Adventure In The Great Wide Somewhere

Have you ever: Found out that an attraction is closed for refurbishment during your vacation? Left Walt Disney World only to discover on Pinterest or a blog something crazy amazing that you missed? Skipped an attraction because of height requirements your munchkins don't quite reach? Even with Minnie Ears, she's not quite 48". Of course you have! Walt Disney World is far too amazing and vast to do everything interesting in even the longest of vacations! Next Trip List Attractions Beauty and the Beast Live on Stage Fantasmic! Wishes Splash Mountain Muppet Vision 3D (We love it, but the kids tired out at Hollywood Studios last trip.) Everything for the 48" and up crowd. My youngest is also my daredevil, and she loved all the 44" rides last trip. Foods Fried Wontons - Thanks, Heidi for the heads up! Cronuts - Shawn reviews them here . Restaurants Be Our Guest- Breakfast Boma Sanaa Coral Reef Cape May Café Resorts Beach Club Anim...

Day Bag /deɪ bæɡ/   1. A flexible container of fabric or nylon with comfortable straps, measuring no larger than 22 inches wide, 14 inches high and 9 inches deep, carrying only the essentials passports or other allowed proof of citizenship, travel documents, completed and signed cruise documents, medication, valuables (jewelry, cash, purse) Disney Cruise Line Packing 101 2. A schoolbag or backpack of everything and anything that is not replaceable and a vacation essential. 3. An enormous load perfect for dad to schlep around all of the fun things you might use the first afternoon of vacation, including but not limited to: swimwear sunscreen cameras chargers phones, anything your kids can't cruise without (favorite snack or their stuffed bear, for example) necessary toiletries (contact lens solution) makeup sail away party items or anything else you don't want tossed around 4. Your lifeline until luggage magically appears midafternoon or early in t...

In Honor of Throwback Thursday, here's a look at our reading list for the past year... Fun Fact: Kylee loves history. Read Aloud Books Core B Leading Little Ones to God Usborne Book of Peoples of the World Missionary Stories with the Millers Usborne Book of Houses and Homes Charlotte's Web Favorite Poems of Childhood Homer Price Archeologists Dig for Clues Usborne Book of World History A Child's History of the World From Akebu to Zapotec Little Pear Usborne Time Traveler  Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle Owls in the Family Henry Huggins Tut's Mummy: Lost...And Found The Year of Miss Agnes Understood Betsy Greek Myths The Greek News  Mountain Born It Could Be Worse George Muller The Wheel on the School Gooney Bird Greene The Great Wall of China Roman Diary Mr. Popper's Penguins Detectives in Togas The Case of the Gasping Garbage Science Books The Usborne World of Animals Night Animals The Usborne Book of Science Activities Volume 1 See Ho...

Looking back at all of the amazing, wonderful, impossible things that happened in the last year, I decided to go for broke when compiling my list of Disney New Y-Ears resolutions for the year. I'm going to try to do six impossible things this year, so please send pixie dust! Back to the Big Kid Rides Since my fearless princess is finally forty-four inches tall, she looks forward to conquering all of the big kid rides!  She has no fear, nor no one should. Impossibility: The possibility of having to take all of our family out of the chicken exits is very real. With possibly one child who wants to go on the ride coming with us. I am planning this trip down to the ride order rather than just the usual FastPass+, Advanced Dining Reservations and then letting the rest of the trip come as it may. Instead I've got all of our rides mapped out to slowly work our way up from the Great Goofini to the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train before the scary rides a few days into the tri...

Two years into this blog and I've gained a lot of friends, a lot of tips and adventured all over in the process! Rather than wrapping out the year with a whimper, I'm looking back on the top ten posts of 2014.  (Honestly who doesn't love a good list?)  You've made it through all of this year's obstacles, time to celebrate! Can you think of a better way to launch into a brand new year than with a little extra pixie dust? If you missed them the first time around, give them a click. If you've already read them all, please skip down to the comments and let me know which one you liked the most! 10.) The Beginner's Guide to Disney Cruise Line Ever wonder exactly how you get from "I think it might be nice to actually try out a Disney Cruise" to actually counting down the days until embarkation? This is the least you need to know to figure out the when and how of booking and packing. It's a good place to start. 9.) Dollars and Sense | I...

I'm kicking off this fall's Thankful Thursday series with a list of ten things I'm thankful for...not the big obvious things like my husband or my children or my house. Just ten little things I'm often inclined to over look but would definitely miss if they weren't there anymore.     10. Spellcheck As much as Siri spends a lot of time twisting around my words like ice cream melting in the August sun, I really appreciate knowing that most of my words will be filtered before I send them out into cyberspace.   9. Air Conditioning In Texas, air conditioning makes life much more pleasant for six months out of the year.   8. Sharp Number Two Pencils The smell, the color, the way the graphite smears on paper, everything about the number two pencil is wonderful. Unless the eraser is missing. Then it's just sad and frustrating. Part of the loveliness of the pencil is the ability to erase easily and nearly completely.   7. Beautif...

It's the most wonderful time of the year! If I had to pick one season to live in, I would be hard pressed to pick between autumn and spring. Today, fall is definitely in the lead. Since it is the start of fall, let's break out the bucket list and see what there is to do around here to celebrate cool(er) weather and a little more time to sleep in. 1.) Enjoy the change of the seasons. Sadly, I live in a part of the country where the only autumn color we experience is purchased at Hobby Lobby. So we make our own leaves to hang in the windows. My personal favorite leaf from last year? This Tinker Leaf  #DisneySide It's not quite the same, but it's still lovely! 2.) Visit the Texas Renaissance Festival Located in Todd Mission, Texas, the Texas Renaissance Festival (or RenFest) turns 55 acres into a bustling 16th century village for eight weeks in October and November. Between the hundreds of performers, crafting demonstrations and the authentic shops an...

It's time for one of my new favorite blog hops: Three Things Thursday!  (Be sure to link up on her blog !) Since I already have a blog (and three blogs preceding this one) what haven't I already shared? Once Upon a Time There Was a Princess With Her Nose Stuck in a Book. Actually I'm reading three different books right now. For a change, all three are new (to me) books rather than old favorites. (I think I'm reading a few of those as well. 1.) A Candle for Saint Jude by Rumer Godden This book is the prequel to one of my childhood favorites, Listen to the Nightingale . A few chapters in, I remember why this author won my love. The intricate world of the ballet boarding school unfolds like a flower in ever widening sketches. Like interpretive dance, this story skips and shades and doesn't fill in all the details but is delightful and lovely all the same. I finally found a copy on Amazon about a month ago and ordered it. I'm about halfway thr...

No need to send a search party, we survived the first eight weeks of homeschooling! I consciously made the decision to step back from my blog and focus on working through the growing pains of our brand new lifestyle. Crazy Hat Day at VBS #DisneySide After only a week, I'd learned quite a bit . After two months, it's quite incredible to see how things I worried about (difficulty balancing the kids differing curriculums) never materialized and other things that I never considered (like spelling difficulties) took center stage. Here are the twenty random things we learned during our first forty days of homeschooling! 1.) Let It Go. 2.) Seriously, something's got to give and I am okay with priorities shifting. 3.) Schedules are necessary. My kids need to know on certain days they will be doing certain things at certain times or they will never get anything done. Likewise they do best knowing camp is in three weeks and a friend is coming over tomorrow afternoon....

I have never...as a kid on my first afternoon of sleep away camp those words opened the door to a whole world of friendships and revelations. There are simply a load of things I have never ever done or hope to do. For the sake of brevity, we're going to stick to Disney and for the sake of my wrists and fingers, we'll be limiting today's post only to amusements available at sea aboard the Disney Cruise Line. And because of the expansive nature of these vessels, I will focus in on only the Disney Magic and Disney Wonder or as they're known, the classic ships. Disclaimer!!! This I Have Never was inspired by I Have Never-Walt Disney World Edition , which was itself inspired by some great posts by other bloggers. Here's a big pixie dust thank you to: Melissa Sue's   Never Have I Ever Post she was inspired by Katherine Katherine of Food Fitness Fantasy who wrote about those things she's never done at the World  on the inspiration of Sarah Sarah of Running...

I have never...as a kid on my first afternoon of sleep away camp those words opened the door to a whole world of friendships and revelations. There are simply a load of things I have never ever done or hope to do. For the sake of brevity, we're going to stick to Disney and for the sake of my wrists and fingers, we'll be limiting today's post only to attractions at the World. Disclaimer!!! This I Have Never was inspired by Melissa Sue, so here's a pixie dust thank you to: Melissa Sue's  post Never Have I Ever Post she was inspired by Katherine Katherine of Food Fitness Fantasy who wrote about those things she's never done at the World  on the inspiration of Sarah Sarah of Running at Disney  had blogged originally about parts of EPCoT that were new to her . Please Blog Hop on over and check out their posts too!   My first trip or two we tried to hit every single "original" attraction that my mom remembered from her childhood trips to Walt Dis...

I sat drenched in stale sweat, tired and sore from carrying my four year old brother on my back as we trudged from the last ride to our appointed parade and fireworks positions. Briefly resting on the curb at the hub as we pushed through our tenth hour in the parks, my slightly melted Reeboks tipped up to allow my feet to uncramp into a more natural position. As the eldest of four, my dual roles as carrier and occasional navigator helped our military strike team of "vacationers" hit every single ride in the Magic Kingdom in clockwise order, hopefully without contributing to the inevitable whining of the younger kids in a single day. Several years later, on the occasion of our Disneymoon, my new husband came away amazed and shocked that you can hit almost everything in any given park in a single day as he hadn't been raised in a " Dumbo or Die " style Disney family. As a matter of fact, he hadn't even heard of a Disney Commando or that this vacationi...

I love Pinterest!  For those of you unfamiliar with the magic of Pinterest, it is, in it's own words, "a tool for collecting and organizing the things you love." I've used it to plan and execute a complete transformation of my daughter's bedroom from her Winnie the Pooh Nursery days to her current enchanted forest, create cute teacher gifts and even collect an amazing array of fonts. My favorite use of Pinterest, however, is to collect and organize crafts, ideas and inspirations for my next Disney trip. Consider this bonus Pixie Dust! My current Top Ten Disney Pins include: 10. How to Pack a Ridiculous Amount in a Small Space   9. Some Excellent Photography Tips These are slowly helping to help take my current "terrible-though-enthusiastic" photography to hopefully just "enthusiastic" photography. 8. "Plus It Up" Flip Flops 7. Disney Scrap Book Ideas 6. Marty Sklar's New Book Who doesn't love a li...

I have never been one who is much of a secret keeper. And so today, I'm spilling the beans, letting you know about which five things top my"Reasons I wish I was on a Disney Cruise Right Now" list...at least until I change my mind tomorrow and come up with another five favorite things... 5) All Inclusive and Cashless society Roll out of bed. Put on clothes. Put on lanyard (with Key to the World). Done. 4)  The Oceaneer Club and Lab Let's face it, around now summer is getting to be very long. Imagine a room full of age appropriate new toys filled with (mostly) British formally trained nannys who want nothing more than to play and amuse your children with games and stories about their favorite characters all day long.  DCL calls them counselors.  I call them a Godsend.  Oh, did I mention that Belle just casually drops by to read the kids a story some days or Snow White pops in to dance with them?  The only hard part about the club and lab is getting yo...