It's been a while since we've posted anything, so I'll take this late night opportunity to briefly write about what's been going on lately.  My sister had her baby last month, so I'm officially an uncle.  I was already an uncle since Kirstin's sister has a son, but now I've got a blood related nephew.  I've gotten a couple more tattoos.  My tattoo artist has been doing a great job on my pieces.  I think I'm finally done with my upper arms and will be moving to my back and legs next.  I'll get some update pictures posted here and on Facebook soon.  Kirstin's birthday was a few days ago.  We went out to BJ's Brewery a couple days early to celebrate with our friends.  Then on her birthday I took her out to Claim Jumper.  In between both of those meals out was Memorial Day weekend where we participated in two bar-b-ques with various friends.  Needless to say, we consumed quite a bit of food over those few days.

Finally, Kirstin had surgery this morning.  She had a whole ton of work done in her throat and nose to help solve her breathing obstruction issues.  We got there at 6am, surgery started at 7:30am, and we left the hospital at about noon.  Now that we've been home for a while it seems like Kirstin is doing well.  She's supposed to take about 1-2 weeks to recover.  In the meantime, she's on a strict diet of gatorade, pudding, jello, and yogurt.

Nick's sister, Stephanie, is expecting her first baby and it's a boy!  The due date is April 28th and her first baby shower was March 21st and I threw the par-tay.  We had a great time.  The theme of the party was:  Baby Needs a Name!  They're still trying to decide what boy name they can both enjoy... I think they're going to wait until the baby is born to name him, maybe inspiration will come after seeing him.  We ate enchilladas, rice, beans, salsa, guacamole, nachos, and we had tons left over!  A few special highlights:  The party favors were personalized and the cupcakes were hand made with lots of love.  She received a lot of great gifts and it's amazing how much stuff a baby needs.  I'll post pictures and update more info when I get a chance, but I just wanted to say:  Congratulations Stephanie.  Can't wait to meet little no name/anonymous.  He'll be spoiled for sure by Uncle Nick and Auntie Kirstin. 

We actually got up at a decent time and headed out to Epcot early!  We got a sweet parking spot where we could walk to the front entrance.  We headed in and went straight for Soarin’ (we thought it would be more than what is at DisneyLand, but it was just California).  We snagged a FastPass and then hopped in line (50 minutes) to get on this fun and entertaining ride.  We then walked over to Spaceship Earth, where you go on a sit down tour of a timeline of the evolution of man and electronics.  You take a picture at the beginning of the ride and your face is edited into the ride at the end.  Well, Kirstin decided that it was almost time to get another FastPass, so she would take the tickets and head out to snag a couple for Test Track while Nick stayed in line.  Kirstin didn’t make it back in time to get on the ride with Nick, but while she was waiting for him, she met a nice elderly couple that were headed into the ride the back way through the handicaped entrance.  She chatted with them and asked if she could join them, as she wasn’t able to catch up with her husband.  They had no problems with a tag-a-long and Kirstin enjoyed chatting with them.  Nick waited for Kirstin to get off the ride, not realizing that she never got on – she was just in line for the ride.  So, Nick spots Kirstin while she’s at the front of the handicapped line with her new friends and he was able to hop on too for his second ride – only not alone this time!  Thanks Ethyl and Lester K. from New York!  After the long delay at Spaceship Earth thanks to Kirstin’s greed to get the next FastPass at the exact time it became available… we headed over to The Land where we had 40 minutes to kill before we could get onto Soarin’ and use those FastPasses.  Well, the attendant saw us contemplating whether to get in line or not, and asked how many were in our party.  We stated two and then he handed us two FastPasses that were valid immediately!  Woo hoo!  So, we got right onto Living with the Land (which we both thoroughly enjoy).  When we got off the ride, we noticed there was an attraction called “Behind the Seeds Tour” and we asked for more information.  Well, it’s $14 extra per person, but you get to walk backstage of Living with the Land with a tour guide that works back there.  We signed up for the last possible viewing and then we headed to use our FastPass at Soarin.’  The first time we went on the ride in the morning, we were in row 1, which was the highest row and the best view – there were no feet dangling in front of us, but this time we got row 3, which was ok.  We were getting hungry and our tour and FastPass to Test Track weren’t until later in the evening, so we decided to head out of the park to grab lunch.   The one really nice thing about having a rental car and paying for parking is that it’s only $12 to park at a park (all day – and you can re-enter any park as long as you show your pass) and we have the freedom to leave if we want to.  So we head back to Epcot around 3:30 and go to our tour.  The tour guide went over time, but it was ok since we were the last group.  We then booked it over to Test Track since our fast passes wouldn’t be valid if we didn’t rush over to the other side of the park.  Nick started feeling dehydrated during the day and kept drinking water.  As the day progressed, he started feeling like he had a scratchy throat.  Uh-oh!  Well we left Epcot and went over to the mall to find a store that had a couple swimming suits for us and managed to find some at Old Navy – woo hoo!   We headed back to the hotel and stopped off at Whataburger, since we’d heard of it and just had to try it – it was very yummy!  We had to make a short stop at Walgreens for some Zicam because Nick definitely felt like it wasn’t just dehydration – he was getting sick.  Stay away from Kirstin!!

Today was our first day at Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM).  We headed straight over to Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and grabbed FastPasses and then hopped in line (50 minutes) to ride this awesome coaster.  You go upside down a few times, weee!  Then we headed over to Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show where we watched how a movie car chase/stunt scene would come together.  We arrived over an hour early and the show filled up very quickly!   We then headed back over to Sunset Boulevard where we stood in line for The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (the sign said 90-70 minutes – it couldn’t make up it’s mind), but it took us 65 minutes to get on the ride.  Then we used a FastPass for Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith and it was much nicer to sail on through without worrying about the long lines.  We used a FastPass to get on Star Tours, which hadn’t changed much.  We then went and daw the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular! which was entertaining and it was nice to sit down.  On our way out of the park, we stopped off at Sounds Dangerous – Starring Drew Carey; it was a waste of time.  We headed out of the park and went to T.G.I. Fridays for dinner.  We then decided to head back to the park to try and catch the Fantasmic show (characters, lights, lasers, dancing water).  Bad idea.  The show had been lined up for blocks, but we managed to come in the back way and stand on the side and be shuffled in with the crowd.  It was an entertaining show for Kirstin.  We loved Rock ‘n’ Roller coaster so much that we stood in line one more time for it (but in the single rider’s line this time – where we still managed to get on the same limo, only in different seats).  We headed back to the hotel and sat out on the patio for a bit to enjoy the evening.

We got off to a late start today.  We decided to get some extra rest because we decided that tomorrow is going to be an early day.  Plus, Nick had to complete his football picks this morning since it’s the last week of the season and he was really hoping to pick up two games on his brother and finish the season with a tie.  Too bad that didn’t happen… Congrats Ben.  We started today off at Magic Kingdom.  We went straight over to Splash Mountain and got a FastPass.  We couldn’t use it for several hours though, so we waited in line for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.  The sign out front said the wait was 75 minutes, but it turned out to only be about 45 minutes.  Not bad considering how crowded the park was.  After Thunder Mountain we hopped on board the Walt Disney World Railroad and got off at Toontown and took the back way into Tomorrowland.   We got on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority which is a slow moving tram that takes you through all the parts and rides of Tomorrowland.  The coolest part of the ride was that we just happened to pass through Space Mountain while it was broken down and saw the inside of the ride with all the lights turned on and with some poor people stuck in cars on the tracks.  The ride doesn’t look nearly as ominous when its illuminated.  We were thankful we decided to get in line for the Transit Authority rather than Space Mountain!  After the tram we went over to Stitch’s Great Escape where the audience becomes a group of recruits at an alien prison.  Stitch is teleported in as a prisoner, but manages to escape and wreack havoc on the audience.  We then decided to wait in line for Space Mountain since it had recently been fixed and reopened and we still had quite a bit of time to kill before we could head back over the Splash Mountain.  The line for Space Mountain said 120 minutes, but it “only” took 75.  We walked back over the back path to Toontown and caught the train back to Frontierland to get on Splash Mountain.  After getting a little wet on Splash Mountain we headed back to the car (we remembered which park we were at this time) and went back to our room to eat some dinner and watch Sunday Night Football.  While we were eating, our neighbor that is taking care of cats called us.  We knew that he and his wife would be gone all week to spend Christmas with family, which was fine because the cats can go a few days without company as long as they have plenty of food and water.  Well, today was the first day they’d been home to check on the cats and a apparently Gwen managed to get closed into the guest bedroom before we left.  She’d been stuck in there for almost 5 days!  We felt awful for not noticing that she wasn’t around before we left.  Thankfully, our neighbors were able to let her out and she didn’t make a total mess of the room.  They reported she ran to the garage to do her business and get some food and water and then she came out to get some love from them.  We’ll have to make sure we give her a few extra treats when we get back.  Sorry Gwen!