Harry Potter in pictures

By: Ryan


So as everyone is no doubt aware, the very highly anticipated Wizarding World of Harry Potter opens on June 18 at Universal Studios Florida. The advertising blitz in central Florida has begun with billboards, commercials, and posters everywhere. Even driving past Universal, you can't help but notice the castle towers above the trees.

We headed to Universal yesterday just to walk around and let Amber have some fun. When we finally made our way back to the Harry Potter area, we discovered, much to our surprise, that it was open! We were able to check out almost everything inside the new area, even the new ride inside Hogwarts Castle. Here are some pictures of the excitement.

(note: if you're reading this in a feed reader or by email, be sure to visit RyanAndShelsy.com to view these pictures in a clickable slideshow format.)

A look back on two years

By: Ryan





This past Tuesday, while being historic for other reasons, was also our two year anniversary. It's pretty incredible to look back, especially on the past year. Exactly one year ago, Shelsy and I were visiting Florida for our first anniversary and trying to make a decision about whether we wanted to move or not.

It's pretty crazy how much can change in a year. Not only did we decide to move, but we're having a baby! On top of that, I'm still unemployed. But God continues to take care of us in fairly miraculous ways, providing everything we need and then some.

If someone had told us when we first got married that in two years we'd be living in Florida, having a baby, and be unemployed for nearly a year, I would never have believed them. But here we are and we couldn't be happier. It's a major testament to God's incredible plan and the blessings He pours out when we follow that plan.

And who knows where we'll be two years from now! A lot can change in a short period of time, and we're very excited to see what His plan will bring next. :-)

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Birthday at the Magic Kingdom

By: Ryan



This past Friday was my birthday and in case you haven't heard, Disney is running a promotion where anyone can get free admission to one theme park on their birthday. So, being that we only live half an hour away, what better way to spend a birthday? :-)

When we got to the park to pick up our tickets, the guy at the ticket window said, "You have a popular birthday. This is the most birthday people we've had yet." And he was right. As we explored the park, I saw dozens of other people sporting the Happy Birthday button.

We went to Magic Kingdom, because there are quite a few rides there that Shelsy can still go on, being pregnant and all. :-) The weather was perfect all day and we had a great time.








Shelsy even got to try on one of the super huge hats for sale in the Pirates gift shop:

We had a super fun day and even stayed for the fireworks. After the park closed, we decided to head over to Downtown Disney and see if it was still open. Heh. Not only was it open, it was quite crowded. We got something to eat, explored around a little, and then headed home.

Definitely a quality birthday, I have to say. If any of you feel like celebrating your birthday with a free trip to Disney World, you're always welcome to stay with us. :-)

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Tropical Storm Fay

By: Ryan


Just wanted to write a quick note letting everyone know that we survived the storm just fine. Several people have asked and yep, we're just fine. We don't even have any cool pictures to show you. There wasn't any flooding, wind damage, downed trees, power outages, or anything else in our area. All we got was heavy rain...nearly two feet over the past four days. A lot of other parts of Florida got hit really hard, especially along the coast near Cocoa Beach. But our area fared really well.

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Cocoa Beach Sunrise

By: Ryan



Being unemployed does have a few advantages. For example, we are able to decide last minute to spend a weekday at the beach. :-) This past Tuesday, we decided that we would get up early and drive to Cocoa Beach to watch the sunrise. The beach is a little over an hour away and sunrise was at 6:45am, so we left right around 5am to make sure we got there early enough to see the sky changing colors before the sun came up.

The beach was really nice! We both really liked it and definitely plan on going back. The only problem was the super weird sticky sand. Once it stuck to your skin, not even walking into the water would get it off. It took actual scrubbing under the little beach shower thingy to get it off. Weird. :-)

Here's a pretty cool time lapse video of the sunrise. I'll record a much better one next time. :-)




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Last Week: Our first visitors!

By: Ryan

Last week we had our first visitors from back north. Well, unless you count Aaron and Tom, but they were more hired help than houseguests. :-)

My mom and Shanna flew down last week and we had a great time during their visit. We went to Aquatica, Seaworld, Universal Studios, and Islands of Adventure. Here are some pictures from their visit:

This is Shanna and my mom in the lazy river at Aquatica, Seaworld's water park. There are actually two lazy rivers, one that requires tubes and moves slowly, and one that is no-tubes-allowed and moves very fast. The faster moving one was definitely a hit. :-)

Here's Shanna, cruising up for the kill, apparently.

Here are Shanna and Shelsy posing in front of the Blue Man Group splashing TV. The show was excellent, as always, and afterwards, Shanna and Shelsy both got "autographed." :-)

(this and all of the following pictures have been shamelessly stolen from Shanna)

Here are Shanna, Shelsy, and myself outside Islands of Adventure. I look super happy to be taking another picture, don't I? :-)

And finally, here are all four of us outside Universal Studios. Definitely a quality place.

So as you can see, we totally had an excellent time during their visit. Here's hoping they can come again soon, and that we get more visitors in the near future. :-)

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Two New Things

By: Shelsy

Well, I am happy to say that I have two new things to announce today. The first thing is already four days old, and that is my brand new little nephew! Mindy finally had her baby! His name is Carter Tyrone and he's adorable. He was born this past Monday night on the 19th at around 8:45pm. Mindy's been neglecting to send me pictures though, so I only have a couple. He's about an hour old in that one. Isn't he awesome?! :-D I can't wait to meet the little guy--hopefully I'll be able to soon, depending on the whole job situation.


Which brings me to my second new thing. As you all know, I auditioned for a singing role at Disney last Friday that didn't work out. I also auditioned yesterday for a character role. That also didn't work out. But, they say the third time's a charm.. I went into the Casting office today and applied for a regular castmember position. I got hired to work in attractions at the Magic Kingdom in Adventureland and Liberty Square. That means I'll be able to work at quality attractions like the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean--two of my absolute favorites. :-) Don't ask me about the pay--it's not really worth talking about--but I've heard that you tend to move up pretty quickly once you get in. We'll see about that. Even if not, though, it'll still be a fun, active, non-office job for me while we're in this season.



So I'm really excited. Especially after those two auditions I was starting to get a little discouraged. But the person who did my interview said I was only the second person to be hired that day so far and he had already seen quite a few. People were lined up for interviews, so I felt pretty good about it. :-) He said he knew right away that I had a great personality and that I would be perfect. I hope so! I have to go back tomorrow to fill out some more paperwork and then I should be starting very soon!

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Beach Visit!

We set off yesterday to pay our first visit to a beach on Florida's gulf coast. Rain was in the forecast, but we decided to chance it. Our destination was Fort Desoto Beach near Saint Petersburg, Florida. Fort Desoto was recently named America's Number 1 Beach by TripAdvisor, so it was a natural first choice for our trip.

Alas, not to be. When we got there, the rain was pretty steady. We got out and explored a little anyway, but with no sun, steady rain, and a strong breeze, it was just not good beach weather, so we got in the car and headed back north, hoping to drive out of the storm.

We found sunny weather at last in Clearwater, near Tampa. As an aside, the Philadelphia Phillies train in Clearwater during the off season, which I knew, but I still didn't expect to see signs with the Phillies Logo. A bit out of place that far from Philadelphia. :-)

The Clearwater beach was excellent. We both really liked it, even though the Gulf of Mexico doesn't produce the same caliber of waves as the Atlantic coast.

Overall, we had a really good trip, and like I pointed out to Shelsy, it was a fun opportunity to explore our new home state a little bit.

Here's a video of our day. Note the clip of the tiny, beach-dwelling fish at the end. This was all shot with Shelsy's underwater digital camera. Enjoy!



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Disney Audition!

By: Shelsy

Tomorrow is my audition for a singing role at Disney World! (Click on the picture for an awesome promo video. :-) The website says they're auditioning for over 60 shows, so I'm hoping I have a relatively good chance of getting cast in one of them. There was no other information about what shows they're casting for, but I don't really have a preference, so it doesn't matter.

I'm really nervous, though. I don't even remember the last time I auditioned for something--I think it might have been as far back as high school. That's a long time ago. :-) So if you guys could be praying that I just am confident and do my best and that God takes care of the rest. I have to be there at 11am tomorrow.

In other news, we went to our first care group meeting last night (I think down here they're called home groups or something..) Apparently the married couples and singles go to the same groups, but on the second Wednesday of the month (they meet every week) only the couples meet. So last night was the couples only night. It was a lot of fun. We met some really nice people. We actually have plans to hang out with one of the girls tomorrow night--she wants to show us some of the stuff there is to do down here.

We're slowly getting settled in. It helps that now we know at least a few people, and I'm sure we'll meet more on Sunday. I promise there will be pictures or video or something of the apartment up soon. Although, really, there's not much to see yet--just piles of boxes and stuff. But we'll put something up anyway. :-)

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Our new apartment!

By: Ryan

(note: it has come to my attention that those of you reading this by email don't see the author of the post. So, from now on, we're going to put the author at the top. Those of you reading this in a feed reader or by visiting the site itself can already see the author, so this will be fairly redundant. :-)

Anyway, we are all moved in to our new apartment! That, of course, is a relative term seeing as how there are still unpacked boxes everywhere. But they're all in, the truck has been returned, and we are steadily unpacking. The apartment is arranged differently than our old one, which has made placement of furniture slightly more complicated, but it's coming together.

The picture above is our new front door, and here's a shot of the awesome tree outside our back door:
Our Internet got hooked up earlier today, but the wireless router is packed in box #26 somewhere. :-) So...that'll be a job for tomorrow. For now, we're just plugged in to the router.

Everything is coming along nicely and we really like our new place. We're really excited about getting plugged in at Metro Life and to start job hunting. Should be exciting, and we'll definitely keep you all updated!

I leave you with a picture of Tom putting together our new DVD rack. Yeah. This is our highly qualified moving help at work.


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UPDATE

Well, it has been quite some time since we've updated, so let me just fill you in on everything that's been happening...

Last Sunday after church we went up to Williamsport to visit my family. My mom, Gram, and Mindy worked all day to make a big dinner for everyone. They tried to have all of my favorites: my Gram's drop noodle chicken pot pie, rolls, chocolate pie, and sticky buns. And my mom even had some lilacs in vases around the house because she knows I love them. I appreciated the attention to detail. :-) Everything was DELICIOUS and almost my whole family was there, which was great. Then most of them actually ended up coming back the next day and we had a cookout in the backyard--hamburgers and hot dogs on the fire, corn on the cob... Good stuff. So it was a lot of fun, and we really enjoyed ourselves and loved spending some time with everyone. There was, unfortunately, one person missing, though. We're still awaiting the arrival of little Carter and were really hoping Mindy would have him before last weekend, but no dice. Hopefully I'll be able to see him soon.

We got back home on Tuesday afternoon after a detour to Kutztown to hang out with Shanna for a little while. From then on out we didn't really do much besides pack. We made a little bit of time to hang out with a few people, and we realize that we didn't get a chance to hang out with everyone. To those of you who wanted to spend some time with us before we left, we're so sorry. We really wanted to--we just literally ran out of time. :-( We would have loved to have been able to spend a lot more time with each of you, but unfortunately it just didn't work out. But visitors are welcome, and we'll definitely be back periodically.

We had a bit of a packing adventure, running out of both time and boxes. We made a late night run to try to obtain more boxes and managed to get most of it done, but there was still a decent amount we couldn't do anything with until moving day. Yesterday we packed up the truck, despite rain, two sprained ankles, and the box shortage. Fortunately, we had help--we wouldn't have gotten very far without everyone who showed up! :-)

After a few hours of sleep we were finally on the road by 4am this morning. We're actually still on the road--it's almost 4pm now and we have probably 5 hours to go, including stops. I'm hoping we'll be able to get the place cleaned and most of our stuff unloaded before we crash tonight. Then tomorrow we'll be able to take our time a little bit more and get everything put away.

I still can't really believe we're doing this! I feel like a crazy person, but I'm really excited, too. We'll hopefully be posting updates a little more frequently now that we're not so crazy busy, so check back soon!


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Our Second Home

In 2006, approximately 80 million Americans owned a second home. Ryan and I are now a proud part of that number. Well, except that both of our homes are apartments, so we don't actually own anything. And it's only temporary. But there aren't any actual statistics for weirdos like us so we'll just pretend.

As of yesterday we officially have a home in Florida. We've never seen it and have no idea when we'll get to move into it, but it's there, just waiting for us. It's kind of a cool, pointless feeling. :-)

Number of boxes packed to date: 16.5


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Air Conditioning

So it was pretty warm in Pennsylvania today. The high today was 71, which doesn't compare to the high in Orlando, which was 88. But still, 71 in early April is pretty warm. As I was driving today, I was very tempted to turn my car air conditioning on.

I decided not to, however. I thought to myself, self, you're moving to Florida, it's going to get a lot hotter than 71...don't be a wimp and turn on the air conditioning now.

So I thought back to myself, self, you're right. I'll wait until we move.

And that's what I'm doing. I have decided that I will not turn on my car air conditioning until we get to the tropical weather of Orlando. Now this isn't a hard and fast, "I PLEDGE!" kind of thing...if it gets into the 90s here for some reason, I'm definitely changing my mind on that decision. But I'm going to try.

Think I can do it? :-)

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Video of our new apartment!

A very special thanks to David Gilland of Metro Life Church for taking time out of his day last Saturday to head over to our new apartment complex and take a few shots for us. I've put a 50 second edit together which you can watch above. Looks pretty nice, doesn't it? :-)

David was speaking through the video as he wandered around the complex, telling us what various buildings were and stuff like that. Money quote from David: "It's just starting to get warm here in Florida..."

Guess he doesn't realize that we're coming from the frozen tundra of Pennsylvania where the 68 degree weather yesterday was cause to bust out the shorts and flip-flops. :-)

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