The One With All the Shopping

  Orlando, Florida, United States
Tuesday, August 14, 2007

I was up at 10:00 this morning and I read "Sex and the City" in bed. It was going to be a free, relaxing day so I was determined to just take it easy. After a half hour I had a donut for breakfast (I know, how nutritious) and then went online for a little while before reading some more of "Sex and the City." I finally took a shower at 11:30 and watched "Drake and Josh" in my room while I got ready. I was dreading blowing my hair. I normally hate blowing my hair as it is, but it was always so hot and steamy in the bathroom that blowing my hair in there just absolutely sucked. I just did it, though, and got it done. When I was done getting ready I watched some of "Stuck in the Suburbs" on the Disney Channel in my room and then read some more. By now Mike was up and ready and mom and dad weren't doing anything, so we all played California Rummy at the kitchen table, and mom wound up winning.

We didn't want to just sit around all day so we decided to go shopping. Mike and I both love Journey's, a store that sells all skater/rock star brands of shoes and accessories. I wanted to get a pair of sneakers and a new bag, and Mike wanted new sneakers, so I looked online and the closest Journey's was at the Florida Mall. Mom and dad had gone to the Florida Mall in 2005 and had said it was really nice so we decided to head over there at 4:00. It took us a half-hour to get there and we got kind of lost a block away from the mall thanks to Maggie! That damn GPS led us in the complete wrong direction, but it's hard to miss a huge mall so we saw it down the road and headed over to the parking lot.

The parking lot was huge so we parked in a side lot and walked to one of the main entrances. This mall is absolutely gigantic. The Plaza is the only mall in Brooklyn and it's right near us. It's two floors but really not that big. The Florida Mall was only one floor but it was humongous! Not as big as the Palisades Mall in Nyack (upstate NY) but it was really, really big and I loved how open and bright it was. Very nice. We looked at the directory right by the entrance and saw that Journey's was right in the area. Also right next door to the entrance was Ruby Tuesdays. We all love Ruby Tuesdays and their salad bar so we made up our mind right there and then as to where we were having dinner later that day.

We went over to Journey's and they didn't have much. It was a really small store and we're used to the huge one in Manhattan. They have a much bigger selection in the city and online so we wound up not getting anything. I'm glad we went to look, though, because I had been planning on buying a bag that sounded cute on paper but I didn't like in person. It was a really cute pink bag that looked like a boombox, and it came with an adapter to plug into an MP3 player and the speakers on the bag actually play the music on your MP3 player. It's a great idea but it was way too small. I love really big bags so I'm glad I didn't order this one online since it looked a lot bigger in pictures.

We walked around and just went into random stores. I got excited as soon as I saw a Disney store. They closed all the Disney stores in Brooklyn so now we only have the World of Disney in Times Square. It's a huge store but everything's so overpriced. You get much better deals online. Anyway, mom and I looked around in there while dad and Mike went to Gamestop. They had some cute stuff but it was mainly for kids. They didn't have any collectables or adult-sized t-shirts, just clothes and pajamas for kids and a huge collection of stuffed animals. All four walls of the store were covered with hundreds and hundreds of stuffed animals; it was so funny to see! It was a cute store but no one bought anything. Dad and Mike met us in the Disney Store before we continued on. I really needed a new bag for the fall but I couldn't find any. I usually get really cute bags at Mandee but all the Mandee-type stores here (Charlotte Russe, Delia's, Hollister, etc) either didn't have any bags or they only had a few ugly ones so I was pretty disappointed. I really had my heart set on getting a new bag! I'd just have to keep looking.

We went into the M&M store and I loved it. There's also a huge one of these in Manhattan but it's overpriced and always packed so we don't go very often. This one was cheaper and a whole lot less crowded. We looked around and I was going to get some M&Ms but decided against it. We'd been buying so much candy throughout the trip that we already had a little collection back at the house. Mom found a cute red nightgown with a tired-looking M&M on it that says "Not a Morning Person" and it was on sale for $15 so she bought it. The line was huge and it took a good twenty-minutes to pay but it wasn't a big deal. We went into a store called Just Dogs and it was so cute! It was a designer store for dogs and they had the greatest dog clothes; it was absolutely adorable! They also had gourmet treats and food, and mom was going to get Oreo some peanut butter treats but she decided against it. Oreo's on a prescription diet for her bladder stones and she likes to check in with the vet when it comes to giving her new treats. Plus we already had a lot of gourmet and healthy treats left from our stay at The Muse.

Driving through Kissimmee

After walking around and window shopping for a while we headed back to the entrance to eat at Ruby Tuesday's. It was 6:00 and wasn't crowded so we were seated right away. It was really clean and nice in there, and our waitress was great! We ordered quickly and mom, dad and I all got the salad bar with our meals while Mike got a bowl of broccoli and cheese soup. We headed up to the salad bar and it was the nicest one we'd seen on the trip yet. We love salad bars and this one was clean and fresh. I made myself a salad with carrots, bacon bits, croutons, olives, shredded American cheese and honey mustard dressing. Definitely not healthy for a salad, but we were on vacation and the salad was delicious!

Funnel clouds

Mike loved his soup and mom, dad and I went up for seconds of our salad. Our eyes are always bigger than our stomachs and we should have just gotten the salad bar instead of entrees. The salad bar was so good here that the three of us were stuffed by the time our actual food came. I got a barbecue cheeseburger, mom got a chicken BLT, dad got a barbecue chicken sandwich and Mike got an avocado chicken sandwich. The food was all absolutely delicious! You can't go wrong at Roby Tuesday's, and this was one of the best one's we've been to.

Me in the car

We were done eating and left the mall by 7:00. It had been a fun day, but no one wound up buying anything but mom. I was very surprised with myself! I usually throw my money around like there's no tomorrow, especially on vacation, and I couldn't believe that I hadn't bought anything at such a huge mall. I really, really wanted a new bag so we thought about going to Target, but it started pouring on the drive home. And what a drive home it was! First it was nice and sunny, and then dark, dark clouds started moving in. What was weird, though, was that we saw a lot of funnel clouds - clouds that came down vertically from the sky. It was very weird and I mentioned how it looked like a tornado.

Driving through Kissimmee

Then it started to pour on one side of I4 but not the other. It was the weirdest thing! For a good five-minutes there was a downpour on the other side of I4 while our car stayed dry. It was unlike anything we'd ever seen. You can't beat Florida weather, haha! Eventually the rain made it to us and it was insane. It was POURING to the point where we couldn't see three feet in front of the car. We saw tons of motorcycles pulled over under the overpasses along I4 and then 192. It was crazy. We spent the time taking some pictures and video, and listening to the weather report on the news. That's when they said that tornadoes had been spotted in the area. What?! So those huge funnel clouds WERE tornadoes. It was very, very scary. We contemplated pulling over but dad said he was fine so we just drove slowly and made our way home.

Mike in the car

We had been worried about Oreo since she hates storms and thunder, but what was funny was that when we got back to the house it hadn't rained at all. That's Florida for ya! The sky was starting to get dark, though, so mom and I ran Oreo out for a walk but two minutes later we heard a loud clap of thunder and it started pouring so we ran back to the house. We decided against going to Target since it was all the way on the other side of 192 and we didn't feel like going back out in the rain. By now it was 7:40 so we decided to just take it easy and watch TV.

A billboard for Lights, Motors, Action

At 8:00 we all watched America's Got Talent, but I only watched half of it before I had some coconut rum and finished "Sex and the City" in my room. At 9:00 we watched big Brother and then at 10:00 we played California Rummy at the coffee table in the living room while we watched The Bronx is Burning, a mini-series that was on ESPN all summer about the Yankees struggle to win the 1977 World Series. At 11:00 we watched the episode of The Singing Bee that we had recorded on a DVD earlier that night, before mom and dad went to bed and Mike watched TV in his room.

Driving in the rain

At 12:00 I put my pajamas on and went on the laptop in my room. I have a notebook that I copy all quotes, lyrics and poems that I love into, so I went online and looked up some lyrics to add to it. I also worked on my trip report notes while I watched the Chelsea Handler Show on E. Then I looked around online some more while I watched a Hills and Date My Mom marathon on MTV. It was another late night and I wound up just lounging around, watching stupid shows on MTV and talking to my friends online until I finally drifted off to sleep at 5:00 in the morning.