WDW Wednesday: The Obligatory Fountain Shot

Welcome to my second edition of Walt Disney World Wednesday!!  I'm going waaaay back to 1987 with this edition to share a little tradition that my family has been doing since my first trip to Disney World: The Cinderella's Fountain picture. I was 4 for our first visit; Sis was 6.  Mom’s plan was to take our pictures in front of the fountain every time we visited Disney World so we could measure how much we had grown between visits.

This worked out great for the first 6 trips or so. That is, until I reached my full height at a whopping 5 feet 1 inch.  At that point, it became more of a tradition and now it is the only way I can keep track of how many times I’ve visited Disney World. I do not consider a trip to Disney “official” until we’ve taken the Cinderella Fountain photo.

For your viewing pleasure here’s a slide show of my 19 trips to Disney World (!!um, yeaaaah, that's 19 trips from the ages of 4 to 27!!! Am I a WDW addict? Do I need to go to WDW rehab?)  Watch me transform from my cute, little 4-year-old self through the awkward teen years to a grown, married woman.  My apologies to Sis for revealing her awkward teen years as well. We were rockin' the neon and fanny packs back in the early 90s! Also notice how I'm wearing the same shirt in our 2 trips in 1996...I loved me some Winnie the Pooh back then.

I have a feeling that my next trip to Disney World, my 20th, will be extra special!!

My Tour of the Aronoff Center

Every spring in Cincinnati, there is a big campaign for the arts called the “Fine Arts Fund.” Companies and their employees are asked to donate to support the arts. My company used to have big events / team building activities for the Fine Arts Fund. One year,  we were broken into groups and each group had to go all “design on a dime” on a lampshade. Best lampshade won a prize. Then another year we had a “march madness” themed campaign and we had a pop-a-shot b-ball tournament where my team actually won (surprisingly with MY help) a silver medal and free lunch. Then the following year we had a rip-off of the pop-a-shot tournament, which was a bowling themed tournament. It was not as awesome because my team did not win anything.

Instead of a big campaign this year, the company opted for a special, behind-the-scenes tour of the Aronoff Center.  I actually preferred this to some big sports-themed campaign because 1.) I’m terrible at all sports and 2.) I love Broadway shows. The Goog and I had season tickets to the “Broadway Across America” tour for a couple years, so I thought it would be fun to go behind the scenes, since we’ve been to the Aronoff Center so many times. So on Monday, a group of about 10 of our employees went on an exclusive tour. 

Highlights and fun facts from the tour:

• -The Aronoff Center is not haunted…at least that was what our tour guide told us. 

• -It isn’t as glamorous or as exciting as you might think behind the scenes. It very much looks like my elementary school hallways. Very sterile; very white. 

• -The truck drivers that bring all the set up stuff for tours hate the loading docks of the Aronoff because the loading docks are in this tiny little alley.

• -Cincinnati has the second largest number of members for “Broadway Across America”. The first largest is Tampa. So Cincinnati gets some of the best selections of touring Broadway shows.

• -When the Lion King was in a couple years ago, they had one of the rooms in the basement set up as an “animal hospital” where they would repair the animal costumes daily.

<----This is what I imagine a Lion King animal hospital would look like.

• -When the Aronoff Center was built, there was one important thing missing: a giant mirror in the Rehearsal Hall. It would only cost a $1,000 to get one of those mirrors, but it has become a trademark of the Aronoff, so they have never gotten a mirror.
   

• -We got to stand on stage in the Procter and Gamble Hall: the same stage as all the Broadway shows we’ve seen! 

• -The P&G stage feels springy…perfect for DANCING. 

• -Mary Poppins is the next touring show at the Aronoff, and we got to see where Mary Poppins herself will be getting ready! We also saw some ensemble dressing rooms.

• ---> That picture is of the smaller theater. I couldn't get a good picture of P&G Hall  because of the Mary Poppins crew setting up the stage. Did you know it takes a full week to set up Mary Poppins? You do now.

• -I really, really, really want need to see Mary Poppins. 

• -The art gallery that is located in the Aronoff Center is hosting a discotheque/rave in the basement of the building on June 5^th of this year. I think I know where the Goog and I are going for our 1^st anniversary!

True or false? These people would enjoy a discotheque / rave. 

 So this spring, support your local arts! Go to a play or a museum or something else artsy fartsy!

Why you should never let boys go shopping alone

I had a very exciting Saturday, since my sister and brother-in-law came to visit me for the day. I don't get to see them very often, but they were in West Virginia for a funeral last week and swung by Cincinnati on their way back down to sunny Florida.

Sister and I always have a great time together, and luckily our husbands get along really well too. Sis and B-i-L got here around 1:30 and we went to lunch as soon as the got in.  After lunch, Sis and I went back to my house while our hubs went out on a quest to find Cincinnati Reds merchandise, since the only place that you can find Cincinnati Reds merchandise is in Cincinnati, not someplace like the internet.  An hour later, we hear the front door open and I go down to see how much trouble they were in how much money they had spent. I asked my Goog what the damage was and he said, "I spent more than B-i-L." Then he confessed that he spent $$$ on one shirt, but "it is a 2-in-1 shirt, so it's like paying for 2 separate shirts."

That's right, a 2-in-1 shirt. How does that even work, you might ask? Well luckily we have 2 male models as husbands, so they demonstrated the awesomeness that is the 2-in-1 shirt:

Is that a male model or my brother-in-law?

B-i-L demonstrated what the shirt would look like as a long sleeved shirt, then the Goog showed us how the sleeves zip off to create a short sleeved shirt:

 

Hope he doesn't lose these sleeves, or he'll be down to a just a regular shirt.

S

Are these two different shirt? Did they pay for a long sleeved shirt and a short sleeved shirt? Why, no! It is a two-in-one shirt.

I'm still not entirely convinced that the amount of money they spent on these shirts were necessarily a "good deal", even if they do act as 2 shirts. But then again, I'm the type of person that doesn't like to spend more than $15 on a shirt!

Also noteworthy from this visit was Sister got to meet my baby kitties for the first time. They love their Aunt Manny!!

 Look at how cute we are as sisters and how cute my fur babies are.

For more of our weekend, head over to It's Blogworthy!

WDW Wednesday: Donald Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier

Welcome to my first installment of Walt Disney World Wednesday!

As a kid, I used to HATE meeting the characters at Disney World. They just freaked me out, but now as an adult, I love meeting the characters! It always makes for a great photo op and it can be really fun when the characters interact with you. I prefer to meet the fur characters that can't actually talk to you.  It's always a gamble on whether or not you'll get a good character interaction. Sometimes you'll meet Mickey and he'll just shake your hand, take a picture and scoot you out the door, but other times he'll give you a big hug, vainly admire your Mickey ears, and make kissy noises at you. Whenever you meet the Princesses, they always try to make small talk, like Cinderella will be all "Oh, is this your Prince Charming?" (what gave it away- my wedding ears?) and Mulan is all "Did the Matchmaker set this guy up with you? I hope the Matchmaker finds somebody for me" (desperate).

One of my very favorite encounters with a Disney character was on my honeymoon in June 2009.  It was our very last day in the park and exactly one week of wedded bliss.  We were spending a good part of our last day meeting characters and trying to finish up the autograph book I'd been working on since 1993.  While in Frontierland, we saw Donald dressed up as Davy Crockett and I just HAD to meet him. I heart it when the normal characters are dressed up in different costumes!! So, once we got to the front of the line, Donald saw my wedding ears, instructed the Goog to look the other way, got down on one knee and:

      

 Yep, that's right, he proposed to me. I know what you are thinking: 1.) Why are you so happy, aren't you already married? and 2.) What about Daisy Duck? Maybe it was a little inappropriate, but it gave me giggles.  Of course, it wasn't until after the photographer was finished taking pictures that he kindly reminded Donald of these two facts and Donald was all "Oh Phewy!"

Sooooo, Donald finally let the Goog come back over and "renewed" our vows, a week after our actual wedding, making our union OFFICIAL. You know a marriage will last when you've been married by a duck with a coonskin cap and no pants!!

Dancing with the Tolerant

It is finally here: Season 10 of Dancing with the Stars! According to ABC, this is the season of stars that all the other (much lamer?) seasons has been building up to...since, you know, Jake the Bachelor and Kate Gosselin were big "stars" back in 2005 when the show started... WAIT A MINUTE, they could barely be considered stars NOW!

I am looking forward to this season more than Season 9.  Of course, Season 9 began less than a week after I lost my 18-year old cat: sweet, dearly-departed Katy Sue Wigglesworth. Katy and I watched every season with DWTS together, and since she is not here to defend her good name, I will tell you right now, she LOVED to watch it and also LOVED dancing with me. She especially loved doing Samba rolls. So most of my Season 9 viewing ended with me in tears because the show just wasn't the same without a cat somewhat tolerating me making her dance.

Don’t let the fact that her back is to the tv fool you.  She enjoyed every last minute of DWTS.

This new season meant I needed to find myself a new cat dance partner, because there is nothing I love more in life than making animals dance! I started with Kimmie, trying to make her dance along to the opening credits. She had no idea what was going on and pinned her ears back and looked straight at Goog like “Mommy has lost it. PLEASE HELP ME.” Then she wiggled herself up onto my shoulder just to get away.  Major sad face. Willie’s turn was next and we did a cha-cha-cha along with Cincinnati Bengal Chad Ochocinco. Willie was actually very tolerant and let me shake his stubby little arms.  He really seems to like dancing, at least in comparison to Kimmie. I think I have myself a new dance partner!!

Chad Ochocinco got straight 6’s this week, but I'm hoping he'll do better next week because he is a "Cincinnati guy". I drive past the Bengal's stadium every day on my way to work and DWTS is always more fun when there is a local celebrity on the show (like Drew Lachey and Jerry Springer from previous seasons- also "Cincinnati guys").   Willie thought HIS score was 18, so he, being the sensitive soul that he is, burrowed under his red blanket to reflect.

“I am reflecting on my score, not on my dislike of dancing.”

Also, as a sidenote, Tim Allen of Buzz Lightyear fame was sitting with Buzz Aldrin’s wife. I’m sure having Buzz Aldrin on this season had absolutely nothing to do with the upcoming, highly-anticipated release of Toy Story 3. *Giggles*

Caturday presents: Random Cat Toy

I have two kittens: Willie,who is 10-month old and Kimmie, who is 5 months old. Last time I had kittens this young, I was 8 years old and didn't really appreciate them like I do Willie and Kimmie.

One of my favorite things about these kittens are the toys that they find to amuse themselves. Anything laying on the floor or on a table is fair game for a cat toy in this house. In fact, every morning after I've scooped their litter boxes, Willie spends 20 minutes walking around the perimeter of it and scraping at the littler liner bag while Kimmie just SITS in the box. So it usually doesn't faze when I see one of them rolling around in a plastic bag or jumping up on the wall trying to catch light beams.

Even so, I was very surprised one morning this week when I saw Kimmie carrying around something small and white in her mouth. Once she dropped it on the floor I realized what it was: one of those push-up bra inserts. You know, the ones that were in those old-school Wonderbras. Most surprising is the fact that I haven't had one of these bras in YEARS. I've definitely haven't had one since I've been living in my current house, so I really have NO idea where it came from. Yet there she is, carrying it around like a prize.

After I stopped laughing, I did what anybody would do: grab the camera and document the whole thing:

See how she is giving me sass and sticking her tongue out at me because I tried to take her toy? Willie is all "Chill out, sister. Take some time to reflect."

Kimmie says: "I will go murder train on you, bra padding."

OK, is dead now. I'm done with this toy.

Curiously, this disappeared the next morning. I'll probably find it years from now under the bed or stuffed in the corner of the closet.

A look into SisterWister-ville: E-mail edition

My company has recently implemented a new document retention policy that goes into effect at the beginning of April. The good news in this is that all the mail sitting in my Inbox from over 2 years ago that I haven’t had time to clean out will magically disappear into cyberspace. The downside is I’m now forced to clean out my “Personal” email folder from the past 4 years, including emails including such philosophical discussions as “Who will be cuter growing up, Suri Cruise or Shiloh Jolie-Pitt,” “How do you feel about baby animals?” and “What should my wedding colors be?”

See, back when Sister and I weren’t constantly busy at our respective workplaces, we used to e-mail each other daily with complete randomness. We would discuss celebrity gossip, tv shows, animals, and all the other pointless things that now make it into our blogs. These emails stopped after Sis moved to Florida to be a very important Web editor and I became a super important analyst. Thankfully we have tons of social networking sites to keep the sister-wister frequency going strong.

Example of how a typical email would start out. Also notice how the picture I have for Sis is a cat that says "Excuse me, do you has a flavor?" The picture I have for the Goog is a baby beluga whale.

As I was scanning through these emails, which I kept in a “Sister” folder, I had to laugh at all the subject lines. Here are a few of my favorite ones:

• …it’s what’s for dinner!
• ???
• HSM:2 (that stands for High School Musical 2, for those not in the know)
• 2 more thoughts
• 90’s on 9
• Am I a bad wis?
• You are a good wis!
• Amanda Grammar
• MSNBC.com Article 7/26/06: Lance Bass revels that he’s gay
• An excerpt from Lance’s blog
• Avian Flu (remember that, waaay back in 2006?)
• Baby kittens (this one was about Sis's cats, Pepper and Cheeto back on May 10^, 2006)
• Before Mom tells you…
• Before Mom tells you…the sequel
• Britney
• Britney is back out of rehab
• Britney vs. KFed Debate
• Cat poo
• Celebrity Haiku
• Hanson (No, this one wasn’t from 1998, it was actually from 2008)
• Happy…

…August 2^nd

…1 month til my birthday!

…1^st Wedding Monthiversary

…last day! (when Sis left the ol’ Herald-Dispatch newspaper in our hometown)

…Pi Day

• Holding grudges
• Lil stupid and fatty
• She’s pepper-licious!
• Tom Cruise
• Too good not to gossip about
• Two days til Sister Wister Day
• URGENT CELEBRITY NEWS (also marked urgent) (this one was about Anna Nicole Smith dying)
• Why I don’t watch Fox News
• You’ve got to be kidding me

Thankfully now we can share our brilliant discussions through blogs and Facebook instead of just between the two of us. You are welcome, World.

March Madness is over now, RIGHT??

To recap my guest bloggy-ness over at It's Blogworthy, March Madness is all about picking the best mascots to win. So, let's see where I stand at the end of today...or at least right before I go to bed:

LOOK AT MY GENIUS! I'm one smart cookie at 11 for 12, and to think the Goog referred to a lot of my picks as "goofy." Also impressive is the fact that my dad is currently ranked #3 even though he also never watches college basketball. I say we just go ahead and end this tournament. I mean, one day of basketball is enough. I think this is probably pretty representative of the rest of the whole march madness.

As a completely random side note, during my annual mascot analysis, I ran across this really great cake topper:


It's the Maryland terrapin marrying the Rice owl. If there is one bird-related mascot I actually like, it is the Rice owl. So this is like a match made is awesome mascot heaven.

Looks like my luck has finally run out...

I must confess that I've been pretty lucky the last year at work. Seems like I've won several *but not ALLLLLL, ahem* raffles and giveaways that we've had over the past year. Last spring and summer, I won tickets to the company's suite at the Cincinnati Red's Great America Ballpark on 4 separate occasions. I credited most of these wins on my "wedding luck" since I got married last June, so the Universe seemed to like me at the time. It had to be wedding luck since I even won tickets to one of the games while I was still away on my honeymoon and the first Friday I was back, I got to go to the suite! SWEET!

"This is baseball. In a fancy suite."

My luck continued into this year when I won this really awesome Rachel Ray gift basket for wearing a red sweater on woman's heart disease awareness / National Wear Red Day.

"YUMMO!"

Bright and early this morning, we got an e-mail from our CEO saying that 3 lucky employees would win lunch with Guy Fieri tomorrow while he taped an episode of his "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" at a top-secret chili location. Everyone at work was all abuzz about where the lunch would be and maybe, possibly, how he could come visit us AT WORK (not happening, unfortunately, because he has a very busy schedule...) This is the type of raffle that all us corporate employees really like because it reminds us that we own something as cool as the Food Network! I mean, if I win anything, I'd like for it to be something super cool like this so that I can blog all about my experience being on 3D.

My entire department was already convinced that I would win and were asking me to get autographs for them, but of course the Universe had other plans. The Universe decided that I had enough luck already, but it would lead me on just a few minutes longer. When they announced the winners, they called "Sara...(longest pause in history)...different last name."


I think I'm craving some Blue Ash Chili. Maybe I'll just head over to Kenwood for lunch tomorrow...

Theme park brochures make my life complete.

It is a well-known fact how much I love Disney World.

My parents would take my sister and I just about every other year down to the World, and when I was old enough, my boyfriend (now husband) would come along as well. We even spent our Honeymoon there last June.

But there is one thing I love even more than going to the parks themselves, and that is collecting every single brochure I can get my hands on within the Disney property. I'm talking about all those guide maps and times guides that most people just throw away. Not me... I collect every one and put them in photo albums, arranged by park and date. For somebody with terrible vision, I have the ability to pick out a brochure I don't have from half way across a hotel lobby, and run at lightening speed, even after a full day of walking around in the hot sun, just to get the brochure. Because, obviously, the cast members don't have another 100 boxes of the same brochure in the back.

I met the guy that does a lot of the drawings for these brochures on a Disney Cruise once, and he referred to them as throw-away art. I almost fainted, because this is how I feel when I find a new brochure:

Actually, I'm probably even more excited than Minnie and that little girl.

So, imagine my delight when I came home from work today and saw a stack of these beauties laying on the desk! Sure, I had picked all these up myself just 3 months ago, but January + February = Black Hole, so i didn't actually remember having them. When my hub got home, we had the following conversation:

Me: WHERE DID YOU GET THESE BROCHURES? (Keep in mind, they were dated December 1-15, 2009) which happened to be our last trip down there.)

Goog: I found them in my laptop case from December.

Me: I AM SOOOOO EXCITED, I almost wet myself!

Goog: (deadpan) I know, I figured.

Maybe he should have held onto them for awhile. They would have made the Best. Anniversary. Present. EVER.

Happy Pi Day / Welcome to my blog

It's the moment you've all been waiting for (and by all, I mean my sister. Not sure anyone else has been highly anticipating this moment)- I've finally started my own blog.

It's only been 2 and a half months since I first wanted to start my own blog. I was going to start it as a news year resolution. I had all kinds of things to blog about too, like my trip to Disney World in December and visiting my sister and going to Chicago all by my lonesome for a business trip. But I work in financial reporting/accounting, so January through mid March always end up being a big black hole where all I do is work. When I'm not at work, I'm eating dinner or asleep. That's it. So no time to get bloggy.

So now that I finally have a life back, I decided that the next best day to start a blog, besides the new year, was Pi Day (3-14, get it?) Pi day is a pretty big deal around my house, since my husband, which I'll just call the Goog, is a physics teacher. He, and me as his loving wife, always celebrates these science-y and math-type holidays. We are super cool like that. What better way to celebrate this important day, than by starting my own blog?


Stay tuned!!