Universal Day

Ok, time to finish up my blogging about my trip to Orlando. Sorry it has taken so dang long!

We had one full day at Universal Studios. We got to tour all the hotels and then they took us to both parks and let us walk right on to all the best rides. It was a seriously fun day!

I was very impressed with the hotels on property at Universal. If I am being honest, their lowest price resort is actually almost as nice as Disney's Deluxe resorts. Now, that isn't to say it is cheap - nowhere near as cheap as Disney's value resorts - but it is cheaper than some of Disney's deluxe. I didn't get nearly enough pictures, but here is one of the pool at the Hard Rock. They have speakers under the water so you can still hear music when you are swimming!


In the lobby of the Hard Rock they have tons of music memorabilia, and if you don't know, I am a big Heart fan. They had this signed guitar there from them that I thought was pretty cool.


Here is a view of the Portofino resort. This is their premier property and is designed after the village of Portofino in Italy. It is a gorgeous resort and HUGE.

Here is the pool at the Portofino. Behind that stone wall is a cool water slide.

Another pic of the pool...


The Royal Pacific hotel is the lowest level hotel they have, and I didn't get any pictures, but it was still really nice. I think my favorite was the Hard Rock, but I would absolutely recommend any of these.

Buzz Report: Tom's of Maine

I have another buzz agent report for you guys! As you know, from time to time I am sent products to try out and to give my 100% honest opinion on. This time it was Tom's of Maine Wicked Fresh toothpaste. It was really a great product! They use all natural products to clean your teeth, and they are a very Earth friendly company so I love that! As far as the product itself, it worked great. I definitely felt like my mouth was super clean and fresh afterward. It is one of those that actually kind of burn while you are brushing, until you get used to it.

Another thing I like about it is that it is in a metal type tube. So when you start to roll it up from the bottom, it stays! Not like the normal plastic tubes. Now, as far as keeping your breath fresh longer and all that, I can't really say that I noticed anything to that effect, but it was at least just as good as my normal Crest toothpaste. So I would say, if you are looking for an eco-friendly product to add to your daily routine, I would absolutely recommend Tom's.

Got Butterbeer?

Here I am tasting my first ever frozen butterbeer. Seriously delicious.

So like I said the last night of the Ensemble portion of the conference we got to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. We had the whole land to ourselves for 2 hours. It was AWESOME. If you are a Harry Potter at all, you should definitely go. They did such a good job with it. You walk in to Hogsmeade and they have all the shops and restaurants you would find there (with some Diagon Alley mixed in). You walk in first to see the train that has pulled in to the Hogwarts station.

Then you make your way in to Hogsmeade...

One of the first stops is Zonko's where they actually sell extendable ears. A thanks to my beautiful model Sharla!

They have casks in the street selling butterbeer

Next stop was to Olivander's to buy a wand. You have to stand in line and they let about 25 people in at a time. One person is selected to have a wand 'matched' to them. They then go through a selecting process and find the perfect wand for that individual.

The major attraction in the Wizarding World is called Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. This is the sign going in. It actually starts to disappear on the sign and then is slowly written again.

The castle is amazing. This picture cannot do it justice. Especially when we were there at night, you truly felt like you were heading in to Hogwarts. This is the whole MEI gang (at least all the ones at the training) together in front of the castle.

Isabella Loves Mexican Food

I just thought this was so cute. Isabella LOVES Mexican food. We went the other night to El Fenix and just gave her a plate full of rice and beans and some cut up enchilada and gave her a spoon so she could go to town. The funny thing that you don't see in this video is that she immediately just put the spoon in the salsa and ate the salsa in spoonfuls. She loves chips and salsa, but it is spicy and she doesn't understand why her mouth burns after eating a huge spoonful. So we give her water and then she just goes back for more. It is so adorable.

This is just a cute video that shows how she really likes to use a spoon now instead of her hands more and more. She doesn't like her hands to be dirty so she now always wants a spoon. Enjoy..

Ensemble Conference

I recently went to a conference in Orlando for travel professionals who belong to the Ensemble consortia. My agency does focus on Disney - although we do everything - but the conference just HAPPENED to be in Orlando, so we were pretty excited. It was a really great conference where I learned SO SO much about the travel industry. It was also a great chance to get to meet many of the agents that I work with. We work from home all around the country so even though I have talked, IMed and emailed with them all, I had never met them face to face! So it was really nice to be able to put faces with names. Here is my friend Sharla who was in my start group that I got to room with!! I'm pretty sure Smart car was a sponsor...


The first day was all business with a fancy dinner that night. However, the second night was when the real fun began (um, not that it wasn't all fun?). The second night was sponsored by Disney, since they just happened to be around the corner, and they shuttled us all over to Epcot and led us behind the gates to where they normally hold their Party for the Senses party. It is a paid, ticketed even that they have during the Food and Wine Festival, and we basically got to go to a pared down version of it to see what it was like. It was, in a word, fantastic! It was set up in this huge hall and had live music and stilt walkers and all kinds of fun stuff, as well as seriously delicious food. The picture below was taken of one of the most delightful things I have ever put in my mouth. Take a glazed donut, cook it in a pan full of melted butter, sprinkle some cinnamon on it and then flambe it in rum, and that is what you have below. Basically the world's BEST donut. Sorry it was half eaten before I could stop myself to take a picture.



After the party we all got to go to a private area where we watched Illuminations. It isn't my favorite fireworks show, but it was pretty neat to have such great seats.

The next night we went to the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter, but I am going to do a whole other blog post on that. Here is our group after eating, before heading over to Illuminations. Best travel professionals ever!!!

18 Months

How is it that I have a one and a half year old? Sometimes I look at her and can't comprehend how I have been blessed with such a beautiful little child. And I really can't believe it has been a year and a half!! Everyone tells you it goes by fast, but you just don't believe them. Especially those first couple of months. ;)

We had Isabella's 18 month doctor visit a couple of weeks ago and so I thought I should update everyone since it is such a major milestone. She is doing great basically. She is 70% in height (which is good, she was only 45% last time, having shrunk from her 93% at birth!), 45% in weight and about 80% in head size.

What is she up to? Well she is starting to say a lot more words. She says please (well at least she tries, basically any word that has an S sound in it sounds like ssss), cheese (also her new favorite food), she tries to say Amanda and Grammy now. Her absolute favorite word is NO. She is very certain about what she wants and she will say NO when she doesn't like something.

She LOVES her daddy. She would definitely rather have dad than mom these days. Everyone told me it would happen, but I have to admit it is a little sad. Jason, however, is loving it. She will just hug on him, lay her head on his shoulder, so sweet. When I go get her up in the mornings these days, the first thing she says to me is 'dada'? Like where is he?

Her new favorite thing is sock puppets. She has discovered that she can put her socks on her hands and she makes them talk in this kind of growly type voice. The last two days we went to Mother's Day Out with sock puppets on because she would not let me take them off. Haha. She has also learned to do ring around the rosie, which she wants to do over and over.

She really is just so smart. Most things I ask her to do, even if I think she will have no idea what I am saying, she does! I can ask her to go get something she left in a totally different room and she knows what I mean and will go get it. Brilliant I tell you!

Here are a couple of my favorite pictures from the last few weeks. We really have not been very good about taking pictures! Isn't that awful? If I didn't have an iPhone we would get no pictures I swear.

Since she was a baby she always liked to sleep with her arms behind her head. This does not look terribly comfy to me, but she slept like that forever this weekend!

She looooves her Nana. When we go visit my parents she loves to go out and swing in the back yard!

My parents also went to Hawaii recently and they brought her a hula girl outfit. So stinkin' cute!!

Sold!

Well, that is what I hope to be saying about my house soon. But that is what a family in Lake Highlands is currently saying about their house! We just bought a house in Lake Highlands!! Yes, this may be sort of out of left field, but we had been thinking about moving for a long time, just not quite so soon. Here's the story...

Jason and I decided to list our house just to see what happened. We figured we would put it on the market for a couple months and see if we got any nibbles. Well, then my realtor, who is also one of my best friends, and I decided to go look at houses in the area we wanted, JUST to look. I specifically told her not to allow me to fall in love with any. Well, I found the perfect house that day and fell in love immediately. You can't help who you fall in love with!!

Jason came to look at it that weekend with us and he liked it too. It was just everything we had talked about wanting. We honestly thought we would have to sacrifice on SOMEthing, but there was not one thing about this house that we really didn't like. Well, except for this awful wood paneling, but that can be painted. =) Anyway, we prayed about it a lot and decided to make an offer, just to see what they said. They accepted our FIRST offer! No counter, nothing. Who does that? Well at this point we decide it was meant to be. So we get our house on the market sooner than expected and are now awaiting that special someone to take it off our hands!

We don't close until December, so we have another month or two until we start to panic, but we are really excited. It is in a great school district and neighborhood and I just think it will be a great house for Isabella and whoever her sibling might be to grow up in. And no I have no announcements in that department, I am speaking hypothetically about the future. =)

Anyway, just wanted to share our exciting news and also ask for you to please pray for us! The stress of trying to sell this house - meaning keeping it clean at all times with a toddler in it - has been high. So please pray that we will sell it quickly, and for a good price ;), but mostly just quickly!