Honeymoon Day 8

When I sat down to go through my pictures of this day and upload them, I realized I was missing an entire day of pictures. What? I didn't take one picture with my camera on the 8th day of our honeymoon? Yep, there's definitely a day missing.

So what happened? Quite frankly, we needed a break. I had originally planned to go to one of Disney's water parks, Blizzard Beach this day. My husband had wanted to go after seeing their extreme water slide on a Travel Channel special a year before our trip.

But when the day came, we just weren't feeling it. Go pay money to ride slides in an overcrowded park? Our budget didn't like it much either. So, we decided to just spend our free time at the hotel pool. After all, we were already paying for this and the pool was nice.

Source

I took a book with me and had a nice time just sitting on a lounge chair reading and soaking up some sun. M had fun in the pool and I joined him a few times. It wasn't crowded as it was during the day when most guests are at the parks.

My chair was in a quieter spot away from the pool. I had a great view of these guys.

We ended up having a great day relaxing and not worrying about lines or crowds or what we hadn't done yet. Now we were ready for the last few days of our honeymoon.

Weekend Round-Up

My weekend was actually a little more exciting than usual this week. I even got out of the house both days!

Saturday I started reading The Hunger Games and I was hooked right away. I really wanted to just keep reading it, but I forced myself to do some other things first.

I was thinking about going to Walmart for a few things. Well, I decided to take the nail polish off my toes as I was getting ready, so I sat down on my toilet lid to accomplish that. And the cheap thing finally cracked! It was a pretty cheap plastic thing the remodeller had put on and I've been meaning to replace it, but it was never a priority. But now that it was cracked, I can't sit on it to get ready anymore, so now I had to go to Walmart to get a new one.

And when I got home, I decided that the bathroom needed to be deep cleaned. I don't know what came over me, but I put on some music and went to town on my bathroom.

But I did reward myself with some more of The Hunger Games afterward. I did manage to put it down to make dinner and watch Killers. It was actually fairly good despite it being Ashton Kutcher and Kathrine Heigl.

Sunday morning we went to Mass and I made it through even though it was Contemporary Music Mass and I HATE that with a burning fire. It's better during Lent when they can't sing some of things I really hate.

Since I had been so productive on Saturday, I rewarded myself with some relaxation time Sunday afternoon and ended up finishing The Hunger Games. It was so good and now I really want to see the movie. My husband doesn't though, so I need to find somebody to go with me. And of course I really want to read the next book, but I'm too cheap to buy it, so I have to wait for my turn at the library.

Sunday night I watched the Oscars because I thought Benedict Cumberbatch was going to be there based on some Tweets last week, but it turns out he was only at some parties. But I did enjoy seeing all the dresses. My favorites were Penelope Cruz and Natale Portman.

How was your weekend?

Pinterest Sunday

Time for my weekly Pinterest roundup! Every Sunday, I share with you a few of my top finds from the previous week.

Source: oasis-stores.com via Jenn on Pinterest

If you follow my Pinterest series, you know I'm a sucker for a pretty dress. I love the colors of this one as well as the lace pattern. Sadly, it's just another dress I'll never own.

Source: wholesale-dress.net via Jenn on Pinterest

I'm also a sucker for pretty shoes and the color pink. I'll never own these though because I'm way to clumsy to try anything with a heel that narrow.

Source: collections.vam.ac.uk via Jenn on Pinterest

And I'm a sucker for retro dresses. This one would be great to wear to the Oscars tonight. I'll be watching the Oscars tonight since my British Boyfriend, Benedict Cumberbatch will be there. Plus, I just love to see the dresses!



If you're on Pinterest, leave a link in the comments and I'll check out your boards.

Honeymoon Day 7

Today we were finally going to my favorite park! And we were going to my favorite reservation! (By the way, I forgot our first reservation on Day 5, so I went back and edited that in. Check out our first breakfast reservation on that day.)

When I had to cancel a few reservations in order to save money on our honeymoon, there was one reservation I was absolutely not giving up. I had managed to get a reservation for The Crystal Palace at a time before the Magic Kingdom opened for the day. These are highly sought after reservations as you are admitted to the park before all the other guests.

Which means you get pictures like this...

See how there are only a few people in front of us? In June pictures with so few people are rare. I was hoping to get a picture of us in front of the castle without anybody else, but we were running close to our reservation time and I didn't want to be late. Plus there was also a troop of Girl Scouts having their picture taken in front of the castle.

It also didn't help that I didn't know exactly how to get to the Magic Kingdom that early in the morning. We drove to the Transportation and Ticket Center. Normally you can either take the Monorail or the boat directly to the Magic Kingdom. But since the park wasn't open yet, those options weren't available. Instead, we had to take the resort Monorail which stops all of the Monorail resorts on the way to the Magic Kingdom. So naturally, it took us longer to get to the park than I had planned. Next time, I'll plan for that.



Once we arrived at The Crystal Palace, we checked in and had some time to wait. As you can see, they have a nice shaded porch to wait on. We passed the time by taking some pictures.

No crowds to be seen! Yet

Soon we were called to our table by one of the hostesses. I had noted on all our reservations that we were on our honeymoon and our table had confetti on it to mark the occasion. We soon met our waiter who brought us drinks and explained to use the buffet and the characters. Oh yes, this is a character breakfast!

I didn't take any pictures of the food, but it was good. Lots of familiar breakfast foods and some new ones. I checked out what was labeled as the children's section of the buffet and I discovered puffed french toast. It tasted a lot like an elephant ear. You better believe I went back for seconds of that!

Meals at The Crystal Palace are hosted by Winnie the Pooh and his friends.



I've been a Tigger fan for years so I was happy to meet this guy.



I sometimes call M Eeyore when he's being a downer with his attitude, so I had to get a picture of these two together.

When we were done with our meal, we were presented with a card congratulating us and it was signed by Pooh and all his friends.

Would we eat here again? Absolutely! In fact, afterward, I informed M that it was our new Disney tradition that we would have breakfast at the Crystal Palace on Magic Kingdom days. The food was good and it was a special treat to get into the park early.

When we left, the park had just opened for the day.



Here comes the crowd!

It's been awhile, so I can't remember exactly what we did that day, but we did have a lot of fun riding rides and exploring the park. We would be here all day and it's my favorite park, so we packed a lot into our day.



Our first destination was Tomorrowland where we enjoyed Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin.



We headed to Fantasyland where we enjoyed the Mad Tea Party and I'm sure some other rides. Basically, we just walked and rode things as we came across them. The lines weren't too bad yet. My rule is that wait time of 20 minutes or less is doable and anything else gets a Fastpass if available.

Instead of trying to remember everything we did, I'll share some photos of our day with you.

The Haunted Mansion

The Hall of Presidents now with President Obama

Outside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, I spotted this guy. We were just in time to see Captain Jack's show!



It was a really good show and I had a hard time believing that wasn't Johnny Depp in front of me.

If you bow just right, Cinderella gets her crown.

I love this castle!

 

Sometime in the afternoon, we rode the People Mover in Tomorrowland. I like to ride it to take a break, put my feet up, and relax. It's also good for taking pictures. Here's Space Mountain.

See, much more crowded now than it was this morning!

Eventually, we decided to have dinner at Cosmic Ray's



I had a cheeseburger and M had his usual...



Chicken Caesar Salad

This is one of the mosaics inside the castle.

There was no question that we were staying to see the fireworks since the Magic Kingdom's fireworks are my favorite. We found a spot along Main Street and waited for the evening parade. It was a boring wait, but it was nice to sit down and relax.



The Electrical Parade was nice, but hard to take pictures of.

I love the way the castle changes color at night.

We stayed very late, but eventually, we had to get to bed if we were going to get a good start for the next day.

Lent 2012

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday which means Lent starts tomorrow. Every year since I've converted to Catholicism, I've given something up for Lent. I'm also supposed to try to develop some new good habits, but that never seems to stick for me.

Every year I give up caffeinated beverages. I do this every year and every year I think it will stick longer than the 40 days of Lent, but after Easter I go right back to drinking Coke like I never stopped. One year I also gave up chocolate. It was tough, but I made it.

This year I've decided to step it up and challenge myself even more. This year instead of giving up just caffeinated beverages, I'm going to give up beverage that contain high fructose corn syrup. I know it's not good for me and I know I really drink way too much of it. I have a feeling it's going to be a long 40 days of milk, water, and 100% juices. Hopefully it will change my drinking habits and I'll drink less pop after Lent.

I'm also going to try to start a habit of working out. I spend far too much time in front of my computer or on the couch. I need to get moving even if it's only doing Just Dance for awhile each day. Maybe I'll even get really motivated and do the 30 Day Shred.

I'll keep you posted on how I do. Are you giving up anything for Lent?

Weekend Wrap Up

Due to President's Day, I actually have a 4 day weekend and since I didn't get a call on Thursday, it's actually been a 5 day weekend so far.

Unfortunately, I realized this weekend that we are boring people that just don't get out much. I've mentioned before that the winter weather makes it hard to do things around here. Really it's more that because it's winter, many of the things we like to do aren't available. The zoos are closed until spring, the parks are only good for sledding and that's only if we have snow. This has been the least snowy winter I can remember. So basically the only thing I can think of to do is go shopping and that means spending money. And I'd really rather not to do much of that right now. Although, I still do want to make a trip to Ikea and HomeGoods!

So as you can guess, we were pretty boring and stayed home all weekend. We did get out yesterday to go to Mass and then later we had a birthday dinner with M's family for his mom's birthday and his oldest brother's birthday. Afterwards, we hung out at his mom's house watching Downton Abbey. Exciting!

Hopefully, we can change these boring habits soon. I'm going to start looking for free or cheap things to do in our area and hopefully we can get together with some friends and at least socialize with people that aren't related to us.

In other news, Ideeli is having a Vera Bradley sale today. It's an invite only sale website, so if you need an invite, click here! I'm not partaking since I have the Outlet Sale in April.

How was your weekend?

Pinterest Sunday

Time for my weekly Pinterest roundup! Every Sunday, I share with you a few of my top finds from the previous week.

Source: buddingbaketress.blogspot.com via Jenn on Pinterest

I absolutely love strawberry shortcake. There's a food booth at the county fair that makes one of my favorites and a local ice cream company has a seasonal flavor that is to die for.  I think I might need to make these cookies when strawberries are in season.

Source: younghouselove.com via Jenn on Pinterest

I read Young House Love on a daily basis. They've always got great ideas for fixing up their home and show you how easy or hard it is to do on your own. I loved their weekly photos of their daughter and I'm so glad they made a tutorial on how to do it yourself. I'm going to have to remember this one!

Source: modcloth.com via Jenn on Pinterest

I love pretty much everything about this dress. I love the cut of it the most. I'm often drawn to dresses with a similar style. This would be a great dress for a summer wedding.



If you're on Pinterest, leave a link in the comments and I'll check out your boards.

Honeymoon Day 6

As I mentioned previously, the sixth day of our honeymoon was again not a Disney day. Instead we spent the day at SeaWorld.

I'd spent a couple days at SeaWorld when I lived in Florida a few years ago. I wasn't in a hurry to go back because I love trained mammal shows, but because they had a tour that I was dying to do. Ever since I learned that SeaWorld offered a Penguin Up-Close Tour, I was just looking for a chance to do it.

We booked our tour online and then planned to spend one day of our honeymoon at the park. If you want to go to SeaWorld, I recommend buying tickets online - they're cheaper.

Even though our tour wasn't until noon, we had to check-in at the park by 10:00. We got there a little early and after checking in, we wandered around viewing the various animals.

I won't give you the play-by-play, instead here are some pictures of the animals we saw.











We did go to my favorite show, the seal and sea lion show. My favorite part is the otter. He's such a ham!

After that, it was time to meet our tour group. We met up with some other couples, a mom and son, and some friends in the gift shop across from the penguin building. Our tour guide led us into the penguin building and told us some information about penguins and the exhibit.



She then led us outside and around the building to the back entrance. She explained some more about the penguins at SeaWorld and gave us some instructions for the tour.

Once we were in the building, the group split into two and half the group went to meet a puffin and our half of the group got to meet a penguin.



Here's the little guy we got to meet. Everybody got a chance to pet him and take lots of pictures. I'm not sure what I expected a penguin to feel like, but I was surprised to find that he was soft and smooth. Not cold or wet at all.

After we all petted the penguin, we got to go into the penguin enclosure. In here, we could not touch the penguins because they are not used to strangers touching them. But the little penguin came in with us and we could touch him more if we wanted to.



Here's the penguin exhibit from the other side of the glass.



As you can see, the other penguins were not shy and I was very excited to be there.



Eventually, we had to say good bye to the penguins and switched with the other half of our group. We went into a room where researchers work and learned about puffins.



We weren't allowed to touch the puffin, but we could take pictures and we all got a chance to pose with the puffin.

After our tour, we wandered around some more and eventually went to the orca show.



I was getting pretty hungry, but a regular old hot dog cost $5 and I refuse to be gouged that much. I eventually gave up $3 for some popcorn and it ended up being less than fresh.

After the show, it started raining so we headed for some indoor things and when the rain stopped, finished checking out everything else in the park. Once we had seen everything we wanted to see, we left. We were hungry and ready to be done.

On our way back to the resort, we decided to eat at a Pizza Hut. We made our way back to the resort and then spent some time on our balcony watching the animals.



We even spotted a rainbow!

The next day we'll be heading to my favorite place in the whole world!