I miss you!

Hey everybody!!
I feel like I haven't heard from you all in forEVER...and that is NOT good. We're going to have to fix that.
So, since last time I posted on here, my summer has finally kicked off! But before that happened, I struggled through the end of my physics class. I seriously don't want to deal with a situation like that ever again, hahaha. I had such a hard time studying for the final. My whole family went out on the lake the weekend before the exam, and I stayed home to try to study. Needless to say, two hours later I was out on the boat with them. I brought my stuff out there to study, and ended up dropping all of my test papers in the water. I managed to recover them all...but it was rather funny. At that point I really just didn't care. = ) But anyway, so I walked into my final feeling good, and ready to get it over with. The final was eight questions. I got my exam, looked through it, and realized that I maybe knew how to solve one problem on there. I've never felt so dumb in my entire life. I honestly think my score on that final was around a 20. And yet a few days later, my final grade was posted. I was beyond ecstatic to see that I got an A- for the class. God was most certainly with me when those grades were being decided.
After I finished with physics, I spent pretty much the next week going to various doctors appointments I had scheduled. One of those is my jaw doctor (for those of you who may not know, I've had arthritis in my jaw since I was 16. crazy), and he actually sent me back to physical therapy for a few weeks because my jaw has been in a lot more pain that usual for the past couple months. Hopefully it will help, but we'll see!
Finally, I kicked my summer off with an amazing trip to Florida! I went with my mom, my boyfriend Landon, his mom, and his younger brother. We left on a Thursday afternoon around 6pm and drove all night straight to Universal Islands of Adventure. We got there at about 5:30am, and went and parked until we could get into the park. We headed straight to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, because we heard the lines to get in were ridiculous. As exciting as it was to be there and see the castle and everything come to life, I think we were all a little bit disappointed by what was there. It was just so crowded it was so difficult to get around or get into any of the stores. But we still enjoyed it, especially the Forbidden Journey ride inside the castle. That ride was really cool...but we headed out of that part of the park, and went on to the rest of the Islands.
That night, we all finally got to the condo we stayed at, Bahama Bay Resort, and completely crashed. For the next week, we woke up early every morning, headed to a park, played all day, and got back late. It was the most exhausting vacation I've ever been on, but it was also so much fun. I really loved just being able to be a kid, and run around Disney World, and get excited by the simplest things. The second day we did the water park Typhoon Lagoon in the afternoon and Epcot that night. The third we did Animal Kingdom, which I had never been to, so I really really enjoyed that. It was just so different and more relaxing than a lot of the other parks. The fourth day we went to Universal Studios, which had a lot of new rides as well. The last time I was there I was ten years old, so I really don't remember much of what it was like! Day 5, we slept in and went back to Islands of Adventure for the second half of the day to finish up some stuff we had wanted to ride.
On day 6, we did Hollywood Studios (previously MGM), which we didn't expect to spend much time at. But they have this thing there called the American Idol Experience, and Landon decided to audition for it just for fun. Of course, he ended up making it into the show, which is basically a mock version of the real American Idol! It was so awesome seeing him up on the huge stage, and he was so excited. He sang "Circle of Life," perfect since we were at Disney, and competed against two girls. The audience voted, and he didn't win his round, but was still so amazed at being able to sing up there that he didn't even care. He actually had people from the audience coming up to him afterwards telling him that they voted for him, and that he would be crazy not to audition for the actual show. So, it was an extremely exciting afternoon! On our last day, we went to Magic Kingdom, and ended up riding Space Mountain 4 times..woohoo! It was awesome. The next morning we came home, and I still feel like I haven't had a chance to relax. But it was such an amazing trip, and I had SO much fun. I'll be posting pictures in the next couple days if you want to check them out!
Hopefully I haven't bored you too much with my Disney adventures, but that's pretty much my exciting adventure for the summer! I did fireworks with my family last night, as always, and also went to the Fuquay fireworks July 3rd, so that was fun. I've also got a John Mayer concert coming up in a couple weeks, and at the end of the month I'll be heading to Virginia for a couple days to shadow my uncle who works as a pharmacist in a hospital. Ahh, summer is going by WAY too fast! I'll be looking forward to hearing about all of your adventures from the past few weeks. Hopefully they've been very exciting. I miss you all so much, and I can't wait to start the first of many fun times we're all going to have in the next year. = )
BWhappy4thofjulyL,
Rachel