Just Heather

I got my Summer Mixmania CD in the mail on time—I promise—I just forgot to post my song list. I’m not the most organized person in the world so getting my list of 512489 things to do before I leave town actually done before I leave town is not easily—or usually—accomplished. Mixmania was fun, though I’m not a huge music person. Spencer helped me actually mix and burn the CDs once I picked my songs. He had so much fun he actually mixed his own Summer theme CD. I spent 3 weeks on mine. He threw his together in 20 minutes before we left town. I included it in my mailing to Jim to send overseas for some of our soldiers.

And now for my long awaited song list. Some are just plain old summer songs I had to include. Others are more personally meaningful to the season. Those will be detailed for your amusement.

  • Ace of Base, The Sign I lifeguarded with a guy one summer who sang this particular song all. the. time. He was so hot, I would have listened to him sing country.
  • Sheryl Crow, Soak Up the Sun
  • LFO, Summer Girls
  • Maxamillion, Fat Boys The official summer road trip song of 1995.
  • Will Smith, Miami I did make an effort to avoid the obvious Summertime, but you can’t make a summer CD and not include Will Smith. Just look at him—the boy screams heat.
  • No Doubt, Spiderwebs What is it about summer that brings out the stalker-type guys?
  • Paul Simon, Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard Spencer played with a band in college. I can picture many summer nights sitting around watching them play. This was a favorite cover.
  • Grease, Summer Nights Obvious, I know, but I just couldn’t resist.
  • Alanis Morrisette, Head Over Feet This was a big hit the year I fell in love with my sweetie. I can still remember every detail of that summer whenever I hear it.
  • Bob Carlisle, Butterfly Kisses Surprisingly, its inclusion has nothing to do with the fact that it was my Daddy Dance song at our summer wedding. It’s all about the “sticking little white flowers all up in her hair” line. I can’t be the only one who remembers making white clover crowns as a little girl!
  • TLC, Waterfalls The infamous drunken dance song for the summer of ’95. We had a whole routine and everything. Don’t ask.
  • Styx, Rockin’ The Paradise My name is Heather and I’m an official band geek. When you spend your high school years in marching band that’s all you know of summer. This was our big song during my final season.
  • Switchfoot, This Is Your Life I don’t know what it is about summer that makes me reflective, but there you go. It’s worse than New Year’s Eve.
  • Jewel, Morning Song I think this goes back to our first summer together, but this is pretty much how I feel every morning in the summer. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s light outside when the alarm goes off that makes me want to rebel against actually getting out of bed.
  • Smashing Pumpkins, Luna Our wedding dance song. I must have asked him to play this song for me a hundred times that summer. It was a nice break from the madness of putting together a wedding in 3 months. I think it always helped to remember the part after all the madness, when it would just be Spencer and I—married. Finally.

Since Christmas I have watched Gilmore Girls in its entirety. It’s such a great show—even hubby likes it. And I’m sure that’s not solely because Lauren Graham is hot.

In the last month I have noticed the soundtrack playing in my head. Not a Hey, you post-the-lyrics-to-pass-it-on sort of way. Just that the happy, bouncy song plays when my life is good and the dramatic, what-else-could-go-wrong music plays when things get tough.

It’s why I don’t have an iPod. That, and I’m skint (it’s British).

And now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for: a synopsis of our trip to the Magic Kingdom! I got my butt up at 5:30 in the morning to pick up a few of the items on my Christmas list first. Target had it all on sale for Black Friday, and I wasn’t about to miss it! I was back before 8 with a trunk-full of presents. I walked into the hotel room to find my entire family sound asleep! Never mind that I had called 20 minutes earlier, spoken to Spencer, and asked him to have the girls up and dressed. The plan was for me to breeze in, get myself ready, fix the girls’ hair, swing to the food court to fill my eleventy hundred dollar souvenir cup with coke, and make it to the bus stop by 8:30. He’s damn lucky my sister called a few minutes after I freaked out to say the bus wasn’t leaving until 8:45. Otherwise, I might have seriously freaked.

The band was having breakfast at Fantasia Gardens and—since it was free with our package—I wasn’t about to miss the buffet! We rode the band bus over to breakfast to give the girls some time with Hayley. This was her big trip so she wasn’t much a part of the whole family vacation thing.

The character hunt continued. Everyone had a fun time with that. Even Daddy since Jasmine is decidedly hot. Plus, her top kept coming undone. Since I was busy watching my girls, I didn’t notice. Spencer did. You’ll note Brenia’s not in the picture. She was hiding from the Genie who was also not in the picture as he was nice enough to hide from her so she would be. It didn’t work.

Next stop was Pirates of the Caribbean—my all-time favorite ride. The first time I went to Disney—when I was 5—I made my parents go on it 6 times. That was back in the day, when you actually could go on rides multiple times without wasting away in gargantuan lines. Stacia stopped on the way out to have her hair wrapped. Brenia was fascinated and wanted to be just like sis. I didn’t think much of it until the gal said she could do it. I would never have imagined that an almost 2-year-old could sit still for such a thing, but she was great! Now imagine my excitement over pink and blue hair wraps for birthday and holiday pictures. Did you know these suckers can stay for up to 2 months? Me neither, but I will admit they are too cute.

Brenia enjoyed the princesses a lot more than the big characters. The girls saw Aurora, Cinderella, and Snow White. My sister had a great time with that too. Lexie has decided she wants to move to Orlando and play Sleeping Beauty. Right—my sister the princess. She’s got the sleeping part down pat. It’s the soft-spoken thing she’ll need to work on.

Of course, we can’t forget the reason for our trip. My sister’s band marched ahead of the light parade. It was really cool to see her coming down Main Street USA. Unfortunately just when Spencer had the camera settings figured out for the dark, the batteries died. We got them replaced in time, but the settings reverted back and he didn’t get that fixed until the end of the band. Which worked out nice for my cousin as her daughter was in the last row so we have a decent picture of Jasmine trying not to smile as my whole family woo-hoos