Things I love

I love my family more than anything.

I love my friends and depend on them more than they may realize.

I love to smile and laugh/giggle.

This may come as a shock, but I love Disney.

I love Mickey Mouse.

I love Beauty and the Beast, Princess and the Frog, The Little Mermaid, and all three of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

I love to perform, whether it is singing, dancing, or acting (or doing all three at the same time).

Sandra Bullock is my favorite actress.

Johnny Depp is my favorite actor.

Besides my home and being in the temple, Disney World is my favorite place in the ENTIRE world.

I love visiting characters in the Disney Parks and I am willing to wait in line for an hour to visit my favorites if there is no other time that I can do it.

I love to read. Before this spring, I hadn't been able to read for pleasure because of how busy I was with school. I now have some downtime and I love filling it with reading many, many books.

I love to read childrens literature.

I love learning about people and their pasts.

I love to dance.

I love experiencing and learning cultures from all over the world.

I love to help people.

I love to write stories or just express myself through the written word.

I love children. Sometimes I prefer to be around them rather than adults because I feel I identify with them better on some levels.

I love dogs and puppies. I like cats too, but I prefer canines to felines.

I love chocolate.

I love popcorn. Especially either movie theater popcorn or the stuff you get in the Disney parks.

I love Zebra Domes, which are a specialty dessert made exclusively at the Animal Kingdom Lodge in Disney World.

I love to take pictures and then arrange those pictures to tell stories.

I love beauty pageants.

I love to learn.

I love to bake.

I love to swim and be in water.

I love to watch "Popples," which was a show that was available to watch on video in the early 90's.

I love to daydream.

I love overcoming obstacles.

I love my savior, Jesus Christ.

I love to dress up for holidays (Valentines Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Independence Day, Patriot Day, Christmas, Halloween)

I love to dress up as a character from a movie when I see a movie I have been looking forward to seeing on opening night.

I love attending midnight showings of movies.

I love to be girly and dress up and pretend I'm a princess.

I love to sleep.

I love improving my singing voice.

I love watching a child experience an 'aha!' moment after teaching them something.

I love bright colors, particularly pink.

I love making crafty things.

I love experimenting with my looks (hair, clothes, accessories).

I love traveling by plane and having a window seat.

I love star-gazing.

I love to watch movies and quote them.

I love candy.

I love crossing things off "To Do" lists.

I love babies.

I love to decorate and make things look festive or pretty.

I love to organize.

Happy 24th birthday to me!

Today is my 24th birthday! I don't really have very many plans today, to be completely honest. I'm substituting for my dad's TV classes all this week, so I got to start my day around 6:30am today. :P When I was a kid, I got up that early voluntarily because I was so excited about my birthday and the festivities of the day. But now, I'm boring and I am not too crazy about getting up any time before 9am on my birthday. Oh well. I get to celebrate the beginning of my 24th year and get paid for supervising my dad's classes. I can do that. :)

So I know I used this picture in my previous post about going to Disney World, but I decided that while I was in Disney World, I would celebrate my birthday while I was there.

I played in the parks on Friday, Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday and I got my birthday pin on Saturday. So I didn't get to wear it during the entire Disney visit, but I wore it three out of the four days, so I got some good use out of it.

I watched the Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It! street party on Friday, Saturday, and Tuesday and I got the best reaction from Mickey on Saturday. On Friday, Courtney and I didn't know which side Mickey would be on during the parade, so we ended up being on the opposite side of where he was. I decided that I loved the parade (and Mickey) enough that I was going to sacrifice going to the Block Party Bash on Saturday (since Mickey wasn't even in that parade in Hollywood Studios) and go to the Street party again instead.

Courtney and I staked out our spot well before the party started so that by the time it did start and everyone realized what was happening, no one could take our PERFECT spot. I was wearing my birthday button and so a lot of the parade performers noticed and wished me a happy birthday. :) Once all the floats got to their spots in the Hub circle, the announcer did a "celebrate roll call" for everyone to say what they were celebrating. Courtney and I already knew what the procedure was from experiencing it the day before, so I was ready to give my shout out. I made sure I was visible to Mickey so he would see my button. Before they even did the roll call, Mickey pointed at my button to show that he saw it and then he clapped for me. :) So once they did do the roll call, he zeroed right in on me and 'cheered'. It made me really happy.

After a few minutes, they invited everyone to come out into the street and jam with the performers. Mickey stayed on his float, but Donald came down and was the center of a dance circle. A lot of the other characters got off their floats to come into the street too, but we were between the main float with Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and Minnie and Genie's float with some other characters. A PhotoPass person managed to get some pictures of Courtney and I dancing and then he gave us a card with the pictures on them, so you can get an idea of what the dance party looked like.


It was SO hot, but SO much fun!! I even got a video of Mickey 'accepting' a kiss I blew to him by touching his heart when he saw me do it. I loved the party so much that I went one more time on Tuesday before I left Wednesday to go home. It was fun, but Saturday was more fun because Mickey was more responsive to me. That and we got to do a Conga line on Friday and Saturday, but for some reason they cut it out on Tuesday. Oh well. Go figure.

We'll see what birthday surprises are in store for me today. It's supposed to be kind of rainy and gloomy, so I am going to try to make up for that by watching some kind of Disney movie. Maybe Beauty and the Beast or Princess and the Frog. Or Pirates of the Caribbean! I don't know, there's just so many choices to choose from!

Trip to Disney World

MAN I love Disney World! I will write about more of the specifics later, but for now I'll just do the basics.

Thursday:
- Arrived in Florida after 4 hours of flying and nearly 3 hours waiting to have our plane de-iced before taking off.
- Downtown Disney with Megan and Courtney
- Kitchen Sink with Courtney, Bryce, and a few friends

Friday:
Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios with Courtney

Saturday:
Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge, Magic Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios with Courtney



Sunday:
Church at new building with Buena Vista YSA ward
Dinner with Uncle Brad, Aunt Debi, David, Whitney, and Melanie

Monday:
Epcot with Uncle Brad, Aunt Debi, David, Whitney, and Melanie
Animal Kingdom by myself

Tuesday:
Hollywood Studios and Downtown Disney with Uncle Brad, Aunt Debi, David, Whitney, and Melanie
Magic Kingdom by myself



Wednesday:
Breakfast at Denny's with Celeste
Drove to airport with Uncle Brad, Aunt Debi, David, Whitney, and Melanie