Disney's Food and Wine Festival and a Happy Birthday...

We are now officially 5 days away from the Cast member preview of Epcot International Food and Wine Festival and that can only mean 2 things-

1. I seriously have to start saving my pennies for my "adventures around the world"... it gets very pricey!

and

2. It's one of my best friend's birthdays!!!!!!

Now- I can understand that many of you can't see why I would feature both these things in a post together. Very simple answer! I was lucky enough to have her visiting this time last year and so I got to take her to Epcot for last year's cast preview. I cannot stress enough what a blast this event is when you go with good company! Sadly, she's busy joining the touring cast of Wizard of Oz right now so I'll be drinking around the world in her honor! So I thought I'd give her a serious birthday shout out, show you all some of the awesome photos from last year's festivities, and then give you all the low down on the kick ass event that is Disney's Food and Wine Festival. 

First things first-

Happy Birthday, Smellzabeth!! :)

I cannot stress enough how lucky I am to have you as one of my best friends. 

You're one of those people I know I can count on and I've missed you terribly since we've been living on opposite sides of the country!

Kick some serious booty out there!!

I love you!!

Now for the photo dump- You should be warned, on top of being one of my best friends, she's also one of the most adorable/gorgeous people I've ever met!

 

 Obviously, she's couture and I'm commercial...

Outside of Italy

Grey Goose Lemonade Slush... Thank you France!

 Enjoying a German delicacy... Get your mind out of the gutter- it was delicious!

Passion Fruit Margaritas courtesy of Mexico

Just when we thought we had enough, the champagne and dessert stand is waiting at the end...

If you have any vacation time saved up- I urge you! Get to Disney for the Food and Wine Festival! this is one of my favorite things Disney does all year. There's SO much food and (come on, you knew from the name) so much in the beverage department and it is all absolutely delicious. I may not be the most adventurous of foodies but Food and Wine allows me to try things I'd never be able to other wise- and it's all cooked and served to Disney standards. 

As you make your way around World Showcase, there are 29 different kiosks, mostly different countries though there are a few extra thrown in- like Cheese, Craft Beers, or Desserts and Champagne. This IS NOT an all you can eat/drink experience though, so know you'll be paying at each stand. They each serve tapas sized portions of regional goodness, most also offer a dessert, and all offer a wine or other local beverage. While it may not seem so bad at first to be paying around $3 here and there, with 29 stands- it adds up quick! 

SOOOOOO..... *My tips* 

• Once you hit world showcase- grab a drink and a snack and make your way around all the countries, just on that one drink and snack. You can always grab the special map that lists all the menus, but trust me as you walk and see and smell things, more will start to become appealing. If you know there's certain must haves at the end of your walk, you won't blow your budget or appetite on other things!

• Try foods you wouldn't have on a regular basis. I have no doubt the sushi in Japan is fantastic and the pasta in Italy is to die for, but these are common staples in most of our every day diets. Theres so much to choose from and you'll miss out on a lot if you fill yourself up on safe foods. Be adventurous!

• Share! Another advantage of going with a friend is you can get different menu items and just try bites of eachother's. Yes, they are small portions and even smaller if you start splitting, but let me reiterate- there are 29 kiosks! I assure you, you'll leave very satisfied!  

So come down to my little corner of the world!! Have any of you ever come down for Food and Wine before? Anyone always wanted to and need a little more convincing? 

If any of you make it to town at some point, let me know if you need any other pointers or suggestions! I'd be more than happy to help!

Yummm..... My tummy's grumbling already!

Vacations over already...

Aaaaaaaaaand we're back...

*sad sad panda to the nth degree*

I cannot tell you all enough how incredibly relaxing it is to be on a ship completely disconnected from all things phone/internet. What a breath of fresh air! ... Even if I did check my email and facebook as soon as we got back to the car... whoops!

For any of you out there wondering- I highly recommend Disney Cruise Line. ESPECIALLY their newest ship, the Dream. So appropriately named! My sister and her hubby have sailed with Disney a few times and they absolutely swear by them! We were a little skeptical but I think we're in agreement now that we just had an incredible vacation!

Aside from the ship being absolutely gorgeous, the boat is much more than just a kid friendly cruise. But for those wondering- while we weren't cruising with any little ones, I was SO impressed by their youth- teen activities. There are separate locations for infants, kids, tweens, and teens and they are all so fun looking from the outside I wanted to go in. Good news is- no grown ups allowed! In some parts, not even parents. But the kids are very well taken care of by a friendly staff and every guest under a certain age wears a Mickey wrist band with a special scanner thingy-ma-bob so they can always beep in and out of the clubs, giving the parent constant notice of where they are. You can see into the teen club/pool from the top deck and I seriously considered breaking in.

I'm not going to lie- the main pool area is absolutely crazy! It's very fun and the big slide "The AquaDuck" is an absolute blast as it zips you over the side of the boat, but not exactly the perfect place to relax on vacation. Family friendly- yes but "adults on vacation with no kiddies" friendly- not entirely. But the pizza at Luigi's that's part of Flo's Cafe right on that deck, TOTALLY worth crossing back to the family side!

Just next to the general chaos, there is a frosted glass panel with the beautiful words "Reserved for guests 18 and older"... Oh my goodness... A pool, a couple bars, a whole lot of comfier lounge chairs- this was the heaven where we spent most of our sun on the ship time. This is also where Senses Spa is and even though I didn't throw down the big bucks for anything fancy (they offer everything from massages in fancy cabanas with private whirlpools to hair treatments and pedicures) we did pay the $16 for an all day pass to the rainforest room. This is a special room with saunas, steam rooms, aromatherapy showers, hot beds, and a couple whirlpools that overlook the water. SO delicious and relaxing... even when you have a giggling fool sitting next to you that wraps his robe tie around his head claiming to be the karate kid... and yes, that was my person. I'm so lucky. 

The entertainment was fantastic, the food was amazing, pretty much we couldn't have been more sad to get off the boat. Did I mention our stateroom was HUGE with an oversized verandah? Le sigh. I mean, home is nice too! But goodness gracious! We almost didn't make it to Disney's private island, Castaway Cay, because of the damage Hurricane Irene did. But the amazing cast members worked tirelessly to get it cleaned up and we enjoyed a gorgeous albeit rainy and cloudy day over on the adult-only "Serenity Bay" side of the island.

So in short- Greatest vacation ever!!! And now for a very large photo drop. Hope you enjoy these as much as we enjoyed taking them. :) 

The adult only side of the boat...

About as much of Atlantis as we could see for free

Me and my broder on the fancy schmancy night

My broder playing mini golf

The person winning said mini golf game

The view out to our verrandah

Captain Ice Tongs... We did not come too prepared for pirate night so there was improvising abound!

Castaway Cay

Most epic Jenga game EVER played on a boat

There it is! I "small but slightly excessive unless you consider I took over 200 pictures" taste of our vacation! 

More exciting stuff happening around here next week... It just never stops!!

My Liebster Blog award... and I'm on vacation...

I've been a little MIA this week... sorry guys! I got that cold that's been making it's rounds and I had to put all my efforts and energy into fighting it off because- vacation starts tomorrow!!!! eeehhhhhkjnasfkjb,jhgby,jed,,evwghjkguywr! *You should know I legitimately made that noise just now when I typed that I'd be going on vacation.*


I am feeling a little better but luckily I don't HAVE to be 100% to enjoy laying in the sun. So I think I'll be alright.

In the midst of this cold I got a wonderful little surprise. If you've spent any time surfing around multiple blogs, you'll know we bloggers are a very friendly bunch and we just LOVE getting and receiving blog awards... I was feeling a little left out that I had yet to be acknowledged as being "blog award" worthy. Well MinDog and Metch from over at Shitty Fabulous Lives (p.s. go check them out!) made my week by honoring me as one of their 5 Liebster Awards.

Their description and background information is much more thorough than that which I am about to leave. In essence, each recipient passes the award on to 5 other blogs with less than 200 followers that they feel deserve some kudos. Oh! And there are rules. 

1. Thank the giver.

2. Pass it along to 5 other bloggers with less than 200 followers. Leave a comment and follow them.

3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.

4. Hope your followers spread the love to other bloggers.

So, without further ado-

Thank you MinDog and Metch!! So glad my first blog award came from a couple of kick ass girls!

My Liebster Blog awards go to-

Angie over at Smoosy

Michelle over at Running with Scissors

Kelsey over at Harbor Cottage

Ruthie over at The Chronicles of Ruthie Hart

Jenna over at The Duty Family

These are just a handful of some of my newest, most favoritest (take that, grammar!) blogs! I hope you guys will visit them and I hope you'll find them as interesting as I do! Pass along the happy!

And with that- I am on vacation people!! See you all at the end of this coming week... Hope it has as many smiles as mine is about to have...

Strange video... But I love the song!

 1

That post I was talking about...

Gahhhh!!! :)

Sorry it took me a few days to get around to posting this. As always, schedules are busy around here and let's be honest, I wanted to build up the anticipation! So what, pray tell, is the big news?!

Nope, no ring to speak of (Sorry Abuelita!) and no baby anywhere in the remotely near future (you're out of your damn mind if that's what you thought it was! Geesh!) No house, no move-

but it's big!

Actually, it's not. It's tiny now and will only ever get to about 24 pounds.

:)

Meet Bentley.

Yup! The person and I are the parents of a new baby Boston Terrier.Squuueeeeee!!! After 5 months of reading, and research, and searching, and weighing options- we found our perfect pup! It was such a challenge because we REALLY wanted to bring a dog into our little family but we had to make sure it was the right kind that would *hopefully* get along with the cats, both rescues one of which definitely went through something serious before she ended up with me. We'll get to bring him home the 2nd week of September, right when we get back from our vacation. We're busy as all hell getting ready for that but holy poot I cannot wait! 

How flipping cute is he?! With his one random spot! It may be considered an imperfection in the crazy breed world, but it was one of the things that made him perfect to us!

That's Bentley asleep on my lap and his two brothers scoping out the situation.

He looks so much tinier on daddy's leg compared to mine!

My person after we officially decided this little guy was the one for us... :) I can't quite decide which is cuter... It's the combination that really just makes me want to vomit from the adorableness.

Puppy's sleep- A LOT! We got to meet the puppies long enough to see how they interacted with each other, with things around them, and even when feeding with their mother. This was so helpful! We read Cesar Millan's book How to Raise the Perfect Dog and one of the first things he talks about is choosing the puppy with the right energy for you. He talks about how, though completely adorable, the puppy that is the first to run up to you and run around checking things out is more than likely (more than definitely is more like it) the high energy type that will possibly have behavioral issues and be much more difficult to train. These dogs will require excess amounts of training and for our first dog together, living in an apartment- high energy= probably not the direction we should be heading in. 

There will be time for that kind of craziness later on. :p 

One of the puppies was all over the place. He kept coming back to sit right between my legs but it was never for longer than a minute at a time. He was right back to running around and was even biting at my shirt. Thanks Cesar, for the heads up! Not our dog! The second was somewhere between the two but there was just something about the little pudgy puppy with the spot on his head that we fell in love with. He seemed to have his mother's calm, good nature. He'd wake up, interact with us for a few minutes, and go right back to his napping.

Yeah... we definitely picked the right puppy. 

It's one of those things, we just knew he was supposed to be ours.

:)

Picking a name took a very long list and a whole lot of back and forth. He actually mentioned Bentley first which was strange because I was JUST thinking of bringing up that name that same morning. 

Fate. It just fit and we both knew it.

Expect to see much, much more of this little Bentley guy come September when he finally comes home and turns the apartment upside down! That's when the real adventure begins!

Cannot wait.

Remind me to buy one of those Bissel Spot Cleaner things before September...

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Adventuring- a 2 hour road trip...

There will be more pictures than words to this post. But the point of it is- go adventuring! You don't need to use vacation time to explore amazing places nearby. You also don't have to be a tourist to have an amazing time playing tourist.

My person and I went to St Augustine on our joint day off and here's a selection of the happiness that ensued from adventuring the oldest city in the country. :)

Happy adventuring! Cheers!

*Krystina