Why I Oughta...

We can add this 'Drivers License' to the list of artifacts that we've been given/earned down at Walt Disney World. There's the business card from the Mayor of Main Street USA . Then there was the official 'guest skipper' license from the crew of the Jungle Cruise . We received one of these 'born to soar' cards , but I don't seem to have posted about it. And over the years, we've collected transportation cards like these from a boat captain on our trip back to the Wilderness Lodge one afternoon. And now, the Beef has this license.  Pretty cute, isn't it?  He had to get measured up for height to make it on the ride this trip and after he 'measured up', the cast member whipped out this card to mark the occasion.  Pretty awesome. As for the ride?  Not so awesome.  Between the jerky steering wheel and the not-so-great experience, it seems that this thing is past it's due date for an overhaul.  I mean...the chuck of land it

It was just over a year ago that I posted a new blog theme redesign here on "Why I Oughta..." and showed the previous 12 years or so of what the blog has looked and felt like over the various changes.  If you're reading this in your email, you're likely unaware that I've made another switch recently.  Go ahead...click through on the title of the post in your email and you'll see this blue theme below.  This is one of the new(ish) themes that the team at Blogger released recently . I'm certain that there have been more, but this is the 10th *documented* version over the past 13 years .    I've streamlined things a bit by removing any and all ads as well as the 'you might like' feature boxes.  And for the first time in I think ever, I have only one column. Here's the full length screen grab, but because of the scrolling and the resizing of the header image, you'll see the white band across the photo in the top post.

The Bird picked up this pair of 'safety pin' pins featuring Sully from the Monsters Inc/University movies and her favorite: Pooh Bear.  (Well...Ariel might be her favorite, but she's a princess, so that's different in her mind!). These appear to have been originally marketed to Hong Kong Disney Land so between the ratty enamel on these and that post on the Disney Pins Blog , I'm guessing that these are scrappers.  Doesn't make them any more fun to the girls, but they're still scrappers .

In what seems like the past few months, the pace of adoption of Legos has increased rapidly in our house.  We went from having a tub of Duplos that the girls would occasionally build something with to full-on regular Lego sets in an instant.   You can see some of the Lego-related posts here on the blog. The Bird - who is younger - has mostly been spending her time with Lego Juniors.  They're a bit easier to build but she still gets to work with 'regular Legos' like her big sister and leave the Duplos to her brother the Beef. The Babe on the other hand has a total unquenchable thirst for all things Lego.  It started with a few Lego Elves sets.  Then she got a few Disney princess sets (including some for Christmas) and the Millennium Falcon (Squee!) and it just exploded.  (note:  she hasn't built the Falcon yet because she wants to 'wait until her new room is ready so her sister and brother don't wreck it'...)  She's built Ecto 1 and 2 from Ghost

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