Friday Favorites #86 – STAY AWAY IRMA

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Well, my plans are pretty much made for the weekend. I plan on staying inside, away from the windows, eating wheat thins and Oreos. We are bracing for IRMA who is currently heading towards the entire state of Florida. We had actually made reservations at a pet friendly hotel in Atlanta. That was when the storm was still expected to hit the state as a Category 5 storm. We have since cancelled those reservations as they are expecting the storm to downgrade to a Cat 3 by the time it hits Orlando. And you know you are a seasoned hurricane veteran when a Cat 3 doesn’t rattle you that much. Don’t get me wrong, this is still a very powerful and scary storm – we don’t plan on grilling out on the back porch and taking a dip in the pool this weekend, but I think there are people who may need that hotel room more than we do. Hopefully between now and Saturday night the forecast doesn’t change for the worse for us. At this point the highways north are pretty jammed and we are kind of stuck.

So what else is there to do then carry on with Friday Favorites? Because LAST weekend was pretty amazing.

1. The EPCOT Food and Wine Festival

Mr. Beet and I celebrated our ten year anniversary last week. Unfortunately, the actual day fell  while I was in the hospital getting my neck surgery. So, once I was out of the meds haze and able to move around a bit, he treated me to a weekend at EPCOT to experience the Food and Wine Festival.

So many delicious things, but, not a whole lot of anything if you are a Vegetarian, and nothing if you are a Vegan. We did find ONE soup that was Vegan, so that was very disappointing.

I think we both thought the Spicy Hummus Fries were our favorite from the Morocco booth.

I actually really loved the Spicy Kimchi Hot Dog, also found in the World Showcase. While meat isn’t my thing normally, this was actually pretty good. I do miss hot dogs.

I also really loved the Peanut Butter White Chocolate Mousse from a booth at Showcase Plaza.

And we found the Dole Whip!!!

2. The HOOTERS

I talked last week about being super excited that my favorite band in the whole wide world was going to be playing at EPCOT for two nights during the Food and Wine Festival as part of the Eat to the Beat Concert Series. And let’s be real, this was the real  reason we went to EPCOT. Mr. Beet was a good sport – he sat with with me through all 6 sets of The Hooters. He had never seen them live before so this was quite an introduction for him. They played three sets a day and pulled out all the instruments – the mandolin, the accordion, and their name sake the Hohner Melodica, nicknamed the Hooter.

The Hooters have been my favorite since I first heard them in 1985. You may remember some of their early hits like “And  We Danced” and “All You Zombies”. A few of the members have penned other major hits like “Time After Time” for Cyndi Lauper and “One of Us” for Joan Osborne. I was fortunate enough to have gotten to know them over the years and they are the nicest most down to Earth guys you could ever meet. Here is me with the band exactly 30 years ago in 1987 –>

And here is me with Eric this past July in Ocean City, NJ.  –>

Mr. Beet and I were even fortunate enough to have dinner with Eric while they were here in Orlando. I am so lucky they played last weekend and not this weekend. I would have been so bummed. They don’t play in the states a lot anymore but they have lots of dates in Germany and Switzerland where they are still very popular. One of my bucket list items  to go back to Switzerland, but his time to see the band.

3. Princess Anna

While we were at EPCOT, I stopped in to see Princess Anna, the Princess Disney named after me.

We even pronounce our names the same despite everyone’s inability to say it properly. It’s AHna – not ANNa.

4. My new gadget

All that dancing at The Hooters show had me in some great pain at the end of the weekend. I actually spent all day Monday in bed with ice on my neck. It was really just too soon for me to be up and dancing like I was. Mr. Beet said he thought about telling me to maybe take it easy on the dancing, but I think he knows that I wouldn’t have listened. Though I probably should have if he had said something.

So yesterday I had one of my surgeon assistants stop by the house and give me this fun little gadget – a spine fusion stimulator system. I get to wear this with the pads attached to my neck for the next three months/ 24 hours a day. It really isn’t that bad and I certainly can’t feel the electric pulses it is sending to grow the noes in my neck, but I do have to carry the battery pack around. It feels like I have a pager attached to my hip.

Well, that’s all I really have for this week’s Friday Favorites. We are just going to wait for the hurricane to blow through Beetsland so we can get back to our normally scheduled lives.

Olive has been spending her time sitting at the window waiting for IRMA to make her appearance.

So to all my friends in Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas- stay safe you guys! And y’all can find me on the Zello app at annamwalsh – hope to see you on the other side with my only horror story being that I ran out of Oreos halfway through the storm.

Thank you for stopping by and don’t forget to check out the rest of the Friday Favorites party with my friends Andrea, Katie, Heather, and April.