Fun Things

Here's a quick recap of the fun things that I've done in the last few weeks!

My friend Maggie and I got to go out on a boat with my Aunt Elaine and Uncle Greg and it was awesome!  The day we went out was kind of overcast and not too hot, which was really nice for being on a boat.  We also got lunch afterward at Sweet Tomatoes, and it was overall lovely to spend the day with family and friends :)

View from the boat

We're on a boat!

We saw goats! They just kind of hang out. 

Random bit of rainbow in the sky

With Aunt Elaine and Uncle Greg! Thank you both for such a nice day :)

Also that weekend, my friend Dario and I visited Typhoon Lagoon, the other Disney water park.  It was so much fun! We missed the big attraction there (snorkeling through a reef) because it started to thunder and lightning, but the rest of the slides and the wave pool were fun.

At Typhoon Lagoon

Yesterday I went back to Ethos (the awesome vegan restaurant in Winter Park) with friends for lunch, and it was delicious. Not quite as yummy as the first time, but still very good.

Vegan calzone with mushrooms, broccoli, onions and sausage. And that's vegan parmesan cheese in the corner. 

Erin and I split an ice cream sundae.  It was a beautiful thing

After lunch, we explored Disney Springs some and did some resort hopping. I especially appreciated the day to hang out with friends.

Awesome cake at a bakery in Disney Springs

Erin, Julia and I at the Grand Floridian!

Today, Erin and I went to Lake Louisa State Park and explored. We rented a canoe and went all around Lake Dixie for a while, then hiked along a nature trail and swam in Lake Louisa itself.  That was super weird, because there were tannins in the water that turned it red.  So when I opened my eyes underwater, my skin looked bright red. I thought I took a picture of it, but there doesn't seem to be one on my phone...

Cool Spanish moss

Fun fact: I've had this shirt since 2003

Where we launched

Back to work tomorrow, just for a day before I have Monday off. 

Hope everyone at home is doing well and good luck to everyone going back to school!

Weeks Seven, Eight and Nine!

Hi! It's been a bit since I posted last.  I just finished a ten-day work week because I swapped my days off with a friend.  Probably the hardest part about that as a work week was the weather, because it's been crazy hot and humid the past few days here.  Not so much yesterday, but Monday and Tuesday were really bad. But I made it. And now I have a weird upcoming week, with two days off, one on, one off, two on, one off, two on, one off, etc. I don't go back to my normal weekends for a while either because of other swaps I've agreed to with friends.

I'm going to give the highlights of these last fifteen days at work:

• When I asked a small child why it was a good idea to bring spiders outside instead of killing them (looking for something along the lines of "So they won't bother us inside/so they can eat the bugs we don't like to have around outside"), he said to me "Because they won't have anything to eat inside" and it was adorable.
• Additional languages I've now heard spoken: Swiss German, Turkish (family from Azerbaijan), Hebrew, Czech.
• Met a small girl whose shirt said "So many jelly beans, so little time." She gave me a hug while I was squatting down after I gave her the badge, and it nearly knocked me over...
• Saw the baby gorillas (we have two 2-year-old boys) being stinking cute.  They were playing with a bucket, and kind of falling over with the bucket over their heads. And wrestling with each other.  And one of them beat his fists on his chest, which just looked like a little girl trying on her mom's heels. And running along the glass wall of the viewing area, banging his hands against it. And more recently, I watched them chase a rabbit that was in their habitat. Which actually looked like a meme. 
• Learned about this collaboration from a guest and I'm very excited. I love Cath Kidston and Disney and it's going to be perfect. 
• Katie, to two small children: "Where are your grownups?" (always trying to make sure that little ones don't get separated from their families) Small boy (SB): "I'm a grownup!" K: "How old are you?" SB: "I'm four!" Child's father, who had come up: "He's three..."
• Connected with a family from NJ about the lack of decent bagels and pizza down here.  The mother told me how she sends her son bagels in care packages because he can't get decent ones where he goes to school, and I completely understand that.  All of my friends down here from NY/NJ understand what I mean when I say bagels down here aren't actually bagels.  
• Asked a small child what her favorite food is, and she told me "Nail polish."
• I was asked for the first time in my life if I spoke English after a girl heard me explaining the program to another guest in Spanish
• When I gave a young British boy his Senior Wilderness Explorer badge, we did a fist bump.  And without saying anything about it, we both did the Baymax fist bump and it was amazing. 
• At Headquarters, which is right by the entrance to the park, I heard a child say "But I don't want to go to Africa because it's hotter there!" (Africa is one of the 'lands' in the park, so just a different section of the park)
• Listened to a small child sing "I'm a tiny person! I'm a tiny person!" in his stroller as I was leaving HQ

Last Friday, we had a a Leadership Seminar during which we talked about what it means to be a good leader and went through different scenarios to discuss how we'd handle them.  The leaders for our program have been amazing and so incredibly supportive and motivating, so I know I was learning from the best.  It was also cool to discuss leadership as a topic and relate it to Disney :)

That's it for now, with a post about my fun days coming soon!

Weekend of Firsts

Hi everyone,

Hope you all had a good weekend!  

Like I said on Saturday, I had a bunch of errands to take care of this weekend, so that took up a lot of my time.  But I did find some time for fun as well :)

On Sunday morning, my friend Maggie and I went to Blizzard Beach for a little while and did some of the rides there.  I'd never been to a Disney water park before, so that was a first for me.  They've got a nice lazy river that goes all the way around the park, and several fun rides.  The big thrill ride there is Summit Plummet, a 12-story near vertical body slide.  Which I did.  I wasn't too scared while waiting in line, but being on the ride was actually pretty scary because you're just falling and there's nothing there to keep you in place.  But I was very glad to have done it (another first). 

The rest of the day was spent on errands and watching the Olympics.  I loved watching the American men win the 4x100m free relay :D  I was up and cheering in my living room, and I'm pretty sure one of my roommates thought I was crazy. 

This morning started with more errands.  In the afternoon, I met my friend Bryan at Epcot and we watched several of the shows at the World Showcase. 

First up was Les Parfaits Inconnus again, and they were again fantastic.  

Next we stopped in America to watch Voices of Liberty.  They did a rendition of Old McDonald today that was a lot of fun. 

Then we stopped in Italy to watch Sergio, a juggler/clown who was really good (another first). 

Finally, we watched the acrobats in China perform and they were so good. 

Poor quality photo because they were performing inside due to weather

I'm now home and watching the Olympics again, which is lovely.  Back to work tomorrow!

Bonus photo: there are four princess mosaics at the castle in Disneyland Shanghai, and this is a small portion that was created before the whole mosaics were done to see how the colors worked together

Week six

Happy Friday everyone!

This was a bit of a crazy week, getting back into working after having a mini vacation.  It was a good week, with lots of fun stuff at work and play afterward.

At work, some highlights:

• In one 1.5 hour shift at Headquarters, I
• got a hug from a little girl
• gave a two year old her senior explorer badge and she was adorable
• had a family stop by without realizing they could earn badges there, they just wanted to get a picture with me because I'd given them a few badges throughout the day
• spoke French to a woman and her daughter for whom I think it was very helpful
• At our tracking badge, one little girl walked up to me and another presenter and said "I've always wanted to do this and now I can! This is a dream come true" and we melted
• I had a few really nice conversations at our Insect Badge today.  Including one with a family  that had spent three years in Australia because the father is in the Air Force, and they told me about huntsman spiders there that are as large as small dinner plates...
• We learned more about GRACE, an organization in the DRC that Disney partners with that is doing really important work to help gorillas there (Check it out!)

This was also a fun week after work.  One of my friend's birthdays was on Thursday (Happy Birthday Connor!), so a group of us went to Splitsville in Disney Springs to celebrate.  Courtney and I unintentionally matched, so of course we had to get a picture. 

On Thursdays we wear black

Friday was another presenter, Michael's, birthday (Happy birthday Michael!).  My friend Maggie hosted a Harry Potter themed party to celebrate, and she did such a good job with it.  There was butterbeer, Bertie Bott's Every Flavored Beans, hidden Horcuxes, Drooble's Best Blowing gum, and a perfect birthday cake.

Too good :)

Om nom nom tonight after work Ashley, Yuri and I went to Ethos Vegan Kitchen in Winter Park and it was so insanely delicious. We shared a veggie galette as an appetizer, and I had a meatball sub for dinner.  It was perfect.

I've kind of randomly been craving a milkshake for a while now, and I finally got one tonight.  It was almost too sweet for me, but also delicious.

Several errands have been creeping up on me, so that's mainly the plan for this weekend. 

Hope everyone's doing well at home!

See ya real soon!

Final post covering Mom's visit.

On Tuesday night when we got back to the hotel, Mom and I went to the food court area and got beignets.  Which were super hot and covered in powdered sugar and delicious. And they had vegan beignets! So I was super excited. 

The toothpick thing in the upper right corner was a little stick in my container that said "Allergy" (for the vegan version)

Wednesday was the last day of her visit.  We had breakfast in the morning at the hotel, and then she got on the bus to go to the airport and I went to work.

Love you lots Mom

My mom and I really enjoyed staying at Port Orleans French Quarter, and I haven't really posted too many photos of the hotel, so here goes:

Just walking around outside was super pretty

We had a river view room

They had campfires and outdoor movies here

Cafe Au Lait Way

Another view from our room

I had an absolutely lovely weekend and loved getting to show my mom around the parks that I've now gotten to know pretty well.  She was so surprised/appreciative of the fact that we didn't need a map all weekend.  And exploring new yummy vegan food is always a good idea. 

Love you Mom, and I'll see ya real soon :)

Mom's Visit Part Two

On Sunday, my mom and I had a day of shopping and trying cool food.  I got to take her to Cast Connection, and it was really cool to be able to share that.  We also went to Target (thanks Mom!).  

The cool food started when we drove into Orlando to eat lunch/dunch at the Dandelion Communitea Cafe.  It was an adorable restaurant that wasn't fully vegan, but the only thing that made anything on their menu non-vegan was if you chose to add real cheese.  We shared a salad and a sweet potato burrito, both of which were delicious.  Even the sides--hummus, black bean dip, and sweet pea guacamole--were super yummy. 

The outside of the restaurant was awesome

So cute! And not that far away...I'll be back

We went to Disney Springs in the evening on Sunday, and while that's always fun it was a little bit too crowded to be fully enjoyable.  I did get to show my mom Erin McKenna's (the vegan bakery), and we shared some soft serve ice cream from there.  One of my favorite parts of the night was actually the boat ride there and back from our hotel, which was along the Sassagoula River.

On Monday we went back to the parks for a very full day.  We started at Epcot, where we went on Test Track and a few of the classics like Figment and Spaceship Earth.  We also watched the Voices of Liberty perform at the America pavilion (an a capella group that sings Americana/folk songs) and the flag throwing show at the Italy pavilion (not sure exactly the name).  They were doing things with the flags that didn't seem like they were scientifically possible, so that was cool to check out.

Italian flag throwers

We also tried a mini baguette in France (really yummy and very reasonably priced) and a pretzel in Germany (such high hopes and not actually that good).

At least it was pretty

After Epcot and a break at the hotel, we went to Magic Kingdom.  Where we did alllll the rides. Well, not quite all of them but quite a few. 

I had work on Tuesday and met my mom for dinner after.  We went to a place called freshii, that had really nice bowls/salads/wraps.  It also happened to be next to a natural foods store that had so much vegan stuff. Pretty much everything I could possibly want to purchase that you can't get at a normal supermarket, so that was a really exciting find.  One thing I purchased that I would 100% recommend against was wink!, a vegan low-calorie "ice cream."  Doesn't sound too good when I describe it like that, I know, but I wanted to try it. And it was gross. 

Final post for Mom's visit coming up, which will include some pictures of the hotel!

Week five!

Hi everyone! 

Happy Thursday! At least for most of the working world. Today's my hump-day...

I had a wonderful and very busy last week, so here's a post going over what happened.  It includes the start of my mom's visit, which was from Friday evening to yesterday morning. 

With my mom's visit, I only had a one day weekend last weekend, so I worked Monday-Friday (7/25-29).  I had something after work each day, including a trip to the airport to pick Maggie up from visiting home, a team builder at Winter Summerland mini golf, and a planned trip to Rising Star (a karaoke bar at City Walk, which is just outside Universal Studios).  I didn't end up mini golfing with everyone, but just being there and hanging out was a lot of fun. 

At work, some highlights:

• I finally got to hear the siamangs and the gibbons call.  We talk about siamangs calling often at our Animal Call badge location, so I've told guests about it probably hundreds of times by now but I'd never actually gotten to see it happen. (Check out this video so you have an idea what I'm talking about).  Siamangs are a species of ape from SE Asia (Difference between monkeys and apes? Apes have no tails).  They have a throat pouch that, when it's expanded, allows them to be heard up to two miles away from each other.  We have two twin girls at the park, and I love to watch them playing with each other and swinging around their habitat. 
• I made someone cry. In a good way.  A girl came up to me and told me it was the last day of her college program and asked if she could become a senior wilderness explorer.  I said of course, and we did a small ceremony to celebrate.  In the middle of the ceremony, she started crying and told me that Up is her favorite movie.  That 100% made my day, that I was able to do something that made a guest so happy. 
• Another language victory. It's not that uncommon for me to do a badge in two languages at one time, saying something in English to one part of the group and then repeating myself in Spanish or French to the other part of the group.  Last week for the first time I did a badge location in French and Spanish simultaneously.  Which was hard mentally, switching back and forth between the languages but so cool to have it work. Well, it worked well enough that I think everyone understood what I was trying to share. 

Mom got here to visit on Friday night! I was so so excited for her to visit and it was so good to see her.  Her flight got delayed from a thunderstorm on Friday night, so she didn't arrive until almost 8pm.  We went to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner, which I think I've mentioned before and is a really nice buffet that we don't have at home with tons of fresh food.  So we explored and it was delicious. 

Mickey welcomed us to our room at Port Orleans French Quarter!

On Saturday, my mom and I spent a full day in the parks.  We started at DAK, where I got to show her around to a bunch of our badge locations and she got to meet some of the people I work with. We also hit up the big rides/attractions in the park: Kilimanjaro Safaris (during which I saw cheetahs for the first time!), Expedition Everest, the Festival of the Lion King (always so so good), and Kali River Rapids (somehow we were in the two wettest seats both times we rode it, so we got soaked).

I learned the call with the help of Connor (you can see his hands on the right), Molly and of course Dug and Russell!

Then I accompanied Russell back to his clubhouse

Where we showed off our call skills

The cast discount at the Grand Floridian Cafe for lunch right now is 40% off, so my mom and I went there for lunch and met my roommate Erin (Haley and Liana both had work on Saturday).  The restaurant itself was beautiful, with fresh flowers everywhere.  There wasn't much on the menu that was already vegan, so I asked the waitress for a suggestion and she spoke with the chef.  He said that they could take their miso salmon and make it a miso tofu dish, so Erin and I both ordered that.  10/10 would recommend, it was delicious.  Overall a lovely meal, and so reasonably priced with the discount.

Lunch was delicious

The flowers were beautiful

The Grand Floridian is so pretty!

After lunch Mom and I went to Epcot for the rest of the day.  We had fast passes for Soarin', which I think Mom really liked.  We also watched some of the shows in the World Showcase, including "Les Parfaits Inconnus" in Canada which was SO INCREDIBLY GOOD. Four people performing a mix of comedy, music, circus/acrobatic stuff...so good. It definitely became my new favorite show there.

They were so much fun!

We stayed at the park until the fireworks show, IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth.  Always beautiful, and all of the countries around the World Showcase are involved.

The building in Canada lit up

Two parks and a nice lunch made for a long day, so we went back to the hotel right after and went to bed. I got some pictures of the hotel which I'll include in another post. 

I've got to go get ready for work, so look for more posts coming up about the rest of my mom's visit!