Alex and Sam had a chance to go see Arsenal play Real Madrid on July 23rd.  No they didn’t take a trip to London or Madrid, but instead Washington DC as part of the teams exhibition games.  The original plan was for Alex and Sam to drive up together and spend the night, then come home.  But after further discussion it was agreed that Mom would make the drive and stay the night with them, then drive back.  In hindsight that was probably a good idea because the traffic was horrible.  Anyway, they got to see a great game and had a good time, even if Alex’s favorite team lost in penalty kicks.

We actually celebrated Father’s Day last weekend when Nana and Gung Gung were in town, but we did have a nice dinner on Sunday… beef brisket, French fries, couscous and grilled vegetables for Mom.  Of course, everyone had to work but Dad so he did most of the cooking. 😄

After work, Mom drove across the parking lot to see if she could spot the elusive creature known simply as Sam, in his new habitat.

Beef brisket with fixins

Sam’s birthday is of course June 3rd, but we didn’t celebrate the big day until this weekend when Nana and Gung Gung came down for a visit too.  Sam got to pick dinner, so it was a surf and turf weekend with Salmon and filet mignons.  He also requested his other favorite – mushroom risotto rice, which both the boys love and it’s actually quite odd since neither of them like mushrooms at all.  In addition, Sam got to pick a Saturday matinee movie, so he went to see Godzilla, everyone else with the exception of Alex (he had to work) went to see John Wick.  Sam didn’t mind going by himself and he said he would have given it a 9 out of 10.  The rest of us felt John Wick was a very happy and uplifting movie. 😀  Dinner was supposed to be outside, but some rain showers kept the dinner inside.  We did manage to sneak outside for dessert and the birthday Cake.  Happy 17th Birthday Sam!!

Sam’s slice of cake with the ice cream on top!

Sunday breakfast of Champions, bacon, eggs and waffles.

Well now it’s time to say good bye to Sam and all his kin. And they would like to thank you folks fer kindly droppin in. You’re all invited back next time to this locality. To have a heapin helpin of their hospitality.

The friendly little fella somehow managed to hop in the car after the movie and make the ride home with us? Quite unusual since we were parked in the middle of the parking lot? He seemed quite friendly as he hopped around the car, even with all the screaming. 🙂

Well the azaleas and the rhododendrons have come and gone, but the wildflowers and the hydrangeas are just now blooming.  Now if we could get some more rain so the vegetable garden will grow and Lis will have to stop watering it.  🙂

We ended the night at the Magic Kingdom to see the fireworks.  The fireworks actually started at 9pm, but luckily we got there an hour early because people were already lining up to get spots to see them.  We went down and staked out a spot in front of the castle, but with about 15 minutes Disney employees came around and asked everyone to stand up and move forward because there were so many people (we can’t imagine what this would be like in the middle of the season?).  Anyway, besides the fireworks Disney also put on a laser show on the castle itself.  The laser show choreographed to go with the music and characters could be seen moving from one section of the castle to the other.  In addition, the castle took on different motifs to match the different movies and character… all this was actually pretty impressive.  We probably won’t ever do that again, but it was worth seeing.

We made a quick trip around the world, stopping for Werther’s Orginal Caramel popcorn in Germany and some Italian gelato in Italy.  The Italian gelato tasted more like ice cream rather than gelato – the only real flavor was cookies and cream.  We asked if they had Pistachio and the girls behind the counter, both from Italy, said that was their favorite, but they had to ‘Americanize’ the gelato…. sad.  It was also the Spring Flower show and they had lots of extra displays throughout the park.  The one regret was that we didn’t actually eat here… would have loved to have the bangers n’ mash in England.

They also had a very nice model train set up outside of England… we are sure Gung Gung would have appreciated this one…..

We spent Wednesday morning until about 2pm at Animal Kingdom.  We were able to see the Lion King show and went on a safari… the safari was a little bumpy and Lis was queasy by the end of it so we opted out of the white rapid rides.

Kimono dragon

This is from the Avatar area – they say this is pretty cool at night because it’s lighted up like in the movie.

Rod has been at Best Buy for 15 years and for probably 10 of those 15 years the stores he has worked in has come pretty close to winning the annual Holiday Achievers contest (November – January).  However, only the 10 best teams in each territory (there are 6 territories in the company) actually win the contest.  Each year those 60 stores get to send their Leadership team (Supervisors and Managers), plus a guest to the Best Buy Achievers event.  Well this year, Rod’s store finally won and we got a chance to go to Walt Disney World!  Now WDW may be the most magical place on earth, but if you don’t like to get on the rides it may not be the best thing you could win.  🙂  One guest, Lis, got to go for Free – all expenses paid but we were allowed to bring other guests.  A couple of Rod’s co-workers brought their kids with them too, but Alex and Sam opted to stay at home.  Sam did have school all week including Prom, while Alex had finals…. that being said, I’m not sure they would have made the trip anyway.

Even though we don’t really like the rides, we still had a pretty good time.  Best Buy put us up in a hotel in Disney (right next to Epcot) and gave us quite a bit of spending money for food for the week and  2 days worth of passes to the park of your choice… including Universal Studios.  We chose Animal Kingdom and Universal Studios, but opted to upgrade for the Disney Park Hopper which allowed us to visit as many parks as we wanted to on Wednesday and then for Thursday chose Universal.   We ended up not going to Universal on Thursday as there were scattered showers all day, so we gave those tickets to some friends and relaxed and went to Disney Springs (shopping mall) for lunch.  Overall we had a good time,  and we some photos with some pretty famous people.  We will have a couple of more posts with photos from the various parks, but here are some photos of the hotel and Achiever’s event.

Early, Early Flight on Monday morning – 5:45am… we had to leave at 2:30am to get to the airport, but we stayed up til 11pm watching GOT

Hotel Dophin… right behind us is the Hotel Swann – they had BBY employees in both

They had 4 pools between the 2 hotels… this one with a waterfall and a slide.

The only selfie Lis has ever taken….

Walking back from the boardwalk… the ferry can take you to the boardwalk, Epcot and Disney Studios.

Monday night cocktail party/dinner on the “beach”

We made a stop at the snack bar during registration a couple of times… lasted us almost all week long.

Gaming computer setup

Range Hood with built in LED screen for viewing Netflix, recipes, etc.

98″ Sony 8K TV… retails for about $60k

ATT/HBO had a booth with the throne for GOT

Lis and Sam were clearing away some leaves from the flower bed last week and decided to clean up the huge pile of leaves by the sewer drain (it’s really not on our property but it needed to be cleared away).  In the process of doing this they found a huge supply of worms and decided they would start a worm farm.  Of course they didn’t really know what they were doing but they got an old potato bag and some dirt and put the worms in there for safe keeping.  After doing a little research online they found the best place to put them would be by the window in the den where it was cool and didn’t get a lot of sun.  Lis has been feeding them some leftover celery and other produce but fortunately since putting them in the bag we really haven’t seen them.  🙂

Meanwhile in the backyard a bird built a bird nest in the small tree by the vegetable garden.  Lis was looking at the nest and realized that it had somehow managed to get a very large piece of French baguette into the nest… it’s actually part of the nest wall.  Now judging by the size of the nest, the bird wasn’t really that big so we don’t know how it managed to get it up in the tree.  The good thing though, the bread is probably now as hard as a rock and should provide some good protection.  🙂

We had a nice day for Easter this year and decided to take dinner outside.  Leg of lamb, Mac n cheese, asparagus and some purple potatoes for dinner with some cookies for desert.  The boys actually look good too.  🙂