One Year Later

One year ago today, my mom had a mastectomy after being diagnosed with breast cancer a few weeks before hand. By her request, we kept pretty quiet about her breast cancer- she's a strong woman and not the type that wants a lot of sympathy.

Seems like yesterday that I was sitting in the waiting room during her surgery. Goog kindly suggesting that maybe I should have been the one getting a strong done of chill pills before the surgery.  My dad drifiting off to sleep because he apparently wasn't that interest in my People magazines or what crazy antics Britney Spears was upto.

It has been a long road, but a year later, Mom's doing great. The surgery, the chemo, the radiation- that is all SO 2010. She's even rockin' a cute little short hairdo.

My momma- Easter 2011

For my friends out there going through this battle right now- stay strong and stay positive. You'll have ups and downs, but just remember it gets better.

The ABC's of our Disney Cruise

 Now that I've fully recovered from my week-long trip to Florida and the Caribbean, I'm ready to give a quick A to Z run down of all the fun we had on our Disney Cruise.  While I'm sure approximately 1 of my lovely followers would enjoy browsing through the 2,160 pictures taken between 3 cameras in 5 days (take that, Japaneses couple! Who is the shutterbug now??), I'll spare you THIS time. Instead, enjoy my ABCs of the Disney Cruise Line, with corresponding slideshow below.

Arts & Crafts: We made  frisbees, Sister and B-i-L learned how to fold napkins for their next big party and we all learned how to fold our towels into cute little animals.

Bon Voyage! cake and decorations in my stateroom, thanks to the Goog.

Castaway Club Silver Members: You are automatically a member of the Castaway club once you go on a Disney Cruise.

Disney Dreams: We got to see a Broadway-style show almost nightly, but Disney Dreams was the BEST of all.

Ears: Every time I go to Disney World or on a Disney Cruise, I get a new pair of Mickey ears. This time, I got some pirate ears.

Freebies: The number of freebies that I got this cruise was ridic and really deserves its own blog entry. I'll save that for another day!

Golden Mickeys: Another of the Broadway-style shows. This one was about an Oscars-type show giving out awards to the best Disney films (you know, like the Hunchback of Notre Dame...). Best part was the Red Carpet outside the theater that Sis and I could pretend we were celebrities on.

Hidden Mickeys: Little Mickey Heads hidden all over the boat. My favorite was the Mickey head made out of coconuts on one of the statues on Castaway Cay.

Ice carving: Every buffet had these elaborate ice carvings, and we even watched a demo of the professional ice carver in action!


Jazz Hands: It's a revolution, y'all.


Kickin' it with Goofy: Goofy randomly came over to the Goog and I one afternoon and was making the Goog clap along to the music. It. Was. AWESOME.

Lobster, Peacock, Dog, Turtle and Rabbit Towel Animals on the bed every night.

Midtown- A cover band that was like listening to the Blend on XM, except LIVE. They were Canadian.

Next cruise booked for June 21, 2010: Because who doesn't like to save 10% AND get a $100 onboard credit while only paying half the deposit?

One year anniversary: The Goog and I celebrated our 1st anniversary (a week late) with lots of cake. Chip and Dale made us hold up a #1 for our 1st anniversary.

Pirates IN the Caribbean night: The night where we all dress like pirates and then watch fireworks. Fun fact: Disney Cruise Line is the only cruise line that does fireworks off their ships.

Quiet Cove Pool: The adults only pool. No kids around here to put their wet little hands on you.

Rain in Nassau: The worst day, weather wise AND port wise. Let's just say I was not impressed with Nassau.

Smoothies in Souvenir Glasses: I'm a total sucker for souvenir glasses.

Toy Story 3 Premiere…in 3D: Probably the coolest part of the cruise was we got to watch TS3 in 3D at 12:01 AM the day it came out in theaters!! They even had an "adults only" showing, so we got to watch Toy Story 3 without little kids talking during the movie.

Umbrellas on the beach:Very important for people like me who have translucent skin and burn just by looking at the sun.

Vacation Club:The Goog and I recently joined the Disney Vacation Cult Club, so this was why we got soooo many freebies!!

Wonder: Our boat, the Disney Wonder

Xtra smooth sailing conditions: The best sailing conditions I've ever seen. It was like we were on a lake the whole time.

Yellow lifeboat: Fun fact, Disney was granted special permission by the U.S. Coast Guard to paint the lifeboats yellow, in order to keep with the special color theming of the ship -- the colors of Mickey Mouse himself.

Zombie servers: Our servers, Ferenc and Lidia, were a lot of fun (even if not the most efficient). We took their pictures every night so they started making silly faces during the pictures.

WDW Wednesday: Here's To 37 Magical Years!

Today is my parent's 37th wedding anniversary and I wanted to take this opportunity to thank them for everything they have ever done for me. They are so loving, supporting and beyond generous to not only my sister and myself, but also to both of our husbands. I'm so lucky to have such wonderful parents and I'm so thankful for them. 

 It was 37 years ago that my parents started started our family's life-long obsession with Disney World when they visited the Magic Kingdom on their honeymoon. Dad had been to Disneyland in California (I think) once before, but their honeymoon was their first visit to Walt Disney World in Florida.  They loved it so much and, once they had kids, decided to start what is now a 23-year long tradition of going to Disney World.

 1973/old school Mickey Mouse.

This above picture, along with one brochure and a half-used ticket book, was all I could ever find from Mom and Dad's first trip to Disney World. I think Mom is holding back on me!!!  

Naturally, when it came time for me to choose a honeymoon destination, I only had one choice and that was Disney World!!!

 

  

 The Goog and my wedding ears from June 2009.

 

Happy 37th Anniversary, Mom and Dad!! Here's to many, many more magical years!

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!!

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!

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.