Right Wing Mom

One of my favorite ways to spend a day at Disney is to hang out in Hollywood Studios (formally MGM Studios.) You will here a group of people that are referred to as Streetmosphere. They are a group of improv actors that go around and entertain. Some have skits, some just interact - they are all great!

I will let you in one a little secret… Marc has a little crush at HS. She is a “world-renowned actress” probably a favorite of your “great-great-great Aunt.” Her name is Dorma Nesmond.

This little crush started one our first Disney trip. We were sitting on the curb, waiting for a parade to start when Ms. Nesmond walked up. She tried to engage us in discussion and I was mildly surprised when Marc started acting back with her. It was awesome!Every time we go back, Marc can’t wait to run into her.This picture was especially funny! Marc walked up to her for a picture, he was wearing a Grumpy t-shirt. She says “Dahling… Are you grumpy?” Marc, withour missing a beat says “I was until I saw you” LOL!!! I’m telling you, I think my man missed his calling!

Another Lady we ran into this year (new for us) was Lady Tremaine - Cinderella’s step Mother.

She had me laughing so hard! She commented to Marc how their hair was so similar. LOL!!! The she asked him if he had lots of money ( that gold digger!) He commented: “I did before I came here” She fired back in a most sarcastic tone, “AH yes, memories, memories… what fun, happy, happy” Oh Boy! That had me rolling! Then she started getting a little flirty - so I had to tell her “Hands off Girlfriend! He is taken!” She then turned her sites on Jake for one of her daughters.

I love interacting with the characters!

Oh… and one last Lady for you.

Is she her Father’s Daughter or what?

Epcot is a weird place to me. There is so much going on and so much to see and do there, that I almost feel like its hard to understand the place. I used to hate it. I thought it was boring and a waste of time and space. LOL, ok… maybe it wasn’t that bad, but it was definitely, by far, my least favorite park.

Something weird happened last year though, I fell in love with it!

My favorite thing at Epcot is the World Showcase. Each country has its own area chock full of culture! This year, we had a lofty goal, one that sadly, didn’t get accomplished. Snacking Around the World. We made it halfway, but we just couldn’t hang, well we could have but then we would have had to skip a really yummy dinner at one of our favorite places!

Our first stop was Mexico. We had a churro. It was yummy! So yummy in fact - that I forgot to take a picture

Here we are at Norway. Our snack here was Lefsa - a potato bread with butter, cinnamon and sugar. It was like a Norwegian tortilla It was ok - nothing spectacular.

Next stop - China. There was a little discussion here about what to get. My whole thought was “Let’s try to get as traditional as possible” Marc’s thought was “Strawberry and Red Bean Ice Cream? Eww” Those weird little kids of ours were on my side though! And you know what? It was pretty good. Even Marc liked it!

Up next was Germany. One of our favorites! Here we had, of course, the Black Forest Cake. At first I did not want any, I’m not a fan of black forest Cake. But, I thought back and realized the only black forest cake I had ever had was some funky Betty Crocker/Duncan Hines prepackaged monstrosity from the 80’s. Man, I am glad I decided to try the “real thing” It was awesome! Very Yummy!

Our last stop was Italy. Here we had a delicious Cannoli. Wow - it was so good! I love Jake’s face in the picture. It was his turn to take the first bite… you can see that he really wanted that first bite and was not happy that Mommy stopped him to take a picture. he couldn’t even take his eye off of it.

I have been wanting the opportunity to “eat in the castle” since our first trip to Disney. It just seemed so magical! Eating in Cinderella’s Castle! WOW!!! Well, let me tell you something - first of all trying to get a reservation here is just darn near impossible! You need to get up very early, call 6 months out and cross your fingers and say a little prayer
We tried for a reservation on our first trip, but no luck. After that, we kind of decided that it wasn’t that big a deal. But - we decided to give it another go round this time. I was really happy that we got out first choice of days and times! The girls and I were so excited!

I wish I could give a glowing review… but it wasn’t that great. The food was ok, the characters were ok, the decor was ok, everything was just ok. If you are interested in doing a Princess Breakfast I would recommend the “other” princess breakfast at Akerhus in Norway at Epcot. Same food, same characters. Ok, the decor maybe isn’t as cool, I mean you aren’t in THE castle - but… it’s half price. Yep - 1/2… thats a biggie

We did have fun! Well, almost all of us. Jake was not happy about eating at a Girl Breakfast. As a matter of fact, he was not happy at all. But, most of that was probably due to the fact that he let him go off his diet while we were at Disney. (all together now - BAD MOVE!)

Ok - on with the pictures!

The Princess’s

Emma chowing down on her wishing star. Notice the bruise? Ouch - hotel rooms and cruising babies don’t mix.

How can someone who is so cute be such a butt head?

Beautiful stained glass windows

Ok, is it just me or does Belle look a little freaked out?

Hey! Didn’t I see you the other day? Hmm… you look familiar.

You know, I had this awesome plan to take an obscene amount of pictures while at Disney this year. It was a great plan! I had the batteries all charged up and even bought some new memory cards. It was a good plan. But, I guess I really didn’t think through the whole taking pictures while holding/carrying/wearing a very grabby 9 month old. Which is me trying to say - I did not take very many pictures at all. But - I think the ones we ( I say we, because Marc occasionally grabbed the camera and snapped away) took, we pretty decent!

I am going to break these up over a few days. Today we will be looking at Emma’s first encounter with a character - Snow White and Dopey.

It seems like every time we go on vacation or out of town for something, I always wait until the last minute to pack and end up being up all night.

“Not this time!” promised myself. Well… things sisnt go so well after all.

I was doing ok, planning and some preliminary thinking about packing. I had planned to catch up on laundry Thursday and start packing on Friday, finishing up on Staurday nicce and early so I could get a good nights rest in time for our Sunday morning flight to Orlando.

Yep - it was a good plan, until Wednesday night. We realized that IKE was making a beeline for the Houston area - right where we are. Hmmm - do we hope and pray we can still catch our flight Sunday, risking losing at least two days of our vacation if we can’t fly out? No way! Lets fly out Friday instead.

Oh, it sounded like a great idea… but here I am 1:30 on Friday morning. The bags are packed (finally) and loaded into the car (finally) I am getting ready to go wake the hubby up and in just one hour we will be headed into the city - to the airport. I am so hoping there isn’t any craziness with the traffic or the airport.

I am praying for calm, non eventful, peace - all the way from Houston to Orlando!

That being said, please keep this area in your prayers please I would like to come home to my home as I left it and really hope all my neighbors can do he same.

I will do my best to update and post pics while we are visiting Mickey - but I can’t promise anything… c’mon…. it’s Disney!

Take care!!!

Sorry I am getting this up kind of late today. We didn’t get home from the movies till 1:30! Do you know how much past my bedtime that is? I have been dragging a little all day

For everyone who voted last week - thank you! I’ll get the new poll up this evening. This week is all about the Animal Kingdom Lodge, which is our FAVORITE place to stay. I seriously love this hotel! When I walk into the lobby, especially from a full day at the parks… I take a deep breath and I am instantly calm, cooled and relaxed. Oh yeah, its good :)I had so many great pictures that I wanted to share, I thought I would do a little slideshow. I hope it turns out ok. Hopefully next week I will have my act a little more together! Enjoy!

a little info: All the animal photos were taken from the balcony in our rooms. The pictures with the kids in them are from the fantastic kids program in the hotel that runs throughout the day with a bunch of different activities.

Yes, I am ripping off the “Works for Me Wednesday” and the “Wordless Wednesday” topics - what of it?

Here’s the deal - I am leaving for my our wonderful Walt Disney World Vacation in just 67 days! Thats 9 weeks and 4 days! (Yes, I could break it down into hours and minutes for you, but that would be going overboard, don’t ya think?)

Last year, on our vacation, I wanted to post lots if wonderful pictures while we were actually there, but, if you remember… Marc’s server crashed right before we left, taking my blog to the grave with it. So we missed out on all the fun.

So….I decided to catch ya’ll up with my (slight) Disney World obsession.On each Wednesday from now till we leave I am going to post some wonderful pictures from Disney, based on a theme. How’s that sound? (good I hope)

This week’s theme will be: Mickey Mouse. What else could I start off with? I mean, to quote Mr. Walt Disney himself: “It all started with a Mouse”

This is from our very first trip - look how little everyone is!

Jake and Mickey at the Polynesian Resort restaurant Ohana

Mickey, Minnie and friends, cruising along at The Animal Kingdom

Astronaut Mickey and Goofy at EPCOT

Mickey during the Spectromagic parade at The Magic Kingdom (my favorite!)

Take a look on the right side of my blog - do you see the poll? Take a sec to vote and tell me what you want to see next week!