Part Two: Disney World Trip Report

If you want to check out part one, either scroll down or click here!

Yay! Our first full-day! I had used http://www.easywdw.com/ to plan out what park we were going to go to each day, and it looked like Hollywood Studios was going to be our best bet! If planning a trip to the world, I really really suggest reading that blog. So much good information, and pretty funny too. 

I had read that the line for Toy Story Mania gets crazy by like 10:30am, which is pretty much the same at Disneyland (DL), so we headed there first because we LOVE that ride! We got fastpasses for later, but decided to ride it right away too.

Ben is looking pretty tired here with the barrel of monkeys.

 We really liked that the queue for this ride was inside which is different from DL, and they had made it so cute and fun to look at everything!

SORRY!

 From there we checked out One Man's Dream, which is a really cool museum all about Walt Disney, and how he came to build the Disney empire, including WDW and DL.

Me with a diorama of Peter Pan's Flight, which is my ALL-TIME favorite ride!

 We roamed the park and hit a couple other fun rides like Tower of Terror, and Rock'n'Roller Coaster. Then we went on the Hollywood Backlot tour, and at the end got to see a ton of cool costumes and props from several Hollywood blockbusters. They even had the organ that Davy Jones played in Pirates of the Caribbean! So cool!

Eee! So scared!

It actually rains over this umbrella when you stand underneath. I'm Singin' in the rain!!

 We rode Star Tours and ate lunch, and then we went on the Great Movie Ride. I'm a huge movie person, and really really enjoyed this ride. It's basically a dark ride that takes you through some of the great classic movies of our time. It was all great until we came to the Wizard of Oz section. All of sudden, these terrifying animatronic munchkins come up from the ground! It was so weird!!

He represents the lollipop guild..the super creepy lollipop guild!

 We had seen and done pretty much everything we wanted to at Hollywood Studios and decided to head out for the evening. Of course, I made Ben take our obligatory picture in front of the sorcerers hat, and then we left!

We decided to spend the rest of our evening at Downtown Disney. We ate dinner and shopped and talked about how our trip was going so far. Which was great! We stopped by the Lego Store, and the displays they had were so cool! They had Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Woody and Buzz blasting off the RC car, and Prince Phillip fighting Maleficent! I cannot believe they do this all with Legos.  I also can't wait to go back to DL and see what they've done at the Lego Store there with the remodeling. 

And that was the end of our first day!! We were having so much fun, and it was so great not having to worry about anything! The next day we were headed to Magic Kingdom. I was really excited for our early morning breakfast there, and to compare it with the original, Disneyland. Stay tuned!

Part One: Disney World Trip Report

So if you don't know, Ben and I were lucky enough to be able to take a trip to Walt Disney World a couple weeks ago. My parents were so generous and offered to send us there as a graduation gift! Seeing as Ben and I are HUGE Disney fans, and usually make several trips to Disneyland every year, it just seemed wrong that neither of us has ever been to "the world" before! We found out we were going last Thanksgiving, and then started doing all the planning this February. And believe me, there is A LOT of planning that goes into a vacation like this! My mom has been hounding me to tell her all about the trip, so I decided to do a little trip report. I'll also be reporting on our opinions of Disney World versus Disneyland. They are so so so very different and there is a lot to compare.  I've got a bunch of pictures and stories to tell, so it might take more than one post, but we'll see.

First off, we went from May 10-16. I had heard May was a pretty good time to go both weather and crowds-wise. I'd have to agree with that, though there was one day that was unbearably hot and one that poured rain like I had never seen before.

Our room was just 3 doors down from that arrow! It was a perfect spot!

We stayed on property at Disney's Pop Century Resort. It's theme is the 1950's-1990's. It was kind of cheesy, and definitely geared towards families with small children, but we actually REALLY loved it. It just felt so fun!

We flew in on the 10th and got into Orlando around 1:30pm. It's really nice when you stay in an on-property because you can set it up for a Disney shuttle to pick you up and for your luggage to just be delivered to your hotel room. It made is so much less stressful. Once we got to the resort, we walked through the gift shop, and then relaxed in our room. I'm pretty sure we fell asleep for a little while. After waking up at 3am that morning it was sooo nice to have a nap. Plus, we needed to be rested for our dinner at Ohana that night!

Ohana is located at Disney's Polynesian resort and it's so so so delicious. It's an all-you-can-eat family style meal. The first course was pork dumplings and chicken wings. Then we got a HUGE platter of broccoli and noodles. Then came the meat! It's done on skewers (like Tucanos or Rodizio Grill, is you've ever been there) and it is was good. There was chicken, beef, shrimp, and..something else I can't remember now. Ben said the chicken was some of the best he has ever had!

Can you tell how excited I am for this bread pudding?!?!

Then came one of the best things I have ever eaten. It was a Pineapple bread pudding with a banana caramel sauce and homemade vanilla bean ice cream. Holy mother this was good! We were so full from dinner, but couldn't help ourselves from eating almost the whole thing!

We left feeling fat and happy, and headed back to our resort. It had been a really long day, but so good so far! We were really excited for our first full day at Disney World, and we would be spending it at Disney's Hollywood Studios. 

Wow! I really thought I was going to get more than one day done on this post, but I don't want to overload you! Keep watching for the rest of the trip report...if you want to that is. 

Planning a trip to The World? Let me know if you have any questions...who knows, maybe our experience can help you out!

As we go on..we remember..

Well I can finally say it! I am a college graduate! I sometimes feel like that doesn't mean all that much anymore, but we're not thinking about that right now! Right now, we are thinking about how after 3 majors declared, 3 different schools, and 6 years of classes..I am finally a college graduate!

I was lucky enough to have my parents and sister come up for the ceremony, and it was really great to see them. Ben's parents came, and Ben of course too..and it was so great to have all their support! One of the most memorable moments of the day was the poem read by UVU's Artist In Residence during the convocation ceremony. This was by far the most ridiculous poem and reading I had ever heard. The speaker just made random noises with his mouth for a good 2 minutes of it. I was trying not to laugh too hard because it seemed like every one else was taking it so seriously!! My whole family couldn't stop imitating him the rest of the weekend. The ceremony was a little long, so we totes skipped out about ten minutes after I walked across the stage. We took pictures and then headed home!

The next day we had a graduation barbecue and Ben planned some really great surprises for me! There were Mickey Mouse balloons, a special cake, and a PINATA! It was so fun! I wailed on it and spilled all the candy out with 2 swings, but we patched it all together and the kids took turns taking some hits. It was a really great day eating food and spending time with friends and family!

Here are some of the pictures!

This is me at our BBQ with my trashed pinata! 

Monkeys.

This is one of the greatest songs/videos involving Monkeys. It needs to reach the masses. :)

High Hopes!

So I know I mentioned before that I had gotten a pretty great gift for Christmas this year...can you guess what it was? It basically made Ben the greatest husband ever for getting it for me..not like he wasn't that already!

He got me the new Silhouette Cameo!

Here I am with my new Silhouette on Christmas morning!

The Silhouette can do so much, and I'm so excited for all the projects I will be doing with it. Sadly I just started my last semester of college and haven't had any time to use it yet! But you bet I will soon, and you can bet I'll be posting all about it on here! Here's hoping I can start soon!

It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I made an advent calendar! I could have made a cute little opening, but well..the point of the post is that I made an advent calendar! I've been wanting one that would last through the years, that I could hang on my wall, and that had little canisters or boxes for each day that can hold candies or slips of paper with fun holiday activities to do!!

And now I have one! Thanks to my mom for helping me out/basically doing all of it! Haha! Here is the process:

We just bought a frame and mod-podged adorable Christmas paper into it.

The whole background!

Our cute little canisters with Christmas paper on the lids! We were so glad to find these in the wedding favor section! 

Adding fun embellishments and making each day different!

The finished product!

I should say ALMOST finished product. I'm still trying to find the right quote or title in chipboard letters to put next to the santa...perhaps I will just make my own cut out with my very special Christmas present from Ben..more to come on that later! :)

A Magical Craft Project!

I've been waiting a while to write this post! So..if you know my sister you know she is a HUGE Harry Potter fan. Seriously. And this year she turned 21 and I decided that I should finally give her a birthday present. But instead of going out and buying something lame. I wanted to make something...from the heart, ya know? I know, I'm a pretty great big sister. I knew I wanted it to be Harry Potter themed, and I had recently made some adorable wreaths so I decided a Harry Potter wreath would be AWESOME! 

This project took me a whole lot longer than I thought it would, but it was because I am a perfectionist and annoying detail-oriented when it comes to crafties. So here is the finished project

Here are some of the details:

A sweet wand that I made!

A cool green glittery snake!

The crowning glory! The Golden Snitch!

The snitch probably took me the most time, but I was really meticulous about it. I wrapped the whole wreath form in pages of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and other details included a background of Hogwarts castle, a picture of Harry, Ron and Hermione, Harry's glasses, broomsticks (made to look the the Nimbus 2000 and 2001), a letter form Hogwarts, the Hogwarts crest, and the symbol of the deathly hallows.

I honestly had so much fun making this and I think Mandy really liked it!

I'm thinking of posting the tutorial on making your very own wand...we shall see.