Today’s post is part 2 of highlights from my family’s 8-day maximum-experience Disney vacation. I can’t believe we’ve been home almost a month already!
Seriously, Jim.
In front of Cinderella’s castle at the Magic Kingdom. That’s not a fake smile!
Today’s is part 1 of a 2-part post covering highlights from my family’s 8-day maximum-experience Disney vacation. And what a long, strange, WONDERFUL trip it was!
I thought I would be ‘Already Gone’ by the first day of this trip. But instead, for eight straight days, I had TONS of fun!
For “The Definitive Disney 10,” I will be covering 10 talking points from the 8-day Disney vacation my family took last August 20-27, in 2 separate posts. My overall goal? I don’t know, actually. Amusement? Sure. To inform? Perhaps!
Our Disney Vacation started today. How exciting!
Except for the dreaded day-before packing preparation. That’s usually the roughest part of the trip, right?
One suitcase small enough to avoid checks, plus one carry-on bag. L-R: S4, me, S12. Mike hadn’t packed at this point yet, but he will use one duffel carry-on bag and whatever room is left in our big suitcase that contains all the evil “liquids” not allowed on the plane. I prepaid $25 to check that bag today via Jetblue.com. I also printed all of our boarding passes already! You can do so up to 24 hours in advance with Jetblue.
Wrong! At 11 pm last night, I was sitting in bed, done with all my travel tasks, already relaxing and writing. This was on the day before we left for an 8-day vacation some 1,000 miles from home, with my entire nuclear family in tow. I must have been in quite a good place, preparation-wise, amirite?
I want to shout it from the rooftops. YES!
Time to get up off that couch and GO SOMEWHERE.
Last July, I was scrolling through Facebook, looking at my friends’ vacation photos that were popping up in my news feed. As I ‘liked’ various photos of my friends’ families out and about having fun, I realized that it had been a long while since my family last went on vacation together.
It was time to take a trip! Continue reading
The genre of memoir has always been a favorite of mine. Somewhat ‘nosey’ by nature, I tend to enjoy intimate glimpses into lives and experiences of different kinds of people. A few standout memoirs I have read to date include Jeanette Walls’ The Glass Castle, Carly’s Voice by Arthur and Carly Fleischmann, and of course, Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles 1974-2001 by Don Felder.
Don Felder’s slide guitar and Randy Meisner’s bass are SO on point here. Where is my time machine? 1974, please!
Therefore, it comes as no surprise that I thoroughly enjoyed the book With Ballet in My Soul: Adventures of a Globetrotting Impresario by Eva Maze. This memoir is a chronicle of Maze’s amazing life as a 20th century theatrical impresario for the better part of four decades. Continue reading
Today’s review of the Theater at the 14th Street Y’s Hanna and the Moonlit Dress was again sponsored by the great Milena Barrett of Be Your Best Mom Dot Com. Big thanks to Ms. Barrett for such an enjoyable opportunity!
Last Saturday, December 3, the whole family and I jumped in the car and headed out to NYC to see Hanna and the Moonlit Dress, an interactive musical for children based on the Israeli children’s book Hanna’s Sabbath Dress by Itzhak Schweiger-Dmi’el. The show took place at the Theater at the 14th Street Y near Union Square, NYC. Please enjoy reading our before-and-after the show story below, then follow the link to the Be Your Best Mom site for the rest! Continue reading
Welcome to my first performance review post! Today’s review was sponsored by the great Milena Barrett of Be Your Best Mom Dot Com. Big thanks to Ms. Barrett for such an enjoyable opportunity! Last Saturday, November 5, S10 and I headed out to NYC to see Chotto Desh, a family-friendly dance performance by the Akram Khan Company. Hopefully this is just the first experience like this of many! The story begins here….. (start reading below, then follow the link to the Be Your Best Mom site for the rest!) Continue reading
S2 thinks that sleep is for suckers, apparently.
Morning, day 2 of our mid-October mini family getaway started…. early. Though with Saturday our only full day here, we wanted to take advantage and try to see as much as possible. Even on just 2.5 hours of sleep (me) and zero-ish hours of sleep (Mike), we were Mystic Aquarium-bound. The Aquarium was the one attraction in the area we’d all been looking forward to visiting for months, and no lack of sleep was going to stop us from going!
Even though I technically had more sleep than my husband did, Mike still woke up and took the girls to breakfast so I could shower and get ready for the day in peace. I appreciated that a lot. There was a little diner nearby that they went to eat at, in walking distance. After the three of them dined out, Mike brought me back a breakfast plate of eggs, bacon, and hash browns to have as well. My husband is a good, good man. Continue reading
I know I said before that I’m done introducing new segments on this blog, but I lied. Why? After our family trip last weekend to Mystic, CT, I took time to figure out a way to blog about it without sounding like a fourth grader writing about “How I Spent My Summer Vacation.” Instead of a bunch of pictures with a list of everything we did, I came to the conclusion that writing a destination review (of the area as a whole, rather than specific attractions or hotels) would be the best way to approach the subject matter. This way, perhaps you folks can use some of the travel tips and info I share here when planning your own family vacation! See? I want my writing to serve YOU. Sharing is caring!
This will be a 2-part post, BTW. Enjoy! Continue reading