Week ten! (and a half)

Hi friends!

First: Happy Birthday Fairma!  I'm glad you had a good day and I'm super excited to see you soon and I love you lots :)

So I survived my first kind-of Florida hurricane! Which I'm pretty sure wasn't actually a hurricane by the time it reached us. And was actually just a ton of rain. But. Whatever it was, it happened and I'm still here. Just maybe a little wetter than I was before. 

Fun things from last week:

• On Wednesday, we had a team builder at Epcot after work.  It was a scavenger hunt throughout the park, which was awesome. It was also pouring, so we were soaked from the time we got there pretty much. 

So wet. Visiting a troll in Norway

 Fun fact: they still run the fireworks show even when it's raining!

The wilderness must be explored! Whatever the weather

• I already posted about my dinner on Thursday, and I had a really nice day before that.  Erin and I hung out for the whole day, and we watched The Little Prince.  Which might be one of my new favorite movies.  It was absolutely wonderful, and I highly recommend that you watch it. 
• After work on Saturday, I went with some friends to Magic Kingdom.  I know I've said this on here before, but it still blows my mind that I can just do that--say, "Hey, I want to go to Magic Kingdom after work tomorrow" and then make it happen. The park was crazy crowded (Saturday night of Labor Day weekend), but still a lot of fun. We watched Celebrate the Magic and Wishes (castle show and fireworks) and I rode the Peter Pan ride for the first time since getting here!

The castle is so beautiful

"I only hope that we don't lose sight of one thing - that it was all started by a mouse."

Wishes

Ready for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party! (I'm going at the end of the month)

Friends!

• On Sunday afternoon, I went out to lunch with Maggie and her boyfriend Jacob.  Ten points to you if you can guess where we went?  Correct answer: Ethos. This was the first time I was there for lunch, and it was super yummy. 

Breakfast skillet: tofu scramble with veggies, potatoes, cheddar cheese, breakfast sausage and a biscuit

And a cinnamon roll!

Finally got pictures of more than just the food there!

Third wheeling like a champ

• Finished my e-learning stuff for SCUBA!  The class starts on Friday...
• Also survived my first real car issues/flat tires/broken valves. Huge shoutout to Uncle Greg for coming to my rescue last night! Thank you so much. And to Erin for keeping me company at the car service place today :)

And some of my favorite stories from work:

• Didn't happen to me, but this afternoon I heard a little girl tell another presenter that her favorite animal is cheese...
• In one day, I got told off by two different little girls for addressing the first one as "friend" (her response: "I'm a PRINCESS!") and the second one as "princess" ("I'm not a princess!").
• On one of the days that was so wet, I watched a small child be pushed by me in a stroller pretty much wrapped up in a Disney shopping bag
• One morning, while I was helping her children get started with our program and the macaws were flying by the Tree of Life (Winged Encounters, a show that happens at the park) I heard a woman say to herself "This is amazing." And I get to do it every day :D
• Also in one day, I met three separate Katies from NJ... Including one from Roxbury Township
• Met a family who had completed their books over several trips in a number of years (they said 11 trips in 5 years, but our program didn't start as Wilderness Explorers until 2013, so that can't be quite right).  One of the things the little girl told me that she'd learned from the program, as part of a list of facts she shared with me, was that "wilderness exploring is awesome."  And she gave me a hug after I got her the senior badge and celebrated, and it was fantastic. 
• Learned that all crocodilians have tongues that are attached to the bottom of their mouths along the entire length of the tongue.  Also learned that not only is trying to speak while keeping your tongue attached to the bottom of your mouth quite amusing, but asking others to do the same is also adorable and fun :)

And that's all for now. As we get closer and closer to Princeton heading back to school (classes start one week from today), not being on campus is feeling stranger and stranger.  Also as we get closer to actual "fall," it's going to be weirder and weirder that it's not colder. I'm still learning how to be a non-college student not living in the Northeast.

Bye for now!

Bonus photo: where do I live now? This was taken during a run at the intersection of "Wild Strawberry Run" and "Wild Black Berry Tr"