Four Year Anniversary: Now with 90% less Disney

Thank you to Log Cabin for sponsoring my post about updated traditions in my household. To learn more about Log Cabin Syrups (which are all free of High Fructose Corn Syrup), breakfast for dinner, and other new ways to update traditions in your home, click here. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.


Hubby and I moved to Florida exactly three months before our first anniversary.

Our first year of marriage hadn't been easy. We experienced layoffs, difficulty finding jobs, the unexpected death of our first cat and the biggest move either of us had ever experienced. We decided to celebrate our first year with a trip to Disney World, a short drive from where we'd moved.

Four years younger and ten pounds lighter.

We splurged on a season pass, knowing we'd take full advantage of everything Disney had to offer. Yes, two adults can have fun at Disney without a child in tow. We booked a hotel outside the park, but one with a fancy breakfast and transportation to the park. Not only were we celebrating our first year of marriage, but a new life in a new state where we could grow where we were planted.

Sharing the world's most expensive Coke.

When our season passes ran out the next year, we decided to continue this tradition for year two. It wasn't quite as fancy. We probably stayed in a terrible hotel because it's sort of our thing. We probably yelled at some people for cutting front of us in line. We probably looked like wilted flowers by the end of the day.

We definitely had a great time.

Last year was more of the same, but took on a much larger meaning: last May was the last anniversary trip we'd take to Disney on our own. I was about 12 weeks pregnant and only showing in my face and hips. I personally had been infected with Baby Fever, and although I'm speaking for him, I'm pretty sure he was too. Did you know a substantial amount of children go to Disney? Up until that point, when my little squirt had just only allowed me to eat real food again, we hadn't noticed how many beautiful babies visited the parks. It's all we talked about.

We were in line for Snow White and started a conversation with the woman behind us, mother of a cute two-year-old girl. We told her I was pregnant and due in November.

"That's so great!" she said. "Your lives are going to change. For the better!"

We asked her to take our picture with our little anniversary pins to remember our last trip as a family of two.

This year our family tradition of heading to Orlando for a weekend with Mickey is going to be very different. Instead of park-hopping with a season pass, we'll be shopping at Downtown Disney. Instead of standing in line for $4 Cokes, we'll be cooking pancakes for breakfast in our suite (generously gifted to us by my sweet sister). Instead of eagerly awaiting another ride on Pirates of the Caribbean, we'll be splashing in the hotel pool with our six-month-old baby boy.

Today is one month until our fourth anniversary, and something tells me this year will be the best one yet.

What are some of your favorite family traditions?

This baby is ruining my whole fall

The past two years, Hubby and I have imbibed in wines and delicious foods from around the world at the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival. It has all of our favorite things:

• Food
• Wine
• Disney World

This year we opted out of renewing our seasonal passes to Disney World. The renewal date was in May and the seasonal passes are blacked-out for the whole summer and we wouldn't have been able to go back until August. And I can't think of much worse at 7 months pregnant than walking around a crowded theme park in the August heat. And  the September heat. And the October heat.

Besides, how could we spend weekends at Disney World, enjoying delicious food and wine, when we've invested a small fortune in the NFL, NBA and college football packages on DirecTV? Blasphemy.

When I started seeing commercials for the Food & Wine Festival, I got a little case of the sads. We always went for the booze and stayed for the delightfully lame entertainment: Enrique Inglesias. Taylor Hicks. Air Supply.

So, no booze. No tasty, international dishes. No Jon Secada or Hanson.

But I'm having a baby, so that totally makes up for it.

But then I saw a Tweet that rocked my world:

 

Um.

Excuse me?

Boyz II Men.

Boyz. Two Capital "i"s. MEN?

ONLY my favorite R&B quartet in 1995. ONLY giving a FREE concert at Epcot.

Kaching! and Jackpot! If only......................................................

Baby Blogworthy, you have really put me in a pickle now, what with your sitting on my bladder so I have to pee every three seconds, and your big, hard head all but stopping the circulation in my legs, giving me a wicked cankle, and your little toes kicking my bronchial tubes so I sound like an asthmatic old man. And now making me MISS OUT on this concert.

I wont' soon let you forget the year you were happily baking away while I had to miss  Boyz II Men's big theme park comeback, and don't you EVEN think I won't bring it up.

Baby Blogworthy: Mom, I don't want to clean my room because I want to go play with my friends instead.

Me: Well I didn't want to miss the Boyz II Men concert in November 2010, but I did because I was giving life to you.

And so forth. I'm all about the passive aggressive behavior.

Have you ever missed an amazing event because of some other amazing event? Isn't this a sad, sad story? Did you rock out to Boyz II Men back in the day?

Hey HEY hey, word nerd!

Back from vacay, or, You mean I have to cook my own meals now?

Well y'all I'm back from my big adventure to the beautiful Caribbean. This was my second cruise, but Hubby's first. Thanks to all the great bloggers who filled in for me: Jennifer from Crazy Shenanigans, Hutch from Be Awesome Instead and KLZ from Taming Insanity.

I just want to give you some highlights of my vacay because usually people talking about their vacation sounds either braggy or boring. First, our stateroom: We choose the inside state room, so we really had no idea what time of day it was or what was going on in the outside world. My Hubby is a tall person and could barely fit into the shower. His legs hit the tub when he sat down on the toilet. It really wasn't a problem though; totally nice and cozy accommodations.

But our bed was humongous and had these curtains that closed off our bed from the rest of the room. I mean there wasn't really a function for it because it was just the two of us, but how cool is it to "pull the curtains" before you go to bed? I pretended like it was our own personal yacht and we were rich people. I mean, is that what rich people do? Sleep with the curtains drawn in their private yacht? If you're a rich person, let me know. Also, give me piles of money.


If you've never been on a cruise, forget about losing weight and in fact, just plan on gaining 7 to 10 pounds while you're there because you will have a never-ending stream of food placed in front of your open mouth. Cruise people do NOT want you to be hungry, because hungry = cranky and that's not the point of a cruise. We're talking a breakfast buffet, followed by a seafood lunch buffet, followed (much later) but a four course meal. Want some crab dip, then a salad, then a steak, then some baked Alaska? HAVE IT EVERY NIGHT.

And if you happen to be hungry during the times when there isn't a buffet or sit down meal available, you can head to the counter and get pizza, hot dogs, fruit, french fries or wraps. I mean the pizza itself -- imagine you walk into a pizza place and say, Hi, I'd like some pizza please and they say, "how much?" and you say 'THE WHOLE PIZZA" and they say, OK, that will be 0 dollars and 0 cents, have a great day! That was our life. Plus, all the Coke you could put into your body and y'all? Disney has the BEST Coca Cola on the planet. I don't know what they do to make it taste so good but I could drink it every second of the day.

We got all glammed up for dinner and the nightly show. It was a nice change of pace from dinner in front of the TV. Here's me walking the red carpet for the "Golden Mickeys":

Our five night cruise consisted of two trips to Disney's private island, Castaway Cay and one trip to Nassau. The first day was to Castaway Cay and it was just beautiful, then the next morning we were in Nassau and then we had a "day at sea". Nassau is, like, 64 nautical miles from Castaway Cay. I'm pretty sure we just docked or at the very least sailed at like 2 nautical miles per hour. Why should I care, I got to lay by a pool for several hours and learned how to make towel animals.

Let's talk about the Caribbean for a second.

That's sick beautiful, right? I mean it's almost unfair how lovely the beaches were at Castaway Cay. The water was amazingly clear and the perfect temperature. They set out little umbrellas and lounge chairs for us to enjoy and there were people walking around taking your drink orders and it was amazing. If I didn't have these silly obligations like a JOB or MORTGAGE, I'd so quit it all and open a restaurant in the Caribbean. I'm  serious as a heart attack. It's just gorgeous.

Plenty of time for this:

WHY ISN'T THIS MY LIFE? That's me sitting my fat butt in a chair in the water reading a book.

Also some of this:

That's Jazz Hands for my girl Hutch and another blog shout out to Surferwife -- this is the tankini I ordered. Does it feel like I took y'all with me? I hope so.


Speaking of Jazz Hands?

Hubby even got into it!

Who likes baby bumps?!?

Well that's my vacay in a nutshell. I had the best time but missed my bloggy friends. Tomorrow is Bachelorette recap day -- get excited!

Our Disney Sports Weekend (Volume 3): I probably won't quit my day job. Probably.

If you've missed them, Volume 1 and Volume 2 of this epic trip.

So during our getting famous and not getting killed, we tried a new feature at Hollywood Studios which is the Animation Station. I might have just made up that name, but it accurately describes the attraction. It's part of the animation "studio" that used to be a really legit studio until they decided computer animation was the way to go. How it's mostly a place to get awesome pictures taken with Disney characters. And they also pretend actual animation goes on here.

The Animation Station is a 20-minute class in which a Disney employee who is an artist teaches guests how to draw Disney characters using basic shapes (apparently how real cartoonists do it). We took the class three times during the weekend and learned to draw Donald, Goofy and Mickey.

First we learned Donald:

 

My Donald.

 

Hubby's Donald (Clearly mine is better)

Next was Mickey:

 

How awesome is my Mickey, anyway?

Hubby wouldn't let me post his because he said it was too horrible. I probably could have posted it anyway because he doesn't read this, but I'm a really nice wife.

The last class, we drew Goofy:

 

 

Hub's Goofy.

 

My Goofy.

So I know by now you're all totally jealous of my drawing skills, but please note that I am not planning on making this a career because it was stressful, y'all! There were no erasers on those bad boy pencils! But I do sort of kick butt at drawing Disney characters.

To thus ends my fabulous journey to Orlando.

I had every intention of posting this yesterday, but we're suffering from Man Cold 2010 (the sequel) at my house which is sucking every spare bit of energy from everyone that lives here.

Our Disney Sports Weekend (Volume 2): Econo Lodge ain't playing

I'm sure you've all been waiting eagerly to hear the next installment of my Disney Sports Weekend story, so I'll go back to Saturday evening before I got famous.

We usually don't stay overnight at Disney because I work for a not-for-profit and my husband works for a Christian school, so his riches are in Heaven and mine are invested back into our community (i.e. we're poor people). So when we do, it's crucial that we stay at some really fine cheap establishments. I usually just go on Expedia or wherever and choose the lowest price in the area.We've stayed at some dooseys, let me tell you. And this particular Econo Lodge was, like, $30 bucks a night with tax. Listen, beggars can't be choosers.

We drove out of the sparkly, happy fairyland of the Disney resort area and into Kissimmie where unscrupulous people try to sell you time-shares, steal all your money with fake tickets and cheap t-shirts, and con you into taking their "high speed transportation" (read: van) to Disney although it takes 4 years to get there. But look! They feed you a continental breakfast before you go, HOW NICE OF THEM.

Hubby pulled into the Econo Lodge parking lot and the sign blinked  "CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN!" and also "COMPUTERS IN EVERY ROOM!"  Hubby said, "This place doesn't look like we'll get murdered too hard here." and I said, "yeah, and it's clean. And there are computers?"

You know a place is super-classy when you see the little bullet-proof glass window for all check-ins after 10 pm. I love those places. It makes me feel very safe and secure and not at all like I need to keep pepper-spray under my pillow.

Anyway, we found out upon check in that there were indeed computers in every room and we could access them for the low, low cost of $2.95 per night. I'm thinking, no way is there a computer in that room, they must have their crazy pants on or something. I mean let's refer back for a moment to the bullet-proof glass check-in and then consider that crack addicts looking for something to steal and sell for their next fix know there are computers in every room BECAUSE IT'S ON THE GIANT FLASHING SIGN. So there really was no way I wouldn't get murdered in my sleep that night if there was, in fact, a computer in my room.

And damned if there wasn't a computer in our freaking room. Like a full-on desktop computer bolted to the desk.

We surveyed the room and I said, "it doesn't look too dirty at all!" because that was the high standard by which I was judging this room. "Look! There is a bed and a toilet and a shower! We can definitely sleep and poop and wash our bodies in this room!" NEVERMIND the coaxial on the TV was from the stone ages and therefore no longer worked and we had to call to get it fixed. The guy who answered the "fix it" line asked if we wanted a credit or for him to fix it. Yes, a credit on basically nothing. Actually I wish I would have taken the credit to be honest.

We dropped our bags off and then went to this lovely wing place, which turned out to be a Hooters knock off. The perky little hostess came up to us and I think we were both so shocked at her lack of pants that we were all, "yes, a table for 2 please" like it was the nicest fancy place on the planet. Honestly, I feel a little uncomfortable with so much boob and butt-cheek showing. I don't frequent Hooters, I mean more power to those little ladies and I'm not all "Shameful!" and clutching my pearls or anything. It's just not my kind of place. But we were hungry and already there and Hubby and I both had a ton of pity for our waitress and her fake eyelashes and nails and one-size-too-small boyshorts. He said he felt a little weird being a faux-Hooters as a married man (that means I have him securely wrapped around my little finger.) The food wasn't that bad, actually.

It was called Ker's Winghouse (and here is Ker, the founder, not creepy AT ALL), and it was like Hooters' not-so-pretty-or-talented-sister-who-acts-slutty-to-make-up-for-it. There was so much nakedness framed on the walls of this joint. And they had the most terrible slogan: "Need we say more!" -- written just like that. Firstly, yes, please do say more because that slogan makes no sense to me. Secondly, why is there an exclamation mark, because isn't that a question? "Need we say more? Please answer yes or no." That bothered me a lot.

Well after dinner we went back to the hotel and delighted in the fact that all our things were still in the room and there were no dead bodies! And as I'm getting my bathroom bag from the desk, I notice this sign:

So basically, if you take anything, even by accident, they will charge you for it. Because in the real world, pillows are worth that much, as are the faded bedspreads from 1992. P.S. Who would take a hotel bedspread? That's nasty on so many different levels. Econo Lodge isn't even messing around, y'all. They are serious as a heart attack about their white washcloths and towels.

There is also this:

Um, you guys....IT'S A LAMINATED MENU. I mean it would probably cost 50 cents to copy a new one and laminate it because you know if they have computers in every room, they must have a laminating machine up in that Econo Lodge. But conversely, who roaming God's green pastures would steal a hotel menu? I wonder if there is a charge associated with it...

In the morning we mosey downstairs for our free, continental breakfast. Now ponder for a second in your brains what continental breakfast means to you. Toast, pastry and juice, or eggs, bacon and gravy? If it's the latter, I'm sorry friend, but you're in for a long life of disappointment.

Toast, generic-city-USA pastries and juice were on the menu. But of course, this older lady was talking Hubby's ear off about everything under the sun and at one point says, "This really isn't much of a breakfast, is it? Tsk-tsk." and Hubby and I looked at each other like, "Really? You expected more than this when a night's lodging and breakfast is less than one meal at Ker's Winghouse?" (I told you -- LONG LIFE OF DISAPPOINTMENT!)

Tomorrow or maybe Saturday, I'll share Volume 3 of this epic weekend trip. This one will be very picture heavy and not so many words.

Our Disney sports weekend (Volume 1) or How I became a national celebrity

Hubby and I have season passes to Disney World because we are awesome like that. We'd been cooped up in the house every weekend since before Christmas and decided we wanted a little weekend away, and this was a great opportunity to do so because it was ESPN the Weekend at Disney Hollywood Studios.

ESPN the Weekend is like a magical wonderland of awesome for boys. It's the equivalent of a McDonalds Play Place, except if Ronald McDonald and other McDonalds characters were just randomly walking around and doing Q&A's. It's like if US Weekly Magazine was a place you can go and celebrity watch and people like Jake the Bachelor and Kelly Cutrone and Angelina Jolie were just chilling on a stage somewhere just to be ogled by the visitors.

ESPN the Weekend has an area where you can pretend-throw a baseball and football and pretend-swing a golf club. There's an area where you can pretend fish. There's an opportunity to play basketball with the Harlem Globetrotters. There's the NBA RV that's in those funny commercials with Shaq, and you can go in and poke around. And a place where you can pretend you are an ESPN anchor. And parades every 4 hours featuring vintage cars that drive a handful of sports personalities up to the stage for interviews. Each car also has a Disney character dressed up in some kind of uniform. It's pretty much a collection of the most blogworthy sports things ever.

When we got there Saturday it was cold and pouring. Cold being relative. Hubby and I bought some super cool ponchos and got down to the business of watching sports people talk.

Here is how I felt about the cold rain:

 

It's only the Happiest Place on Earth when the sun is shining.

Nothing really that great happened on Saturday at the park, then Saturday night we checked into an Econo Lodge in the ghetto part of Kissimmie where massage parlors are built right next to Disney knock-off souvenir stores and where dreams go to die (I'll get to all that biznass in Volume 2).

And then Sunday started off like any other day at a Disney park. And then? THEN? We were totally on TV.

The front stage at Hollywood Studios was set up mostly for in-park interviews, but had at least 3 live shows per day taped there. We stood waiting for the show to start a row or two back from the front, and when two people in the front of us decided to peace out we moved up. As noon drew closer, we heard a whisper or two that Baseball Tonight (that was the show were preparing to watch), was going to be live. I freaked out and put on lipstick and fluffed my hair and then texted everybody I knew and waited for my 15 minutes of fame to begin.

Hubby got this sweet new phone a couple weeks ago and can now set up shows to record on our DVR. Here are some screenshots from the show (as you can see, I was far more concerned with being on TV than baseball):

 

Above is the opening crowd shot where the camera-dude was running his jiggly butt off to tape the front row cheering. I'm looking up at the screen so I can see how I look. So far, Hubby is kicking my butt in "being a celebrity".

Now I'm trying to look like I'm way into cheering for the Rays because that's what they are talking about. I'm trying to get my viewers to think I'm a big time Rays fan, and therefore a fan of all kinds of sports, and then send me big bags of money for being so into sports. (Is it working?)

See, now I'm much more aware of the camera and literally do not take my eyes off of it, or stop clapping, until I'm completely sure I'm not on camera anymore. 

And PS this is what it looks like from our view:

By this time, I'm getting texts from my sister that she has seen me on Baseball Tonight and I tell her to watch for a super special shout out.

Its' a friendly sister wave! And plus, a great way to endear myself to my audience! Hi audience! I'm super famous and important, but still humble enough to wave at all of you! And later my mother-in-law told Hubby that my wave looked a lot like my niece's "princess wave", so there you have it. I'm famous.

Famous amongst my sister and 4-year-old girls.

Sports are awesome!

To be continued...

Thank you for liking me

I'm catching up on my blog reading this morning because we were in Orlando Saturday and Sunday. Apparently lots went on this weekend, which OF COURSE IT WOULD. The days when I'm sitting on my duff all weekend, nobody posts a darn thing, yet the 48 hours I'm away from a computer, you people come up with all kinds of great things to say and have a blog-a-thon. Thanks guys. Thanks a lot.

Know what else I want to thank you for? Reading this blog. For real. Every single time I log on to Blogger, I'm truly shocked that there are people in this world who like what I write enough to respond to it. I love you all for it. Every day when I wake up, my goal is to make at least one person laugh. And when I can make that happen through this blog, well, then, mission accomplished.

So I got a couple of awards I'd like to post about. Now a word about awards: I like them a ton, but sometimes don't like all the stipulations that come with it and there is a 95% chance that any award given to me will probably be re-gifted without following the rules. That's just the kind of badass I am.

First, this one is from Amy from Undomestic Army Wife.

I have to write about 6 things I'm a master at and give this to 6 people who are masters at friendship. EASY.

1. I am the master of typing. I type 100 WPM. I am trying to get my coworker to have a type-off with me but she's too scared.
2. I'm a master at procrastination, which is evidenced by the baskets of clean and dirty laundry sitting in my living room.
3. I am the master of naming animals after food. We have cats named Cheeto, Pepper, Praline and Sushi. And a dog named Truffles.
4. I am the master at navigating our Web site at work; I can find things on it when nobody else can.
5. I am the master of not eating the fruit that I buy and instead, forgetting about it and letting it rot.
6. I am the master of eating those chocolate covered after dinner mints they give you at fancy restaurants. I won that contest at work because we had a whole box of them we needed to get rid of. It was epic.


I'm choosing the masters of friendship for people who have supported my blog with lots of comments and love.

•  Making Stuff is Fun
• Reality Faker
• My Husband's Watching TV  
• Naked Cupcakes
• Nobody Listens to the Girl 
• itsybitsyknitsy

Go visit all of these blogs because they are some of my favorite "must reads". And I guess I did follow the rules on this one, but for others, you've been warned.

Whew, all that blog awarding made me so sleepy. Maybe later I'll have the energy to blog about our trip to Disney this weekend and how I'm now pretty much a celebrity, and also Econo Lodge is probably out to get me (doesn't all that sound fun?)

Disney and Sistertime = an awesome Sunday

Today Hubby and I met my sister and her hubby at Disney. They are down there for a winter getaway at Disney and then will come up to Gainesville to spend the weekend with us. We met them today at the Magic Kingdom. Our first stop was Lunch at Tony's Restaurant to celebrate her hubby's birthday (the actual day is Dec. 27, so we were celebrating early). Then it was just a really fun day of hanging out, experiencing Disney attractions and being sisterly. That's my beautiful Sis in the picture to the right being all pretty and also wearing her Christmas shirt that is short sleeved and thus rendered useless in the frozen tundra of Northern Kentucky.

I found out Sister reads my blog all the time, so I'm going to start tagging her in all the posts where she's mentioned and see how many times I can mention her in a year.

Sister and I have been BFF literally since the day she was born. We are two years apart (I'm older) and I always tell people that we were each others first best friend. I also like to tell people that we've only had one fight in the history of our 27 years together. That's pretty good, I think.

Anyway, Sis and I pretty much carried on like we tend to do for the whole day. I don't know how I can explain it, but let me try: Our conversations are like a million random words strung together that somehow only make sense to us, spoken in a singsongy voice that is punctuating by either occasional silence because we're eating or talking to someone else, or one saying "You're pretty!" to the other. Our brains work the same way so we can segue flawlessly between topics that have no relation without any explanation of how we skipped from, say, a story about work to what we are having for dinner to explaining about the time we saw a cat dressed up like Santa and it was the funniest and cutest thing WE'VE EVER SEEN IN OUR LIVES.

I feel sorry for our husbands because they have to figure it all out. Thankfully, they like each other and can always just commiserate about how we dont' make much sense.

So we had the best time at Disney, which is AMAZING during Christmas. I hate to sound cheesy, but there is something really magical about it. I don't know if it's just really good memories from family trips there during this time of year or the fact that they have a crap ton of lights everywhere, but I just love it. Unfortunately, we're only going to get one trip down during the holidays. We weren't able to catch the Osborne Family Lights show at Disney Hollywood Studios. If you're ever in Orlando this time of year, it's worth going! They have, like, 14 million lights covering the backlot of Hollywood Studios, and the lights "dance" along to the music. I'm easily distracted by bright, flashing things.

Hope you all had a lovely weekend!  Did anybody do anything festive this weekend?

It's finally FRIDAY!

Happy Friday you guys!!!

Today is a good day. First, I got ready in record time and got to work in 10 minutes. It was amazing. I'm sure you wonder why that is such a big deal, but here in Gainesville it's almost impossible to get anywhere during the school year (for the university and public school). It usually takes me between 15 and 20 minutes to get to work on a normal school day. I hit one school zone on the way and it's downhill from there. Besides that, my office is located on the same main road as the University of Florida so it's ALWAYS packed. However, today is homecoming and the whole town literally shuts down to celebrate. I've never seen anything like it. Hubby is a teacher and he's snoozing in bed today while I'm working. All the students are out today and a lot of businesses close down. They are serious about their football here, for real!

So then I get to work super early and I'm just in a great mood. The coffee pot is full, I'm ready to start the day. My boss comes by and we all started talking about the offsite team meeting/lunch we're going to have today, and he says, "you know, maybe we should just have it at about 12 and then, gosh, the traffic is going to be so heavy and it's going to be a mess getting back. Maybe we should just head back to our homes after that." I have the best boss ever!

This weekend we're going to relax  on Saturday, although relaxation always seems to evolve into something. Hubby hates sitting around, so we'll probably get into something. I'd love to finish unpacking our guest room and start taping it off to paint. I got a new craft book a couple weeks ago with lots of cool decorations I can make for the room. I'm going to attempt to make a headboard out of fabric, padding and plywood. I also need to make some artwork or something for the walls for that room. Oh, and we have black bookshelves for that room and I want them to be lighter; unfortunately, we tried painting and whatever cheap material they are constructed out of won't paint. They are not worth sanding, so not sure how we'll do that. But maybe I'll find a cool solution for that. The guest bedroom is our next project, so maybe I'll get some of that done this weekend.

Sunday is going to be really fun. We are going to Orlando for the Food and Wine Festival at Epcot! We went last year and it was amazing. They have booths from about 30 countries around the world, featuring food from those countries. Last year we got something from more or less every country and just shared each. It's a great time to just relax, eat some great food and walk around the park. We're meeting our friend Will there who lives near Cocoa Beach.

After Food and Wine, we're splurging on the Not So Scary Halloween Party at the Magic Kingdom! It's a special after-hours event with Halloween themed parade and fireworks, the characters dressed up in Halloween costumes and trick or treat for ALL! We would like to dress up but 1) don't know if other adults are dressing up and 2) have NO clue what on earth we would dress up as. Any suggestions?

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!