Give A Day Get A Disney Day

Would you give up a Saturday volunteering for a free day at Disney of your choosing? I know I would. Disney's new campaign Give A Day Get A Disney Day does exactly that. Starting Jan 1, 2010 you can sign up to volunteer in a community near you for a day. Then once you've completed your day of service, you get a free day at a Disney parks. Everyone can earn a day including children as long as they have an adult with them to volunteer. The Muppets are doing a great job getting the word out about this deal. The best part is you'll be able to use this day whenever you want. It's not tied into your birthday like last year (I missed out on that deal!). And if you can't use your day you can donate it to charity. Rick says we are not going to go for the next 5 year, but I'll wish and hope and volunteer anyway. You never know when the magic of Disney may move him. Here's the web site:http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/disneyparks/en_US/WhatWillYouCelebrate/index?name=Give-A-Day-Get-A-Disney-Day

See the Muppets commercial here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JhXTA7vK08

You've got a friend in Photopass!

Disney has lots of professional photographers around the park. Usually they are located at the most popular photo ops. All the photos above were taken by the Disney photographers. They can even photoshop in special effects like Tink in our hands! When you take your first Disney professional photo, the photographer will give you a photopass card. From there on give your pass to each Disney professional photographer and they will add your new photo onto the card. Then you can either go to a photo viewing station or look at your picture online and order them there. It's a great way for your whole family to be in the important pictures you'll treasure forever!

Disney quote: "Don't you be bringing no dark spirits in here!"- Eddie Murphy, Haunted Mansion.

Disney water taxi

Your Disney World tip: If you can save just a bit more money and stay at one of the hotels on the Seven Sea Lagoon do it. This was the view out of our slider at the Grand Floridian. We could walk to the boat dock in a minute and hop on the boat. It made one more stop at the Poly (the last hotel we stayed at) and then on to the Magic Kingdom. The Contemporary, Fort Wilderness and Wilderness Lodge all have water taxis. It was the best and fastest way to get to the happiest place on earth.

Disney quote: "You are a sad, strange little man and you have my pitty. Farewell." - Buzz Lightyear~ Toy Story

The Biggest Disney fan is ....

I just read on another Disney blog that someone else was named the biggest Disney fan in a contest and won a free trip. Now I like this person and listen to him on another Disney fans podcast, but he himself said he doesn't feel like the biggest Disney fan.....and he's right. So I'll be returning to the purpose of this blog and giving only short updated about my life. As you can see life hasn't been terrible interesting lately anyway. On with the Disney Magic!

Disney recently held it's D23 (Disney's official fanclub, which I am a member of) expo in CA. There were many, many announcement and surprises. One of the biggest was the expansion of Fantasy Land in WDW. Toontown will be removed to make way for a princess land complete with villages that look just like the princess villages and homes in the movies. More information was given about Carsland being built in Disneyland for opening in 2012. Some of the surprises were all the celebrities on hand such as Tim Burton, directors of the new live version of Alice in wonderland, Nicholas Cage announcing a National Treasure 3 and the best and biggest of all, Johnny Depp in character as Captain Jack Sparrow announcing Pirates 4. For the first time the Disney legends ceremony was held in public. Betty White, former Golden Girl, and Robin Williams, the Genie in Aladdin, were inducted as legends. For full coverage visit http://d23.disney.go.com

My life: School- busy lovelife- wonderful family-still waiting for professional wedding pictures , Mallory Justine! digital scrapbooking - learning more every day

Disney quote: "I like to wave at them(opportunities to do the right thing) as they pass by." - Captain Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbeans, Dead Man's Chest

Weddings and school

I promise to finish blogging about my trip....someday. I am busy moving things out of my old classroom and into my new classroom, which as less storage, one bulletin board and is on the third floor which makes it unbearably hot this week. Change is good, moving is fun, change is good. I've decided to decorate the bare concrete walls with Disney characters. I'm not sure how, but I'm thinking window clings. I've gotta cheer that room (and myself) up somehow. I hope the third grades don't eat me alive. How do I only have 1 1/2 weeks left of summer?

Mallory's wedding was this weekend. She looked beautiful. Everything went smoothly. It was hot! Rick and I were in charge of the grandparents. Grandpa was in usual slowski mode which was as expected. Gram took her third Ritalin of the day. Ritalin calms ADHD children down but it does the exact opposite to adults. So Speed Gonzalez was running around with her walker going here and there and wanting to talk with this person and that. There's me running to catch up and trying to convince her to take it easy. I was exhausted! No more drugs for her.

In keeping with the name of this blog, I am going to give you a quote from a Disney movie. First one to name it will get a mention on my next post. Here we go!

"Somebody needs to nail that girls fin's to the floor!" -???????

Also I am start Disney Friday nights. I will be watching a Disney movie every Friday at 7 pm. Everyone and their little folk are invited to watch with me. If you bring your own meat, I'll BBQ and provide drinks and chips. Just let me know if you're coming ahead of time. This Friday's movie will be Mulan.

By the way, Erika won my Where in Walt Disney World is Kristi? guessing game on Facebook. I am very impressed because I've known Erika for about 6 years and in that time she's never been to Disney World. WAY TO GO ERIKA!

Disney Day 2

Note: All my pictures are on my facebook page. Friend me up!

Disney Day 2

We woke up early as we had an 8:35 am reservation at Cinderella’s Royal Table which is in the castle. This make Cindy’s place the most coveted place to eat which is why I took 3 trip to Disney to get in. The most exciting part of the reservation was that we got to enter the park before the rest of the crowds. To a scrapbooker, it is a dream because you can get a shot down main street without the people in the way. Thus we arrived an hour early just for the pictures. There is something magical about an empty Disney, especially on Main Street. You can actually here the music, slow down and appreciate the buildings and stand in the middle of Main Street and stop without being run over.

Rick kept me on schedule and we arrived at breakfast right on time. Before we were seated we met for pictures and a chat with Cinderella. We told her we were married in Disney 5 years ago. She said, “Welcome home!”. I could have cried. I called Disney home the minute I arrived!

We met 4 princesses during breakfast: Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Belle and Jasmine. I told Snow White that I had ducks in my back yard and she asked, “Do they help you clean?”. I said, “No, but I should try that.” “All you have to do is call them!”, she said. Jasmine advised that we visit Aladdin over by the flying carpets. “If you see him tell him, TAG!” Jasmine said. I just love how they stay in character!

Once breakfast was through we headed out into the Magic Kingdom which had just opened. I noticed Ariel’s Grotto wasn’t busy. This is where Ariel sits to greet you because she is a mermaid. She noticed our Happy Anniversary buttons and asked if my true love saved me form a sea witch. I had met 6 princesses in the first hour of park time! This was a good omen.

We walked onto basically every ride we went on during our entire trip. We rode Peter Pan’s Flight, Hall of Presidents (Obama looked freakishly real and they put W. way in the back. While we were entering the que for we heard someone leaving ask a cast member ‘Is there a show in here or something?’ I burst out laughing!), Haunted Mansion, Small World (First time, not impressed, but it’s a 50+ year old ride. I did like the dancing penguins with hats), Pirates (Jack is still a character in the parks but only a stage where women can’t touch him), Jungle Cruise and my favorite, Mickey’s Philharmagic. I love all the different scenes and music from the movie I grew up with. By then is was about 1 p.m. and we headed back to the hotel to relax.

We swam in the pool with had a water slide and water fall. Rick loved the water slide with twists and turns. The lifeguards were playing games with the kids. The kids had to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom with pool water and then run over to a hole-less bucket and fill it with the holey bucket water. It was fun to watch. I loved that I was in the pool and could see the lagoon, the beach, Magic Kingdom and the Monorail. How wonderful!

We went back to the Magic Kingdom after dinner to do Tomorrowland. We took the boat this time. We could see and hear the boat from our room because the launch was right in front of us! It was a 5 min ride tops. We took the train to Toontown and walked to Tomorrowland, which was kind of a ghost town because Space Mountain and the Tomorrowland Transit Authority were closed until November for refurbishment. We hopped on got fast passed for Buss Lightyear and went to Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. I love it because it involves the audience one-on-one. Rick beat me at Buzz of course. The ride did give him a headache. He traveled back to the hotel which left me time to shop on Main Street. I also caught some of the Spectro Magic parade which I wasn’t really impressed with. I scooted out of the park before the parade ended. I happily watched the Wishes fireworks from my room once again.

It's a good thing I just came back form Disney.

I was told today that I will be teaching third grade, not second, at a different school in Manchester. Apparently the $3 million in stimulus money the city 'found' to rehire teachers is going to be 'held on to' until January, you know, when it's really needed. I kinda knew it was coming and, yes, at least I still have a job. What other job do you know of where they get to change the place where you work, who you work with and under and what your work will detail all at once and not pay you a penny more for it. Oh and you have to move yourself! This ends our gripe session. I've heard good things about my new school and look forward to working there. No one likes change, but it is probably time for yet another one for me. What would a new school year be without moving my entire classroom? (still not gripping) :)

I need a day to digest all this new info. I think I'd like to be transferred back to Disney. Why do I let him convince me to get back on the plane every time? More Disney tomorrow!