All Hail the Royals!

ALL hail the Kansas City Royals!!! Today's blog is about the Spring Training in the Desert, Surprise and Good Year, AZ. We started the three day trip in Good Year where we were able to attend the opening of Good Year's finest baseball facility. Home of the Cleveland Indians and starting next year the Cincinatti Reds. We were able to tour the stadium and the spring training complex. It was super cool to walk around the complex and see the minor leaguers working out. When Daniel would talk with them they didn't even seem to mind the KC hat he was wearing. Odd, huh. Anyways the best part of the trip was the next day when we all went to the see the only team that matters... The Royals! We sat right behind the Royals' s dugout and during the National Anthem Daniel quickly snapped off this picture. George Brett, although a great ball player in his day, was being kinda stupid. After shouting his name from just behind the dugout, he wouldn't even turn around. PUNK. Daniel still likes you Brett, but you hurt his feelings a little.

Being able to sit so close and knowing that Meghann and Daniel would probably not be able to see the Royals during the season made this trip worth wild for Daniel. He was like that crazed overzealous fan that you only see in the movies! You know, those diehards that go to spring training to watch the studs play for two innings and then watch the minor leaguers play the rest. I did however get to watch some players take some cuts. In this picture is Alex Gordon. He had a bad day at the plate but Daniel was still like a kid in the candy store. In fact he was so happy, after he bought a pepsi at the ballpark he started dancing around. Some guy from Pepsi Cola, inc was there and sent in this home video to the Pepsi company. We are hoping that Daniel will rake in millions in royalties so he can pay for his MBA.

After the hoopla and fanfare died down Daniel made his way back to Idaho where his ever-so loving wife was waiting for him. Meghann made a zuccini fetacheni that our perfessional cook (Rachel Ray) taught her and it was delicious.

The next day Meghann drug Daniel out of the house and he finally bought new shoes. His faithful shoes of almost 5 years have unfortunity bit the dust. Plus, he couldn't run anymore so his new New Balance shoes will last that long!

Even though Meghann has a professional cook at her disposal, she on occasion still needs that precious time in the kitchen. We hope that she will be able to correct these little mishaps before kids come. What little kid would eat that! It was good but seriously, what little kid would eat that?

Orlando for the New Years!!

Back in October when we were making plans for what we were going to do over the holiday season, we were excited about the possibility to spend New Years at the most magical place in the world! Not to mention that while it was going to be negative nothing in Idaho, we would be lounging in 80+ degree weather in Orlando!! Whoot Whoot!

This is our story of our New Years.

Like an older post, again, we are going to give you the ending first! We spent celebrating the New Years in our bed dead asleep at 10:00 p.m....

Because Meghann did her internship at Disney World a couple of years back and because she went back to work for them a week last year, they gave her two free day passes. So, we were able to use them when we went to Orlando.

New Years Eve: We started the day at the park at 8:30 in the morning. Our grand plan was to hit up 3 of the 4 parks: starting at Hollywood Studios, then around lunch time heading over to Epcot to eat fish and chips in England, then take the monorail over to Magic Kingdom to end the day watching the New Years Firework Celebration!

Sounds like a well thought out plan huh? Well, let me tell you that we drastically underestimated the foot traffic that was going to be at the park!

So, this is the start of the day with Daniel enjoying his favorite ride! *Fun Fact* the tram is the second fastest ride in Epcot (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow). We entered the park (courtesy of Meghann's old employee card we didn't have to pay for parking the whole day!!!) and headed straight for the Tower of Terror to get our fast passes. We then headed over to the Rockin' Roller coaster and got to see Aerosmith... on the big screen. OK, so they weren't real thing but Daniel sang every Aerosmith song as we waited in line. After we did everything we wanted to we headed over to EPCOT!
As we were driving over to Epcot we were met with a 30 min. line into the park. It was 11:30 and Disney had already closed the Magic Kingdom because they were at capacity. So, because Epcot is on the way to Magic Kingdom, and because Magic Kingdom was closed, everyone shuffled themselves over to the park WE were heading too. It took us another 30 minutes to get into the Epcot after we parked and we took a picture so all you could see and to NEVER plan to go to Disney World over the holidays!!! We ate our fish and chips in England and meandered around all the other countries.

We decided that it was time to head over to the Magic Kingdom to get our spot for the grand finale. As we waded through the thousands of people with their kids, we finally got back to the monorail to head over to Disney HQ, where all the magic happens. Well, the sign apologized to us and after a tear or two, we reluctantly decided that maybe we could try later in the day. We headed over to Animal Kingdom and rode a couple of rides and saw the Holiday parade there.

When we were done with the Animal Kingdom we tried one more time to get into the Magic Kingdom but they told us that we were going to have to go to the other parks to enjoy any kind of special fireworks for the New Years. So, we finally decided to just go back home. Yes, we were kinda sad but we also spent over 11 hours walking around in flip flops and our feet were tired and sore.

All in all it was a great time and an even better lesson learned. Never come to Disney over any break, holiday, or in the summer time. The best highlight of the day was when we found Hollywood Hulk Hogan's hand prints in the concrete. Meghann was stoked!!

Christmas Vacation to Missouri!!! (finally...)

The much anticipated Christmas Blog is finally here!

Let's begin our Christmas festivities with Christmas morning when Jerry and Cheryl opened one of their Christmas presents from Santa. We (Meg and Dan) think that Santa was giving this present as a gag gift but after the look on Mama Furnell's face, we now know it to be something that she was hoping for!! No more slipping out of that wet bathtub. We don't want any broken hips! (or ankles)

Back at the Tracy residence, we were all filled with the Christmas spirit! Meg and Mom decorated cookies whilst Daniel would sneak behind and scarf down the good-looking ones. After the fifth one Daniel was down for the count! Seeing Adam and Karen over the break was fun too. Thanksgiving AND Christmas...such a treat :) And prego Karen was also looking very radiant!

Santa got Daniel a new Blu-Ray player to go along with all of his Blu-Rays (0). Meghann was good enough to let him buy his first two on Amazon. The first one being Sleeping Beauty (to begin the Disney collection). The second one, Transformers. No not the cartoon animated feature, but the one where the transformers really came down from outer space and fought on top of the Hoover Damn! you know the 'Real' Transformers movie.


Santa didn't like how Meghann would always go to school in her spring coat during those frigid Rexburg winter mornings, so he got her a Down Coat from Eddie Bauer that will keep her warm all the way down to 0 degrees!! Hurrah for goose feathers! The new coat doesn't allow the frosty wind in either, Double bonus!






After almost 6 months of not seeing Jasper and nagging Daniel about getting a dog, Meghann was at rest and soaked up having a dog around for the holidays. Meghann is convinced that Mama Cheryl will get tired of Jasper and send him to live with us. Doubtful, very doubtful. Nonetheless, she had her fun with the little furball.

And to go with our last post. This is our after Christmas card photo hoping that everyone had a magical holiday season full of love and laughter!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM THE TRACY'S!