WDW New Year's Celebration Part 4

Friday, January 2

We had a long overdue sleep in, and then spent the afternoon at MK.  The nice thing about visiting frequently is that we can spend hours at a park and not go on a single ride or attraction.  We weren't sure how the crowds would be; it had been utter madness all week, but we had noticed many people checking out on both January 1 and 2.  When we got to MK, we quickly realized that it was still quite busy, so we just wandered around for several hours taking in the atmosphere.  The only attraction we did was TTA, which is probably our very favorite thing to do at MK (and we are severely disappointed when it is under refurbishment).

One thing we wanted to do was get a good picture of Orange Bird, a character with whom I have an unhealthy obsession.  According to a Disney wiki page, "Orange Bird is a character created by Disney for the Florida Citrus Commission as a mascot and was a prominently featured character in the Magic Kingdom's Adventureland at the Sunshine Tree Terrace located near Tropical Serenade.  Eventually, the bird would fade into obscurity when Disney and the FCC severed their ties in 1987, but on April 17, 2012, Orange Bird made a proper return to the Sunshine Tree Terrace."  I don't really care about why he disappeared for so long, but I have memories of Orange Bird from when I was young, and I just love him!

Orange Bird - so adorable!

LeFou's Brew

Cinnamon Roll with Caramel

Nutella & Fruit Waffle

Liberty Swirl Slush

After MK, we had dinner at Art of Animation with C's parents, then met family and friends over at Jellyrolls to hear my favorite pianist perform.  As usual, the show was very entertaining, although we did not stay through to the end because both our friends and my brother & sister-in-law were leaving early the next morning.

So another fun day, especially the time we spent with family and friends!

Happy Tails to you!

WDW New Year's Celebration Part 3

New Year's Day was fun!  We went to breakfast with C's parents at Whispering Canyon Café…yes, we did just eat there with my mom the previous day – it is that good!  My second mom (you know I hate the term "in law") and I had pineapple mimosas to ring in the new year, which were delicious!  We wandered around Wilderness Lodge for a while and then drove over to Animal Kingdom Lodge to show C's parents the resort and the holiday decorations.  Such a relaxing morning!

In the afternoon, we went to Epcot with some family and friends and wandered through World Showcase for a few hours.  We went to the American pavilion to see the American Adventure show and before the show began, we spent some time looking through the pavilion, which is filled with amazing quotes and a beautiful exhibit, and watched a performance by the Voices of Liberty – an a capella group that sings Americana music.  They are amazing!  The show itself always brings me to tears, no matter how many times I see it.  In addition to the photos below, there were three other quotes that I loved, which were projected in such a way that I could not capture them on my phone:

There is in this world no such force

as the force of a person determined to rise.

– W.E.B. DuBois

Don't tell me the sky's the limit

when there are footprints on the moon.

– Paul Brandt

I learned that courage is not the absence of fear,

but the triumph over it.

– Nelson Mandela

We hopped on the monorail to MK with friends who had fastpasses over there.  They headed off toward Space Mountain and while we grabbed some popcorn and took photos on Main Street, USA.  The rainbow one is from The Confectionery; I fully understand this is just colored bubbling water, but I think it is so beautiful!  And I always try to take photos of the balloons, and I like this one with the castle in the distance.

Our best purchases of the day were these awesome bottles of wine.  We had seen them back in September when we were in Florida, but since we were flying, we couldn't bring them home with us.  We looked in our local wine store and found three of them (the first three pictured), but could not find any place that sold the other two.  Since we drove to Florida this time, we picked up the ones we were missing (the bottom two photos). I don't drink wine, so I am not concerned with whether or not the wine actually tastes good – I just love the names and the labels!  Seriously, how cute are these bottles?!?

We had a quiet night hanging out at our resort – something we needed after a number of busy days.  It was a great way to kick off the new year!

Happy Tails to you!

WDW New Year's Celebration Part 2

I have so much to write about from the past two weeks that I've decided to do a series of short posts.  This seems like the only way I will actually get everything documented and manage the countless photos we took.  So I'm going to write a post for each of the days of our recent trip that I haven't covered yet, beginning with December 31.  They'll be short, but I hope you'll enjoy them.  I still have Christmas to cover, a review of 2014 to write, and our events on December 29th and 30th to share, along with some other miscellaneous things, but I'll get these short posts done in the meantime.

New Year's Eve is a very important day for us – our wedding anniversary.  And this year was a big one:  20 years!  This was our third time spending NYE at WDW – when we got married there in 1994, in 2003, and now 2014.  We had two very busy days on the 29th and 30th, and planned on a low-key day for the 31st.

We began the day with breakfast over at Wilderness Lodge with my mom before driving her to the airport.  She decided to stay in Florida for only a few days so that she could come back and watch the dogs for us, which would minimize their stay at the kennel.  She is so, so good to us.

As we were driving to the departures area, a plane drove across a bridge right over us, which has to some kind of good luck symbol, right?

After the airport, we grabbed a quick lunch at Art of Animation, then hung out with C's parents for a little while before heading to DHS.  Despite insisting for months that we would not go anywhere near a park on New Year's Eve, we scored a fastpass for Toy Story Midway Mania earlier in the day, and we did not want to pass it up, since that is one of our very favorite attractions.

After TSMM, we got a couple of the carrot cake cookies I am always raving about, and sat on a curb and watch the Osborne Dancing Lights for over an hour.  This may not seem like other people's idea of fun, but between the lights and the people watching, we were highly entertained.  The only annoying thing was that the park was handing out noisemakers to everyone, so people everywhere were making loud, obnoxious honking noises with their horns.  Seriously, who thought this was a good a idea?!?  The same thing was happening over at Magic Kingdom, as my brothers were there and I was receiving texts from them about the ridiculous honking.  I'm glad we were only in the park for a few hours, because I doubt I would have been able to handle much more of that noise.  It is times like this when the teacher in me really wants to start telling people off for being inconsiderate toward those around them.

We walked from DHS over to Yacht and Beach Club – the weather was perfect and we were able to get away from the crowds and the noise.  We stopped at what we like to think of as "our" gazebo, which is the Wedding Gazebo where we got married exactly twenty years ago.  There was no one around, and it was lit up so beautifully that we used my phone to play several songs and we danced together in our gazebo and felt like we were in our own little world.  Very romantic.

We had a late dinner reservation at Beaches and Cream and while we were there, Tim Allen, Buzz Lightyear himself, popped in for a few seconds.  The people he was with had been in the take-out line getting ice cream and he came in to check on them.  He was only in the restaurant for maybe thirty seconds, but it was long enough to snap a quick photo.  I'd read online that he was at WDW that day, so it was exciting to see him in person.

Our waitress was so great to us during dinner – she put on the flashing lights and announced our anniversary and everyone clapped for us.  It was very sweet.  She also gave us two balloons (you know how I feel about balloons), which another cast member later embellished with a quick drawing of Mickey.

We ended the night by watching the Epcot and DHS fireworks from the Yacht Club boat dock with my brother and sister-in-law who had come over from MK.  It was great to see both fireworks shows and not be surrounded by thousands of people, and even greater to be able to walk right out of Yacht Club and grab a cab back to our resort without being trampled by those same thousands of people as everyone tried to exit the parks at the same time!

It was a fabulous day and an awesome anniversary – can't wait to see what the next twenty years will bring!

Happy Tails to you!