meinen Reisen MY TRAVELS mijn reizen mes voyages meus cursos mis viajes minhas viagens mo taisteal mine rejser mina resor i miei viaggi

We celebrated Thanksgiving early on Saturday due to Jonathan’s upcoming wedding.

I love Thanksgiving. It is the best, but it always goes so fast.

After dinner, the little kids went to see the trains and others played games.

Andrea and I created “Lane’s 1st Annual Turkey Trot” with the course at the farm. It was a nice day for the race.

Andrea was creative leaving her car in the middle of the course with music blaring for the “on-course entertainment” and there were Twizzlers there too for energy.

Basically, they had to run down a path, grab a ribbon, and come back. It was pretty fun.

We left Iowa on Tuesday and headed down to Texas through Missouri.

We stopped in Fulton, Missouri and saw where Churchill gave his “Iron Curtain” speech. A part of the Berlin Wall was also there. Rapid City, SD also has a part of the Berlin Wall. I wonder how many places around the world have a piece of the wall.

We made it to Muskogee, OK on Tuesday. The people are really nice in OK and TX.

In Dennison, Texas, we visited Eisenhower’s birthplace. It is neat to see where a President began his life and think about his journey to where he ended.

In Waco, we stopped at Magnolia which is the Fixer Upper stars’ place. I didn’t realize their empire before going there. The grounds are amazing and beautiful. There were a lot of families there. We walked by the food trucks, saw the gardens, and visited the store. At the end, we went to the bakery. The bakery had some amazing cupcakes and scones/biscuits. Andrea and Dad had a really good lavender cupcake.

The main reason for the journey is coming up, but I have done enough updating now. I will try to update later tonight…. I hope.

After 7 or 8 years of inviting her, Margee, my German professor at the University of Iowa visited last weekend.

She arrived in Sanford late Friday night and the weekend started bright and early on Saturday morning. We made it to our reservation at Boma at 8:15 a.m. It might have been a bit too early as we made it to Magic Kingdom kinda early. Margee rode many of the classic rides including Jungle Cruise, Pirates, Carousel of Progress, Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan, and PhilharMagic. It was a very busy weekend. I used my FastPasses for her, so she would have 6 rides without lines. I didn’t imagine that “It’s a Small World” would be packed, so she will have to come back.

For a late lunch/ early dinner, we went to Geyser Grill at Wilderness Lodge and took the boat back to the Contemporary. Margee was able to see many of the major hotels.

On Sunday, we went to Epcot. The highlight was going to the Germany pavilion. We at lunch at Biergarten. She enjoyed speaking to the kids and the kids loved speaking to her.

We found Mickey and the gang hanging outside of the American Adventure. We saw the American and France movies. We had a small meal at France after the movie (which is why I am riding a stationary bike as I write this as we did eat a lot during the weekend). We did see IllumiNations later at night after meeting Mickey again officially.

On Monday, Margee came over to work and met some people. Then, we went to Hawkers and to the airport. I am glad that she finally made it and had a fun weekend!

I went to a Japanese event last week. I also went to Sweet Tomatoes. I have downloaded a few pictures of Margee and me (sounds like McGee and me — I did like McGee and me).

I have 10 countries including a Irishman coming in next Friday. It actually isn’t my delegation. It is a diplomatic delegation which hosts emerging leaders of countries. Anyways, I wanted to get creative, so I started with origami and it progressed into a detailed centerpiece. Then, I went to Hawkers to pick up an order and realized they gave me udon noodles instead of mai fun after returning to the office. They wanted to comp it. I said I would rather take the food, so I had mai fun for dinner last night and udon for lunch. They don’t want to return money, so it worked out.

I saw 61 degrees last week, but I also saw mid-80’s. Someone said it could get down to 40 degrees this weekend, but we will see.

I thought I better update the site from last weekend before this weekend begins.

Last Friday, I flew into Cedar Rapids. Dad and Andrea were waiting for me. We went to Korean BBQ (literally, that was the name). Dad had the bulgogi and Andrea and I had the bibimbap. I really like all forms of Asian food. Later, we went to the new Trader Joe’s.

On Saturday, we went to the Farmer’s Market in Des Moines. It was rainy, but it was still fun. It would have been more fun had Iowa not had a bye week. We met Melissa at Jordan Creek and ate at Bravo which was really nice (both seeing Melissa and eating at Bravo). Afterwards, we went to Stoney Creek Inn as Murphy’s were also in Des Moines. We ate at Ruby Tuesday’s with them.

On Sunday, we woke up early and went to the Des Moines Half Marathon. One mile at a time and it wasn’t too bad. It was 47 degrees. Des Moines always seems easier than other races due to the temperature. My race watch and the official race clock clocked the same time to the second! Unbelievable. I got around 2 hours and 20 minutes. I got 2nd out of 7 Floridians, but like 1300/2400 women. Yikes. Well, I have been 7th out of 7 Floridians before. I always feel I could improve with more discipline, but this time, I feel I CAN get better. I have a VIP visiting me this weekend, so after this weekend, I will become very disciplined. Ha. I say that every weekend!!

After the race, we ate at Ronneberg in Amana with the Murphys. I used to love it, but I really love Asian food now.

On Monday, I went to breakfast with Andrea at Hy-Vee. We also went shopping and went to Wilson’s Apple Orchard. Not many apples were left. Afterwards, we went out and saw Aunt Debbie and Molly.

Other things I did this week:

I went to Hawkers with Bev. I decided to switch it up and get the Udon Noodles. I should stick to the Singapore Mei Fun.

I had to check out a venue for a visiting delegation, so yesterday, I went to the JW Marriott. It was pretty nice. Afterwards, I went to Epcot.

Out of all the pictures, Google Photos picked this one as the cover:

Time goes fast. Wow.

Highlights from September:

• Went with Robert to Bice for Magical Dining Month at Loew’s Portifino Hotel
• Worked with volunteers from church to help an octogenarian clean up her yard. I heard Irma caused the equivalent of 4.5 years worth of tree/ tree debris to fall. Many of my colleagues were without power (and some without water) for 5 to 7 days.
•  Went to the Food and Wine Festival a few times including a time to see the 4-hit wonder, Sugar Ray
• Went to an Asian-American/ Japanese event at Uniqlo at Disney Springs
• Celebrated a few work birthdays

Andrea arrived into Sanford last Friday afternoon.

During the weekend, we:

• went to Magic Kingdom
• had dinner at Seasons 52 thanks to a birthday gift card
• went to Disney Springs and ate at the take away place at Morimoto
• went to the Food and Wine Festival
• ate at a Korean restaurant
• celebrated 35 years of Epcot
• went to Hollywood Studios
• rode Flight of Passage at Animal Kingdom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMxeDMPvSnI

Around Midnight, Irma went through Lakeland. The eye wall in one of the maps looks like it came close to the area where I am staying, but I don’t know what happened. I fell asleep by 1 a.m. I missed anything major. I don’t know what the major wind speeds in Orange County reached. The airport recorded some gusts of 80 mph. My inner door shook a little a few times.

Around 5:45 a.m., I woke up and I saw around 7 to 9 power trucks outside that I saw staging at Disney earlier yesterday. Our lights never even flickered, but I heard the hotel switch to the generator. Right before I fell asleep, I heard a guy in the hallway if the ice machine still had ice. I don’t see any debris below my hotel window. All the palm trees are still standing.

Tampa has already lifted their curfew. I am hoping our curfew will be lifted around 2 or 3 p.m. If they let me, I would stay here as many places do not have power and are conserving water. I have a bathtub of water for the toilet and lots of water bottles in my apartment, but I still think I have it nicer here. I don’t want to pay more though.

I just saw a baby squirrel being rescued. I don’t see many humans on the news stranded as in other disasters though. In the next hour or so, I have to see where I will wait out the curfew.

I saw buses of people yesterday at the hotel. The buses said, “Vista” and “AmeriCorps.” I thought they were just housing them here. Well, I now think they are helpers. They have emergency jackets on outside ready to deploy.

As of 9:40 a.m., they are not recommending the lifting of the curfew, but I think they will lift it early. The rain has ended. The wind still is at 33 mph with some 47 mph gusts. I hope so as it is going to be hassle moving around with my backpack and my sacks of snacks.

I guess there is a place of neighborhood flooding and they rescued 200 houses out of 500. They sent the rescue at 2 a.m. in the middle of the storm.

Mayor Jacobs just held a press conference and thinks 6 p.m. will be the earliest they will be lifting the curfew. They hope they can get the lights working and trees cleared by then. I am still hoping for an early release.