Thanksgiving!

Happy belated Thanksgiving everyone!  This was my first Thanksgiving away from my family, which was hard.  I'm incredibly thankful for the people in my life here in Florida for making that first a pretty great experience :)

We had a potluck at work during our breaks, and I brought a pumpkin pie.  I wasn't sure I was going to be able to eat anything, but several of my co-workers made vegan versions of their dish so I had a really yummy meal at work and got to spend time with friends. 

Wilderness Explorers!

Erin's family came down to visit for the holiday, so after work Liana and I joined them at Epcot for dinner at Biergarten.  It's the buffet restaurant in the Germany pavilion, and it was so nice.  The inside is decorated to look like a village in Germany, and there was a band that came out to play twice while we were there.  

Two members of the band playing different sized bells on the table

I wasn't really sure what I was going to be eating for dinner.  When I told the waiter I was vegan, he asked me to wait at the table and the chef came out to show me what I could eat on the buffet.  There were four different salads and two hot vegetables that were vegan, plus the pretzel rolls. So I was a happy camper :)

For dessert the waiter brought me out some berry compote and vegan cookies and chocolate

It's officially after Thanksgiving, which means that it no longer feels quite so early for holiday decorations to be up all over the place.

Bonus photo: Stitch got a hold of the Christmas tree lights and they're all tangled!

I hope everyone at home had a lovely holiday!

Remetz Visit!

Ellie and her family also came to visit, and it was also lovely :)

I worked for part of the time they were here, so I missed their day in Magic Kingdom.  I did get to join after for dinner, though.  The day we were there was a Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party event, so it was a winter wonderland on our way out of the park. 

It's snowing!

Their second park day was at Epcot. We spent the first part of the day exploring Future World (the front of the park, the area with rides like Soarin' and Test Track), and made our way back to World Showcase for the afternoon and evening.

Dinner was at Restaurant Marrakesh, which is in the Morocco pavilion. 

We stayed for Illuminations

Day three brought us to Animal Kingdom.  It was a lot of fun to show them around and share the things I've learned about our park, as well as to experience some of the guest things I haven't done in a long time.

One of those guest things was Flights of Wonder, the bird show we have at the park.  There's a part of the show when they call two people up on stage and have an owl fly directly at them, to showcase how silent the bird's flight is.  I knew what was coming, so I waved my arms really energetically when they called for volunteers and got called up.  This picture was taken on stage after that happened, and it was so cool. 

We also saw Festival of the Lion King, which is one of my favorite shows on property

(Sorry it's sideways!)

Our last park day together was at Hollywood Studios, where we did a bunch of rides and watched Beauty and the Beast.  After that I drove them to the airport for the flight home.  

Thank you for including me in your vacation :)

Holiday Filming

Yay Christmas time!  I celebrated early this year with some other Explorers when we went to see some of the filming for the holiday specials at Magic Kingdom earlier this month.  We went one evening after work, and got to see several musical performances filmed for a special that aired on Thanksgiving (I haven't seen it yet, I don't know if you can actually see me at all).  

So excited! There with Maggie, Julia and Rochelle

Setting up for the performances.  So cool to see the castle/space in front of the castle transformed

Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks were so sweet and sounded beautiful

I cannot get over the castle with its Christmas lights on

We watched Wishes in between performances

Flo Rida!  Not my favorite, but it was a really fun performance.  And they gave out the light-up Mickey ears, so I got a new pair of ears for free :D

A really fun experience with friends :)

Alex Visit!

Alex came to visit and it was wonderful :)

Clearly a fantastic picture of the two of us :P
We went to Ethos for dinner right from the airport on her first night here, and they had pumpkin pie. Nom nom nom

Classic.
Taken at Molly's birthday party--Happy Belated Birthday Molly!

More food--we ate at Boma on Night two, and there was a ton on the buffet that I could eat

But the chef still made me a special plate with tofu and veggies that was delicious

And he made me a Mickey ice cream sundae for dessert :)
(Tofutti vanilla ice cream is surprisingly good)

We matched :D

We did all four parks in two days!  Day One was Hollywood Studios in the morning for a few rides and the Frozen sing-along, and then to Epcot.  Alex got to try a lot of the different foods that were there for Food and Wine, and we did some rides.

Alex put up with me wanting to meet Anna and Elsa together.  Elsa told us that we needed to help Anna figure out how not to eat eight pieces of chocolate in one sitting.  I'd help with that if I knew the answer...

Anna was also really fun to meet

Day Two had us at DAK for the morning and early afternoon, and then to Magic for the evening.  It was the ASE (Animals, Science and the Environment) Family Day when we went, so we got to take a backstage tour of some of the animal areas.  Including: the vet hospital, the Nutrition Center (Erin gave us a wonderful tour--thanks Erin!), the invert building, and some animal holding areas.  So we got to speak to a bunch of the people who work in different aspects of animal care at Disney, and see some of the animals up close.  No photos allowed backstage, so I don't have any from that part of the day, but it was incredible.  At this point I know pretty well how much Disney is doing to help conservation efforts, but to be able to have conversations with some of the people leading those projects was awesome.  One of the new initiatives that the Disney Conservation Fund is working on is "Reverse the Decline, Increase the Time", which is trying to reverse the decline of 10 animals and increase the time kids spend out in nature.

In the vet window that morning was a gopher tortoise who'd been found on property after being hit by a car.  He was having a wheelchair made of legos attached to his shell to give his leg more time to properly heal.  It was really cool. 

We spent the later afternoon/evening at Magic Kingdom, which was magical (I had to).

There's a new Frozen castle show, during which Elsa uses her ice powers to light up the castle.  I really enjoyed it. 

Slap happy...

SO PRETTY

MUCH WOW

"My insides and outsides are frozen, but my heart is warm" --Alex

New "Once Upon a Time" castle show that replaced "Celebrate the Magic"--it was really cute!

We also did some outdoor exploring at Wekiva Springs State Park.  We went kayaking and saw a bunch of native birds, many turtles, a deer and a river otter! That was the first wild otter I've ever seen and it was so close.

Just around the river bend...

We also went for a quick swim in the spring itself, because it is not my style to visit a location with beautiful fresh water and not get wet.  

See ya real soon!

This is Halloween!

Fall does not feel like fall here in Florida, when it's still in the 70s during the day in November.  There's actually been a bit of a cold spell today and yesterday, and it went down to the 40s overnight, which feels really cold.  But.  Without the weather telling you what season it is, you've got to make it fall for yourself.  One of the ways we did this was by carving pumpkins for Halloween.  Erin really pushed for us to do it, and I'm glad she did because it was a ton of fun. 

Hard at work

My pumpkin! (It's meant to be the sun from Tangled)

All together: Tangled sun, Jack Skellington, Mickey trick-or-treating, and Star Wars

Pumpkin selfie :)

Happy Belated Halloween everyone! (still before Thanksgiving, I'm good)

Wild Africa Trek

I did Wild Africa Trek! Jen and Andrew, friends from school, came down to the parks and we met up to do WAT.  It's a special tour that takes place on the Kilimanjaro Safaris savanna (Disney description here).  You get to go "backstage" on the savanna, get up close to some hippos, cross a bridge over some crocs, and go on your own safari throughout the area.  There's also a really nice meal served on a deck overlooking the animal areas.  It was a lot of fun :)

We were all supposed to be predators.  Andrew was a crocodile.

The bridge across the croc pool

Please note the crocodiles below me :)

On the truck

Hello Mr. Giraffe

Lunch was so yummy

Very fun and great to see them :D