Mother~Daughter Spa Night

Hannah and I were excited to attend a spa night that was held at the church and we had such a great evening together!  We were encouraged to wear coordinating outfits which was an easy thing for us to do!

To make the evening even better Auntie Trish and Makenna were there too!

There was a spot for nails, toes and facials.  Cutie!!

We finished our evening at the photo booth.

I love these precious, special moments with my girl! 

Disney Jan 2018 ~ Magic Kingdom, Day 3

We were up bright and early our final day at Disney, wanting to make the most of our remaining time.  We caught a bus to the MK and arrived shortly after rope drop.  Okay, maybe we weren’t up quite as bright and early as I remember if rope drop had already happened!
We started our day in Tomorrowland with a little ride known as Space Mountain.  Okay, we were definitely awake after that!!  I love how adventurous Hannah is!

Calming things down a bit Hannah drove us on Tomorrowland Speedway. 

Her driving has improved greatly and I no longer get whiplash….unless she decides to drive like she did when she was little!

A flight with Dumbo was in order so we took to the skies with the flying elephants.

The Touring Plans website we use to plan our trips (highly recommended!) predicted that today would be a busier day and they were bang on!  We like to finish our trips in the MK so were okay with the crowds but since we’d already spent a good amount of time in this park over the week, we did some of the quieter activities and rides and just took our time.  This is a big difference from the crowd sizes we saw and experienced earlier in the week.
 
A visit to a princess shop offered our traditional opportunity for Hannah to be Pixie Dusted.  Cherishing these moments as I know they won’t last forever.

During our stay at WDW this trip Disney introduced something new allowing guests on the Disney Dining Plan to order via the MyDisneyExperience app an basically skip the line.  We decided to try it out for lunch and it was a great time saver!  We sat outside the restaurant and ordered our meals, clicked to advise that we were here and within a few minutes received a notification that our meals were ready. 

We went inside to pick up and quickly realized mobile ordering is something we’ll use again!  This was the line and all we did was walk up to mobile order pickup location and get our food! 

If you’re visiting Disney I highly recommend using  the Mobile Order option on MyDisneyExperience whether you have the dining plan or not.  It’s an option available to all!
Each trip we try to do at least 1 or 2 new things.  This trip after picking up our lunch a Pecos Bills we walked over to the raft for Tom Sawyer’s Island, took it across and enjoyed our lunch there.  What a beautiful location and a nice break from the crowds.

Unfortunately after lunch Hannah’s tummy was a little off so we took things slower.  I offered to go back to the room but my Disney lovin’ girl  would have nothing to do with that!  LOL – Like mother, like daughter!
We went on the Carousel of Progress thinking a break from the sun would be good for her.  It was but she thought a nap might be in order.  I love how my sweet girl can just fall asleep and rest wherever she is when that’s what her little body needs.  She slept here for almost an hour while I people watched.  Oh yah, and listened to the same piece of audio from the People Mover over and over…and over again!  Did you realize a new car goes by every 40 seconds?  I learned that! ‘Paging Mr. Morrow.  Mr. Tom Morrow!’

When she woke up she was feeling a little better so we wandered but didn’t do any rides.  I’m sure we made some others happy when we released FastPasses for Splash Mountain and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, allowing others to take advantage of skipping the lines!
Her tummy must have been feeling a little better as this was what she wanted!

You’ll notice she was wearing a warm coat but in true fashion for our family, it’s never too cold for ice cream!!
After ice cream we played around a little bit with the camera and took pictures in front of Cinderella’s castle.
 

Our final dining reservation is a traditional one for us as we went to the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue and as always, had a great time!  More than anything though I was glad my sweet girl was feeling better.
 
I quickly realized I had a professional corn bread chopper with me.

My sweet, silly girl!

If you haven’t eaten at Hoop-Dee-Doo during a Disney trip, I highly recommend it!  Great food, lots of fun and the crowd interaction is an added bonus.  We’ll be returning next time for sure!

At one point during the evening they celebrated birthdays and since this was an early 9th birthday celebration for Hannah she was included.

In typical Hannah and Mommy style we didn’t want our trip to end so after leaving HDD we took the boat back to the Magic Kingdom and enjoyed some final moments together there!
Even the characters on the ‘it’s a small world’ ride said good-bye to Hannah!

It was hard to believe our trip was already complete but we had created so many new memories that we would relive and chat about over and over again!  Rarely if ever a day goes by that Hannah and I don’t chat about Disney.
Good night Mickey. 

See ya real soon!!  (December 8th to be exact!)  Let the countdown of sleeps begin!

Disney Jan 2018 ~ Epcot Day 2, Part 2

The Epcot International Festival of the Arts was happening during our visit and oh did we enjoy it!  Rather than have lunch we snacked our way around the World Showcase while participating in many of the hands on activities that were offered.
There were many chalk drawings done by professionals

as well as the opportunity for children to create their own masterpieces.  Hannah was recreated her Pluto Tsum Tsum.  You can see her reference piece in the second pic.  I think she did great!!


As we entered the World Showcase Hannah spotted the first treat she wanted to try.   (We had been watching videos ~ Disney Parks ~ online before our trip so had some ideas of what we wanted to try.)  I will say this was something she basically played with rather than ate but that’s okay with me.  Another bonus to having the dining plan is that I’m not thinking, ‘Agh!  I just paid $$ and she’s not eating it.’  Instead I look at it as something she’s enjoying and that’s all that matters.



One of the other activities we both really enjoyed was the opportunity to participate in a large paint by number mural.  It takes about 2 days and hundreds of guests to fully paint the mural and then a new one would take it’s place.  Each person chose a paint number that was in a little clear cup, took a sponge brush and then could paint 5 squares what matched the number of their paint.   We love these neat extras that are found at Disney.  Each trip it’s something new!



The finished product.  This is what our mural would look like once it was finished.

As we ventured around the world we picked up a map of famous paintings and went on a scavenger hunt  There was one hidden in each country and figment was featured in each of these famous paintings.  We spent hours enjoying this activity as we toured the countries and I can’t believe I didn’t take a single picture of Hannah!  Guess we were both having too much fun searching for them!  It was great way to spend time in Epcot and in the end Hannah earned a special new pin for her Disney collection.  Here are examples of a couple of the pictures:


I will say when we go to Disney we go hard, averaging between 22,000 and 25,000 steps a day.  We both enjoy our Disney time and most mornings we were up bright and early.  That being the case, it’s no surprise that Hannah took the opportunity of a quiet, scenic movie in France to catch a little cat nap.  This was her first trip that we didn’t use a stroller and she totally rocked it!  Our stroller days are officially behind us as the last time we used one was when she was 7.  So when you’re walking miles and miles each day a good ‘ole nap is called for here and there.

And there’s no better way to wake up than with a little French patisserie.

LOL – while we were in line for the pastry Hannah and I both got an awful case of the giggles as we listened to a sweet lady in the line near us.  Even though I don’t speak much French, Hannah is fully bilingual as she is in French Immersion at school.  As we were in line this lady decided to read out the names of some of the pastries to her friend.  If you can hear a strong southern accent reading out French pastries you’ll understand our giggles!  ‘Creaaam Brulaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay’, ‘Cherries Jubilaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!’  Yup – it was tough to stifle the giggles!
One of the snacks that was new on my list was shaved ice with fruit and  cream topping in Japan.  We had something similar in Utah a number of years ago and it’s one of those snacks I’ve thought of ever since.  I’m a cold snack kinda gal.  Add a sugary topping + cream and I’m in my glory!  Hannah posed with our cherry shaved ice treat!  It was delicious and didn’t even spoil our dinner!  We’ll get this again for sure!

Speaking of dinner, today’s reservation was at Teppan Edo in the Japan Pavilion.  At this hibachi style restaurant you sit in groups of 8 around a grill.  We met the sweetest couple from California who were leaving the following day on a Disney Cruise.  (I may or may not have asked if they could squeeze us into their suitcases!!)  It was nice to visit with them while experiencing this show and meal all at once.
Want to hear a quick funny story?  This couple and I got talking about our week and what we had done. (And no, I can’t remember their names which is oh so normal for me.  I am awful with names!!)  We realized we’d both been in Animal Kingdom on Wednesday and lined up with the birds to ride Flight of Passage.  I asked where they’d been in the line for the hour that we were waiting on the bridge and they shared they were only about 6 rows from the front of the pack.  I pulled out my camera and sure enough his head was in my picture!  Small world!!  (Oh wait, that’s another park…. )
Back to Friday night and our delicious dinner at Teppan Edo.  Our hibachi chef.


Once again Hannah was serenaded with a version of Happy Birthday and they gave her a chef’s hat too.


We finished up our Figment painting hunt as we made our way back to Future World.  I realized we could probably get to Soarin’ before closing so we quickly made our way there and arrived just in time!  (At Disney, as long as you are in line before park closing, you will be able to ride the ride.)  We got in line seconds before 9:00 so we were on the very last ride of the evening.  It was a neat experience to enjoy this ride with only a handful of people!

Sadly the next day was going to be the last day of our trip but we were going to live it to it’s fullest!  Hannah is very much about tradition so we were going back to Magic Kingdom.  Our tradition is to start and finish each trip in the MK so even though it was supposed to be crowded we were going and going to make the most of it!

Disney Jan 2018 ~ Epcot Day 2, Part 1

As was the trend for this trip Hannah and I were up bright and early on this day and headed directly to Epcot.
Scanning her MagicBand on her way into the park.

Since this was our second day at Epcot we took a few minutes to take some pics on our way into the park.



Since we hadn’t had breakfast yet we stopped at Starbucks and used a couple of our snack credits for breakfast. 

Starbucks is one of the special treats we enjoy at Disney that isn’t normally part of our daily lives.  So enjoy the Disney Dining Plan! Even though I had to pay for the dining plan after loosing our Free Dining trip to Irma in September, it was well worth the cost.  We live our lives on a budget so it’s a treat for both of us to be able to order whatever we want for an entire week and not have to think of it!!

We also did a little shopping for a friend at home.

By now our FP+ reservation for Test Track was up so we rode it plus Mission Space Green and a number of other rides too.