It's a sign

Next October my little brother Tom (I'm the oldest, and although all three of my younger brothers are much taller than I am, I still like calling them my little brothers. It's a pride thing.) will finally be getting married.  (He's like 34.  I thought he was going to be a bachelor forever)

Anyway, Amy (the fiancee) has ties to Arizona, (even though she's mostly from back east) so they will be getting married here!

That's good news for me since I get to see them a smidgen more than I would have otherwise.  Like when they came down to check out different bands for their reception.

We planned on meeting for pizza (apparently there's a famous Chicagoan pizza place that totally relocated to our town and they were pretty excited about it.)  Only there is no seating at the restaurant, it's pretty much take-out only.  No problem! We can eat at our house.   And Amy's brother and his wife are in town too.  No problem! The more the merrier.

And so we did what we normally do when people were coming over, and that's give the area a quick once over, especially the guest bathroom.  Because even though we have rules about what bathrooms they can and cannot use, my kids tend to break those rules and pee all over the seat, and make a general mess.

So John went in there loaded with clorox wipes and windex and all that fun stuff and made the room presentable.  But what he didn't know was that behind the door (because he had the door open while he cleaned, and the door opens inward, covering up part of the wall), was that Christopher left us a sign.  (He likes to do that)

So my brother's fiancee's brother's wife had to use the bathroom (so naturally she shut the door, thereby revealing Christopher's sign).  And then she came out laughing.

Thankfully she had a sense of humor.

DisneyWorld (girl's trip part 2)

So in the last post I mentioned that because of time restraints we had very good intentions of just limiting ourselves to Harry Potter and being perfectly happy and content with that.  And truthfully, I was.  I love Harry Potter,  It's a fact.  But there was absolutely no arm twisting involved when Corrine and I decided to spend a day in the Magic Kingdom.   I believe her husband laughed and said he knew that she wouldn't be able to stay away.  I'm a self-proclaimed Disney geek, but Corrine is probably one of the few people I would lose to in a "Who Loves Disney More?" contest.

That being said, it was a fantastic day.  One of those days full of awesome luck (Disney Magic? Girl's Trip Luck?) , where things just worked out in our favor.  Mostly little things, but still awesome none the less.

We of course arrived bright and early, before the gates opened, and stayed til they closed.  Which was even an hour later than was published. (Part of that Disney Magic I mentioned)

I made Corrine take lots of selfies with me.

I 100% prefer my pictures to have people I know and love in them,  but I still can't help myself sometimes.

One of those really unbelievable lucky moments was when we tried to reserve a seat for the new Be Our Guest restaurant.  Which is ridiculously popular and hard to get into.  DisneyWorld has totally gone electronic, and you even get your fastpasses online.  Weeks before you go even.  We didn't know we were going until the day before, and we figured out how to make it happen on the monorail to the park.  (you scan your tickets, and reserve you passes on your phone) ANYWAYS, you can also make restaurant reservations on your phone, and for whatever reason it didn't work out too well for us.   Anyways, we showed up at the reservations desk, and they were about to turn us away, but one of the managers was right there, and he said, "can you eat right now?" and bam! we were in! Just like that!

It was pretty cool.  The food was fantastic, and you are eating in the Ballroom from the movie.  I can't tell you how many times I watched that scene in the movie and was totally blown away that it was animated.  And then there I was, in the real life version of that room.  The only downside was that it was pretty full of people. But what can you do?

They even had 'The Grey Stuff' on the menu.  And seriously, when I asked the waitress, what "the grey stuff" was,  she said "It's delicious.  Don't believe me? Ask the dishes."  (spoiler- it's an oreo mousse)

Truthfully, I think the lemon cupcake was better, but I'd totally get The Grey Stuff again.  (It's delicious.  Don't believe me? Ask the dishes.)

And then  of course you could wander around the castle and into various rooms,

and when you are ready to go, you can go meet your host, the Beast.

Since we went as a family back in 2010, they opened up other new rides and areas.  Ariel has a new ride,

as does Snow White (another Girl's Trip lucky moment)  The Snow White ride line was so long (over two hours every time we checked) and then it closed down for some reason, and the line dwindled down to nothing, and so we decided to give it a shot, and hung out at the front of the line for like 20 or so minutes, chatted with the cast members, and then it started back up, and we got right in.  It was really fun.  A bit like Big Thunder Mountain.  (My personal favorite)

Later that evening we popped into Gaston's Tavern for a drink.

"Lafou's Brew" is pretty much DisneyWorld's answer to Butterbeer.  It's a completely different drink, and although I preferred Butterbeer (in any of it's forms- hot, cold, frozen, or ice-cream) Disney gives you a choice of souvenir cups, AND they were smarter and have a disposable cup inside the souvenir cup, so you aren't walking around with a sticky cup all day.  (Very much appreciated by this mama)

And since it was later in the day, we had the place pretty much to ourselves.  I appreciated the antlers in all of the decorating.  And this is my sad attempt to sit like a dude in Gaston's chair.  Nobody has ever accused me of being particularly lady-like, but I think my guy impersonation needs some work.

And that was pretty much it. We stumbled upon a pretty great view of the fireworks, not perfect, but zero crowds, so that was a bonus, we did everything we wanted to, and had a few fun little surprises thrown in for good measure.  

Then the next day, we got up bright and early, did all the Harry Potter stuff again before lunch, and even had time to hit an outlet mall.  One thing about traveling with Corrine, the girl does not dawdle. She's all business when it comes to Disney, a fact that I appreciated, (although my feet and calves did not.)  

And that was our trip.  Short. Sweet. Fun. Very much needed and appreciated.  And I don't think we could have packed more awesomeness into two and a half days if we tried. 

Girls Trip (Part one)

My sweet sister in law Corrine decided we needed a girls trip, and so she took me to Universal Studios in Florida. (She's awesome like that)

Anyway, neither of us had been to the NEW section of Universal Studios.  You know, the SECOND Harry Potter Theme Park.

The first section was just Hogsmeade the town, with a couple of rides,

some shopping, and of course, Hogwarts.

And that was so popular, they added a second park area, Diagon Alley, and connected them via the Hogwarts Express.

Which they did a fantastic job of.

Corrine and I stayed at a cute little hotel on Univeral Studios property, which meant we got an early entry to the park.  The plan was to go to that park for 2 1/2 days.

And not go to DisneyWorld at all.  Because it's just not enough time.

Well, we did go to the Polynesian Resort because they have Dole Whip there.  So technically I guess the very first thing we did was run straight to a Disney property. But I digress.

But since we got the early entry passes, we pretty much did almost everything we wanted to do by early afternoon.  The only thing left were the rides where you get wet, and it's January, so neither of us were wanting anything to do with that.

The new area is pretty cool, The bricks don't actually move, but they sound like they do.

And there's a cool new ride which is under Gringott's bank.

If you watch long enough, the dragon will move and blow fire.

And we totally ate at the Leaky Cauldron.

I ate Toad-in-a-hole.  And I loved it.

Outside of Diagon Alley, you are in a very tiny little London.  With a King's Cross Station that leads you to Platform 9 3/4.  Which if anyone wants to see it, I have a little video of me crossing through the barrier. Pretty cool.

In London you find a couple little surprises, like the Knight Bus.

And you can talk to Stan Shunpike and his shrunken head.  Which totally talks to you.  The head actually corrected Stan when he said my name wrong. (and PS- hot Butterbeer is pretty good too)

And even Number 12 Grimmauld Place.

And if you watch long enough, you can see Kreacher peek through one of the windows.

And after all that, we were still thinking 2 1/2 days was more than enough.  And here we were, two life long Disney Girls, (Corrine actually worked at Disneyland) minutes away from Disney World.

To be continued...

puppies

Some friends I know breed labs, and I had the opportunity to take my kids to play with the puppies while they were still to little to leave their mom.

It's no big secret that I am not an "animal person".

But, even I have to admit that puppies are pretty hard to resist.

My kids, however, are a different story.

It would not surprise me if they all grew up to be dog owners.

Because while I have been told that I "have no soul", my children clearly do not suffer from my affliction.

 Good for them.