EPCOT Food & Wine Festival

This year was my first time attending the EPCOT Food & Wine festival and I LOVED it. I have always wanted to complete the 'drinking around the world challenge' at EPCOT and this festival took the challenge to a whole new level. The number of countries featured at EPCOT grows to near 30 and there is delicious food and adult beverages at every station. My roomate Val and I decided to take on the challenge together so that we could split the cost.

Val documented all our meals so I will have to get the pictures from her to post on here. We had a great time and stopped by almost every station, it was nice to have such an adventurous tasting companion. We got stamps in our festival passports at every country, we still need to visit the 'desserts and champagne' station to get our final stamp and then our passports will be marked 'complete'. Unfortunately there is no prize for completing but the knowledge that we've tried it all!

They have an 'eat to the beat' concert series as well and we went to see Boyz II Men. They were incredible, so good live and still rocking it after this many years. One of my friends even got one of the famous roses during "I'll make love to you". She was ecstatic! The festival runs for another couple weeks so we'll probably be going back to see some more concerts and sample some more delicious fare.

Avocado Margarita in Mexico. Not part of the festival, but maybe my new favorite drink. Heaven!

Closing down the park late night at Food & Wine day 1

Day 2 with my wining and dining partner Val

Great seats at Boyz II Men concert

Boyz II Men with some of their family on the stage

Ready for day 3 with my party hat on

Gotta love spaceship earth, so iconic

With some of the other inters ready to take on the challenge

The girls ready for Boyz II Men, great seats!

Meanwhile in Florida...

The humidity is finally starting to let up and the locals are saying we are on the verge of 'nice' weather here in Florida. A few more weeks and I will have survived my first hurricane season! The daytime temp is pleasant in the mid 80's and the skies are cloudless in the morning. The afternoons are still a little grey but I have been assured it gets better. I tried to organize a beach trip this weekend but couldn't rally the troops. There's always next weekend.

USSSA Home Run Derby

In addition to my regular responsibilities, I have also been volunteering for a lot of extra projects in an effort to gain more experience and network with people outside my division. One of these events was the USSSA Home Run Derby. These are grown men and women swinging for the fences and of course they needed ball shaggers; interns to the rescue!

I was looking forward to running around in the outfield with my interns until it started raining. It rained for the full 2 hours we were out there! The temperature wasn't bad but I was soaked to the bone, my new Nikes were flooded, and I was pretty miserable. A hot shower felt SOOOO good when I got home. We were able to get a few photos from the night despite the downpour, hope you enjoy!

Before the derby with my custom made duck eye-black

During the downpour

Having a good (but wet) time with my roommates

At least they gave us towels when we were done...

Typhoon Lagoon

About a month ago we got a group of interns together to go to Typhoon Lagoon. When it's not peak season cast members get in for free! Thankfully Mara brought her waterproof camera and we ended up with some great shots from the afternoon. We all really enjoyed the massive tidal wave pool and I nearly lost my new hat! Instead, I held onto it and it got soaked causing the blue dye to bleed all over and my hat to loose its shape.

My favorites have always been the lazy river and the new Crush n Gusher 'water coasters'. I even did the big Humunga Cowabunga slide where I raced 2 of the other interns. Sure enough, I had a wedgie of massive proportions when I got to the end of the slide. I quickly fixed that as discretely as possible, but knew I definitely wasn't the first to have this issue.

Hope you enjoy the photos!

Our group in front of the wave pool before nearly loosing my hat

Coming off Crush n Gusher with one of my co-workers

The group before the tidal wave...

and during!

Underwater photos

Frittata Fail

I decided to make a 'green eggs and ham' frittata for my roommates yesterday. My roommate Erin had been working all weekend at the race and I had coffee and mimosa supplies waiting for her when she got home Sunday morning. I asked her if I could make her anything special and she requested a frittata. It had leeks, spinach, tomatoes, and turkey instead of ham (Erin doesn't like ham). I had chopped, prepared, cooked, and baked everything and it smelled and looked so good! All I had to do was pull the frying pan out of the oven (instructions were to cook everything on the stove then transfer pan to the oven for the eggs to set). I opened the oven to take it out and when I gripped the handle it broke, spilling my delicious looking labor of egg love all over the oven and the floor. I didn't even think about the fact that I had put a pan in the oven with a plastic handle. Not only was breakfast ruined and starting to burn into the bottom of the oven but I had also melted the handle on the pan and ruined our good, large pan. As I stood over the mess, incredulous of what had just happened, Erin started helping me clean up. Once the mess was manageable she poured us both mimosas which helped ease the disappointment of failing at making breakfast. I didn't have enough ingredients to make the 'green eggs and ham' frittata again but I made a different variety and cooked up pancakes for my roomies. Hopefully that made up for my epic frittata fail.