December Books

 

I did it! More than 50 books this year!

58. I'm Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

59. Refugee, Alan Gratz

60. All the Missing Girls

Time to get started on the next year!

A Disney World Christmas

 It's no secret that I love Disney - the magic of the movies and the parks. I love that my kids and I have been able to go as often as we have. I also know that I'm quickly getting to the age where they will be "too big". I think Em may grow up to be a Disney Adult but for family trips, we might be done soon.

Seeing Halloween and Christmas decorations at Disney have been bucket list items for me. We were lucky last year and went to the Halloween party at the end of August, but Nick and I decided to go to during the long weekend in November and see Christmas decorations this year. We found relatively inexpensive flights and booked one night at the Polynesian (a dream resort of mine) and two nights at a less expensive hotel room off property. However, Hurricane Nicole had different plans and our trip was scrapped.

Fast forward and as we're trying to get our money back, we realized there's still Christmas Party tickets available the weekend before Christmas break. It would require I miss two days of work but I had expiring PTO days so we looked at flights -they were even cheaper! - and decided not only should we go, but we should bring the kids! Emmalee and Tyler had been asking to go to Disney again and while I had hoped to go Summer 2023, it made sense to do a quick trip with them now. 

I was able to spend the same amount of money on the hotel but opted to stay on property at Art of Animation since the kids had been asking for that. We booked them seats on the flight and grabbed Christmas Party tickets for them.

Our trip was quick - Wednesday night to Saturday night -- just enough time to go to the Christmas party on Thursday night, a park on Friday and fly home Saturday. I still had my 5 free tickets I had won from last year's raffle so if we only did one park day, we'd save money there!

Our flight got in way later than planned but we started Thursday morning bright and early at Disney Springs. Emmalee is obsessed with the Orange Bird and Tyler loved checking out Gideon's Cookies! Since it was such a quick trip we focused on doing new things and gettingw arm cookies at 9 am was definitely something new! We took the Minnie Vans over to try them out and while adorable, we're not sure we'd do it again.

  

From Disney Springs we made our way over to the Polynesian resort. Nick and I had planned on staying there originally for one night of our trip, but we were able to snag a late Ohana reservation and still got to see the resort. Breakfast was so good!

  

Emma being obsessed with Stitch was the main reason we went but the food was delicious... THe server even brought out a bowl of bacon for the kids! It's also the only place to get Stitch waffles! 

From there we made our way to the Grand Floridian to see the gingerbread house and it was magical, but I'm glad it was just a pit stop. The line was crazy and I honestly don't even really like gingerbread...

Then it was off to Magic Kingdom for the party. We didn't get park tickets so we were able to get into Magic Kingdom at 4 pm. The party went until midnight and with the shortened lines we were able to get on every ride we wanted.

 

After a late night visit to see family at Disney Springs, we went to bed, prepared to get to Epcot first thing so we could check out Remy's Ride in France. We got right on and then walked around Epcot, getting Turning Red boba, finding golden statues and eating lunch at Space 220!

 

  

The plan had only been to go to Epcot and the Hollywood Studios but after learning Nick loves Avatar, we knew we had to stop at Animal Kingdom to see Pandora. 

Nick rode Flight of Passage and then we all went on the Navi River Rise before packing up and heading to Hollywood Studios! 3 parks in 3 days!

 

It was a crazy day of walking, but we got on all the rides we wanted, saw new rides and tried out new restaurants and food stands and had the best trip. It was just enough to get our Disney fill without it being a huge expense.

Thanks to our free tickets, we spent $263 per person on flights, $610 total on the hotel room, and $170 per person for the Christmas party tickets, which in my eyes is a ridiculously affordable Disney trip.

Being so frugal on our trips is how we're able to continue taking more trips. Can't wait to see where we end up next!

xo, Heather

October Books and November Books

 

Yikes --

I completely forgot to post my October books so now you get one list with them!

53. The Inheritance Games

54. The It Girl, Ruth Ware

55. The Hawthorne Legacy

56. As Good as Dead

57. The Final Gambit

I've more than read 50 books and with another month left, I can't wait to see how many more I read before the end of the year!