Saturday we met up with our good friends Kirk and Laura at Universal Studios around 5 pm. We thought the plan was to meet for dinner and to stroll through the Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios. And it was..sort of. It turned out that Kirk and Laura wanted to treat us to dinner for our anniversary and had made reservations at a restaurant that Blog Girl and I had looked at back in October and said we wanted to come back and try; the interesting eatery known as Mythos, Grotto of the Gods.

Mythos is located on the Islands of Adventure section of the park in The Lost Continent. The interior of the restaurant is filled, or rather I should say the walls, ceiling and floor are shaped like incredible statues of mythical creatures and there is a waterway running throughout the restaurant. The water represents the River Styx and the mythical shapes are Perseus, Andromeda and Cassiopeia, among many others. Click on my Flickr Badge on the right and you can see pictures from inside the restaurant of the various mythical gods and goddesses.

I had the filet mignon with asparagus tips and fried onion sticks and it was delicious. Cooked as I asked (medium-well), flavorful, tender and juicy. We enjoyed the food and the chance to catch up with each other (mostly Kirk and I, as Blog Girl and Laura work together). The atmosphere of the restaurant, the decor, the lighting and the otherworldly ambience, made for a delightful experience.

After leaving there we walked through the rest of the Islands of Adventure section, passing through Jurassic Park, Toon Lagoon, Marvel Superhero Island and Dr. Seuss Landing before heading over to Universal Studios to enjoy the fun of Mardi Gras, or at least the early part of the celebration. Lots of pictures over on my Flickr page.

We finished up with an ice cream dessert and left for home around 9:30. We had a wonderful time and appreciated the gift of the fantastic dinner our friends gave us for our anniversary. Thanks, Kirk and Laura.

April is Autism Awareness Month. Autism receives as little as 5% of the research funding as other less common diseases.

Since I was off today Blog Girl took a vacation day from her job and we went out to Universal Studios Islands of Adventure this morning. This is one of the great things about the annual passes; you can go out for a few hours without thinking about it. If you pay for a single day ticket you feel obligated to spend the entire day out there, no matter how tired or exhausted you may be, because, “Dammit, I paid for a full day and I’m going to get a full day!”

We went on only one ride; The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man. I was surprised because, even on a Friday morning, the line for the ride was longer than the ride itself. But the ride was a lot of fun, especially the 400 foot drop that is stopped by Spider-Man’s webbing.

Everyone knows my favorite comic book superhero is Superman, but Spider-man is my second-favorite. I probably aggravated my fellow riders by shouting out, “Hey! It’s Spider-man”, “Spider-man will defeat you Doctor Octopus!” and “Thanks for saving our asses Spider-Man!”, but I didn’t care because I was having fun.

Afterward we strolled over to the Toon Lagoon and had lunch at the Comic Strip Cafe. Below is a picture of our lunch, which you may or may not be shocked to learn is $25 worth of food.

Now, to be fair, the 2 drinks are $5.50 drinks which are refillable for $1.39 every time you are in either park, but still…I mean the “pizza” was thin, hard, tough to chew dough with canned pizza sauce and the barest minimum of some mozzarella cheese substitute sprinkled over  it. Blog Girl’s chicken strips were tolerable, the fries were not. We’re thinking next time we’ll try the Mythos restaurant over on the Lost Continent Island.

After walking all the way around the attraction, we went back over to Marvel Superhero Island and watched the superhero character appearance, where comic book heroes like Captain American, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Storm, Rogue and Cyclops, come out to pose for pictures with the public. Here’s one picture, I have several  others posted on Flickr, over on the right.

Speaking of over on the right, I’ve added a “100 things About Me” page (up at the top) and a link to chat with me if I’m online. Take a look when you get the chance.

My personal schedule has been full of activities and extremely hectic lately and Blog Girl’s has not been much better, so we haven’t had a lot of time together. Saturday morning we got an early start on the day by spoiling ourselves and going out to breakfast at Perkins Restaurant instead of cooking at home. I love their Country Club Omelet with hash browns and pancakes!

After that we drove out to Universal Studios. Saturday was the final day of a special offer that Universal Studios made available in which you could purchase an annual pass to both parks and receive an extra year at no charge, if you had a sales receipt from Bealls that was dated within a certain time period. We were going to make the purchase online, but the receipt we had was from Bealls OUTLET store and did not have the secret code number that was printed on the regular store receipt. So we had to go out to the park to show our receipt to get this deal that was just too good to pass up. Admission for 2 years, no charge for parking (which is normally $10 a pop), discounts on merchandise, food, and CityWalk club entrances as well as other benefits. We hung around the Studio park until about 11:30 (attendance was very sparse, which made it extremely pleasant to walk around without the crowds) and took some pictures. You can see other photos on my Flickr page by clicking on the badge in the right sidebar.

After that it was over to my in-laws’ for the September family birthday party. Mikey and Heather were adorable, as usual. More pics from the party at Flickr as well.

Another long week is ahead for both of us.