Tomorrow Is Another Day...

30 Before 30 Check-In #2

Time for my second quarterly 30 Before 30 Progress report!  Once again, a whole lot of stuff in progress, not a lot actually completed.  Pretty much the story of my life.  You can see my entire 30 Before 30 list here, and my first report here.  Each check-in will only touch on what has been completed in the last three months and the items that are currently in progress.  Onward!

2)  Climb to the top of the Eiffel tower, eat macarons at the Laduree on Rue Royale, stroll through the Louvre, see the water lilies at Giverny. In short—go to France. (In Progress)
See #3. 

3)  Travel to at least five new countries. (In Progress)
I got to check off three countries in December on our Mediterranean cruise with our stops in Spain, Greece and Malta (we also went to Italy, but I couldn't count it since I'd already been there for our honeymoon in 2008).  Fingers crossed, by my next check in, I'll be able to count the last two as completed!  We're about a month and a half away from our attempt at a military flight over to Germany, France, and Austria.  Please, please, please...

5)  Run a 10K. (Complete)
I was so excited to check this off the list in April when I ran the Cooper River Bridge 10K, and I had so much fun, I'm even thinking about running another one in October!

10) Suck the head. No, not like THAT! Like this. (Complete)
Crawfish in the lowcountry!  We went to the Cajun Fest at the James Island County Park in April, and I finally got the chance to channel my inner Cajun and suck the juices out of the head of the crawfish.  Honestly, I left it a bit late and there wasn't much juice still in there, but you know, I'm counting it because I put a dang crawfish head in my mouth.

14) Volunteer. (Complete)
I haven't been able to do it much lately, but I've been volunteering as a tour guide in a historic home downtown, and I'm hoping to get back into it a bit more regularly next month.

15) Organize all of our digital photos in scrapbooks or albums. (In Progress)
I've gotten through 2006 & 2007, bits of 2008 and 2009 and still have all of 2010 and 2011 to go.

16) Learn how to sew and make a piece of clothing that I’m proud to wear in public. (In Progress)
Well, I know how to sew.  I've given up that horrid "Easy Five Minute Skirt" and I think I'm just going to find an easy pattern for a skirt and give that a go.  Any recommendations for pattern brands or even a specific pattern?  I've never made anything from a pattern, but I figure it has to be easier than making your own.

22) Finish 75% of the books in the top 100 of the Greatest Books List that I haven’t already read. (In Progress)
I really need to pick some shorter books.  Since the last check-in I've finished Lord of the Rings, The Stranger, and The Catcher in the Rye.  Now I'm slogging my way through Ulysses.

25) Attempt surfing. Not the net—the waves! (In Progress)
A couple of weeks ago, I bought a Groupon for Colby and I to take a 2 hour private surfing lesson, now we just have to find a time where Colby is in town and it isn't 400 degrees outside! 

26) Do a cleanse, maybe this one? (In Progress)
I don't think I'm going to do Blueprint just because of the cost, but a friend recently had great success with a lemon juice/broth/tea cleanse so I think I'll give that one a try when Colby is out of town in July.

So, there we go!  18 months left to finish the rest.  I'm not at the panicking stage yet, but um... I still have a lot left to do!

The Pilgrimage

Yesterday was just what the doctor ordered for my current case of The Sads.  I got up at oh dark thirty, drove over to a friend's house and we loaded up for the three hour drive up to The Holy Land in Charlotte, NC.
If I could change just two things about the Charleston shopping scene, it would be to remedy our lack of an Anthropologie and an Ikea.  But after yesterday, I think I'm going to have to change my Ikea wish to a Nordstrom, because the drive up to Charlotte really wasn't as bad as I was expecting.  Especially since we had one 45 minutes away in Washington and still only went there twice over the course of nearly three years!

Here's a sampling of some of the Swedish lovelies I picked up.  (Please ignore how desperately my carpet is crying out to be vacuumed.)  Evidently I was on quite a black and white kick.  

The lampshade will be suspended from the ceiling behind this chair so I can use it as a reading nook at night when I don't have the natural light from outside.  The large black frame will go in our bedroom, and I'm hoping to pull of something artistic with the flower decals in the bottom left.  I'm using the laptop pad as we speak and it is far superior to the throw pillows I've been using for the past few years.  The tray will serve as a flat top to hold drinks and goodies on the new storage ottoman we're using as a coffee table in our living room, and the alarm clock is for the guestroom which is currently unclocked.  I'm not exactly sure where the sweet little "B" bookend will go, but I couldn't pass it up!

And I'm already planning my next trip up with Colby so that we can load ourselves down with Expedit bookshelves for the office.  They'll be replacing the MDF lovelies we each brought to our marriage, and maybe it'll still be crap MDF furniture, but at least it will be crap MDF furniture that matches.  Baby steps!

I Don't Know How

I don't know how I'm supposed to keep doing this month after month.

I don't know how people go through so much worse than this and come out on the other side.

Everything looked so good on paper this cycle.  Sustained high temeratures.  A lengthy (for me) luteal phase.  A beautiful temperature spike yesterday morning.  For most of you, all of that is pretty meaningless, but to anyone who has charted cycles, you'll recognize all of those symptoms as good signs.  I'll admit I was daydreaming about how I would tell Colby when he got home from his trip.  Maybe a cutesy "Happy Late Father's Day" gift.  Who would I tell early, and how would I manage to keep quiet for the next two months?

And then this morning, it was all over.  Again.

I'm onto cycle ten.  It has been eight months since we started this journey.  As much as I was nervous about the possibility that I wouldn't get pregnant quickly, I never thought that I would be in this place.  Even at month three, when it started to dawn on me that this wouldn't be an overnight success, I was scared, but nothing compared to this deep, gutwrenching sense of hopelessness.

If it hasn't happened by now, why will next month be any different?

I know that's a defeatist attitude.  And that it could very well happen on the next cycle, or the one after that.  But that is a very hard thing to hold onto after this many failures.

On top of the sadness I'm feeling over our inability to concieve (so far), I feel constant guilt.  I feel guilt because people DO go through so much worse than this, and seem to do it with so much more grace and goodwill than I can muster in my situation.  I feel guilty because my life is so good--I have an amazing, supportive husband, I live in a beautiful home in a beautiful city, I have stellar friends and a loving family, we are financially secure, I am educated, I have my health--and yet all I can feel 50% of the time is sadness about this very specific aspect of my life.  I feel badly because I am so, so envious of all of my pregnant friends, even though I try to remind myself that we all have our trials and I don't know what anyone else has gone through to get where they are in their own life.

I don't feel proud of any of those feelings.  But they are there.

So, I'm moving on to a fresh opportunity.  Maybe this month the stars will align and I'll have a miracle.  This week will be the worst, but maybe by next week I will have rediscovered my optimism.  And even if I don't, I know that I will get through this, and I can get through worse.  

Because this is something I want so desperately.  And the more the universe tells me that I can't have it, the more I'm determined that somehow, someway, I WILL have my baby in my arms.  Because beneath all of the sadness, hopelessness, guilt, and heartache, at the very root of my soul I am as stubborn as an elderly mule.  And I am not a person to give up this easily.  So no, I don't know how I'll keep doing this month after month.  But I know I will.

Fishy Fishy Fishy

It may not be officially summer just yet, but don't try to tell Charleston that!  And this weekend I was lucky enough to have pretty much the perfect summer days.  I kicked things off on Friday by meeting a friend at the library downtown for their book sale where I was able to score 12 books for $16--I have so much reading ahead of me now!  So, I felt pretty fiscally responsible about my literary haul when I met Colby for a meeting with our financial advisor, and then joy of joys, he got to come home!  (Colby, not the financial advisor--although that could be pretty handy.)

Saturday we had the pleasure of joining some friends of ours out on their boat for a full day at sea--at river?  I don't know, the water was salty.  Where ever we were, we saw TONS of dolphins capering in the water.  At one point, we were front and center for a feeding frenzy as four dolphins went to town chowing down as fish parts, fins, and tails flopped and flew through the air.  It was an amazing experience, and Colby even got to swim with the dolphins as a couple of fins were spotted during his turn wakeboarding.

Sunday we continued the sea creature trend, meeting some other friends and their little ones at the aquarium.  We were incredibly spoiled by the fantastic aquarium in Seattle, but we still had fun watching the turtles, jellies, and fish at the SC Aquarium.  After a delicious lunch at the always popular Fleet Landing, Colby and I headed home and I somehow ended up napping the rest of the day away.  A little too much sun, fun, and adventure for my energy level I suppose!

I had made a joke last week that if Colby was able to stay home for just four days, we'd be breaking a record for the past few months.  Unfortunately, we won't be breaking any records this time as this morning he packed up his bags and shipped out for the next week.  Sigh.  I have a lot of fun activities planned for this week and the weekend, but I'm pretty sad that for yet another week I'll be coming home to an empty house.  I'm really hopeful that when he gets home from this trip, I'll get to keep him at home for the next two weeks until he's off for his next spate of trips.  Two weeks--what on earth are we going to do with each other with that much time together!

Things That I Love: Fit For Tenuous Royalty Edition

It has been over a year since I pulled one of these posts out of my trick bag, but I've got some amazing finds that I'm dying to share with you.

L'Oreal Voluminous
The mascara that I return to time and time again.  We've been going strong for almost ten years now, with some bumpy spots in the road where I decided to try out other miracle mascaras including DiorShow, Buxom Lash, and Too Faced Lash Injection as well as some forays into other drug store offerings including the always popular Cover Girl Lashblast. Admittedly, I did fall madly in love with DiorShow, but realized the reason that I liked it so much is because it gives the same dramatic effect as Voluminous, but for almost $20 more per tube.

I also appreciate that Voluminous offer a variety of levels of drama and impact with different formulas.  But my favorite, and the one that I've gotten repeated compliments and inquiries about is the Voluminous in Carbon Black.  What can I say, I am not into subtlety when it comes to my eye makeup!  The one thing you do have to be wary of is clumping.  It's the only downside, but I think that the tendency to clump is only natural when the formula fattens up your lashes so very much.  It's also not much of a lengthener, so if you've already got thick lashes, and are looking to make them longer, it may not be for you.  But if you're like me (a lot of lashes, naturally long, but fine and light) this could be your miracle product as well.

Mario Badescu Skin Care
When I was a youngun, I had pretty decent skin.  I got away with some stridex pads, a little clearasil, and didn't wear anything other than powder until I got to college.  Then I hit 20, and my skin went bat shit crazy.  We're talking every kind of acne imaginable--blackheads, white heads, cystic--everything.  Thus began my near decade long search for the perfect skin care routine.  I have worked my way through so many brands: Proactiv, Philosophy, Murad, everything available at the drugstore, Clinique, Mary Kay, Arbonne.  Basically, if they touted magical skin clearing properties, I gave it a try.  I even attempted the Oil Cleansing Method which worked fine at first until my skin rebelled with a terrifying explosion of pimples.

Then, one happy day in Ulta, I happened upon their Mario Badescu shelf, and was taken with the simple packaging and wide variety of treatment options.  I'd heard good things about the drying lotion, and decided while I was at it, I'd try out the cleanser and toner.  I was shocked at how much my face cleared up, and after the first month of using the cleanser I haven't had a single cystic acne outbreak in five months.  I can't tell you how amazing that is--cystic acne is not only ugly as sin, but it's incredibly painful.  The personal Badescu cocktail I'm currently mixing is the Botanic Facial Gel as my every day cleanser, Glycolic Foaming Cleanser once every other day, Glycolic Grapefruit Cleansing Lotion (toner), and Glycolic Gel after washing and toning at night.  When I have a breakout, I hit it with the Drying Lotion at night and the Drying Cream during the day, and the Buffering Lotion works well for Cystic Acne.  I've also tried some of the masks and exfoliators and really like the Whitening Mask (has lightened some of my slight scarring) and the Kiwi Face Scrub.  There really is something for EVERY skin complaint, and if you're in the market for a new skin care line, I really can't recommend Mario Badescu enough. 

Game of Thrones/ A Song of Ice and Fire
(Can we talk about how gorgeous Emilia Clarke is?  I mean really.)  So, about a year ago, on one of my pilgramages to NYC to visit my sister, she started talking up this Song of Ice and Fire series.  She was really excited about it because it was an upcoming HBO series and it appealed to her fantasy fan sensibiliteis.  But then she made her tragic error--she compared it to The Lord of the Rings.  And I was out.  I tolerate the LOTR movies, and slogged my way through the books, and while they weren't as awful as I thought they'd be, I wasn't overly excited to read or watch anything comparable.  But then people kept talking about how amazing Game of Thrones was.  Someone compared it to The Tudors in scope and sweep.  And then I read that it was loosely based on the War of the Roses, and just like that, I was hooked.  So, I sat down to watch one episode, and then another followed immediately after, then another, and before I knew it, I had inhaled the entire series up to that point (seven episodes at the time) over the course of three days.  And I loved it.

This is no Lord of the Rings people.  There's so much more passion, and excitement, and adventure, and if you don't like one storyline wait five minutes because another one is coming up.  It's fast paced, even to the point of confusion at times, but the acting, as well as the cinematography, sets, and costumes, is superb.  The last episode of the season is coming up on Sunday, and it has already been picked up for season two and I imagine will go on for at least another couple of years beyond that.  I hesitated at first over whether I wanted to spoil the end of the series by reading the books, but decided I just couldn't wait a year to find out how the story continues, so I've been inhaling the first book in the series over the past few days.  And I'm finding that rather than spoiling the show it is giving me and will give me so much more appreciation for the onscreen translation, as well as so much more depth to all of the character's motivations, histories, and personalites.

(These are all my own thoughts and opinions, I have not been contacted by any companies mentioned in this post.  Just sharing because I heart them!)

Not Getting My European Hopes Up...

Isn't that the dumbest concept in the world?  When something really exciting is on the horizon, but it's not definite, so you run around shrieking to everyone "But I'm not getting my hopes up!!" as though by saying it loud enough and enough times, it will be true?  Well, I'm not getting my hopes up, but there is the distinct possibility that two months from today Colby and I will be in Deutschland!!

His leave has been approved by the Air Force, I live in a permanent state of leave-taking, we've got the money saved up due the the disastrous but ultimately free Mediterranean cruise of 2010, now it all comes down to securing transportation.  We've been saying since we moved to Charleston that we were going to try to Space A over to Germany.  For those of you who weren't following along last year, you can go here and here to learn about Space A and my previous unsuccessful attempts.  Suffice it to say, after planning a trip using military transport and having everything fall through, I'm a little nervous about whether this will actually work out.  But we've got 2 1/2 weeks to play with and absolutely no set plans, so I'm trying to be optimistic.

This is a particular challenge to me because I am a planner.  Every vacation I've ever taken has an itinerary and prebooked activities, and I LIKE it that way.  We always have free time to do whatever strikes our fancy at the time, but it's SCHEDULED free time.  This time, I can't plan anything.  I have lists of hotels, lists of museums, lists of tours, but we can't book a darn thing until we have our feet firmly planted somewhere in the European Union.  That said, of course I've put together a sketchy itinerary of things that we'd like to do in the optimal situation.

This one is pretty obvious, yes?  PARIS!!!

Giverny to see Monet's bridge and water lilies.

Be still my nerdy English history heart--Bayeux to visit the Bayeux tapestry and the Normandy beaches.

Munich--I honestly don't know that much about Germany which is terrible since my grandfather lived there as a child, but it looks beautiful!

I'll let you know if the hills are alive with the sound of music in Salzburg.

And finally, a couple of days of complete relaxation in stunning Hallstatt, Austria.

There's plenty of room and flexibility to move days around as needed, or even cut some locations if necessary, but in the meantime, I'm having an amazing time dreaming of our European adventure!  Have you been to any of these cities?  Any must do or must eat there tips?  What are you most looking forward to this summer?

Little Orphan Puppies

In a shocking twist worthy of a Twilight Zone episode (IT'S A COOKBOOK!!!) Colby got a phone call mere moments after I published my last post telling him that he was being honored with yet one more week of living on base.  (I know that "living on base" sounds kind of weird, but due to the nature of the mission, I really can't give any more information, just know he isn't living there because he snores a lot at night!)

We headed to the grocery store to pick up a few things, and while we were in the dog shampoo aisle, I spotted a new-fangled invention for grinding down dog nails rather than chomping them off with clippers.  My psycho dog Jack is absolutely neurotic about his feet.  He really doesn't like people touching them at all, and he absolutely hates having them groomed in any way.  The vet once told us that they would have to put him to sleep (like, temporarily, not euthanasia) in order to trim his nails and the little feathery hairs between his foot pads.  He's also INCREDIBLY STRONG.  Between the two of us, we've got about 6 times his body weight, and he is still entirely capable of twisting free from our iron grips.  And plus, we're pushovers and hate it when he cries.  So, his nails quite frequently reach talon-like levels of danger, and it was long past time for something to be done.

I decided that obviously the new-fangled grindy tool would be absolutely perfect and Jack would totally love it.  I have difficulty setting realistic expectations.  So, the moment we got home, we headed out to the back porch black, fluffy dog in tow, and set about to beautify his claws.  Jack immediately knew what we were up to and went into full fledged seizure activity, determined that we would not get our hands on his paws.  We tried everything--flinging our bodies on top of his, holding all of his appendages, speaking soothing words, hollering our heads off--I swear, even Cesar Milan wouldn't be able to get near this animal's feet.

After about 45 minutes, we had managed to get one set of nails ground down to manageable levels, and we were all psychologically scarred for life.  Jack was attempting to hide under an open shelf that offers absolutely no concealment, Colby's little bleeding heart was broken from the pain of repeatedly assaulting our dog, and I had run out of cookies with which to bribe him.  We decided that one foot was good for one day and headed inside for a stiff drink.

I spent Friday afternoon and evening with Colby on base, then Saturday I had a baby shower and a footloose and fancy-free evening out with some of my girlfriends.  The baby shower went a bit long, and when I got home I tried to spend some quality time with my beasts knowing that they'd be alone for another long chunk of time that night.  Let me tell you, quality time with your animals is a challenge when it's hot as Hades outside and one of them has absolutely no interest in playing with toys.  I fed them early, gave them plenty of outside time, then headed downtown for a little lowlevel debauchery.

A friend and I had decided to split a cab back to her house, and I spent the night there to sleep off the various wine and vodka-based imbibery that had occured over the course of the evening.  I had every intention of waking up early to get home and rescue my dogs from their night of solitude, but then I didn't and made it home around eleven the next morning.  They had been shockingly good, with the only mess I found being a bit of shredded tissue paper left over from the shower gift wrapping session.

But I once more spent a few hours of time with them (and admittedly more than a couple of those hours were spent with our eyes closed), and then left once again to visit Colby in prison--I mean, on base.  They've been good so far, but I'm going to keep checking my internet history to ensure that they're not searching Craigslist or adoption sites for new people who actually live at home.

Will you be our mummy?

Quality Over Quantity

It's not much of a secret that Colby and I don't get to spend a whole heck of a lot of time together.  With his job, he averages about 6 months out of the year away from home, and last year was one of the worst with him being gone over 200 days of the year.  The worst part is that frequently, his trips are unexpected and it's difficult to plan anything--even a backyard barbecue--without specifically taking vacation time to guarantee that he won't be somewhere on the other side of the world.

We've accepted that this is just the way things are going to be for at least the next year and a half, and it's pretty unlikely that things will improve dramatically at our next base, but this past month and a half has been particularly frustrating as he had to live on base for one week, then was in Africa for two weeks, then I went to Disney World for a week, and then he left just days later for a two week trip to Asia.  Since he got back home on Monday, he's had time off and we've been trying to make the most of it while he's home.

Every now and then I start thinking about looking for a job, just to have something to do on a regular basis and funnel more money into my Shoes & Travelling account, but then there are the times like these where I'm lucky enough to be able to spend time with Colby during his strange "weekends".  I think part of my misery in Washington was not only due to the weather, but the fact that between my work schedule and Colby's work schedule, I felt that I never really got to see my husband except for the few hours I could keep my eyes open between dinner and bedtime and the rare weekends we had together.  I love having the flexibility to spend time together whenever the Air Force decides that we can have it.

So far this week we've spent time at the dog park, indulged in delicious meals out at favorite restaurants, headed out to Folly Beach for a perfect day with sun, sand and waves, and this evening we're hoping to take in a Piccolo Spoleto show before the festival passes us by.  It's been a lovely week together, and as of right now, it looks like I'll have him around until the beginning of July when he'll once more be jetting off for a week-long school and then heading to New Mexico to visit a friend for a guys' week.  After that, we'll have just a few more months before he leaves for his next long deployment.

But the best thing I can do is not focus on how little time we have together, but instead think of all the fun things that can be squeezed into a South Carolina summer--the Biltmore is beckoning, we've got a variety of beautiful beaches to choose from, and things are looking up for another trip to Europe in August.  We may not spend a lot of time under the same roof, but what time we do have together we make count as best we can.

An Extroverted Weekend

Based on my weekend, you'd never know what a massive introvert I am--well, except for the fact that I had to spend Sunday in my Fortress of Solitude to recover from all of the socialness.

I began the weekend by meeting up with a friend at a fabulous butcher shop/restaurant downtown, Ted's Butcherblock.  In the first place, I find it absolutely charming that there are still dedicated butchers plying their meaty trade in this day and age.  Ted's offers a vast array of meats, cheeses, gourmet raviolis, and a wide variety of spreads, wines and appetizery delights.  On top of their butchery, they have a sizeable menu of sandwiches, soups, and salads, and every Friday night, they serve a delicious dinner and dessert for $12.  

On Friday, we were treated to a mouth-watering Lemon Garlic pork loin served over an eggplant tapenade and goat cheese couscous, all sprinkled with delicious fresh peas.  For dessert, there was a massive lemon bar--we're talking about 4-5" square--topped with a mango chili granita.  I wasn't sophisticated enough to appreciate the spicy/sweet combination, so I scraped off the granita, but the lemon bar was phenomenal.  They were also having a $5 wine tasting with proceeds supporting charity, so we got to taste four delicious French wines and I found a new favorite: Château de Ségriès Cotes du Rhone.  We wrapped up the evening taking in a stunning performance by the Shen Wei Dance Arts who is in Charleston as a part of the world-famous Spoleto arts festival.

Saturday, I rolled out of bed and headed to a local county park to beat my all-consuming fear of heights into submission at the rock climbing wall.  There was a portable climbing wall that was about 30 feet high and the 50 foot permanent wall with a wide variety of routes at various skill levels.  I started out on the 50 foot wall, and made it a little less than halfway up the first time, before the sweats, nausea and dizziness set in and I had to rappel down.  So, we headed over to the portable wall so I could get a little more comfortable with less height.  I somehow made it to the top of that wall before closing my eyes, dropping downward and landing on the ground in a quivering pile of jelly.  Then it was back over to the 50 foot wall where I made it about 3/4 of the way up before I just couldn't bring myself to go any higher.  We're planning to go back next week to give it another go, and I really want to get to the top of that dang wall.

I wrapped up the day with a first birthday party for an adorable little buddy of mine, and then went to a going-away party for a couple who we first knew in Washington, and is now leaving us for greener pastures in the Northeast.  We've had to say goodbye to so many people over the past couple of months, it's hard to believe that we've already been here for a year and a half, and may only have another year and a half left to go.

Sunday, I settled firmly into my little groove on the couch and became thoroughly obsessed with HBOs Game of Thrones.  I also fit in a run and did a little cleaning because COLBY IS COMING HOME TODAY!!!!  And I always like him to think that I keep the house spotless in his absence so that he is pressured to put his socks in the laundry bin.

Wizarding World of Harry Potter: Mischief Managed

As incredible as our time in Disney World was, the true highlight of our trip was our visit to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter on the Universal Studios property.  Our expectations for the park were so high, and there was a pretty sizeable chance of disappointment with reality.  Happily, Hogwarts and Hogsmeade were just as fantastically amazing and magical as we had hoped--and more!

There were a lot of people there, but we still found ourselves waiting in very reasonable lines.  The highlight of the Wizarding World is absolutely The Forbidden Journey in Hogwarts.  The other rides are a childrens rollercoaster, Flight of the Hippogriff, and a fantastic rollercoaster for the thrillseekers, Dueling Dragons.
 
I wish I could find the words to fully explain and do justice to The Forbidden Journey.  It is, without a doubt, the most amazing ride I have ever ridden.  You sit in a seat that is a bit similar to the people movers in the Haunted Mansion ride at Disney World--so you are fully enclosed with a bar across your lap.  You sit four across, but there are small partitions between each seat, so you can't really see the person next to you.  The idea of the ride is that you are flying around with Harry, Ron, and Hermione and you experience all of the highlights of each book along with them--basilisks, spiders, dementors, a Quidditch game, dragons and more.  There is a combination of IMAX screens and actual set pieces that you "fly" through going backwards, forwards, side-to-side, and the best explanation I can give you is to tell you that yes, you truly do feel as though you are IN the movie.  It's incredible.  And I can't believe we only rode it once.  So much dumb.

The one thing I'd like to see improved is the food options.  We ate at The Three Broomsticks, which is right next door and connected to the Hogshead, and the food was decent, but it's really your only option and the meals are certainly on the level of tv dinners.  The frozen butterbeer on the other hand was delicious!  It's a sort of butterscotch-sasparillaish flavor and I think they put condensed milk on the top to give it a sweet creaminess.  Oh, it was so good.  Pumpkin juice tasted a lot like mulled cider, so if you're into that you'd probably like it--I wasn't a big fan.

All in all, Wizarding World was everything I wanted it to be and more.  We talked to a local while we were there who said that there were plans to expand the area further, and I would love to see what else they could come up with.  We didn't get to spend much time in the shops, and the line just for Ollivanders wand shop looked to be over an hour long.  Of course, I had to buy a wand, but I got mine at the Owl Post where there were fewer crowds.  You can choose from the wands of all the major characters, and I decided on Hermione's after much deliberation between hers, Harry's and Dumbledore's (you can see it in the picture on top with the conductor).  I would love to see another restaurant added--I'm thinking a sit down restaurant themed after the Hogwarts dining hall--and we all agreed that a ride through the Gringott's bank would be a no brainer for the expansion.  

We spent time at Universal as well, but honestly, we weren't that thrilled with the offerings and wished we had just spent more time at Wizarding World.  So that's it, my long winded recap of our time at Disney has reached its end!  It was such a great trip with my family, and I'm already counting down until we make our triumphant return in 2013!

Disney: Shaken Not Stirred

Fortunately, after day one, our drama quota for the vacation was filled and everything went just swimmingly.  We were amazed at how easily we were able to ride all of the rides multiple times--the longest wait we had at the Disney parks was 45 minutes for the brand new, just opened that day Star Tours ride--everything else was 20 minutes at the longest, and usually closer to five minutes or we were able to walk directly on.
Tuesday, we made our way back to the Magic Kingdom and hit the rest of the rides--my personal and perennial favorite being Splash Mountain.  If I could change just one thing about Magic Kingdom, I would add just one or two more "thrill" rides.  I know the park is geared toward kids, and I still LOVE LOVE LOVE the magical feeling there, but it would be nice to have a couple more exciting rides to do to fill the day.  Especially when the lines are so short and with the advent of Fast Pass.  The other highlights were Pirates of the Carribbean and The Haunted Mansion, always incredibly nostalgic and nicely update over the years.  That night we enjoyed a delicious dinner at the Yacht Club to celebrate my parents' 30th Anniversary--way to go guys!  Feel free to keep celebrating and inviting us along!Wednesday we headed to Wizarding World of Harry Potter--but I'll save that for its own post because it was just too amazing to squeeze in here.  Thursday, we hit up Hollywood Studios and spent most of our time checked into the Hollywood Tower of Terror going up and down, up and down!  Favorite ride ever!

Did someone say wine?

My sister and I were happy to discover that not only is Disney the Happiest Place on Earth, but they also can make some damn good drinks!  Pina coladas at the Polynesian, margaritas in Mexico, wine in France, and a mimosa for me daquiri for her at the Prime Time cafe, just to name a few of our indulgences.  Disney is great, but it is miles better with a slight buzz.
  Our last day in Disney, we finally made ourselves over to Epcot where we hit most of the "science" rides before heading over to my favorite part, the world showcase.  Mission to Mars was new since I had been in 2008, and was a fun spaceship simulation.  Unfortunately, the ride for Soarin' was over an hour long, and given our line expectations of maaaaaaybe having to wait 30 minutes, we just weren't convinced to wait that long.  Some day!  After Epcot, my parents went back to the hotel for happy hour while my sister and I embarked on a tour of all the parks, heading back to Animal Kingdom for 3 goes on Expedition Everest, and Hollywood Studios for just a few more moments at the Hollywood Tower!  We wrapped things up with our traditional ice cream on Main Street, overlooking Cinderella's Castle during the Electric Light Parade.

There's nothing more magical than the combination of full fat ice cream, hot fudge, and LED lights!