by Sarah | Jul 11, 2019 | All About Family, All of Us, Blogging Life, Disney, DisneyTips, Redefining Perfect, Universal
I haven’t been to Disney hundreds of times (yet. Give me a couple years), but I’ve been my fair share.
I’ve done it with crazy intensity, and in a casual jaunt.
I’ve done Disneyland (finally), and Disney World.
I’ve picked up a few tips along the way. And while there are blogs across the web, I wanted to hand out my own Disney advice I’ve learned along the way, and tips I’ll be learning as I begin to go more frequently.
This months tip is fun for a relaxing day. It’s also fun if you’re doing a “Florida” vacation instead of a “Disney” vacation, and want a ‘free’ day at the parks (outside food & souvenirs).
Hop around the World at the Resorts of Disney!
This is a tip I’ve not done until recently. It’s been on my radar for a couple of years, and I’d actually intended to do a holiday resort hop when I brought the girls down for Christmas a couple of years ago. For reasons that didn’t happen, though it probably will this year.
Anyhoo, I think this tip is great if you need a break from the parks, you’re curious about the resorts, or you’re more focused on a Florida vacation and don’t want to pay for too many park days, but still want to include the Disney experience.
It’s easy, relatively free, and has many different ways to do it all.
Now, I’m not going to give you a minute-by-minute breakdown of what to do and where to go for best resort-hopping adventures. I’ll leave that to the bloggers that have more experience in hopping, and link their guides below. (I may revisit once I’ve had a few more hops…)
The parks are awesome, for sure. But did you know that the resorts are just as much? Each one has their own unique flair and story, and in most of them the decor is beyond reproach (I’m still eh on the Swan & Dolphin).
From the grand luxury of the Grand Floridian, to the casual tiki vibe of the Polynesian, to the elegant tree-lined walkways of Port Orleans Riverside, and the fun and funky Pop Century. Denver and I went to all of these (and he got some great new pins for the effort), and so many more. We checked out the gift shops, the restaurants, glimpsed the pools and lobby decor. We wandered around Pop Century and read all the fun facts, dined on a plate of nachos as big as our heads (for dirt cheap) at Picabu in the Dolphin resort. We checked out the animals at Animal Kingdom Lodge.
Our day cost us a combined $20 for lunch. We used his car to get around so it was quicker than using the buses, but that is a possibility. We didn’t visit every resort, but we got a fair few, and spent probably 5 hours taking in the Disney feel.
I can’t wait to go back and visit other resorts. I also can’t wait to go around the resort world at Christmas when all the decorations are up!
Have you done a resort hop day? What’s your favorite Disney resort?
For the record, my favorite resort to date is Fort Wilderness…but that may be more nostalgic than anything.
by Sarah | Jun 20, 2019 | All About Denver, All About Erik, All About Family, All About Kennedy, All About Me, All About Molly, All of Us, Blogging Life, Disney, Disney Mom, Florida Dreaming, Make-A-Wish, Redefining Perfect, Universal, Universal Studios Mom
Our road to Disney and Universal was not paved with flowers and sunshine. That goes without saying. I could go into logistics about Make A Wish’s former CF rules, refusals, and hope coming our way again, but that’s another story for another blog post. Suffice it to say, it was a bumpy, long road…until it wasn’t.
When the time came for us to approach the kids and say they were getting wishes, and to ask what they wanted, both of them thought pretty hard. I, myself, hoped for Disney, but didn’t push either of them in that direction. I did mention to the obsessed-with-Harry-Potter Kennedy that there was this magical place called Diagon Alley at Universal Studios, but we discussed other options. Things like trips in an RV, remodeling the bedroom were discussed among others.
When the day came, the wonderful Wish Granters asked the kids what they wanted.
Kennedy said, “I want to see Harry Potter World!” (It was only then that I learned when you wish for one FL theme park, you get both) I was not upset by this declaration.
From that moment everything flew by in an instant. Before any of us knew it, we were in the limo and on the plane for Florida.
Months of planning, talking, anticipation all came down to that one moment…
You know the one…
The one where we stepped through the brick passage and onto Diagon Alley.
Every moment after when Kennedy’s face looking like this —->>
Excitement. Spotting everything left and right, pointing out everything.
When Ollivander selected her and her sister (believing them twins, methinks) to get their own matching wands.
When she saw, and felt, the dragon breathe fire down on us.
When she sat in the sidecar (look how tiny, my goodness).
Every moment in Diagon Alley that day was so much magic we could have gone home right then and never complained a moment that it wasn’t worth it.
To see K become completely immersed into the world we both loved so much.
Every single second was one I wanted to bottle and hold onto.
That was the moment I knew magic was real.
And the look on her face made every struggle that led us up to and through the brick passage way was worth it.
So damn worth it.
by Sarah | Jun 17, 2019 | All About Denver, All About Erik, All About Family, All About Home, All About Kennedy, All About Me, All About Molly, All About Ripley, All of Us, Blogging Life, Disney, Disney Mom, Florida Dreaming, Oola, Redefining Perfect, Universal, Universal Studios Mom
It’s been over a month since the last update and unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know where we are at.
WE ARE IN FLORIDA!!!
After my last post, things went very quick.
I moved ahead of the hubs and kids, and my first month here in Florida deserves (and will soon get) a post of its own. It was an adventure, I’ll give you that much. A good adventure, or a bad one, I still don’t even know.
Anyhow…the husband and kids have finally joined me.
We have a home.
We’re settled around The Villages area, which my self-adopted pops calls “Heavens Waiting Room”…and he’s not wrong. lol.
However, it’s beautiful here. Our new (rented) home is much bigger than our last, and though it needs a lot of work, we’re looking forward to making progress.
We’re still waiting on our main piece of furniture (another month, oy)…but otherwise we’re settling in.
Erik has a lead on a potential job in a surprising place (more when I know more. No jinxing it).
The girls have been granted placement in the charter school, I just need to get all of their paperwork together and get them in for physicals so we can make it officially official.
The girls have their own rooms, and I still have an office space of sorts.
I’ve been at my new job for a month, and it’s going well. I’m looking into some new possibilities in my plans for the future, and life is just opening all sorts of possibilities.
In short…life isn’t perfect (it wasn’t before and I didn’t expect it to magically right itself because of our location)…but we are excited to make it work.
So from now own, there will be no more countdowns, but plenty of updates.
by Sarah | May 10, 2019 | All About Family, All About Me, All of Us, Blogging Life, Friday Feels, Personal, Pour Your Heart Out, Redefining Perfect
One of the biggest struggles I’ve faced in recent weeks with us moving is my dad being ill.
To be fair, it was his encouragement to not wait that helped us move up our original timeline, but still…
Add to that the fact that my mother and I had made steps to heal our fractured relationship, and it’s been a tug-of-war on my heart.
Then one day the call I’d dreaded came, or so I thought.
My mom called from the hospital.
My head and heart spun with the possibilities of what on earth could have happened to dad…
But it wasn’t him.
It was HER.
The “healthy” one of the two. She has some ailments, to be sure…but my dad is the one that’s truly ailing.
So when your healthy parent goes in to the ER with chest pains, and has to follow it up with a heart cath.
Everything goes upside on you.
Then you have two parents to take care of.
The “healthy” one isn’t as healthy as you thought.
Who do you check on first? Who do you keep an eye on, and who watches who?
One’s issues are expected, almost commonplace now – but now new panic and worries arise.
And you have to struggle with how to deal with all of that – especially with a parent that doesn’t like to be a bother.
Than, you get the call that you have a job and you’re moving in a month.
While I know they’ve got plenty of help here what with my brother and aunt living close by…it’s still rough to have gotten this job and be moving so quickly after this sort of chaos.
In so many ways I’m still struggling to make sense of my dad’s illness – and I’ve known about it for almost 15 years.
It’s hard to think that I’ll be so far away. That I’ll need to keep an emergency flight fund on hand at all times…and now not just for him, but for mom too because we still don’t know what happened or why she ended up in the ER (the heart cath came up clean, thank goodness).
It’s put a damper on our course.
It’s added anxiety to a relationship that was just starting to mend.
I feel a strong sense of guilt leaving…even though I know this is the right path for us.
I suppose now, more than ever, I’m feeling what my mom felt almost 30 years ago when she had to pack up her family and leave Buffalo to move out here to Hickville.
I knew I was leaving one sick parent…now I worry about them both.
I always thought Mom could survive on pure stubbornness alone.
Apparently not even she’s that good.
by Sarah | May 7, 2019 | All About Denver, All About Erik, All About Family, All About Kennedy, All About Me, All About Molly, All of Us, Redefining Perfect
Growing up the rhetoric was always the same.
“You need to go to college to get a good job.”
“You can’t go into dance, it’s not a career. You need something to fall back on.”
“You don’t have the strength to handle the rejection of Broadway. Go to college. Get a real education.”
“Go to college.”
“Get a degree.”
It was drilled into me over and over and over. I had to go to college. I had to. I couldn’t go for dance, I had to do something that was “worthy” of my intelligence, and my parents approval.
*~*
I went to college.
Twice.
First time I went for Environmental Science.
I flunked out…spectacularly.
Like, have you ever heard of someone having a 0.0 GPA?
Yeah….
Two years later I went back. New school. New state. New dream.
This time I went for Dance Education. I did well. I excelled, actually. 3.83 GPA.
Then I got kicked out of my aunt’s house because her husband is a spectacular ass and ended up out of school for a semester, then when I got back on my feet ready to re-enroll I learned I was pregnant and that was all she wrote.
*~*
College didn’t work for me. I have plans now, as an adult, to further my education again – but it’s taken me a long time to figure out what I’d want to go for to follow through on a promise made.
*~*
My kids?
Well…I’ve always held firm to the belief that the future was theirs.
When he was younger, my son wanted to be an astronaut, then a doctor…and then…he wanted none of it.
Did he have the intelligence for it? Hells to the yes. That boy is smart as a whip. He could probably have completed med school and become any kind of doctor he’d wanted…
But he no longer wanted it.
I knew all too well that being forced to go to school when it’s not what you want only leads to debt for something unfinished, and in some cases, completely unattended.
Do I worry about him?
Well, duh. He’s my kid.
But all I’ve ever wanted for my kids is for them to be happy. To find what they want and go after that dream. Denver did, he found it and took off 2 years ago and is still happy as I’ve ever known him.
Next up is the girls. Molly is about to enter high school – I mean, WHAT? When I started this blog she was a toddler!!
But I digress.
As of right now – neither of my girls have their eyes set on college. They both have a thing for art. They don’t know what they want out of it yet, and for all we know they may choose a different future for themselves.
Will it make it an easy path for them? Maybe not…
Will it make them happy?
Boy, I sure hope so.
Denver has proven that with enough drive and dedication, you can make a pretty good life without it. It’s taking me longer to prove the same to myself, but I’m getting there.
Whatever dream, whatever path, my girls choose – I’m there for them.
I truly believe that they need to live out their dreams, not mine.
I hope those dreams take them far.
No matter what, I will be proud of them for chasing them. I hope they are proud of me for chasing mine, even if those dreams came along later for me than it will for them.
by Sarah | May 2, 2019 | All About Family, All of Us, Blogging Life, Disney, DisneyTips, Redefining Perfect, Universal
I haven’t been to Disney hundreds of times (yet. Give me a couple years), but I’ve been my fair share.
I’ve done it with crazy intensity, and in a casual jaunt.
I’ve done Disneyland (finally), and Disney World.
I’ve picked up a few tips along the way. And while there are blogs across the web, I wanted to hand out my own Disney advice I’ve learned along the way, and tips I’ll be learning as I begin to go more frequently.
This months tip isn’t anything new if you’ve been in the past few years, but I still think it’s worth a mention. We’ve sure appreciated it on multiple occasions.
Use Disney’s Mobile Ordering for your quick-service meals.
When you’re trying to pack everything you can into a Disney day – the last thing you want to do is spend half an hour in a line ordering and waiting for food at a quick-service restaurant. Even if it is air conditioned, and themed, often there’s plenty more you’d rather be doing than waiting to satisfy the rumbling in your tummy.
Mobile ordering was a huge plus for us on our last couple of trips. While we weren’t as rushed to get through ALL the things because we’d been several times, it was nice to expedite what could be a long delay for the next thing.
I’ve already mentioned that we are notoriously bad at remembering to eat while in the parks. Mobile ordering lets us scan our app at the first pangs of hunger to see what we want along our route and order it in advance.
The handy thing about mobile ordering is that you can order it when you’re waiting in line, or on the other side of the park. You’ll be given a generous enough time frame during which you can pick up your order – but don’t worry that doesn’t mean they’re making it yet! Nope. They won’t start making the order until you click the “I’m here!” button in your Disney app. They’ll make it fresh and you’ll pick it up at the easily spotted “Mobile Order Pick Up” window.
You can find your seat, get your family situated and you’ll get a notification on your app that your meal is ready, then pick up and dine away.
Know what is awesome? Especially on those really hot days?
<<—–It’s available for grabbing your Dole Whip!!!
Oh yeah, baby…
That’s a stop we make a LOT.
I mean, it’s Dole Whip – and Aloha Isle is right by the silly-fun Jungle Cruise!
I haven’t been to Disney hundreds of times (yet. Give me a couple years), but I’ve been my fair share.
