Blog On

I helped out as a rep during this past week's press event, and my assignment was helping corral the 'Social Media Moms Celebration' conference that coincided with the press event. At first I thought these were just moms who blogged about Disney and life as a mom, but it turns out most of them are all making money off their blogs. The 150-ish moms listened to a bunch of different speakers (the CEO of Build-A-Bear, Kathy Ireland) and networked with each other, learning the best ways to use social media to their advantage. I listened to a man (Guy Kawasaki, who they all knew and were excited to see) speak for an hour about Twitter and how to use it to sell yourself. I never knew that much thought went into tweeting! Of course, I thought mulitple times that all of my favorite mom bloggers should be doing the same thing. You're all so entertaining and crafty, so what are you waiting for?!?
I hope you all keep popping out kids because at this rate, your kids will be in college by the time I have children and they won't want anything to do with mine! I guess if all else fails I'll have babysitters ready to go. : )
In non-kid/mom related news, I need a new vacation to plan. I mean, Keri has like 17 planned for the year, I feel way behind! I'm probably going to Vegas in September, but I need something in between. Although I will most likely be moving in June since Lauren is moving to Jacksonville, so I should probably cool it on vacation planning since I'll have moving expenses to deal with. Ugh. I hate moving so much!
Alright, gotta go focus on the TV..Hoarders is about to start. That show is totally addictive and makes me want to clean out my closet immediately!

Hello 2010

I am terrible at keeping up with this blog. Clearly. My last post was in August. Part of the issue is that my computer is retarded and decides to not connect to the internet when I turn it on. I have to go in and set up a new connection, and it doesn't always work on the first try. Stupid wireless internet. I think it may be time to upgrade my computer. Since my computer is a pain, I use my lovely new iphone for most internet things, but I mostly use it for email, Facebook, Weather Channel, and TMZ. (All of the important things in life.) Anyway, that's my excuse.

I'm so over this cold weather. It just reinforces my desire to never live in a cold place. My hands are constantly freezing and my skin is dry, I haven't run in two weeks, and I'm running out of sweaters. Plus it took me an extra 15 minutes this morning to leave when there was a thick layer of ice on my windshield. Thank goodness for CD cases..they make excellent ice scrapers. Thankfully I am getting out of this state and headed to LA for the weekend to get some warmer temperatures. : ) Just a short weekend trip to visit my friend Keith and hit up Disneyland. I'm excited to go back since it's been a few years, and I love me an In-N-Out Burger!!!

I worked today to help with a film shoot at DisneyQuest for a family from Extreme Makeover Home Edition. It's an amazing family and I loved them before I even met them after seeing their video. Here's a link to part of their story, hopefully it will work so you can see how great they are! https://www.box.net/shared/dhffci1ee7 While they're here, Disney is planning a fairy-tale wedding for them, since they never had a real wedding. We're talking Cinderella's coach and all. The production manager invited me to go, so I will definitely be doing that! Seeing how weepy I got watching their video, I will have to bring a box of tissues to the wedding!

I will try to make it a little less time before my next post. Can't guarantee anything though!

Buongiorno!

After Greece, it was back to Italy. Next stop, Naples. Took a tour of Pompei, which was amazing. It's insane to think that the area was covered in lava in 79AD and still exists for us to see. Well, it mostly exists anyway.
This picture is inside the Roman baths at Pompei...one of my favorite pics I took.

After Pompei, we went into town to a pizza place our taxi driver recommended as being not as touristy. It was there that I had the best pizza of my life. Seriously, I don't know how anything will ever compare to it. I was almost sad when I was finished with it because it was over. Glorious!!!
Next stop was our day in Rome from the ship, and we took a tour of the Coliseum and Forum with our sexy guide Bruno. These guides are unbelievable with how much detailed info they know about everything you see. Again, it was amazing to see how much still existed almost 2000 years later and to hear stories about the gladiators and the history of the place.
Next stop, Pisa and Florence. Booked a tour through the ship to see as much as possible in one day. Went to Pisa first to get our official tourist 'holding up the tower' pictures. Here's mine...
Then it was on to Florence, which was beautiful. There's so many museums and churches I wish we could have visited but there wasn't time. We did a lot of walking through town with our guide and learned a lot of the background of the city. We saw a replica of the famous David statue, walked through the city center and saw so much beautiful architecture and sculpture.
Are you tired of hearing about my vacation yet? Well, it's almost over. I'll keep you waiting for my last installment because I need a break! : )

Vacay Continued - Croatia and Greece

Next stop on our trip was Dubrovnik, Croatia. I kept hearing that Croatia is the new 'hot spot', but I wasn't blown away. It was beautiful, but it wasn't my favorite place we visited. We walked the walls of the old town, since it was surrounded to protect it during war. Spent most of the afternoon back on the ship in our self-titled area "Relaxation Station" outside on the 3rd deck in lounge chairs.
Our first stop in Greece was Corfu. Took a taxi to the beach, driven by our favorite new Greek, Demetrius. I think it's funny how so many people we met on the trip would immediately say they only speak a little english and then be able to carry on a pretty full conversation with you. I was lucky to be able to say anything in Greek! Anyway, the beach was beautiful but the sand would literally scald your feet if you stood in it longer than 5 seconds. I had never experienced that before, and the sand wasn't even that dark in color. Then you stepped in the water and it was freezing. Very strange combo.
Definitely my favorite stop in Greece was Santorini. We took a tour of some villages and then went to a black sand beach, which was really cool. Strangely enough, the sand was not as hot as the orangy colored sand in Corfu.

After our tour, we embarked on our donkey ride up the side of the mountain into town. You either have to take the cable car or donkey to get up, and we knew we couldn't leave Greece without our 'Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants' moment. Little did we know that the trip up on our donkeys was on our own, so we got put on donkeys and off we went. I mean, our donkeys know where they're going since they do it every day, but it was still an adventure. Every so often, they would just stop walking and we'd have to coax them into starting up again. When we got towards the top, we ran into what we called a donkey blockade. Our donkeys stopped and were not interested in moving again. Since we were almost at the top, we figured our ride was over. As we discussed it, trying to get our donkeys moving, the locals had gathered above us watching us sort this all out. Lauren and I got off pretty easily, but Bethany's foot got caught in her stirrup and the saddle slid with her as she dropped to the ground. It was hilarious, and she didn't get too hurt or covered in donkey poop, so it was ok. Here I go up the mountainside on my donkey, Stella...We shopped in Santorini like it was going out of style, and saw the most beautiful sunset. I want to go back there and stay a week...I loved it. Plus, the Greeks are much nicer than the Italians! (Probably because I spent so much damn money.)
Sunset in Santorini...


Next up, back to Italy...

Ciao!

Coming back from vacation is sad, but also kind of a relief. It's nice to be back sleeping in my own bed, not having to listen to the snoring of my roomie, getting water for free in restaurants (and automatically getting ice- Erica I totally understand what you're talking about!), not having to pay to use the bathroom, there always being a toilet seat and toilet paper, and of course having Diet Coke that tastes right since the US is ok with cancer-causing sugar substitutes.
The down side of coming back from vacation is that I don't have all of my meals cooked for me (and have it available pretty much 24 hours a day), I don't wake up in a new exciting locale every day, and I have to go back to work in a few days. Ugh.
Back to the glorious vacation... we started in Rome for two days before taking the train to Venice to get on our cruise ship. We took the hop on/off bus to see as much as possible in the two days. We booked a Vatican tour which was amazing. That place is so huge, there's so much to see, so it's nice to have someone with a lot of knowledge about it giving you a tour. The Sistine Chapel was amazing and I was taken aback by how huge St. Peter's Basilica is. This is one of my fave pics I took of a blocked off stairwell just outside the Sistine Chapel..
We ate lots of gelato and pizza, trying not to think of the horrible Euro-Dollar conversion rate. It was super hot the entire trip and we discovered there is no such thing as clouds during the summer in the Mediterranean. Good thing we were prepared with sunscreen!
Arrived in Venice, but after getting off the train at the wrong stop we had to walk the "short 15 minute walk" to the cruise ship since we were past the area where there are cars. Little did we know there was a huge bridge in our path that had no ramp. Five of us trying to haul 75-100 pounds of luggage each up that bridge was quite a sight. People walking by were laughing at us, and a guy even took our video camera to get footage of our ridiculousness. Even after we got off the bridge, we still had what seemed like miles to walk mostly uphill to our ship. Our embarkation photo is pretty classic since we all look like crap from our memorable adventure. Luckily at that point, we were in the clear and ready to be taken care of on the ship. Turkey sandwiches for lunch and endless chocolate chip cookies made me a very happy girl. The ship was ok, not the best I've been on, but served its purpose. It was definitely mostly filled with old people, but we seem to make friends with the elderly easily so that worked for us. (We are much better off on a ship like that than some crazy Carnival nonstop party ship.)
Our first night we took a gondola ride, which was fantastic! It lasted almost 45 minutes and took us through the main canal and lots of little side canals. We had an accordion player on our gondola and there was a singer in the gondola right next to us, so we had lots of entertainment and singalongs. I kinda felt like I was at The Olive Garden with all the songs I heard. : ) I loved the gondola ride, and was hooked on Venice. I had heard mixed reviews of the city before my trip, but it's definitely one of my favorite places we went. Here's a pic I took from the gondola and Lauren and I in St. Mark's Square...
Gotta run...I will continue my trip review at a later date! : )

Mi Vida Loca

Apparently my life has been too busy to blog for the last few months, although I can't really explain why it's been that way. I guess my social calendar is more full than I thought!
I've been 30 for almost a week now, but don't feel a lot different. That age sounds so old when I say it, and I really don't think I act it (which may or may not be a good thing). I feel like I've had an extended celebration, starting with Hive fun last weekend. Renting a giant water slide was the greatest idea ever. It was fun to watch everyone try to out-do each other with tricks, and awesome to see all the kids get so ballsy to go down the slide, as well as daredevil Biscuit! I had a few slip and slide/water slide injuries, but it was all worth it. Even though I was lectured on why to stay single, I still look forward to having a fun family like all the Hive-ers do, and being an amazing mom like all of them. For now, I'm still happy to sleep in. : )
The only bad thing about Hive was catching the disease that all the kids seemed to have, which is still hanging around making me miserable. I thought it was running it's course earlier in the week, but over the weekend it feels like it's gotten worse, or at least taken a different route. I'm now coughing almost constantly and sound like a phone sex operator/teenager going through puberty. It's wonderful.
Probably didn't help that I went out on Saturday night to celebrate my b'day with all my Orlando friends. We went to the Firkin & Kegler Entertainment Center, which was really fun! We started with dinner in the pub, then did a game of bowling, then headed upstairs to their dance club area. I drank a LOT of Shock Top, which led to me getting quite tanked. I had so much fun, even if I couldn't sing along to the sweet tunes upstairs (we heard some Heartbreaker by Mariah, plus of course the Tootsie Roll and the Train!).
Anyway, now it's back to work for a five day work week, which I haven't had in a while. Boo. Now begins the countdown to my Mediterranean cruise...27 days until departure for Rome!!!

Back to Life...Back to Reality

Okay, back to the real world tomorrow...a five day workweek! Boo to that. I don't know how I'll survive it! But I should be glad that I even have a job, since Disney did some major layoffs over the last few weeks. My team stayed mostly intact, although our secretary did lose her job. They're doing lots of restructuring, so it will be interesting to see the changes in the company over the next few months. I was actually never so happy to be a manager at DisneyQuest when I heard about all the cuts they made in the Special Events world, where I used to be. If I had gotten the events manager job that I wanted (and deserved) before I left the Studios, I would have no job right now. The girl who got the job was let go last week. So as sucky as that is for her, I am thanking my lucky stars I got out of there. I know quite a few people who got let go that are managers in parks, and it is just really sad since so many of them are great cast members and have been with the company a long time. I'm actually really disappointed in Disney and how they handled everything. They treated these people like they were suddenly criminals, not even letting them go back to their offices or say goodbye to anyone. Plus nobody really got any reasons why it was them as opposed to some other manager getting layed off. I just hoped they'd have enough respect for these people that gave so much to their jobs, but in the end Disney is a company just like any other. They are focused on the bottom line, and not as much anymore on the people who put their heart and soul into making their magic. I guess I wanted them to be different, but they're not.
Anyway, on a lighter note...I had a nice week off in Jacksonville with Lauren. The weather was pretty crappy for most of the week so we didn't get to sun ourselves as much as we wanted. We went to the beach one day and visited St. Augustine another, which was only about 30 minutes away. We discovered the red box, which is the greatest invention ever...$1 DVD rentals! Amazing!!! I played the wii for the first time...lots of Mario Kart and classic Super Mario Brothers. So fun! I tried Guitar Hero for the first time and was horrible at it. We are getting the arcade version at Quest soon, and I know now that I will not play that in front of anyone! I didn't end up going to NYC, as much as I wanted to go. Just couldn't find cheap enough airfare to justify such a quick trip. But now it's back to reality (oh, there goes gravity!)...