That's right, I'm up to my eyeballs searching for the Hidden Mickeys, down here in Disney World, specifically the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Now, before you go and get all jealous that I'm down here, and you are up there, I've got to tell you that it's raining. RAINING!

Raining. On. My. Vacation.

With thunder too.

So, isn't that lovely?

However it does leave lots of time to find the Mickeys that are hidden around my resort. We've got a sheet of paper with instructions for 15 different hidden Mickey Mouse Ear locations, and so far we've found about six of them. Some are pretty easy to locate, others are terribly hard. And the thing is that once you start looking for them, you end up calling a lot of attention to yourself. My family and I were searching the wall around the pool slide, and suddenly we had company, yet they didn't know what they were looking for.

And, you can't have four people staring up in the lobby, discussing and pointing towards the lights, without people coming over to join in.

If it doesn't stop raining soon, we'll have run out of Hidden Mickeys at our resort, and will have to move on over to the next one.

I am vacationing in Door County with my family, which includes my husband, seven year old daughter, parents, and two 14 year old nephews. We are staying in Fish Creek, but yesterday we decided to make a day of it on Washington Island. I've been to Door County many times in the last 12 years, it's become a yearly excursion, and somehow we've never been to Washington Island. What would it be like? What would we do there? What adventure awaited us on the other side of the ferry?

There were seven of us, so we had to take two cars. Round trip tickets for a car is $24 (JUST the car), adults are $5.50 and children are $3.75. When we got off the ferry we immediately headed towards the Lookout Tower in Mountain Park where the view from the top of the tower was amazing! After that we split up for lunch, with my husband, daughter and I going to a restaurant on Main Street that promised breakfast all day, soup, sandwiches, wi-fi, and a baby grand piano in the dining room, oh and let's not forget the kayak tours. Close your eyes and imagine it with me, do you see a fireplace? Someone playing the piano? Customers lounging around, laptops open, blogging away? Coffee bar perhaps?

Okay, now you need to snap back to what I'd like to call: the reality of island life. The restaurant was about the size of my living room, the baby grand was in the corner with a fence (FENCE?) around it, zero laptops, no fireplace, and only two other tables of customers. The waitress moved on island time, and she even stopped taking our order at one point so she could help someone else find a fork. However, it must be said that that was the best darn grilled cheese sandwich I'd had in a while. AND I was able to log onto wi-fi with my iPod Touch so I could email my brother and check on my dogs.

After lunch we met back up at Jacobsen’s Museum were we met a life long resident of the island. Then we visited an Art & Nature Center, where I searched for a painting to add to my Door County collection (didn't find one though). My nephew bought a boomerang, which my husband immediately tried out in the parking lot. He threw it towards the woods, and I'm sure he expected it turn around right before the trees, but it didn't, and my nephew had to trounce around in the trees until they found it.

Note to anyone with a boomerang: learn to use it before you throw it towards the woods.

We decided it was time to head back to the ferry. My dad's car got on no problem, but we were told we'd have to wait an hour for the next ferry, so we pulled off to the side to wait. Next thing we know we are being waved ahead, once we got up to the ferry it was pretty clear that only one of those little Smart Cars would fit on the deck. The guy leans into the driver's window and says to my husband, "okay, what you're going to do is turn around here and backup onto the ferry, (and then he pointed) sideways there behind that car". And then I looked and saw him point towards my mom, who was already rummaging around in the cooler that was in the hatchback of their Equinox. My husband and I looked at each other, surely this is a joke, right? He didn't just tell us to back up on the ferry, did he? And then we laughed. And from the look on his face we realized that it wasn't a joke, and that we were going to be backing up sideways on the little itty bit part of the deck.

So that was our once in a lifetime Washington Island experience. I think that it'd be a perfect place to go for a bike ride. Maybe next time!

I'm dreaming of a getaway to Door County. Last June, right before the busy season, we vacationed for five days in Fish Creek and it was wonderful! We spent our time doing things like: riding our bikes through Peninsula State Park, painting pottery at the Hands On Art Studio, visiting The Peninsula Bookman (where the owner has my dream job), drinking lots of coffee at Blue Horse Bistro (where the owners have my other dream job), and eating as much pizza as we can at Moretti's Pizzeria -- YUM!

Where are you dreaming about getting away to?

There were plenty of shells on the beach in Riviera Maya, most of them had occupants in them though. My husband picked a few very very small ones to bring back to Zoe. He put them on the countertop in the bathroom, and a couple of them got up and moved. Oops. Those he had to take back to where he got them from.

Here’s a few pictures of a hermit crab that he followed. As well as one of the many lizards that lived at the resort. Sometimes I’d forget about the lizards and then they’d scare the crap out of me when they’d scurry past me on my walks.

There were signs in front of our villa that said there were Howler Monkeys living in the brush. I never saw one, but I looked.

Here is the beach. We spent our first morning here, mostly snorkling. I saw a lot of fish, and got the bejeezus scared out of me with a sea urchin in some coral I was about to float over. You’d have thought Jaws was coming up on me with all the flailing I was doing.

My husband came across this crab, isn’t he cute? 

Do you remember the bridges I wrote about? This is what they looked like, you had to walk up and down them to get anywhere.

That’s all for now! Have a great weekend!

Okay, so I’m home from Riviera Maya. We stayed at the Grand Palladium which was very nice … if you like walking over a gazillion very tall bridges to get where ever you need to go. Yes, it was a workout, and it was confusing at times because all the bridges looked exactly the same as the others. I don’t know how in the world a drunk person would be able to find their way back to their room in the dark, in the daylight they might be okay, but in the dark no way, and since it was an all-inclusive place the drinks were flowing —  CONSTANTLY.

I couldn’t help but notice a few slightly weird things about Mexico. For instance, you know that big spoon that you get with your place settings? The one that your mother uses to serve mashed potatos to you at Thanksgiving? Well that spoon is the soup spoon down there in Mexico. Very confusing, especially when eating at a chinese restaurant, because you know when you are being served chinese they always give you a giant serving spoon. So the waiter handed me the serving spoon and I was all thinking: yum, dinner! but instead it meant: soup. And it felt very wrong to be eating what little soup I did with the big giant serving spoon. In fact, I had no choice but to the alert the waiter that it was not a soup spoon, but a serving spoon, and I kinda expected him to notice his error and take it back and bring me a real soup spoon, but instead he looked at me like he didn’t understand what I was saying.

Another thing, which my brother fully warned me about because he was at the resort the five days prior to me, was that the bed would short-sheeted. Every night he said he came back to his room and remade his bed. What? That’s insane! Yet every single night my husband and I found that our bed was also short-sheeted.  Since it bothered both myself and my brother, I’m going to blame my mother for this tick that we both have because she was all about the sheets always being straight and properly tucked in when we were growing up. Imagine a mattress, and the bottom sheet is a flat sheet, not a fitted sheet, and it doesn’t stretch down to the very foot of the bed. Some nights it was only 5 or 6″ short, but one night was actually a full 12″ from the bottom. I’m sorry, but my feet totally noticed that they were not on a sheet and instead on a bare mattress, which is gross and I’d like to note a bit unsanitary because of the all the sand that is on the beach which is only about 20 yards from my room. Anyhow, each night we tore the sheets off the bed and remade it. One day we were in the room when the maid came and I did my best to convey to her through the language barrier how we wanted the sheet to cover the entire mattress. She shook her head that she understood and then made the bed with two sheets on the bottom, overlapping each other so that the entire mattress was covered. Whatever. It’s not like the sheet wasn’t big enough to cover the whole thing, because it was.

Okay, and then when we were at the airport coming home I bought a couple magazines (Time and Shape if you must know) and while I was checking out I threw a Kit Kat candy bar on there because they had the Nestle Kit Kat’s and in the US we have Reeses Kit Kat’s and this is a secret, but I’m going to tell you anyway, the Nestle ones are better. I handed over my credit card and then I noticed that the clerk was putting a price tag on the USA Today newspaper: 430 Pesos. 430 Pesos!! That’s $4.30 American!!! And the price on the newspaper says 75 cents. I rubbed my eyes, then verified the price was correct and the clerk tells me that everything in Cancun is expensive. So I had to ask, I just had to. How much did I just pay for that Kit Kat? And the clerk replied, 300 Pesos. $3.00 American, that’s how much I paid for a Nestle Kit Kat, and candy bars in the States are only something like 65 cents. And no, I haven’t eaten that Kit Kat yet. Something that ridiculously expensive deserves to be paired with the finest of wines for sure.

(My adventure continues here and here)

I'm still trying to catch-up from my vacation, but here's a few photos from the beaches of Riviera Maya.

This is me feeding a raccoon. There were about six of them that were regular patrons of one of the bars on the beach.

My husband got up at 5:30 a.m. to walk the beach during sunrise.

I'm home from Mexico! Here's a photo from Playa Del Carmen, where we spent the day shopping on 5th Avenue.

My family really enjoys a good water park. We've been to a few of them, some have been outstanding and some have been disappointing. For instance, Paradise Landing which is located in the Milwaukee Hilton was a complete waste of our time. The Kalahari was too large to keep track of everyone easily, and that toilet bowl slide? I didn't see how that was fun, I mean a girl could lose her swimming suit on that one. However, Moose Mountain Falls at the Timber Ridge in Lake Geneva is worth the trip.

My daughter attended a birthday party at the Country Springs Hotel's Waterpark and when I picked her up I thought it looked like the perfect afternoon getaway. The cost, $25 per person. Right, like I have an extra $75 just laying around to go the waterpark for the day. I don't. Good news though because they do offer special rates occasionally and I was able to get tickets today for only $15 per person. That's a pretty good price, and if it weren't a school day, and if three people at work weren't in Mexico right now leaving me in charge (my plane leaves on Feb. 7th!), I'd be willing to be at the water park at 9:59 a.m. with my swimming suit on!

My family could use some fun, have you been reading about our lives lately???? What with the near explosion, the vegetable oil spill, a car crash an eye infections and a waiter who changed his tip, or how about a boulder of ice --- I think my family deserves to ride the Triple Dog Dare until the cows come home!

Let me know if you have any indoor water park recommendations!

In a couple of weeks I'm going to Mexico for the first time, my destination is Riviera Maya which is on the Caribbean Sea. I'm very excited! My husband, not so much. He's excited to be going on vacation, but it's the getting there and the coming home that's he's not looking forward to. While I'm edgy when I fly, he's absolutely terrified, and is having anxiety attacks over the thought of getting on the airplane. Twice.

The last time we were on a plane was in September of 2000 and we went to Nassau, Florida on a Disney Cruise. It was the only time we flew together as a couple, and as he's gotten older, and of course now that he's a father, it's harder for him to face this. The time is coming soon though, and we'll both have to face the fear together. Do you have any suggestions on how to subside the anxiety and panic?

Are you planning any vacations to a warmer place this winter? And for those of you who have been to Riviera Maya, what do you recommend for excursions and site seeing?

Tonight my husband and I are switching from Mid-America Bank to Landmark Credit Union. Why? I've been unhappy with Mid-America ever since they switched from St. Francis Bank, and the only thing that has kept me from switching before this is all the automatic payments that I'll now have to change.

I didn't set out to switch our accounts, but I think he secretly set a plan in place where I would come up with the idea, and then because it's my idea, do it.

Here's what happened: He and our daughter have been saving all their change in this huge piggy bank we bought in Cape Cod when we first got married. They 'feed the pig' and every once in a while they'll weigh the pig and see how much it's gained since the last weigh-in. It's like the opposite of Weight Watchers, the heavier the pig, the better. About a month ago they took the pig up to Landmark Credit Union and opened a savings account. We are saving for a vacation, and coin by coin, we'll get there. It's realistic. I once sold items on ebay for three months and had enough for a 10 day trip to the Disney World ... including the meal plan, which by the way, is a good deal.

I digress..... In order to put my name on the savings account he needed to escort me to the credit union where I'd then have to sit in front of a very pleasant banker who had account literature on her desk. I think he called ahead and asked her to take her time in preparing the signature card: Fake like you are working on the paperwork until she takes a brochure. After she opens the Current Rates brochure then you can ask her to sign the signature card. So I waited, and chatted, and waited, and chatted, and waited, and then reached for the brochure.

I think witnessed a fist pump and a victorious 'yes!' from my husband as I noticed the interest rate on the Premium Checking account.

After verfiying that the numbers were not a misprint, I looked over at my grinning husband who said, "Clark Howard always says to go to a Credit Union".

"What about customer service? Is there an 800 number that I have to call where I'll get some worldwide call center where I'm just a number and no one cares?" I asked.

"Unfortunately," the banker told me with a note of sarcasm, "You'll get our New Berlin office."

"We'll be back on Thursday."

 What about you? What would motivate you to change banks?

To read more of my writing until my next post, please visit Thoughts Outside My Head.