Sunday, May 25, 2014

{Sunday Social}



It's another round of Sunday Social with the lovely Ashley & Neely. How is it already Memorial Day weekend?! Time flies!

I'm loving this week's questions!

{1} What is your favorite handbag you own?
Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE purses. Some girls love shoes. Purses are that for me.... (I HATE shoes!). I get purse add and have to switch them all the time. These are my favorites:
  Got this a few years ago for Christmas from my brother Brian with the matching wallet the year after. I think I haven't switched wallets since then! 

 It is like the other one's twin! ha! 

I also have a black one that is just leather from the MK outlet that I am currently although I might call it the black hole of death. I lose stuff in there!

 And this one (the picture is similar to what I have) too, another gift from one of my other brothers. At least they know I like purses!!!


{2} 3 things you would buy right now if money was no object?
- A mansion
-A vacation home in Italy
- Pay off my student loans. Seriously. I'll probably finish paying them off by the time my first born goes to collge!

{3} Name a place you would go right now if given a plane ticket anywhere?
Tahiti! It is so beautiful and tranquil. I would do a little happy dance to go there!

{4} What is the most valuable life lesson you have learned from blogging?
Guard your heart and trust your instincts. Many people can relate to what you're going through but you want to be careful.

{5} What is the most valuable life lesson you learned from a friend? 
After having a long conversation with one of my friends recently....life is going to throw you some major curve balls and obstacles that seem like nothing is ever going to be okay. But God doesn't throw things at you he doesn't think you can't handle so you just gotta learn to rise above. <3


Link up with Ashley & Neely!

Saturday, May 24, 2014

Life lately

In a way, I feel like my blog has fallen back. I used to post multiple times a week. Then, I got into a blogging funk. I was either only posting for link ups or not at all. Even reading my blog feed was something I wasn't doing. I have to say I just got super busy. I get up at 5am for school because I need to take the dog out, feed her, take her out again before going and then I was working either tutoring (that's a long story in itself) or at the restaurant. Now that tutoring is over and school is on the verge of ending, I will have more time!

Sometimes I feel like my life isn't as exciting as other bloggers. That's okay! It's exciting enough for me.

My nephew made his 1st Holy Communion at the end of April. I can't fathom that he is going into third grade in September. I remember when I got the phone call my sophomore year of college that he was born!

This picture cracks me up because I wanted just one nice shot and he had enough at this point! 



My nieces and I! 


My nephew Steven and his godfather, my brother Eric. 

 My brother & his wife & their kids with my mom


My brother, his wife and their son! 


Last Sunday, I went to a baby shower for my co-worker, Anjelica. She is the SWEETEST girl ever and I cannot wait for her to have little Baby Michael. She's due July 1st. We are also throwing her a baby shower at CPK next Sunday, June 1st and she has NO idea. It's not going to be as extravagant as the one her mom threw but we all cannot wait to see the look on her face. 


Me and Anjelica! 

 The work family minus a few! Our boss Alyssa had been there but she had to leave to go to work and a few were missing (that will hopefully be at the one on June 1st). 
Sarah & Skye (who used to work with us), Anjelica, Meaghan, Me, Sarah, Danielle and Jenn. 


Anjelica's awesome cake! 

I am loving that I have a three day weekend this weekend! Technically if we didn't have to use our snow days, we would have had Thursday, Friday and Tuesday off in addition to Monday. But since Mother Nature was rough on us in NY this winter, we only get Monday off. That's okay though. Because there's only 4 days next week, 5 days the following week and 3 days the week after! Our last day of classes is June 11th and then the kids take finals the 12th, 13th and 16th. However, my 8th grade Spanish and French students have a local proficiency exam they are taking June 23rd that they need to pass in order to receive their high school credit for graduation. So, lucky me is stuck in school until June 27th! 

I do get to chaperone a field trip to the Bronx Zoo during the first week in June. On  June 3rd, the 8th graders are taking a Common Core Math Regents (NY state exam) and the 11th graders are taking the English regents. The administration wants the 7th graders out of the building because they are using the junior high school classrooms for the tests (I always took mine in the gym). So, we are going to the Bronx Zoo! I am excited to chaperone it because I have never gone to the Bronx Zoo before and I wanted to chaperone. There's 30 adults going for the roughly 300 7th graders so its about 9 or 10 kids per chaperone. It won't be that bad! 

I am really looking forward to this summer. I plan on heading to Atlantic City the day I am out of school. I have my friend's engagement party in June (I gotta try on my dress from the Loft that I ordered). I will be visiting my cousin's in Massachusetts/going to Block Island with them in July. And I am taking my mom to see The Lion King on Broadway on June 8th! It was her birthday & mother's day gift combined. :)

{Disney 2014 - Magic Kingdom!}

This post has been sitting in my draft for WEEKS so maybe it is time I finally write about it. 

Let me just put it out there. I love Disney. One of my co-teachers, Cheryl, is as equally obsessed with it as I am and one of our friends, Patty, says its a sickness. Ha ha!! I have been itching to go to Disney since the last time I was there in August 2011 when I went with my brother & his family. When I decided to visit my BFF April on my spring break in Florida (she moved there in April 2013 for a new job), she mentioned going to Disney. I was all in!

I flew in on a Thursday and then we decided that we would go Friday & Saturday since I had to fly back on Easter. Thursday night we just hung out at April's apartment before we get off for Disney Friday morning!! We decided to stay on property so we wouldn't have to commute each day from her uncle's which is farther away. I always enjoy staying on Disney Property because of the buses they have to/from the resort to parks and the benefit of Extra Magic Hours! (EMH).

Friday morning, we checked into our hotel, The All Stars Music Resort. We were in the Broadway Section. I always like staying in different hotels on Disney. I want to stay in the Art of Animation next! Our room wasn't quite ready but they sent us a text message (which I thought was cool!) when it was. Apparently they had people who often harassed the housekeeping staff when the room was going to be ready so they changed the process. As we checked in, I got my Magic Band (April already had hers since she bought the Annual Passholder's since she is a Florida resident). The Magic band is cool because it keeps track of your fast passes, you use it to get into your room and pay for stuff at the parks (if you have a credit card linked to your account for charging).

Once we were all done, we headed off to Magic Kingdom! Magic Kingdom is hands down my favorite park. It is SO big I could spend open-close there and not be bored. Upon going into the MK, we spotted Mary Poppins. Each time I am at Disney, it is my mission to see how many characters I can get pictures with. Don't think I have had one with Mary Poppins since I went to Disney my FIRST time.




We went on a couple of rides and went through the Swiss Family Robinson tree house. We were heading towards the new Fantasyland and stopped at the Be Our Guest Restaurant. It was only a 30 minute wait for quick serve so April & I decided to wait and try it! Had it been longer then that, I probably would not have waited.


The inside is GORGEOUS! There are three different dining rooms that you can chose to eat in after you've ordered your meal from the "book" quick serve. April and I were nervous they wouldn't find us but they did!! The picture above was behind me in the dining room we ate in.
On the gates while we waited outside


Beautiful artwork as we were leaving. The details at Be Our Guest were just beyond beautiful. I really want to go back to have dinner and "meet the beast."



Afterwards, we headed over to the Little Mermaid ride. This was new since I was last at MK! 




Ursula will always creep me out no matter what! 


There was a new parade that started called "Festival of Fantasy." We lined up for a good spot to see it and just enjoyed a break since we were planning on doing EMH at night!



They added Anna & Elsa from Frozen to it so this was about as close as we got to seeing them. The wait was 4+ HOURS when we were in Epcot! (On Easter Sunday they moved them over to MK)





Snow White & the 7 Dwarves






After the parade, we made our way over to It's a Small World!



April posing with Bare Rabbit with her shirt!


They were suppose to have a show in front of the castle but due to a down pouring while we were on Space Mountain, they cancelled it! But all the characters came out. There's something I just love about the characters at Disney. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon going on some rides, buying souvenirs and just hanging out until the Wishes show in front of the Castle at night and the fireworks. We got up close so it was a great seat!! 


Besties on the spinning teacups!! 

We also went to meet the Princesses. I will continue to meet characters every time I go to Disney. It's part of the Disney Magic. Anna and Elsa from Frozen hadn't moved to the Magic Kingdom yet but I highly doubt we would have waited for them because the wait time was (and still is) 300 minutes!! 



One of the new features since the last time I went to Disney was Enchanted Tales with Belle. We did this as one of our fast passes and did a late one. But by the time we got there, there was no wait so we didn't have to use it (we wish we could have used it for Splash Mountain because we wanted to go on it!). I got chosen to participate in it!! So cool!


Since we were staying on Disney property, we were taking advantage of the Extra Magic Hours that you get for staying at your resort. It is one of the many reasons I love staying on Disney property! We went on Dumbo! 


Then we met Ariel in Ariel's Grotto....this was new since last time I met her somewhere in Frontierland or something.




Then we went off to meet Donald, Minnie, Goofy and Daisy!






Of course, no trip to Magic Kingdom is complete without meeting Mickey! 

(PS - love my shirt. I found this last summer at Walmart for $7.50!)


We ended the night by finishing up some souvenir shopping (I always end up spending WAY too much!) and watching the Electrical Parade on Main Street. The day we were there, the park was open until 3am so we stayed until 2-2:30 before driving back to the hotel. It was AWESOME! I hadn't seen April since August so it was great spending some time with her. We are both Disney obsessed so it works out that she is all for taking character pictures and such.


Next up....Day 2 at Epcot! I wanna go back to Disney for a full week and go to all the parks again. :)