#RockYourDisneySide 24-Hour Party, Part 1

I was thrilled, excited, and a little worried when I found out that our first day in Walt Disney World just happened to fall on the 24-hour #RockYourDisneySide summer kick-off party! I knew that there would be all kinds of fun things to do and see, but would it be a good idea to start our vacation off exhausted? We knew that it would be tough, but we also knew we had some beach days at the end of our vacation to "recuperate", and we knew we wouldn't arrive at Magic Kingdom until 4 or 5 pm, so we decided to go for it, and just see how long the kids would last. Guests were invited to "show their Disney side", and dress as their favorite hero or villian, and I have to say that I say saw some AH-MAY-Zing costumes, so good that I wasn't quite sure if it was a park character or someone dressed up. I saw a dead ringer for Cinderella, and one for Jasmine, as well. I had a red polka dot dress, so I decided just to go for it and dress as Minnie Mouse.

It was lots of fun, and even though I felt a little silly at first, I am glad I did! I saw lots of Minnies in the park!

This is our first view of the Castle, as we walked down Main Street, USA:

 

Beautiful, and with an extremely crowded park. Despite the crowds, we were able to ride lots and lots of rides with no more than a 25 minute wait for anything, thanks to the fast passes that I had prescheduled. At this point, the kids weren't interested in meeting the characters, they just wanted to ride the rides! So, after a few castle shots, and one of Caitlin and I by the Mickey clock,

we headed to Adventureland.

We "got spit on" by the camel:

(Which felt really good-it was 98 degrees out still!)

And we headed to the Pirates Of The Caribbean for our first fast pass:

As soon as Eric saw how many people we were able to bypass with the fast pass, he was hooked! Pirates is a really dark ride (and cool, so that felt great!), so pictures inside were next to impossible, but here are a few from our phones:

Eric and Cecilia tried out the "pirate look":

After which we headed to Tortuga Tavern for dinner, quick-service style.

I had the taco salad:

 

I have to say, this was my least favorite meal at Disney World. I must be spoiled by all of the excellent choices for Mexican food that we have here at home, because I was a little disappointed by this meal. The toppings bar was fun, and it was great to choose how much lettuce, cheese, and tomatoes I wanted, but, the meat and shell weren't hot enough for me (I like hot food piping hot, and this was far from that). And I would have liked the option of guacamole on the toppings bar. But all in all, it was still pretty good, and we were starving after the seven hour drive from Atlanta, so this definitely filled me up and refreshed me for the rest of the night.

While we were eating, we made the decision to tackle as much of Adventureland and Frontierland the first night, and save the majority of Fantasyland and Tomorrowland for our second day at Magic Kingdom. We saw the Swiss Family Robinson's Treehouse ( I remember seeing it when I was ten, so I was excited to go through it again to see if it was how I remembered it-it wasn't scary at all this time ;-)  ):

And we did a couple of the "mountain" rides: 

Splash Mountain:

(Hello goofiest picture ever! Can you tell Eric hates getting wet on rides?I just didn't want my ears to fly off)

And Big Thunder Mountain (no ride camera, but a few shots I took as we were walking up to the ride):

And I think this is where I will leave our Disney story for now, since this is getting to be a rather long post already.

Dinner at The Derby (Hollywood Brown Derby)

During our 5 days at Disney, we only did one table service meal (there are so many fantastic snacks, and who really wants to sit around eating for a couple of hours while you're at Disney world, anyway?) I have to say that this was a fantastic meal, though- everything I tried was excellent! We tried out one of the signature restaurants in Disney's Hollywood Studios, The Hollywood Brown Derby.

The Hollywood Brown Derby Dining Room:

(photo from the My Disney Experience website)

I loved the light fixtures and caricatures on the walls:

Instead of ordering entrees for the adults- we ordered several appetizers and desserts, so that we could try a variety of things. 

I ordered the "Portsmouth Lobster Bisque

with a Lobster Fritter and Jalapeño Oil":

 

  

and the 

Blue Lump Crab Spring Rolls

Snow Crab Claw, and an Asian Slaw with spicy Miso Aïoli:

The spring rolls were the best spring rolls I have ever had, and the soup was so yummy I almost forgot to take a picture!

Eric ordered the famous Cobb Salad (the Cobb Salad was made famous by the original Hollywood Brown Derby in California)

with Finely Chopped Greens, Turkey Breast, Bacon, Egg, Tomatoes, Crumbled Blue Cheese, Avocado, Chives, and Cobb Dressing:

 (photo source)

I thought it was very good, except for the blue cheese-not a big fan of that!

And he ordered the

Andouille-crusted Prawn

over Black Diamond Cheddar Grits, Wilded Greens, and Ancho Oil:

 Also very good-especially the grits for this southern girl! If you try them, it will totally change your opinion of grits! Creamy perfection!

Even the kids' fish and chips were great!Caitlin had a Cobb salad too, but she wished she had left off the blue cheese-she thought it tasted like perfume.

My favorite part of any meal is dessert, so we ordered a couple of Dessert Trios:

The desserts we chose:

Chocolate Sphere with Hazelnut Praline Chocolate and Orange-White Chocolate Mousse,

Milk Chocolate Crémeux with Mojito Concoction on Almond Rocher, Amaretto Flan and Opalys White Chocolate Whip with an Almond Cookie; Brown Derby Original! Mini Grapefruit Cake, Double Vanilla Bean Crème Brûlée, and the Warm Blueberry Cobbler with Crème Fraîche and Orange Blossom Honey.

This was the most popular dessert with the kids:

 

And, while I agree that it was very good, my favorite was the Warm Blueberry Cobbler-so yummy!

Or, maybe, it was the Mango Margarita-so refreshing on a 97+ degree day!

Have you done table service meals at any of the Disney parks? What were your favorites? I would love to know!

Magical Touches From "Mousekeeping"

One of the fun things about staying on Disney property for family vacation is the full immersion into the "Disney Experience". We stayed at the Art of Animation resort, in one of the family suites, and I feel it truly added to our vacation experience.

There were 3 fantastic swimming pools at our resort-
The Cozy Cone Swimming pool area in the Cars section:

(this photo is from The Disney Blog)

But my kids loved The Big Blue Pool:

(I'll post about our afternoon at the pool eventually)

We didn't make it back to The Little Mermaid  pool at all, but it looks like this:

(This photo is from easywdw.com)

Another fun thing about staying on Disney property? The special touches from "mousekeeping"!

It is always fun to arrive to special towel shapes like Mickey heads:

And to come back to the room after a LOOONG day at the park and find that the kids' stuffed Mickey had a great day chillin' on the bed:

Summertime Photo Scavenger Hunt

I played along with Rinda's Challenge last summer, and had a lot of fun with it, so I think I will give it a go again this year! I am posting the details here to my blog, but if you wish to enter the challenge, please visit her blog here.

Scavenger Hunt List

1. A sign welcoming people to your home town (or a nearby town)
2. A garden gnome
3. Birds on a wire
4. A group of tourists
5. A rack of post cards
6. An urban street scene
7. A rural landscape
8. A tattoo on a person
9. A bakery
10. A photo bomb (someone found lurking in the background of photo; the lurker may have intended to disrupt the picture or may be doing it unintentionally, but the background lurker is a surprise to the photographer)
11. A horn
12. A mascot
13. A sunrise
14. A parade
15. A juggler
16. A sign in a language other than English
17. A lamp post
18. A water fall
19. A public garden
20. A bus (not a car, truck, lorry, camper or RV) with a picture painted on its sides.
21. A photograph of you with something representing the season (recognizing that the season will be Winter for our friends in the southern hemisphere). Note: you may not use a substitute for this item.
If you find something on the list too difficult, you may substitute one of the following items for anything on the list, except for Item #21:
Alternative A: A kite, hot air balloon or blimp
Alternative B: A bird house

Laughing a bit as I read the list, I could probably fulfill the list with my Disney photos!

Mickey Mouse Pancake Fail...or...Daddy Makes The Magic Happen!

So, when I planned the whole "Magical Morning Surprise", my plan was to make the kids Mickey pancakes for breakfast, to add to the excitement, memories, whatever. However, a little practice might have been a good idea ;-) . When I actually went to execute my plan, my pancakes were looking nothing like Mickey! In fact, they just came out like rather odd, deformed circles. Luckily, I married someone that has more patience than I do (at least while cooking!), so Eric took over and brought my idea to fruition. His Mickey pancakes looked great:

And the kids loved them-they ate them (ears first, of course!) without even needing syrup on them.

I will, however, be purchasing a Mickey waffle maker soon, so I can make a Disney breakfast, too!

A Magical Morning Surprise

 Have you ever tried to keep a secret from 4 very smart kids? It is tough, I will tell you! Especially when it is one as big as Disney World! We told the kids that we were going to Florida for 10 days, but we just told them that we were going to the beach in Sarasota. Our plan was to stop at my sister's house (about midway for us, near Atlanta), and tell them about Disney when we woke them up, on  the morning of our drive/arrival to Disney World.
I got up around 5:30 after a very restless night, tiptoed around setting everything up, then said, "get up kids, look at the table!"
Natalie and Evan were up in a blur:

 Before leaving home, I had typed up a letter in a free( Waltograph )font, which I laid out, along with Disney t-shirts (Mickey for the boys, Minnie for the girls), gift cards for spending money,  and a stack of Disney movies so they could "brush up" on the 6 hour drive from Atlanta to Orlando:

 The expressions of shock and awe were worth the work and planning:

 Such a fun thing to do-aren't surprises awesome?

Exhausted...Exhilarated...

And...just like that, our vacation is over, and it's time to get back to the "real" world. Between 5 days at Disney world, and 4 full days at the beach, it was a long vacation, but it seemed to go by so quickly! And, of course, I took lots and lots of photos, so I plan to share some of the photos and stories to keep a record of them until I get a chance to scrap them. Between my camera, and all of our phones and ipods, we have somewhere around 4000 photos, so there are plenty of pictures and stories to share! Oh yeah, and I purchased the Disney Memory Maker (used to be known as Photopass Plus), so I actually got to be in a few of the photos myself! I truly think it was worth the advance purchase price of $149-we got over 200 photos from it-including characters, rides, and those classic park icon shots of the whole family, so that works out to less than a $1 per photo. Here are some of my family's Memory Maker "icon" shots:

Magic Kingdom:

 We arrived at the Magic Kingdom around 5pm at the 24 hour "Show Your Disney Side" party on May 23rd-which gave our "castle shot" a lovely color/glow.

Hollywood Studios:

After staying at Magic Kingdom until 5 am, we got up a little late for our day at Hollywood Studios-we didn't get started until after noon. Luckily, I was able to change most of our fast passes- the only one I couldn't reschedule a fast pass for was Toy Story Midway Mania, but I was able to get one for Rockin' Roller Coaster instead. We skipped Toy Story-90 minute waits in 95-100 degree heat wasn't even an option in our minds, and there was plenty of stuff to do and see, especially with Star Wars Weekend festivities!

We went back to Magic Kingdom on the 3rd day, and didn't do a castle shot right away, but we did get one after dark:

Love how beautiful the castle is at night!

We definitely discovered the benefit of Evening Extra Magic Hours on this day, but I will share more about that in a later post!

Epcot:

 

Spaceship Earth is pretty beautiful at night, too! Another late start for us-everyone was tired and really hard to wake up-this is the park that I would really love another day (or 3) at to explore. At least we had Evening Extra Magic hours here, too!

Animal Kingdom:

We loved Animal Kingdom, too! This was our check-out day, so we got up early, packed the van and cleared out our room, then we took the resort bus over to DAK for the day. We were running when we entered, to make our Kali River Rapids fast passes, so we got this shot at the end of the day.

A Very Productive National Scrapbook Day...

When National Scrapbook Day rolls around each year, it seems like I always have something else important to do. Not this year! Well, of course there were things that I could have been doing, but I just didn't. I took the  whole day and scrapped and played on line! I did pre-make a few layouts on Friday for the Big Picture Classes' 10K Celebration on Instagram:

 

I saw an idea for inspiration in one of the youtube videos that I watch while cleaning and working around the house, on nicmackin's channel , for using those old scrappy mags we all have kicking around before we get rid of them. She makes up kits from her stash and tosses an old magazine in with her kits, to draw on for inspiration, then tosses it or sends it off to a new home after she has drawn all of the inspiration she can. I used an old Simple Scrapbooks special issue magazine for most of these layouts, except this one:

 

Which was inspired by the Birthday Bash sketches at Creative Scrappers :

 A closer look at the other individual layouts:

                              

 

 

I still need to add journaling to this one:

 

 

Most of these layouts came from this kit: 

 

In non-scrappy news, we are dealing with the hustle and bustle of school ending, and we just got past our local spring Strawberry Festival:

 

The twins had to have candy apples:

 

I, on the other hand, "had to have" a red velvet funnel cake...because I have to try it if it is Red Velvet anything:

 

I have to say, though-it was soooo sweet!  I couldn't eat all of it, but that is probably a good thing. I will leave you for today with a selfie I snapped with Natalie:

 

And yes, I do realize my bra strap is showing, but, this is real life, and I only got one shot! I'll be back in the next day or two to share more of my crazy life and NSD productivity.