Monday, March 31, 2014

April 2014 Calendar

Hi Friends!  

I'm taking a break from my honeymoon recap to share my April 2014 printable calendar!

The Mickey and Minnie monthly calendar is always one of my most popular posts!  I'm glad you guys love it so much!  I've recently been told it's being used in classrooms and business offices.  Wow!  I'm honored!



Here's the link to download the April 2014 PDF version of the printable.

Feel free to link this post up to Pinterest or Facebook so your friends and family can have a fun Mickey and Minnie calendar too!  Let's spread the Disney Magic!!!  :-)

Enjoy!   °o°

Note: A lot of you leave me comments asking where future months are.  I've probably already gone ahead a few months with making them in InDesign.  (I'm currently up to July of 2014.)  However, I don't post the links on my blog until the beginning of each month.  If you're looking for a particular month and would like me to email it to you ahead of my post going live, you can send my blog an email at mydisneylifeblog[at]gmail.com.  Then, I'll send you the PDFs directly.  :-)

Saturday, March 29, 2014

WDW Honeymoon Recap- 3/28/13

The next morning, Eliot went over to Hollywood Studios really early to get us Toy Story Mania Fastpasses since the line was 3+ hours every time we went past it!  While he was doing that, I stayed in our room and worked on project ear hats more.  Here's a behind the scenes sneak peek!


After a few hours, I joined him at Hollywood Studios and we headed over to the animation building again.  We wanted to take pictures with Sorcerer Mickey!  And it was time to get some autographs in our book!


We waited a while in the Vanellope Von Schweetz and Wreck it Ralph line.  Eliot really wanted to get his picture taken with them!  Vanellope liked that we had sweatshirts too!


We still had time before our Toy Story Mania FastPass, so we went to see my favorite Disney stage show: Beauty and the Beast!


I love the big poofy pink dresses that they wear.  I always wanted one!


Then, it was finally time to go to Toy Story Mania!  The girl in the front handed me one of the wait time cards. You know it's a popular ride when you get a wait card in the Fastpass line!  We still had to wait a bit in line, but it was no where near 3 hours!


We enjoyed the ride as usual.  I hadn't been on the Disney World version before this trip because of the lines being so long.  Eliot had been on the Disneyland ride many times and considered himself a pro.  Then, the unthinkable happened to him.  I BEAT ELIOT!!! (That never happened when we went on the Disneyland version.)  He claims it was his gun... I think it was my amazing aim and skills!


After Toy Story was over, we slowly made our way around the park.  We ended up stumbling across the Phineas and Ferb meet and greet!  The sun was slowly starting to come out while we were in line, so we finally took off our sweatshirts.  And as luck would have it, we wore our Agent P t-shirts that day!  All of the kids in line were totally jealous of our awesomeness.  I know it.


Before we left, we stopped under the Sorcerer Hat to watch the Pixar Play Parade.  We had heard that Disney was getting rid of it, so I wanted to see it before we left.


Then we left Hollywood Studios to take another break at our hotel.


We stopped at Everything Pop to grab some lunch to bring back to the room.  I got myself another indulging little snack.  Yummy!


While we were "home", I got another picture of my Easter window. I was proud of it!  And no one else had their window decorated!


After more rest, we went to over to Epcot for Extra Magic Hours, but it was completely packed.  (Apparently, everyone had the same idea we did.)


We made our way over to the Epcot Character Spot and that wasn't very busy.  We decided that we'd get more pictures and autographs for our book!  You can't beat a hug from Mickey Mouse himself!


We got our pictures taken with Mickey!


Then Pluto!


And finally Minnie!


Next, we went to Fountainview Ice Cream and ate ice cream for a late dinner!


We sat and people watched for a bit.


Then we left Epcot and went over to the Magic Kingdom since it was open until 1 am.  On the monorail ride over, we even saw the Seven Seas Lagoon water parade!


The Magic Kingdom was pretty quiet since it was open so late.  We wandered through the park and went on some of the rides.  We went on It's a Small World and were basically the only people on it!


After, we took pictures around the castle for our PhotoPass.  The benefit of staying so late when no one else is there?  There's no one in the background of your pictures!


And you can't beat the view!


It was a beautiful way to end Honeymoon Day 6!  °o°

Friday, March 28, 2014

WDW Honeymoon Recap- 3/27/13

We started Day 5 of our Disneymoon at Animal Kingdom!


We always get a picture with the Tree of Life when we enter the park.  This morning was nice and sunny, but it was still cold for Florida so we wore our "warm" clothes again. Before heading towards Africa, we also took a magic shot with Simba!


On the way to Africa, we stopped to watch the flamingos for a few minutes.  (My best friend Katie loves flamingos and I had to send her a picture of all the "Floyd's"!)


The walkway started to get pretty crowded the closer we got to Africa and the safari ride. While we were slowing down I snapped a quick picture of Everest in the distance and the Harambe sign welcoming us to Africa!


Eliot went up ahead of me to get some Fastpasses and I told him that I'd meet him in the store nearby.  A few minutes later, he showed up with the Fastpasses... quite a few of them actually.  Apparently, the machine was malfunctioning so he had to use a different one.  The original one eventually worked.  Then the second machine printed out two sets of passes!  So we ended up with three sets of Fastpasses for Kilimanjaro Safaris!


I wasn't going to complain since every trip on the safari is a different experience.  I usually got on it twice anyways.  (We're big fans of the "get your Fastpass and stand in the standby line so you can ride it twice" method.)  The animals are always moving and sometimes you see different ones even a few minutes later!


We sat down and had breakfast while waiting for our first Fastpass time.  Then we headed over to the Fastpass line.  I love when you turn onto the safari and can see the animals and the other safari trucks in the distance!


This particular day, the lions were both actually out too!  Since it was so cold, they were out sitting in the sun to stay warm!  I've never had a such a good view of them on Kilimanjaro Safaris before!  Can you spot them?


In between our safari rides, we went over to Camp Minnie-Mickey since Eliot's never been there.  We had heard rumors that it was going to be closing due to the new Avatarland so we wanted to at least go see it.  The area was really crowded and the lines for the characters were really long.  We didn't plan to get photos anyways, so we didn't stay for long.  I did take a few pictures before leaving though.


Then we went back for our other safari rides.  We got a really good view of the elephant family.  One of the elephants was pregnant!


We enjoyed the safari rides a lot.  Even though it was cold for the animals we still ended up seeing hippos, crocodiles, warthogs, monkeys, giraffes, lions, elephants, cheetahs, black rhinos, flamingos, and a white rhino!  I'd call that a safari success!


We didn't want to stick around Animal Kingdom too long after that.  It's not that we don't enjoy the park.  We like Animal Kingdom, but it was cold and we didn't absolutely need to go on any of the other rides.  We quickly swung by Everest but Eliot decided he didn't want to wait that long in the line.  (We've since decided that Florida vacation week is not the week to go to Disney!)  We decided to relax at the hotel for the afternoon and that we'd try Extra Magic Hours at Hollywood Studios later in the evening.  I had plenty of things that I wanted to work on anyways.  And Eliot wanted another nap.


Upon our return, I went to work decorating our window for Easter.  I brought window clings with me and we bought the Mickey and Minnie Easter plush at the Magic Kingdom!


I also prepared our autograph book.  Eliot and I had never done an autograph book together, so we thought that it might be a fun activity and memento from our honeymoon. I used to get the character's autographs when I was little, but that was a long time ago.


Next, I finished my sea shell hair clips.  I had run out of time trying to finish them before our trip so I just brought my supplies with me!  And it's not everyday you use a beaten up Disney park map to protect your workspace!


Finally, I worked on my customized Minnie headband.  I'd bought a headband and planned on wearing it during our wedding week but I never got the chance to finish it.  I decided to customize it in our wedding colors with a pink and lime bow!  I love how it turned out. Pop Century is a good place to work on craft projects if you're wondering. (I'm able to make this declaration confidently between this week and our wedding week...)


Later in the evening, we headed over to Hollywood Studios for extra magic hours.


It was still chilly, so we planned to do indoor activities.  Most guests were waiting to watch Fantasmic over on the other side of the park so we went in the other direction.  We ended up going to watch Muppetvision 3D.


I'd forgotten how cute the show is.  We enjoyed it a lot.  I even found a hidden Mickey while we were waiting for the show!  (I actually found 3 hidden Mickeys on this trip without the help of a guidebook!!!)


Afterwards, we went over to tour the animation building while it was quiet.  I love looking at all of the drawings of the scenery from the movies.  I remember watching the animators when I was a kid and being fascinated by it.  I took a few photos of the castles.  Then Eliot and I headed into the Animation Gallery store.  We admired all of the artwork and sculptures.  I love the little Haunted Mansion one!  


We also spotted the how to draw books.  (Eliot's checking one out in the background.) We almost caved and bought one of the books.  But we decided that we probably wouldn't be drawing on our vacation, so we'd wait until we got home.  (Once we got home, we went to our local craft store and got one of the books with a 50% off coupon!  I haven't mastered any of them yet, but if I do, I'll make sure to share on here.)

And that's the end of Day #5!!!  °o°

Thursday, March 27, 2014

WDW Honeymoon Recap- 3/26/13

We started Day Four of our Disneymoon at the Magic Kingdom.

We had gotten a special coupon the day before for 20% off your total merchandise purchase at the Emporium if you bought it before 1:00 pm.  It was a great deal, especially since we always spend a ton of money at the Emporium.  We also decided we didn't want to leave all of our shopping until the last minute like usual.  It was a win-win.


We wandered through the Emporium with our shopping list and looking at all of the merchandise.  While in there, I started to hear the parade announcements.  Eliot took all of our stuff and got in line so I could go outside to watch the parade.  I even got to see the Easter Pre-Parade!  I was so excited!


Mr. and Mrs. Easter Bunny passed by and turned to wave right as they were passing where I was standing!  Eliot joined back up with me just in time to see them!


The pre-parade also included other well known Disney rabbits: Thumper, Miss Bunny, Rabbit and the White Rabbit.  There were also dancing butterflies, hippos, flowers and chickens!  The parade ended with Clara Cluck in the same float as the Halloween Parade but with Easter baskets in the windows.


After the parade, we went back to Pop Century to drop off the shopping bags in our room. We decided to get lunch at 
Everything Pop and ended up splitting one of their pizzas. Yum.  I wish all pizza boxes looked like this!


Next, we decided to continue on our low-key shopping day by heading over to Downtown Disney.  We looked through our favorite stores: the Art of Disney, Disney's Days of Christmas, Once Upon a Toy and the World of Disney.


At the Team Mickey store we discovered what Eliot was really hoping to find: the Run Disney merchandise.  We thought about going over to the ESPN Wide World of Sports, but after seeing the selection there, we didn't need to.


The store had 2 shirt designs for men, 2 shirt designs for ladies and shorts for each as well.  There were also pins, lanyards and magnets.  Eliot had definitely discovered his weakness... and mine too I suppose.  (At this point, we were preparing to sign up for the 2014 WDW race with my family.)  However, we behaved and waited to see what else we wanted before purchasing them.


We went to Goofy's Candy Co. and I drooled a bit.  I love looking at all of the candy apple designs.  There are so many different characters that Disney has designed.  One of my favorite things to watch is the candy apples being made!  While I was staring the candy, Eliot ended up caving and buying our first drink of the trip, which was a slushy in a cute Mickey souvenir bottle.


Eventually, we decided it was time to head back to the resort to rest a little before our evening adventure.  While waiting for the bus, I took a reflection picture in Eliot's glasses. I also stole the slushy before he drank it all!


We decided that we better eat dinner at Pop Century before going into Epcot for the night. While we were in the Everything Pop cafe area, a funny thing happened.  All of the employees stopped what they were doing to go dance.  I was shocked for a moment.  I never realized that the employees at Pop do the Hustle every day around 4:00... probably because we're usually in the parks!


While we were at the cafe, it was my turn to cave and I got this yummy container of sweet deliciousness.  My theory was that I would leave it in the room and have enough snacks for the week... and it was completely amazing!  (Remember what I said about the honeymoon splurging.  And we're only halfway through the trip...)


We took an afternoon nap since we were exhausted and planning to stay out late that evening.  When we finally woke up hours later, we got ready to go to Epcot for Extra Magic Hours.  We bundled up nice and warm because it was pretty cold for Orlando.  We also were planning to go on Test Track since we thought the park would be less busy. On the bus ride over, I posted a message to our friends and family back home.


We had been trying to make it over in time to catch IllumiNations, but we arrived a few minutes after the show had already started.  (You can't control the bus schedule!) Instead, we paused to take a nighttime Spaceship Earth photo.  It was so nice to see the steady flow of people going in the opposite direction of us!


Eliot and I checked the wait time for Test Track and it was still crazy long.  We realized it would take up our entire Extra Magic Hours so that  wasn't happening.  Instead, we went into Mouse Gears and I immediately discovered the new Minnie Mouse Flower and Garden Festival Merchandise!  (And I may or may not now own the t-shirt, bag and the matching Minnie lady bug ear headband... don't judge; it's completely adorable!)


We went on Spaceship Earth which is one of my favorite classics.  I even spotted a few hidden Mickeys this time!  At the end of the ride, we designed our future.  Of course Eliot had to make a funny face... oie!


After, we decided to walk around the World Showcase.  We ended up going on the Gran Fiesta Tour in Mexico and Maelstrom in Norway.  We'd actually never been on either ride. I might have been on them before.  But if I had, it was when I was young enough that I don't remember.  We enjoyed both rides and were glad that we went on them.


On the walk to the front of the park, we took a photo looking back at Spaceship Earth and Future World.  Then we called it a night and went "home" to get some more sleep!


Good Night Epcot!  °o°