Weekend

 It was no one's idea of a restful weekend, but we had a good time!

I left school during lunch on Friday, came home and grabbed my stuff, picked up Emma and headed to the airport.

We were early, which is part of the flying with Thelma experience.

We went on Spirit airlines, one of those budget bare bones situations.  Emma said, "Whenever you hear about drama on a flight, it seems like it was Spirit airlines."

She is clairvoyant.  

The family in front of me had brought dinner and the daughter that looked like she was about in 5th grade, spilled her ranch dressing on the flight attendant's shoe accidentally and you would have thought that it was the end of times.

The family didn't apologize which peeved the flight attendant and then she ended up yelling at the mother who sobbed for the remaining two hours of the flight.

It was something.

I kept hoping to see the family at Disney World, to see how they were doing, but we never did.

I told Emma that if everyone just learned two lessons that I try to teach my students, all would have been avoided.

1- Apologize when you hurt someone even if it was an accident.

(Your daughter spilled ranch dressing on her shoe.  Say you're sorry.)

2- When someone does something wrong, that doesn't mean you should do something wrong.

(They didn't apologize, which was sort of rude.  Get over it.)

I don't tell my students to stop crying, but I think it regularly.

We were happy to see Adam.  We went to Portillo's for dinner, which was delicious.  Then we took Emma with us to the Gaylord Palms where the conference had been and where we had a room.  It was incredibly beautiful.  Adam and I love Spanish style architecture and the lobby was amazing.

We had another room at Coronado Springs, which is a Disney Property so we took Emma there.  That girl loves Disney stuff.  It was a great hotel and a great room (it had one and a half baths!).  Adam had a third room at another hotel, but he and I stayed together at the Gaylord.

We had our own drama Saturday morning.  We thought we were supposed to meet our group at 8:00.  That felt really early, since it was 6:00 mountain time.  Adam and I decided to get up at 7:00 and just hurry over to Coronado Springs.  Adam didn't set his alarm properly so I woke up about 7:20 and we had a full on panic get ready for the day.  We zipped to Coronado Springs, getting there just a hair past 8:00, which was kind of amazing.  Emma was there, but no one else in the group was.  Adam called them and we were actually meeting at 9:00!

But, the jolt of adrenaline was nice to get the day started.

There were a total of 8 of us going on the VIP tour.  We had a very nice tour guide who was as unflappable as she was knowledgeable.  We had her from 9:00 AM-6:00 PM.  She was there for whatever we wanted and we decided we wanted to try going to all four parks.

We started at Animal Kingdom, which we had never been to.  We went on some rides there (I sat out the roller coasters which is also part of the Thelma experience).  We enjoyed that park.  There is great atmosphere there and the safari was fun.  It was also fun to be driven to the backlots and never wait in line.

Will we be able to return to Disney as a civilian?  (We'll have to be, I think this was a once in a lifetime experience.)

We went to Hollywood Studios and Epcot and every time we changed parks we were met at the van and presented with a selection of free for the taking snacks.  Our guide also bought us drinks several times and did a complimentary Starbucks run for us.  They had a strawberry lemonade that revitalized my flagging spirits!

This is in Hollywood Studios:

It was 90 degrees with all the Florida humidity and it was a lot for us desert dwellers.  So hot!

We ended at Magic Kingdom, which was where I mostly wanted to be, but it was open the latest so it was good to end there.  We hit lots of favorites and our guide was going to take our group to Tron for the last ride with her (no lines) and Emma asked if she and I could go to Haunted Mansion instead (which is Emma's favorite).  Our guide took us through a back entrance and Emma and I were the only two people in the stretching room.

Emma snapped a picture and I was in motion so she said I was mid being possessed by a ghost.

After that, we met back up with Adam and the three of us ate a big dinner in an air conditioned space.  It was divine.  We'd only been snacking and walking all day.

We went to Small World...

...and Pirates of the Caribbean and then Adam and I were done.  Emma was not and she is an independent girl if she is anything.

Adam and I went back to our hotel (we stayed at the third hotel that night--part of the traveling with Adam experience) and Emma stayed until the park closed.  It was exhausting but also really fun.

It was another early-ish morning on Sunday (mostly because of the time change) and we were back to the airport.  There was a little more drama on the return flight where some passengers wouldn't move like the flight attendant wanted them to and Emma had her AirPods in so she'd missed the altercation.  I typed it up on my phone and passed it to her and I loved seeing her eyes bulge from my description.  I'm always entertained by some melodrama.

Emma is a great traveling companion.

She knows the best way to get from here to there and is up for almost anything.  She is like her dad in that way.

I was so happy that I got to see Adam.  I have another full week ahead of me with no Adam, but we were able to have a packed exhausting weekend together and I'll take it!