Blue Belt Test

I passed my blue belt test for Tae Kwon Do last Saturday. The test was held at Fruit Cove Baptist Church. The gym's on the 2nd floor which makes things kinda interesting.

Thanks to the food being passed around, I ended up in the mask again. There's a "No Food" sign by the door but those never seem to apply during tests or tournaments. Fortunately, I caught it before I started reacting so I got to remember what happened during this test. (My memories are still a bit fuzy from my green belt test.)

See?! I do wear a mask in everyday life.

National Showcase 2014

I made a teenage girl scream and almost fall off a wall. You know a costume is good when you get double-takes, but a great costume gets screams and requests for pictures. ^_^

This was too much fun!

National Showcase this year was held in sunny, and oddly chilly, Burbank, California. The rink was all of 5 minutes away from the Warner Bros. Studios and the Walt Disney Studios and only 10 minutes from the Martial Arts History Museum.

I've been in D.C. traffic and Atlanta traffic and both failed in comparison to L.A. traffic. Never in my life have I sat in traffic like that! I ended up late for practice ice but luckily they were able to add me on at the end of session. Spotlight skating is a lot different then regular, house-lights skating and I'm glad I got to try it out without the judges staring at me.

I competed in 2 events: Adult Bronze Light Entertainment and Adult Bronze Dramatic Entertainment. My Lt. Entertainment was my Transformer Flutz program and that was such a disaster that this is all I'm going to mention of it.

Darth Maul, my dramatic program, actually wasn't too bad. I would have chopped off my leg at least 3 times if that saber had been real. I came in 5th and I'm okay with that. For my first time at Nationals, that's pretty darn good.

Star Wars Weekend 2014

When I heard Mark Hamill was going to his first Star Wars Weekend, I knew I had to go. I packed up the Junkmobile on Friday morning and began the 3 hour trip down to Disney World. (I just know I'm going to end up lost in a swamp one day.)

I got to ride the new Seven Dwarfs Mine Train ride which is nice but nowhere near worth a 90 minute wait. Dinner(a.k.a. homework time) was spent at the food court at Art of Animation while I finished up a paper. I ended up meeting a member of the 501st, Hi Bones!, and his son. We had a great time before they headed out to the pool and I headed for a night of camping out in front of Hollywood Studios.

The Seven Dwarve's cottage

I never thought I'd be one of those people spending all night in a line for anything but that's exactly where I found myself Friday night. I arrived a little after 10 and the line for Lando was already to bag check. Darth Maul was almost to the end of the roped area. There was a tent up, some dude sleeping on an air mattress, and a table with card games going on. Some lady even tried to leave her 7 year old in one line while her and her husband stayed in another line. It was a pretty crazy night until everybody crashed around 1:00am. The alarm clock could not have been better: Darth Vader showed up at 4:30am for pictures.

He also played Snake Eyes!

Meeting Ray Park was a great experience. He signed my lightsaber; I can't wait to compete with it now. He wears the same mask I wear for endurance training. How cool is that! I videoed the parade and as soon as I get it all combined into one video, it's going up on YouTube. I will be in that parade next year...Girl's gotta have a goal.

Darth Maul wanted Ray Park's autograph! ^_^

And now for the food, forget to get a picture of my spaghetti Friday night but I did check out the temporary Captain Cook's location at the Polynesian. The Big Ceremonial House is under renovations but the food is still good. The manager had to go "borrow" a pan from Kona Cafe to get a clean, safe one as they didn't have any he trusted in the kitchen. I always appreciate being able to get food that I don't have to cook.

Stitchy still can't figure out chop sticks.

Adult Silver Figure Skating Tests

A little back story: I first attempted my Adult Silver Moves in the Field test in 2009. Well, I knew there was one move that was iffy, I fell on it during morning warm ups. Short story is that I didn't pass the test. Fast forward and US Figure Skating decides to change the test and I had to learn 2 new moves. A bunch of other things came up and testing was put on the back burner in favor of learning all my single jumps the opposite direction. Almost 5 years later, I decided to finally get it out of the way.

The test was held at RDV Sportsplex in Maitland, that's about half an hour north of Orlando for those wondering. I drove down the night before since Maitland is a couple hours drive and I am NOT a morning person.

Morning practice was interesting. It was mostly those of us getting ready for testing but there was another adult out practicing her showcase routine and a few kids that clearly weren't testing. I quickly discovered that the kids at this rink were doing the 8 step Mohawk sequence starting at the opposite side of the rink. I joined the line and practiced without any further issues.

I had to pass the Moves in the Field test in order to take the Free Skate test I was also signed up for. Honestly, I didn't care so much about the Free Skate as I was so nervous about the MitF test. The FS test was a bonus. I passed the MitF without any issues.

Where did my camel spin go? It was right here yesterday and now it's gone! I did not pass my Free Skate test because my camel spin decided to go on a vacation during my test. That's the only reason I didn't pass! Grr, now I have to wait and see if I'm doing National Showcase this year or not before deciding when to retake this test.

Christmas in Disney

A couple of weeks before Christmas, my grandma asked about taking a trip to Disney World the weekend after Christmas. The holiday came and went and then we decided to go ahead for the weekend. Finding a hotel room was interesting, planning the rest of the trip was surprisingly easy. My grandma has a few health issues and she originally said she'd just sit on a bench while my grandpa and I went on rides...I don't think so.

The great thing about the Magic Kingdom is that there's plenty to do even for those with medical issues. We drove down Saturday morning and parked at the Ticket and Transportation Center. The lines to get them tickets was crazy so we rode the monorail to the Polynesian for lunch and bought tickets at the resort. First thing in the park we got a DAS card. We only had to use it once but it worked for what we needed it for. Grandma didn't think she was going to be doing anything but taking in the atmosphere; I wasn't going to leave here out of the fun. We ended up going on the Jungle Cruise, Tomorrowland Transit Authority, Carousel of Progress, and the train; watched the Enchanted Tiki Birds, Country Bears, the Christmas Parade and went on a hunt for fudge that ended up being snack time at the Circus. She had a wonderful time and was happy that she got to participate with my Grandpa and I. There is a good chance that she'll never ride the TTA again but the look on her face as the car sped up will be something I will cherish forever. Unfortunately my phone died, completely died, after dinner at the Wave so I have no pictures from the trip.

We spent Sunday sleeping in and visiting the Grand Floridian. There is a gingerbread house in the lobby that is large enough for a store. It was a fun, relaxing weekend. My grandparents are awesome. We've always been close and it was nice having them to myself for a couple of days.