Why I Oughta...

One of the things we seem to do on most trips to Epcot is a stop in France for some sweet treats.  One of the things that always manages to end up in our bag is the little six pack of macaroons.  And that's likely the reason why one of the girls was drawn to this pin and traded for it.  Just like the Figment one from late last week , this one is a 'chaser' too. It was covered on the Official Disney Parks Blog back in November of 2015 .  And it turns out that this chaser is from the same series as the Figment one ?!?

The Babe traded for this Ant-man pin from a pin board at the resort.  She's naturally drawn to 'big' pins and this this certainly *is* big.  It is heavy, but has only one pin back on it.  Surprisingly, after she plucked it off the board, I looked at it and figured out that it really wasn't a scrapper.  Someone, who had this thing on their lanyard found something that they liked better and gave this one up. My daughters have no idea who Antman is nor have they ever seen the movie, but they both liked the pin. Based on this eBay listing , it was part of a limited release of just 2000 pins from 2015 (a doy!  It says that right on the pin!) timed with the opening day of the film.  This guy has it listed for $19.88 - which is nuts, but it says he's sold 3 of them, so this seems to be a sought-after pin.

The Bird traded for this Stormtrooper Disney "Easter Egg" pin.  Turns out it is part of a six pin set that includes the usual crew that you'd expect in a Star Wars starter set . The retail price is $34.95 for the six pin set. Available early March 2016. Below is a closer look at the six different character pins featured.   1. Darth Vader 2. Stormtrooper 3. Boba Fett 4. R2-D2 5. C-3PO 6. Chewbacca And here's a photo ( from the Disney Pins Blog ) showing all six of them below.  That Chewy one is pretty awesome, isn't it? Via Disney Pins Blog

The Babe traded for this one on a trip down to WDW recently.  And it is a chaser.  What's a 'chaser'?  Welp, it is one of these non-colored, metallic versions of pins at Walt Disney World.  From Living A Disney Life : These metallic doppelgangers of some of our favorite, colorful pins first appeared in 2011. They are “Hidden Mickey” pins (small Mickey head appears on these). All Hidden Mickey pin collections (painted and chaser) are released on Cast Member lanyards. Chaser pins, interestingly, are not released as part of the set they seem to belong to – they’re released (after the original, colorful ones) as part of a larger set of chaser pins belonging to a particular year. And this one features Figment - who has his own cult following.  We've been on the Figment ride a few times and while I love Eric Idle and the song is pretty catchy, the ride is pretty meh.  I know that's not an original thought, right?  But, as for Figment?  I kinda like him.  He'

This American Flag Mickey Mouse pin came in a big bag and while it wasn't deemed a 'keeper' by the girls, it was by me.  So it isn't going in the pile of 'traders' but instead will end up on the pin board. We've seen plenty of different versions of pins with American flags and/or some other version of patriotism on them, but I haven't come across this one with this shaped Mickey face on it. It reminds me of the face on Mickey's Fun Wheel out at Disney's California Adventure .

The Babe found and traded for this 8 year old pin from Disneyland that marks the 'opening day' of Toy Story Midway Mania from 2008.  Traded for it. That means that *someone* bought this pin eight years ago.  Held on to it for eight years.  Brought it all the way to Disney World and then decided that one of the ratty pins on the typical pin board was 'better' than this one and decided to trade for it. I can't find a lot about this pin online, but there is this eBay listing  and PinPics has a listing showing the pin, too. The Babe snatched it and this one will go on her pin board right next to her Minnie as Mary Poppins and this Christmas pin from 2009 from the Polynesian that she traded for on a previous trip.

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.

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.

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).

Earlier this week, I posted a photo of the Haunted Mansion version of the 2015 Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party pin, but when I found that one in a bag, I also found these two.  On the left is what I think is the 'standard' or common Very Merry pin.  On the right is something called a "Passholder Exclusive".  Mickey, Minnie and Pluto grace the normal one.  That's the young duck boys with Santa on the right.  Huey, Dewey and Louie.  (I had to use The Google to find out how to spell those, for the record!)

I was going through the girls' pin lanyards from our most recent trip to the parks and noticed that The Babe picked up a cute Yoda Valentine's Day one.   According to this post on the Disney Pins Blog , it is a new one that came out in November of 2015.  I know it is a few days past Valentine's Day, but I figured it was still worth sharing.  At some point when we get our place settled, we'll take these off the various lanyards (necklaces as the girls call them) and put them on a real pin board of sorts.  Oh...a guy can dream, right?!?  

Now that I'm officially out of the Disney-fanboy closet, I can share this whole pin trading thing with you guys.  If you've gone to DisneyWorld you've probably noticed the whole pin-trading situation. We've gone the past few years and now that the Babe and the Bird are both old enough to understand what is going on, I've gotten them into pin trading.  We've bought pins at the park in sets to trade and bought some online.  This year, for our upcoming trip, I bought some pins on ebay.  And...something seems odd about one of them.  See it above? There's lots of posts around the web about how to spot a 'scrapper Disney pin' (AKA counterfeit or fake pins).  Here's one post  that talks about how to spot 'high quality scrapper Disney pins' .  And...they give some good tips to spot.  Like how the back looks or how smooth the sides are or even the colors on the front. But...I think I can give you another tip.  When the person - likely in