for that one - this trip is a total surprise for our boys! They have no idea that we're going

Two reasons for that - (1) if they don't know, they can't tell dh's family (he doesn't want them to know beforehand kwim?); and (2) if they don't know, they won't be harassing us about it

Oh, and because we just wanted to surprise them
Aw, I think that's really cool that you're surprising them! I would love to do that when we have kids. We kept out last trip a secret from my Mom. We felt that if she found out she'd just invite herself along and drive us all crazy.

I was so impressed that I was able to keep my mouth shut for so long -- so was my sister.

When you do tell the kids, make sure you capture on camera. I think the reactions would be priceless!!
Yep, I definitely did get the better part of that!

She will be 2yo on September 1 - we haven't seen them since last summer when they came here to visit

We miss them!
Ugh, that's a long time! I hope it all works out. It stinks to be so far away from a close friend, especially when there are kids involved. I'm so sad that I don't get to be there for my best friend when she has her baby shower and baby.
So far, so good - well, I haven't been printing out every bloody thing I can find on WDW this time like last time yet

I NEED Disney to release the park hours for September though!
Ugh, don't you hate having to wait 90 days out?! I swear, whoever came up w/ that idea just needs to get the boot!! I don't make ADRs, but I would really like to see my touring plans on TourGuideMike. It's really annoying!!! I have to wait until May, and that just seems like a very LONG time.
I, too, am a bibliophile, but I'm way too cheap to buy books new (I read too quickly to justify that in our budget lol) so I buy them at our local library. There's always a sales shelf there and the paperbacks are 3/$1.00, sometimes 4/$1.00

My preferred genres are thriller/suspense/mystery
Wow, that sounds like a great sale! I wish we had something like that around here. The Red Cross does a book fair once a year, and I've found some really great deals there. I found the fourth "Harry Potter" in mint condition for only $2! A friend of mine got a copy of a Frank Capra bio signed by Frank Capra for about $3. I was envious over that one.
Thanks to your encouragement, I'm really thinking about doing a TR (maybe even a PTR), but I would be doing that on another site

The very idea still makes me

, but perhaps I'll try!
WHAT?! You mean, there is another site other than DIS?!?!

You should definitely start one. It's hard at first, and even bit discouraging if you just have lurkers and no responders. But, after you get into it it's a lot of fun!