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Star Wars Weekends 2013

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Wednesday was my birthday, but we celebrated last weekend, as we have for several years now (see 2011 and 2012), at Disney’s Hollywood Studios for Star Wars Weekends.

This year we got to stay at the Yacht Club Resort, which is within walking distance of the park.  I have decided I absolutely adore this resort and would stay there again in a heartbeat (but only if I can get a fantastic rate again…because even with the comparatively low rate, it was still a splurge).

Aside from loving the decor (the theme is “coastal New England”) we could walk to two theme parks (Epcot and Studios), and they have one of our favorite hidden gems in all of WDW, a cozy little rowing/boathouse themed bar called Crew’s Cup.  It’s never crowded, they have 3 types of Sam Adams beer on tap, and their menu includes truffle fries (my weakness).  Love that place!

Anyways, the close proximity to Disney’s Hollywood Studios made getting there at 6:45am on Saturday a smidgen easier.  The walk was very pleasant, as the weather wasn’t too hot, and we got some pretty scenery along the way.

By the time we got there, the line to get a pass to be able to meet Jeremy Bulloch (who played Boba Fett in the original trilogy) was already this long:

The assigned times to meet him were long gone, but we managed to get waitlist armbands so we could try to meet him if he had extra time.

The day was spent pretty much solely doing Star Wars-related events.  We visited “Darth’s Mall”, which was the merchandise area, where Tadd got his yearly Star Wars Weekends commemorative baseball cap, and we got this neat limited edition pivot pin with Han Solo and Boba Fett.  Then we met up with some friends and got a spot for the parade, which is one of my favorite events every year.

After the parade, we rode Star Tours, then got our picture taken with Boba Fett.

We had a nice late lunch at Mama Melrose during the hottest part of the day, and eventually Tadd finally got to meet his buddy, the real Boba Fett, Jeremy Bulloch!  He signed the baseball cap he had purchased earlier in the day and got a few photos.  Jeremy was very sweet and even commented about how much he loved Tadd’s Boba Fett watch and hat.  Turns out the real Boba Fett is also a collector of Boba Fett merchanside.  Tadd really enjoyed getting to meet Mr. Bulloch.

From there, we saw a couple of the special shows.  One was a martial arts demonstration with the very handsome Ray Park (who was Darth Maul in the Star Wars series, but has also been in Heroes, GI Joe, and X-Men).  The other was a show about voice acting by James Arnold Taylor (he is most notably the voice of Obi Wan Kenobi in the Clone Wars series).  During that show, James does dozens and dozens of voice impressions in rapid succession, which is extremely entertaining and amazing.

 

We ended our day with the hilarious Hyperspace Hoopla show, which is a dance-off between the rebel and Empire characters.  Here’s a video of my favorite part…Chewbacca dancing to Hey Ya.  We were dying laughing!

Thanks for tolerating me being a bit self-indulgent in these past few posts.  I recognize that I have seem to have hit somewhat of a creative lull in my life.  I hope to get back to sharing new recipes, crafts, and sewing projects soon!  We have just been SO busy lately, which has left little time to do anything else.  It looks like so far the month of June might be a bit slower for us, and I have been in the mood to get crafty!

Trip Recap: Asheville

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Thursday, May 9

We started on our way to Asheville pretty early on Thursday morning.  The trip took about 3.5 hours, but we experienced very little traffic and the last section of it was through some beautiful mountain scenery, so it was a very pleasant drive.  After getting settled at our hotel, we walked up the hill to the Vance Memorial at Pack Square Park, where our Brews Cruise tour began.

The Brews Cruise is a bus tour of several breweries in the area.  Asheville has a large number of craft breweries (14 I think), and is often known as “beer city”, so it’s definitely worth checking out their beer scene if you are there.  However, I only recommend this tour if 1) you REALLY like beer and 2) if you have eaten something first, because you will be trying a LOT of beer.  By the end, I was so glad we only had to walk down the hill to get back to our hotel.  But we had a really fun time on the tour.  We got to visit Altamont, Highland, and French Broad.  At each stop, we got tours of their brewing facility and learned about their processes.  What was kind of neat about this tour were the variations of the breweries.  Altamont is relatively new and tiny.  Highland is HUGE and ships all over the country.  French Broad is larger than Altamont, but much smaller than Highland, and has been around for a long time.

Altamont Brewery

Highland Brewery

Highland’s brewing facility

Highland Taproom

French Broad taproom

French Broad brewing facility

After the tour, we were dropped back off at Pack Square Park and headed to Pack’s Tavern for dinner.  I was able to use a Restaurant.com certificate here ($25 off $35) and we got dinner for next to nothing!  Would highly recommend this place.  Very nice, charming, casual tavern-style atmosphere.  Also, their fried pickles were amazing.

Friday, May 10

This was our Biltmore Estate day, which I already shared with you.  But just because I loved it so much, here are a few more pics, this time from my phone.

Can’t get enough of that place!  Afterwards, we refreshed ourselves at the hotel and then decided to leave the camera behind so we could have a more relaxing evening.  We walked to dinner at Lexington Ave Brewery (yes, ANOTHER brewery!) and then on our way back to the hotel, we stumbled upon this cute, cozy little cocktail bar called Sazerac.  We liked it so much, we ended up back there the next night.  Not even really sure what we loved so much about it, but we just clicked with the place.  They had some pretty interesting and creative cocktails too.

Saturday, May 11

Our last day of vacation…So sad.  And to add insult to injury, the forecast was calling for rain.  We sadly decided to forgo our original plan of driving the Blue Ridge Parkway, since the scenery wouldn’t be quite so magical with gloomy skies and downpours.  Instead, we decided to explore Asheville a bit more.  We had breakfast at this great place in West Asheville called West End Bakery, where I had the best bagel sandwich EVER.  Herbed cream cheese, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, red onion, and sprouts on a delicious fresh-baked bagel.  So good!  Tadd loved his breakfast too.  We were happy campers.  If I lived in West Asheville, I would be here every morning.

We drove around, and shopped around a little bit, eventually ending up at The Grove Arcade, a beautiful historic building full of interesting little shops.  We bought a few souvenirs and just enjoyed the charming ambiance.

We eventually decided to check out one of the local theaters and see The Great Gatsby (which we both loved).  Turns out they sell craft beer in the movie theaters too!  After the movie, we headed back to the hotel, walked back up the hill and had some unremarkable sushi for dinner, followed by a lovely time at Sazerac once again to have a few cocktails while we relaxed and reminisced about our trip.

The next morning, we packed up the car, and drove the 10 hours back home.  The end!

Trip Recap: Tennessee

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I thought I would briefly recap our trip to TN and NC, starting with the Tennessee portion.   But before I do, I wanted to mention that we just passed my 2nd bloggiversary on Sunday!  I can’t believe I have had this blog up and running for two years now.

Saturday, May 4

We got a little bit of a late start, and ended up driving through some crazy rain in Atlanta.  The rain continued as we made it through Chattanooga and into the mountains.  We made it to Tadd’s mom’s place in Cookeville, TN around dinnertime.  The first couple of days were quite dreary.  That night we just stayed in, caught up with Tadd’s family, and played Apples to Apples.

Sunday, May 5

More staying in…The rain was still coming down, and unfortunately Cookeville is one of those places where there just isn’t much to do in the rain.  The rain cleared up at one point, but it was still soggy and grey, so we decided to take a walk around Tadd’s mom’s property and took some pretty pictures of her garden and barn.

That night we had dinner at one of our favorite local spots, Char, then rented a movie and had another quiet evening in.

Monday, May 6

This is when the real sightseeing began.  Despite the still-cloudy skies, we made the almost 2 hour trek over to Lynchburg to visit the Jack Daniels Distillery.  If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend this tour!  It’s free, but if you would like to have a little taste of a few of the products after the tour, you can do that for $10.  It’s obvious that the Jack Daniel’s company takes great pride in their product and it was really neat to see firsthand all of the history behind such an iconic American brand.

After the tour, we had lunch and shopped around a bit in Lynchburg Square.  This town is teeny-tiny and very quaint.  And you will see references to Jack Daniel’s everywhere!

Tuesday, May 7

Finally the rain seemed to be behind us.  We woke up to blue skies and temps in the upper 50s F/low 60s F.  Tadd’s mom wanted to take a short hike to Cummins Falls, which had recently been made open to the public (previously it was on private land).  Cummins Falls is less than 5 minutes from her house, so it was a quick drive.

The ground was still muddy and it seems like some of the hiking trails were still being established.  So after a few minutes of (occasionally trecherous) slogging through the mud, and a few wrong turns, we finally made it to the falls!

Later on that day, Tadd’s mom had arranged for us to have a private tour of Calfkiller Brewery in Sparta, TN by the owners & founders Dave and Don Sergio.  I admit it was a little weird pulling up to what looks like someone’s house…

But we had nothing to worry about because Dave & Don were nothing but welcoming and warm.  They told us all about their history and let us try a TON of delicious beer.  Their operation is tiny, but extremely popular in the central Tennessee region.  I’m so glad we got to meet them!

We then had an amazing dinner at nearby Foglight Foodhouse, which was the first local place to offer Calfkiller beer.  We ended up purchasing a growler of Calfkiller’s Grassroots Ale at Foglight to take home with us.  Great end to the day.

Wednesday, May 8

Last full day in Tennessee.  We decided to drive west across the state and visit Hurricane Mills, which is a town owned by Loretta Lynn that has been set up as a dude ranch and tourist attraction.  We took a tour of a replica of her childhood home (log cabin with no running water), a simulated coal mine (where her father worked), then we got to tour the actual house where she lived during her heyday.  This house, a real plantation-era mansion with its own rich history, reminded Loretta of Gone With The Wind and has been featured on several ghost hunting shows.  After the house, we toured Loretta’s museum.  The grounds of the ranch are gorgeous, and we were able to see horses grazing in a field wildflowers behind the museum.

On the way home, we stopped for dinner in downtown Nashville, and ended up at Flying Saucer, which I would totally recommend.  Great food, interesting atmosphere, and extensive beer selection (made me smile to see some Calfkiller on the list).  I understand that they are a chain, so I would love to see one in Orlando at some point.

The next morning, we got up, said goodbye to Tadd’s family, and headed over to Asheville, NC for the second leg of our trip.  Stay tuned for that!

The Illustrious Biltmore Estate (aka American Downton Abbey)

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We are back from our TN/NC adventure!  It was good to see family and we had a fabulous time.  We did and saw a TON during the 9 days we were gone, but I think one of the highlights for me was getting to see the Biltmore Estate, the grand French Chateauesque mansion built by George W. Vanderbilt II in the late 1800s.  The property spans over 8000 acres and includes some of the most beautiful views of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Pisgah National Forest.  The house itself has 250 rooms (we got to see approximately 40 of them) and encompasses almost 180,000 square feet.  It has been established as the largest privately-owned residence in the US.

Being a history nerd, I knew I would love it, but there is something about being there in person…  I told Tadd that while we were on property, I almost felt like we were in a real life fairy tale.  This is about as close to European castle as you are going to get on American soil.  And being Downton Abbey fans, Tadd and I could not help but make comparisons.  Especially when we got to the kitchen and the servants areas.  However, I think my favorite room of all had to be the unbelievable dining hall.  I think I remember the tour audio mentioning that the room itself is about 7 stories tall.  The fireplace alone is mindbogglingly enormous, and is technically three fireplaces in one.  You can see a small photo of it here, although to truly get the scale of it, you really have to see it in person.

We took a ton of pictures while we were there, but only of the exterior, since photography was not allowed indoors.  Please know that the photos do this place zero justice, and if you ever have the opportunity to visit this place, I highly urge you to do so.  Between the interior tour, walking around the grounds, with lunch and shopping in the middle, this can easily take up an entire day or more.  We still wanted to see more (including the on site winery!) but I figure it gives us a reason to go back.  And I promise, I will be back!  I would love to go at Christmas time.  The house debuted on Christmas Eve 1895, so Christmas is kind of a big deal here.  They also have specialized tours (focused on architecture, landscaping, even one specifically about the lives of the “help”) that give you exclusive access not granted on the standard tour, so I would love to take one or two of those as well.  See?  Lots of reasons to go back!

Here are some of my favorite shots from the day, which is a lot of them because pretty much everywhere you look is some astonishingly beautiful sight, large or small (makes it very very easy to pretend to be a “good” photographer…heh):

Some random thoughts…

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I know things on the blog have been quiet lately.  I have had some great ideas for posts and items to share, but have not gotten a chance to put the posts together in the way I wanted to.  So I just thought I would throw together a quick mish-mash of some random items that have been going on in my life or floating through my head lately.

I noticed I was running kind of low on my favorite foaming handsoaps and candles (and my collection of fall/holiday scents are so large that we have been using up those things, which feels so wrong in April…).  So made a large spring/summer purchase at Bath & Body Works recently.  Thanks to sales and coupon codes, I got everything shown for less than $30 shipped!

I haven’t tried everything yet, but I can attest to the fact that the Gelato candle is fruitier than I thought, but still yummy.  It’s a creamy berry scent.  Also, the Espresso Bar candle isn’t really all that great.  I was hoping for something similar to my FAVORITE Hazelnut Coffee scent from Yankee Candle, but it just wasn’t up to par.  Also, I haven’t burned it yet, but the Pineapple Orchid candle smells JUST like a tropical Starburst!  Haven’t tried any of the handsoaps yet, but the Citrus Fig leaked the tiniest bit in the box and it smells AMAZING.

Last Friday Tadd and I had the most incredible date night!  We went to dinner at this secret speakeasy on Sand Lake Road, called Pharmacy.  The fun thing about this spot is that there is no sign, and it’s kind of hidden/disguised, so finding it is part of the fun.  It’s a speakeasy, so of course that’s the point.  I won’t give away more than that, but if you search around online you will be able to figure it out.   The food was great (we had the fondue appetizer and the sausage pizza) and drinks are pricey, but STRONG.  Trust me, you only need one!  Everything is made from scratch, including carbonating and bottling their own fizzy cocktails.  I had a King Mark fizz, pictured below, which was made with 44 North Huckleberry Vodka, Great King Street Scotch, Maraschino Liqueur.  In addition to what was in the glass, I still had the cocktail leftover in the bottle to drink!  It was $12, but like I said…pricey, but one is all you need!  By the way…Don’t you love the glassware?

After dinner, we went to Hard Rock Live to see Anthony Bourdain!  We are big fans of all of his shows and books.  I was able to score tickets on Groupon for $33 each, which was a steal.  As you would probably expect, he told tons of stories about his life in the restaurant business, behind the scenes antics on his shows, and insights on the other Food Network and Travel Channel celebrities.  Extremely entertaining!  So glad I jumped on those tickets when I saw them on Groupon!  If you get a chance to see him live, I highly recommend it.

I am not sure when I will be able to post next, but keep a close watch on the blog, as well as my Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram feeds!  Tadd and I are going on another Tennessee adventure soon!  On the agenda this time: Visiting some breweries, geocaching, Jack Daniel’s Distillery Tour, maybe visiting Loretta Lynn’s dude ranch, and who knows what else.  Plus we are taking a bonus side trip to Asheville, NC!  Should be some fun and exciting sightseeing in our immediate future.  Follow along!

Also, don’t forget:  Tomorrow is “May The Fourth” Be With You/Star Wars Day!  I will proudly be wearing my Princess Leia shirt and my Star Wars headband.  I love that I am getting so much mileage out of them!

Enjoy your weekend!

Happy Earth Day!

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In honor of Earth Day, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom’s 15th anniversary, I thought I would share some of the pictures we took during our recent visit to Animal Kingdom.  One of my favorite moments of the day was seeing the tigers up and active!  Every time I haved visited them in the past, they have been fast asleep in the shade.  They were stalking each other and playing together.  So cute!

 

My Boston Pride

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I thought about posting some kind of reactionary diatribe about what happened in Boston this past Monday, but realized that it would only contribute to what this horrible excuse for a human being wanted…notoriety, fame, attention.  So instead, I will focus my efforts on something more sentimental and positive…What I love about “my” city.

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There are so many reasons to love the city of Boston.

It is not just filled with history, but it is layered in history, centuries deep.  I love that you can walk around and see buildings right next to each other in vastly different styles that work together to create the environment and skyline.  150-year old Romanesque cathedrals next to modern glass sky scrapers.  Colonial style marketplaces next to mid-century office complexes.

This is going to sound enormously cheezy, but when you are there, you can feel the history around you.  I challenge you to have a meal at Union Oyster House and wander around that area and not feel like you are surrounded by living, breathing history.  Some of those old pubs transport you to a different time & place.  We have nothing like that in Orlando.  Nothing even close.

I find the city to be incredibly visually pleasing.  From the aforementioned architecture, to the monuments, to the parks, to the gorgeous tulips and daffodils and flowering trees blooming everywhere you look in the spring.  Boston is beautiful.

The people of Boston are an interesting sort.  It’s a mixture of learned university-types from somewhere else and old-school folks whose roots run generations deep into the fabric of the city.  Another odd mix of old and new that just works.  It is said that people in Boston walk faster and talk faster and are always in a hurry, but I think it’s just that they know where they are going and want to get there.   They want to live life as much as possible and simply don’t feel the need to meander or dawdle in between.

And if you think that people are less friendly there than they are in areas better known for their hospitality, I would beg to differ.  As illustrated by the heroic and heartwarming actions that took place on Monday, I would say that Bostonians on the whole are a warm and welcoming bunch…They just go about it in a different way than their Southern or Midwestern counterparts.

If you are talking Boston, of course, you can’t forget the sports.  I have already talked at length about my love of the Red Sox.  And I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate on the fierce loyalty the city has for the Pats, Bruins, and Celtics.  This love also extends to the college teams.  And of course, the Marathon.  If it’s sports and it’s Boston, the whole city (and usually the entirity of New England) will be rooting for them.  I sometimes wish that Orlando had a similar “great sports city” feel.  But then I think that it still wouldn’t be Boston.  Nothing is like Boston.

I know I moved away from the area when I was 9, but I still feel my connection to the city runs very deep.  It’s one of those places that you don’t just visit, you become a part of it.  And it sticks with you after you leave.   And in all of this recent flurry of media coverage, I see Boston at its best: strong, no-nonsense, pulling together and doing what needs to be done during the hardest of times.  It makes me proud to say that I’m a Boston girl.

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Exciting news!

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Tadd and I made a decision on what we want to do to celebrate our 10 year anniversary next year.  We booked a 10-night British Isles cruise!  I know it’s way far in advance to be super excited yet, or even to really be able to do much real planning, but I just wanted to share!

LGW_LEH_JER_ORK_WDE_DUB_LPL_GLA_HLY_LGW

Day 1 – Harwich, England

Day 2 – Paris (Le Havre), France

Day 3 – St. Peter Port, Channel Isl

Day 4 – Cork (Cobh), Ireland

Day 5 -Waterford (Dunmore E.), Ireland

Day 6 – Dublin, Ireland

Day 7 – Liverpool, England

Day 8 – Glasgow (Greenock), Scotland

Day 9 – Holyhead, Wales

Day 10 – At Sea

Day 11 – Harwich, England