Why I Oughta...

Back late last year, we had dinner at Raglan Road in Disney Springs and it.was.awesome. We were down there with Nat's folks and they really love a good Irish pub.  They seek them out when they're traveling.  Because we're always eager to try new things on our Disney trips, it seemed perfect to head there and give this place a try.  I had ZERO expectations.  And was totally blown away. They had live entertainment and some incredible dancing on a few different stages.  And there's customer participation.  They invited some kids to go up on stage and if you know my kids, you know that the two girls are sooooo different.  One is bashful and very deliberate.  The other is up for just about anything. So, without much encouragement, up the Bird went on stage.  And she danced!  She was the youngest of all the participants, but that didn't stop her.  Afterwards, she got a few stickers and this sweet certificate recognizing her for dancing with the crew. Oh, and

Ever since our first trip down to Charleston, Natalie and I have been beyond fascinated by the Live Oak species of trees.  We doubled down on Live Oaks during our visits to Sea Island over the years.  And we've been dreaming of the day when we could plant a Live Oak on our property.  (Alas, it doesn't appear that they'd survive our climate as they are marked for Hardiness Zones 7-10 .  And for sure, we wouldn't get the Spanish Moss on them which add to the dreamy effect !) Everytime we go on a tour or stay at a place that notes their Live Oaks, we perk up and pay attention.  And Disney is no different.  Out at Port Orleans Riverside, you can find a few of them including this one out on Ol' Man Island behind the pool.  There's the sign above that reads: On Earth Day April 22, 1991, this majestic Live Oak was placed in its new home before you.  This Oak and its companion at the entrance of Disney's Port Orleans Resort Riverside each weighed 85 tons an

The pizza?  It wasn't great.  But the details?  They're awesome.  But, I mean...this isn't the first place run by a rodent that serves pizza, right?   Charles Entertainment's place is terrible, too.

This is the 15th coaster added to the Coaster Collection here on the blog.   You can find them all here on the Coaster Collection tag page .   The Flying Fish is a table service restaurant located at Disney's Boardwalk Resort out the backdoor of Epcot Center.  And it is fancy.  Like....pretty fancy.  But not fancy enough that we stuck out with our kids.  We did, however, make a fairly early reservation so that likely helped. This is the 15th coaster in total, but is part of a sub-collection of five (and counting)Disney coasters including this one from the Boathouse , the Skipper Canteen , the Disneyland Hotel and Walt Disney World resort hotels .

Adding another resident of Main Street USA to our list of meeting with this photo of Nat and two ladies.  I'll post and talk about the woman on the right in a different post, but let's talk about the woman on the left:  Ms. Hildegard Olivia Harding. From the Disney Parks Blog : Miss Hildegard Olivia Harding is a socialite and suffragette, President of the Main Street Social Society, Women’s Auxiliary and Decorating Committee, and works diligently with the women, educating them on Women’s Rights (as her friend Taby says “Those who don’t believe in Women’s Rights should watch out for Women’s Lefts.”). Hildegard’s finger is in every pie, especially chocolate. “One can never have enough chocolate!” Miss Harding owns the Emporium and has an apartment upstairs where she throws lavish functions, often serving her specialty- calamari scones. Look at that "Women Unite" sash she's wearing!  Couldn't be a more perfect meeting for Natalie and these ladies right

As part of building our #NewOldFarmhouse out in Downers Grove ( I posted about the sewer and water main installation here on the blog earlier this month ), we're thinking about including a big, deep front porch that provides a lot of appeal from the street and gives us something we loved in our old place at 274 a place to gather and spend time in the mornings. As part of that new porch design, we've been look at something called Sawn Balusters.  Those are the parts that connect the top and bottom of the front railings.  Sawn is different than what they called "turned". Turned balusters are either square or cylindrical and are exactly that:  turned on a lathe or cut from a piece of wood.  Sawn balusters are common from the earlier part of the 20th century and are flat, not turned.  They can be of various thickness.  We've worked with our builder to come up with a custom pattern for them (more on that in a different post), but they can take the form of anythin

There are a few movies that are tear-jerkers for me.  I mean...no matter how many times I watch them, they turn on the water works.  When Tom Hanks is torn up about executing John Coffey but can't bring himself to say those words.  Or just about any part involving Rudy's dad in the movie Rudy.  But, in particular this scene. Every.time.  The music, the build-up.  The whole thing between Rudy and his Dad and brother. That line. "This is the most beautiful sight deez eyes have ever seen." That was going to be the caption for this photo below.  But that's ridiculous, right?  Or maybe not.  Those of you who are in the know, might agree with Rudy's Dad.  Especially because they're floats.

If you find yourself down by the Seven Seas Lagoon on New Year's Eve, go down to the beach at the Polynesian and plant yourself.  On December 31st, they do a show early at 7 pm, then another show at Midnight.  If you're staying Club Level at the Polynesian, they set up a little seating area with wooden chairs that give you a really great view. These photos don't do the show justice, because they launch what they call 'perimeter fireworks'  so the view isn't just straight ahead, but feels like the entire horizon between the Grand Floridian and the Bay Lake Tower at the Contemporary.  And during the Midnight show, they also launch fireworks from this middle island in the middle of Seven Seas Lagoon.  Yeah...that one that the ferry boat goes by every time?  That one. The kids didn't make it until Midnight, but Nat and I did.  Here's a look at what we saw from our balcony in the Hawaii building.  We snapped a few photos, but there was no substitute fo

Mickey the Mouse was born on November 18th, 1928.  And we happened to be in the parks on November 18th of 2016.  As we walked in, they handed out these cute pins.  They're all over eBay for up to $7 a piece, which is nuts.  Ours will be on the girls pin boards where they'll be right in line with their other pins they've collected/traded for over the years.

Day 3 of these Very Merry Pins.   First was the Passholder one .  Then was the Lilo and Stitch one .  Today is the Frozen one.  And this is the first one that kinda makes sense with the whole snowflake thing on the front of the cover that opens.  These pins all have 2 pin backs and because of that (and the weight of them because of the hinged front that opens!), we're basically am resigned to having them *just* be on the girls pin boards.  They can't really be worn by them because they're so heavy. The year has started out *very* Disney-heavy (and Disney pins, to be specific), but that's mostly because I'm working to empty out the queue of posts and photos from our last trip.  Unfortunately for those of you who don't care one bit about Disney pins, I have bad news for you:  brace yourself for a few more days.  There's more coming!  And those of you who know us, probably are expecting a few more of these in the next few weeks.  eeek!  The collections are

Yesterday was the Passholder version .  Today is one of the 'normal' versions that the team at Disney World put out during their annual Very Merry Christmas Party.  This one opens just like the Passholder version but features Lilo and Stitch and a 'sandman' that is their version of a snowman.  This one, too, is destined for one of the girls' pin boards in their new rooms.

One of the girls picked up this pin from Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party late last year for their board and if you look closely, you'll see that it is a 'Passholder' version, which is pretty nice.  All of the Very Merry pins have this same 'look' of being openable with that snowflake thing on the front.  We got a few of these, so I'll share them in the next few days.

And in with the new?  Well...maybe?  Who knows at this point.  And,  just like I posted in March , these bands are going to go in the circular file as I don't quite understand any reason what-so-ever to keep them around?   But same thing holds true - just like in March:  We're still not talking about any new ones. The band above features Mary Poppins and Bert (or a reasonable, yet legally-conforming to a generic-enough-version-of-the-characters-so-the-creator-doesn't-get-sued) that I wore on my band on a trip earlier this fall.  I really liked this one and just like the other ones, this too came from MyFantasyBands.com . A peek through the archives show that I wore a Chewbacca one back l ast year.  I had a monorail one in the Spring of this year .    And there are more magicband posts on the tag page from over the years here .

The fourth and final one of these Happy Holidays wreath pins from Disney resorts is this one from the Wilderness Lodge with Donald the Duck in his winter finest. All of them are on these cute 'front door' cards, which I guess I just noticed after looking at all of them once again.  Turns out, if you go to this post and scroll all the way down to the bottom, the folks at Disney have released a total of 23 versions of this pin for different resorts at both WDW but also at DLR.  Looks like the Poly got Stitch in their's. The four we came across is enough for our pin board! Here's the AKL version . Here's the Fort Wilderness version . Here's the Boardwalk Inn version .

This Happy Holidays 2016 pin from Disney's Boardwalk Resort is the third in the series that we came across as we resort hopped.  The first one was from the Animal Kingdom Lodge with Pumba and the second one featured Chip and Dale from Fort Wilderness Campground . The Boardwalk scored the big guy in Mickey the Mouse and was the hardest to find in their tiny little gift shop off the lobby.

As they continue to transform the Villas at Disney's Wilderness Lodge into the Boulder Ridge Villas , there's quite a bit of construction at the hotel.  The views are altered, plenty of walkways are shut down and even some of the noise from constructing the villas is present when you're hanging out in your room in the Villa building. So, as a small token of gratitude for folks putting up with the construction, the Mousekeeping service is placing these pins in your room upon check-in.  We moved rooms once, so we ended up getting two of these three sets of pins and the girls loved them! The inside of this little book reads: "Welcome Home and thank you for being our Guest.  We'd like to share our appreciation for your patience while we're working our magic around the Resort with these special keepsakes as our gift to you!" Even if you don't stay there, there's a good chance of getting these pins.  How?  Well...if you find yourself at the Wi

We've heard about 'transportation cards' at Walt Disney World, but up until this fall, we've never come across them.  They're supposed to be on buses and boats and such, but for the first time, a boat captain (who was in the military and stationed in Antartica!  yeah!  Antarctica!) decided to give the girls a set of cards that she had on hand.  They included the monorail one above and a few different boat ones like the 'motor launch' below. According to this post on wdwfanzone , it appears that they've had 4 series of cards, the most recent of which were released in 2015. On the back there's some character trivia and a bit of a FAQ on the vehicle. These will likely go into the lunchbox with some of the Babe's best pins along with her Jungle Cruise pilot license.

Just a few days ago, I posted the Christmas pin from the Animal Kingdom Lodge here on the blog and now above you can spy a *very* similar pin from a stop at Disney's Fort Wilderness Campground.   Same design, but instead of Pumba from the Lion King, we get Chip and Dale. Back in November, I posted a photo of the menu of a Disney horse from the Tri-Circle-D Ranch from the stables at Fort Wilderness that I took during our little stop there.  I have some other photos from our visit that I'll post at some point including our dinner at the Hoop De Doo Revue. Once the Babe picked up the AKL pin and we spotted other resorts having them, she made it her mission to convince me to go pick them up during our stops.  It wasn't too hard as you might imagine.  All in all, we picked up four of these type of pins from four different resorts that we hopped to during our trip.  Two down (AKL and Fort Wilderness).  Two to come (Boardwalk and Wilderness Lodge).

And now comes the time on the blog where I get to document some of the pins we picked up on a recent trip down to Walt Disney World.  The first one up is this "limited edition" Happy Holidays pin from the Animal Kingdom Lodge that features Pumba in a 'liftable' wreath. We stayed at the AKL for just one night with a Savannah view and it was great!  Wish we could have spent more time exploring the resort and taking it all in, but it worked for our family.  We took a shot at the night vision goggles and even watched some night-time feedings from our balcony.  The bonus?  A view of the Hollywood Studios fireworks over the top of the trees.

John, a Percheron horse , gets two meals at the Tri-Circle-D Ranch at Fort Wilderness down in Orlando.  We wandered around the Fort one night waiting for Hoop De Doo to start and spent some in the stables checking on the facilities and seeing the horses.  Neat stuff and can't believe we had not done this before. He seems to live on Coastal Hay, which a quick Google search tells me that Coastal Hay isn't crazy expensive/exclusive stuff.  Just normal horse food .  Kinda expected more from Disney?  Maybe I'm wrong?  And Coastal Hay is fancy horse food?