Chapter 2: Let the Good Times Roll!
I did not reach in with the tongs and pluck a wiener off of the hot dog rotisserie that hadn't been cleaned in 20 years. Instead, I took another picture.
This one didn’t have as much glare action as the first. I giggled to myself as my boys were wondering why in the world I was taking pictures of hot dogs. Embarassed, they quickly went back to the candy aisle and I spied this fine jar of goodies. Again La, another treat for you.
I know that some of you out there actually like these (zzubton), however, I couldn’t imagine what kind of germs were living in that jar from previous purchases. Gotta love those Macon gas stations. I ended my photo shoot and turned to see my family checking out. I walked up to the counter to join them and the attendant jumps, yes jumps, to the side of the cash register and spreads out his arms real wide and says “My turn”! Eeeeekkkkk! I blushed and said ‘Oh, I was just taking a picture of your food for my friend because she really loves hot dogs,” and I scurried on out of the store.
It was great to get on the road again, headed towards my happy place. Mr. Frick asked me if I had packed his shoestrings. I was yanked away from my thoughts of my happy place and entered the ‘oh crap I left something at home' place. You see, I had washed our tennis shoes and left them by the door to grab on our way out. They were still in the last stages of drying so I had not put the strings in yet. I had a horrible sinking feeling.
Me: Yes, I packed your strings, but honey I am so sorry. I forgot to get your shoes.
Mr Frick: Oh I grabbed my shoes.
Me: Oh thank goodness, did you get mine too?
Mr Frick: I didn’t see them, so I guess you got them.
Me: I don’t think I got them. They were right beside yours so if I had gotten mine, I would have gotten yours too.
Mr Frick: Maybe I did get yours too.
Yep, that is when I knew I was in trouble. I knew he didn’t get my shoes. Remember, he was running around the house in a tizzy, much like Britney’s personal assistant trying to find where she’s ditched her undies. I was outside gloating by the car because FOR ONCE, I was the one packed and ready to go on time. Just because I wanted to act like him when I am the one not ready to go, I didn’t go back in for my usual sweep for stuff I had forgotten. Going back into the house would have given him the impression that I didn't have my crap together. Because of that, I was heading for Disney without my tennis shoes. I had about ten pairs of flip-flops, two pairs of cute/dressy sandals and a pair of really clean shoestrings. Oops.
I tried to get my mind off of how tore up my feet were going to be, so I started working on a new ring tone for my phone. I was tired of my old ring ’Wind it Up’ by Gwen. I downloaded the song “The Kill” by 30 Seconds to Mars and excitedly played it for Mr. Frick because it is one of his favorite songs too. He gave it a big thumbs down because I got the chorus where it shouts ’marry me marry me’. He said “You really want ‘marry me’ screaming from your phone when it rings?” Back to the search I went. My next choice was ‘Whine Up’. Thumbs down by my man. I tried “The Way I Are”. Again, a no go by my husband who was just shaking his head at me. You see I told y’all I can’t grow up when it comes to music. The golden choice ended up being “Let The Good Times Roll” by The Cars. It is an old song, like me, so it passed his ‘I’m not going to be embarrassed when it rings while I’m with her’ test. It happened to be a great theme for our trip. We were ready to let the good times roll.
What a year it had been since our last trip to Disney. Mr. Frick’s second business had taken off and had taken away a lot of his free time. His first and main business got robbed. I chaired a huge fund-raising event for our Jr Service League that took years off my life. My dear mother, who I will refer to as JoMomma, had a spot on her lung that grew. She had surgery and found out that yes, it was lung cancer, but it had not spread. So, that was a scary, sad and troubling time that fortunately turned out good in the end. We sold our house that we weren’t even trying to sell. We started building a new house. We moved. We are living in a rental that is a lemon. And, we’ve attended a funeral for a friend. It had been a crazy year, and escaping to the World for a bit was a welcomed adventure.
We have a tradition now when we travel to Disney. Our first night is dedicated to having some fun with Sponge Bob and Patrick at the Nickelodeon Suites hotel. I tried to talk my boys out of it this year so we would have more time with Mickey, but they wouldn’t have it. We do love the Nick hotel though. Our goal was to get there by 8:00 so we would have a couple of hours at the pool or catch a slime time show. Thanks to the Macon traffic and a need to eat dinner, we weren’t going to make it. We were getting close to Orlando around 9:15. Funny thing, we were far away but we could see fireworks in the distance. Those were Disney fireworks! Talk about getting pumped and a awakened from the being in the car too long funk!
We pulled into the Nickelodeon hotel at 9:40. Lil Frick was in a deep deep sleep and it was so hard to wake him up, but we couldn’t let him sleep through the arrival excitement. We were ready to have the Slime of our Life and he needed to quit sawing logs and get jazzed about it. We all went in to check in and within 10 minutes we had our all access armbands on and three room keys. We lugged our overnight bags to the room and when we opened the door, we saw this.
We had been upgraded to a lagoon view room and a Sponge Bob suite. Now last year, I paid extra for a Sponge Bob room. The boys wanted to try a different character so we didn’t fork out the extra money for our favorite sponge, but I’m happy with any type of upgrade and the boys didn’t complain. We quickly hoofed it over to the food court/gift shop area which closed at 10:00. We grabbed a snack and went back to our room for the night because everything was shutting down. After a little bit of t.v. and some noshes, we went to bed. We tucked two excited little boys into their bunk beds and crawled into our king size bed. We had to tell the boys to get quiet for about 20 minutes. They were seriously hyped up, but who could blame them! A World of fun was at our fingertips!
Lil Frick was the first to wake up at 7:50. He went straight to the couch and started watching t.v. and that stirred the rest of us out of our slumber. We ditched the $60 buffet character breakfast in favor of grabbing a granola bar and being the first to hit the pool. We got all suited and sunscreened up and I had to take pictures of the boys in front of THE wall. The wall where all the action is.
After a photo session with Bob we went out to find that the pool didn’t open until 9:00. Bum. We had forty five minutes to kill so we headed to the souvenier shop and the arcade. We stopped on the way to capture a picture of our precious boys who were about to bust with excitement.
That picture is one of my favorite pictures from the trip. The fun part of the vacation was officially beginning and it gives me the warm fuzzies when I look at it.
We shopped a little and played a little, and then it was time for this!
Oh yeah, the awesome pool and slides!
Look, they even tried to get all L.A. fancy with some copa cabanas.
The place was empty I tell you. We had friends who came here for three nights in July and they were miserable. They had paid peak season rates and they couldn’t even find a lounge chair when they came down to the pool. They think we are crazy for liking the place, but they just don't know how to roll with it like we do.
Now, Little Frick has always been afraid of water slides. I take the boys to a water park near Atlanta every year and the story is always the same, Stitch climbs up the steps to the slides by himself and Lil Frick and I wait for him at the bottom. Seems like a big waste of money, but Stitch loves him some water slides. For some reason though, my Lil Frick got brave. He tried out the small slides a few times and then decided he would go with his brother on the bad boys. I was sliding too, because I love me some water slides, and when we got to the middle-high slide, Lil Frick said he was going. His big brother had been taking care of him and urging him to try it, and it worked. I just kept my mouth shut and let Stitch do his thing. And it worked. Lil Frick took off on his first major slide and he screamed with excitement and accomplishment when he reached the bottom. That was all it took, he was hooked. I ran off to tell Mr. Frick, who was doing this.
I headed back in to the gift shop to buy my good little boys a present from us. I had seen a Sponge Bob Croc poppit, jibbit, ribbetz whatever they are called. I grabbed one for each little guy and came back and secretly popped them in their
Crocs. I just love little surprises. Kind of like the surprise UGA gave Bama when they scored a TD on their first play in overtime to win the game.
Eventually we were all sliding, laughing and having a rip roaring good time. Lil Frick took on every slide there and loved them all. We saw this as a good opportunity to remind him that he had missed out on all the sliding fun because of being scared and not trusting us when we tell him it is safe and fun. These slides gave him a sense of accomplishment and a zing for stepping out of his timid box. It was great to see! Just like last year, my Stitch announced early that he was ready to go to Disney. No one disagreed with him, so we left the slides and grabbed our stuff. When the boys slipped on their Crocs, they noticed their little treat and were so excited. I told them that we did that for them so that every time they slipped on their shoes, they would be reminded of the good time they had here. They smiled at me and we were off to pack our bags and check out. Mickey and the Beach Club was calling us, and it was time to go! Let the good times roll!
instead of this. 
I can't believe you went back and read my last tr, but that is so sweet of you that you did! 
