Adventure In The Great Wide Somewhere

My daughter is thrilled and very excited to add "Jedi Training Academy" to her must do list for our next trip to Disney's Hollywood Studios. So I couldn't resist getting my youngling her very own Ahsoka hoodie for her birthday. Happy Birthday, little padawan. I'm so glad that Ashley Eckstein (who, incidentally also voices the character Ahsoka in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars series) features all the cute and girly clothes a little girly Star Wars fan might want. So I tweeted this photo of Kylee on her birthday. Add caption Ashley, being an awesome human being, tweeted back to with her a Happy Birthday. I told Kylee.  WHATTTTT!?! She wants to know when she'll be old enough for her own twitter feed so that "I can be friends with Ahsoka too. The #DisneySide is strong with this one. Thank you again, for making her birthday super special! 

As we went forth from Rizzo's room to solve who stole the Muppet Show, we were glad to discover that there are different villains and clues, so if you see someone else solve the mystery, you can still enjoy the thrill of the game. Our view for most of the afternoon. After solving the caper and staying tuned for the grand finale, we headed back to our room, our free drinks, the view and some quality time reading my Kindle. On a trip back in to grab some bottled waters, I noticed that the concierge left us a present. Little Paper Cabana A perfect little replica of our cabana! A map of the locations of the new family beach cabanas? How helpful. Ben and I headed off to the Cove Café, since we had neglected to visit it so far. It was oddly empty for mid-afternoon. After poking back into the clubs to retrieve our kiddos for the concierge reception, we popped back into the lounge. I can see my room from here! With fruity beverages (and a non-dairy hot cocoa with

Have you ever wondered what it's like to take your kids on their very first cruise? Have you ever wondered if they'd like a Disney Cruise? Hop aboard and enjoy a throwback trip report in it's entirety!   Travel the Western Caribbean on the Disney Magic with two new cruisers!   Episode II: Magic-al Texas Thanksgiving with the Mouse Disney Magic November 17, 2012 Seven Night Western Caribbean And We're Off! And The Eating Begins Confession Time Princesses and Palo Naps, Formal Wear and the Disney Point Have a Little Character Go For the Ears Casual Evening Silence Before the Stingrays Tenders and Iguanas and Stingrays, Oh My! All Good Pirates Take Naps Is it Fall Back and Spring Forward or the Other Way Around? Innie Belly Buttons and Other Oddities It's Like EPCOT Cozumel Looks Very Nice From Onboard Thanksgiving! My Little Penguins Having a Food Moment Why Did They Have to Play the Goodbye Song? To answer the obvious question,

Welcome Wordless Wednesday Blog Hoppers! Today we're sharing one of our favorite Pinterest pin pictures. I love this photo from my first ever cruise! The fact is, there are not just  Ten Things to Know Before Your First Disney Cruise or even   Ten MORE Things to Know Before Your First Cruise  but I just kept going and came up with:   All I can say is it's a good thing I have a Disney Blog or I think my husband might get very overwhelmed by my #DisneySide. For more awesome Adventure in the Great Wide Somewhere ,  homeschool , Disney Travel ,  inspirational and crafty pins I don't actually intend to get around to , feel free to follow me on  Pinterest ! Thank you to Focused on the Magic for hosting!  

 Welcome to the next stop on the Blogorail . Today we are discussing one of my favorite ways to make staying in shape more fun. Namely, the app. Like the saying goes, there's an app for that! I love using a FitBit in my daily life because it makes keeping track of how many steps I've gotten in super easy and it's fun to compete and see who can get in the most steps in a day. I wanted to keep track of my cruise to the eastern Caribbean last November partially to keep the good habit going and partially because I was curious.  Touring St. John Lots of people tell me they're surprised I love cruising. Isn't that just for lazing around in hammocks or on deck chairs drinking fruity beverages? Aren't you always running around like a crazy person? Wouldn't just laying around all day drive you crazy? Um, yeah. If I actually lazed around all day. There is plenty of time for that of course, but first I need to go explore a bit!  The thing is, from the

On fetching our cereal boxes and fruit from the lounge, Julia mentioned that they happened to recently complete the cabanas at the end of the family beach if we happened to be interested. The Lounge Hallway Intrigued, I let her know I'd check with Ben and get back to her. We ate breakfast. Thought it over. Looked at the bill for the cruise so far (it had been delivered either the night before or early that morning and was still well within our budget) and decided to go for it. Kylee takes Jazz. Not that you can tell or anything. Since we had gone back a time zone, (back to eastern from Atlantic) we were up very early. After wandering around the ship, we decided to drop off the last of the Fish Extender gifts. Ben joined us for handing out gifts, usually he sits out and we both remarked how the halls jagged to the right and left as you walked up the passenger decks. At the Art of Animation tour, the cast member had explained this was to avoid the endless hallway effe

Italy Pavilion in Epcot #SilentSunday

Sonlight is busy celebrating their 25th anniversary , last night they hosted a live webchat with inspirational speakers and fun twitter hang outs. Homeschool Field Trips Rock!  If you missed out, feel free to listen along to the recording of the webinar and catch up on the fun. To share their anniversary with all us homeschoolers, Sonlight is getting together with Mom to Mom to giveaway a full year curriculum package to a lucky mom and her friends! What is a full year curriculum package? Basically it's everything you'd pull together if you took the time to research great books, organize them by time period and pull together related units in History, Geography, Language Arts and Bible Study. And Science. And Math. And Handwriting. And a CD-Rom with links to relevant work sheets, lapbooks, coloring sheets, songs and videos online. Some of Kylee's Core B books for Kindergarten. Science, Math and Handwriting didn't fit in the picture. Basically it'

After a lovely whole family morning hiking to and from the fort with the whole family, Chris  decided to retreat to the club. Kylee hung out with Julia coloring in the concierge lounge while Tracy called up the future cruises desk to book us a " dummy date " for 2016. (We hope to float this spring date to a September Eastbound Panama Canal cruise when dates are released.) Our own little family café. Kylee talked her way into another non-dairy hot cocoa with Mickey sprinkles. Julia also gave her a coloring book of all of her favorite princesses just for her very own. Settled into coloring and cartoons, we finished rebooking onboard before Kylee finished her cocoa. We sat and watched the new Mickey cartoons while she sipped. I thought that they were a bit of a combination of cool retro Mickey with the gross out factor common to many modern cartoons. Not my favorite, but I sure like them better than Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Kylee, finished with her cocoa, was ready to h

STOP THE PRESSES! This just in ! The Disney Parks Blog announced that they will be adding Olaf meet and greets starting "In Summer" as well as adding a Frozen section to the well loved award winning musical "Disney Dreams...an Enchanted Classic." Now to return to your regularly scheduled programming.

Have you ever wondered what it's like to cruise concierge? Have you ever wondered what it's like to stay in the royal Walter E. Disney royal suite? Hop aboard and enjoy a throwback trip report in it's entirety.   Episode V: The Royal Treatment Disney Wonder January 4, 2014 Four Night Western Caribbean Royal Treatment Redux R is for Roll Call R is for Ready, Set, Go! R is for Reception R is for Royal Suite Diana's Journal ~ Saturday R is for Running Around in Circles R is for Recreation R is for Reservations R is for Room Service Diana's Journal ~ Sunday R is for Roja R is for Rain Delay R is for Rice Krispy Treats Diana's Journal ~ Monday Diana's Journal ~ Very Early Tuesday R is for Random Roaming R is for Rollin' R is for Rapunzel R is for Reflections Diana's Journal ~ Tuesday R is for Recollections Diana's Journal ~ Wednesday See ya real soon! For other trip reports, check out the Trip Reports tab a

Welcome Wordless Wednesday Blog Hoppers! My sand in between my toes #DisneySide Thank you to Focused on the Magic for hosting!