Disneyworld: Day 3 & 4

We decided to leave our Disneyworld bubble and travel to Universal Studios. Our first stop was the Studio park which is so much different than ours in Los Angeles. The main difference is there is no tram tour in Orlando, which is the biggest part of the Los Angeles park.

Owen and Emma with Donkey


The day we visited, they had most of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons, which was really cool to see




Orlando's Jaws is far superior to the one here


Margaritaville for dinner











The following day we visited the Island of Adventure Park in Universal Studios. The park is known for it's rides. Some are similar to ours here, but others are one of a kind. I highly recommend the Spiderman ride!






Emma with the gals from X-Men

Love Love...and Vegas

Las Vegas and The Beatles. Two things I love, and two things I was able to share with Owen this weekend. Both things always bring me back to my mom who left me with such fond memories of both Vegas and the Beatles.

I started visiting Vegas at a very young age. My mom was an amazing bowler with a beautiful maroon ball with silver swirls. Her team would find themselves in Vegas tournaments often and her being a single mother meant I got to come along for the ride. I remember so vividly some of our adventures while we were there. It's so weird to remember the Vegas of the 80's and to see it now. Things have changed so much.

My love for The Beatles came from my mom as well. She was obsessed back in her day! My favorite memory is on our long drives, she had a tape called "Beatles Love Songs". It had a brown cover with The Beatles faces in tan. It's crazy how clearly I remember it. She would play it all the time, which is why by age 6 I knew every word to practically every Beatles song. When I got older I found her collection of Beatles albums and played them non stop on my Holly Hobbie record player.

Last year I had both world collide when I saw LOVE, the Cirque De Soleil show at the Mirage. It was amazing, I couldn't put it into words. The soundtrack to the show blew me away. My first thought was of my mom and how I HAVE to bring her to Vegas to see this.

A year has passed since my last visit. I was never able to share the experience with my mom unfortunately. She had passed away four months later. I know she would have loved it though.

Not too long ago I received an email with a great hotel and show package for the Mirage. I couldn't pass it up and decided that Jake and I would take Owen. Jake has already seen the show and doesn't share the same love for the Beatles as me (he almost fell asleep during the show! How dare he!) So I booked the package and couldn't wait to share this experience with Owen.

I thought the whole Vegas experience would be a little overwhelming for him, but he handled it like a pro. He was a party animal, staying up past midnight and sleeping past 10am. I know, I'm a bad parent, but hey, he was in Vegas!

I couldn't wait for him to see the show. We had tickets to the 9:30 late show, I was so worried he wouldn't be able to keep his eyes open. Throughout the show I kept taking a peek at him. His eyes were just so huge, taking everything in. I thought to myself what a bittersweet moment this was. The one person I would have loved to be there at that moment was gone. I could imagine my mom sitting there, tapping her foot to the music, enjoying the show. It made me so angry, thinking how much she would have loved this. Then I turn to see Owen sitting next to me, this perfect little guy who I love so much, enjoying every minute of the show. For a moment I truly felt like my mom was with us.

When the show was done, he turned to me and said "That was the awsomest thing ever mommy...can we go again tomorrow?"

We kept him busy the next day, going the the lion habitat at the Mirage, going to Circus Circus to play the carnival games. I can't even count how many times he asked if we could go see LOVE again. I would say I caved when I called to see if there were more tickets available, but like Owen, I could see the show over and over. Luckily there were, and at 7pm we were sitting in the theater again watching LOVE. He was really into it this time, knowing what songs were coming on next, telling me where to look and what to look for. He knew when the performance was coming to an end, and leaned over to whisper..."Can we come again tommorrow?"

He was very dissapointed to know we were leaving on Sunday. I promised him we would come back someday, and I promised him when we did come back we would see the show every night we were there.

All the way home Owen, wearing his new Yellow Submarine shirt, listened to The Beatles songs on my Ipod while he reminiced about the show.

I am proud to present to you, Owen Oliver Greene...Third generation Beatles Fan.









On our way back home, we made a pit stop in Baker to visit the best beef jerky store ever!

Disneyworld:Day 2

Our first stop was Downtown Disney for some lunch. A month earlier they opened a new restaurant named T Rex, and since it's opening has been very popular, so I wasn't expecting to get a table. To my surprise the weren't too busy and were seated right away. Owen was in awe and didn't know which way to look. It's pretty much just like Rainforest Cafe, but with Dinosaurs.

We were seated in the Ice room. It was pretty much a huge glacier that changed colors about every 15 minutes.















After lunch we headed to Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique inside the World of Disney store. I had been really looking forward to this part of the trip for so long. The boutique is a small salon tucked in the corner of the store which caters to mostly little girls that want to be transformed into princesses. They started off with taking Emma to the back of the store to choose her dress. They had all the princesses, Emma picked Cinderella. She then went to the changing room to put her dress and shoes on. A Fairy Godmother in training met Emma after changing and led her to her station. From there she got the royal treatment. She had her nails painted, make up applied, and hair done. They ended the makeover with some Fairy Dust sprinkled on her head and turned her chair around for the big reveal.

Overall I think I enjoyed the experience much more than Emma. She took the whole thing very seriously and once she was done she carried herself like any princess would.



















I couldn't let Owen feel left out, especially because we had so many princess activities planned over the course of the trip. He got the "Cool Dudes" packaged and loved getting all the attention from all the girls in the salon.









We had reservations later that evening at a princess buffet in Epcot, so after the makeover we made our way there. We had enough time to visit some characters before dinner.







What better way to show off a princess makeover than to attend a princess buffet at a royal banquet hall!

Disneyworld: Day 1


So posting our Disneyworld photos from a month ago have been in the back of my mind. My friends and family have been asking for them, but thinking of all the photos I took and how many I wanted to post would just overwhelm me. Then I thought I could just post our day by day adventures, that way I can break things up. So every day (or when I have time :) I will post each of our days at Disneyland.

Technically day one would be when we arrived, but by the time we checked in to our awesome hotel Animal Kingdom Lodge, it was very late and we needed to get some sleep for our upcoming week.

I feel we kind of had a hard time adjusting to the time difference in Florida. The kids wouldn't settle down until 11pm, sometimes later, and they never got up before 10am.

Our first day was spent at Epcot. This park is huge! We had so much fun exploring the World Showcase and visiting all the different countries that are represented her. Let's not forget the food! They had so much different stuff to eat.



One of Owens favorite rides


Emma wasn't tall enough for the ride, so she wasn't very happy


Hola from Mexico!


Heisann from Norway!






Ni Hao from China!






Guten Tag from Germany!





Owen loved the Bratwrust with saurkraut


Buon Pomerigoio from Italy!




Hello from United Kingdom!


Oh Canada!


The Living Seas with Nemo was friends was a huge hit too






Stay tuned for day two of our Disneyworld adventure.