A Journey With The Jones': September 2015

Sep 27, 2015

Horror Movie Marathon

Each fall, Hardy and I try to watch as many horror movies as we can for the month of October. In fact, we have enough movies in general, we could watch one a day for over a year and a half. We miss our haunted house adventures terribly ::insert sad face:: so we have to keep the spirit alive somehow!

I'm trying to pre-plan our themes for this year to make sorting a little easier! Some of these titles may be subject to change and/or we might add more as we watch. I just thought I would share our current horror-movie-thon schedule!

Week One (9/27 - 10/3)

ZOMBIE WEEK

- Dawn of the Dead (2004 remake)

- Shaun of the Dead

- Return of the Living Dead

- Resident Evil: Apocalypse

- 28 Weeks Later

Week Two (10/4 - 10/10)

CREATURE/ANIMAL WEEK

- An American Werewolf in London

- The Howling

-Critters

- JAWS

- Cujo

Week Three (10/11 - 10/17)

SLASHER WEEK

- A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

- Halloween (original)

- Friday the 13th (original)

- Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers

- The Silence of the Lambs

Week Four (10/18 - 10/24)

SCI-FI WEEK

- Aliens

- The Invasion

- Pandorum

- The Thing (1982)

- Terminator 2

Week Five (10/25 - 10/31)

COMEDY / ANIMATED WEEK

- Beetlejuice

- ParaNorman

- Corpse Bride

-Monster House

- Dark Shadows

Sep 25, 2015

Disney Vacay Day 3

We woke up early and headed to Epcot. Unless the line is long we always ride Spaceship Earth first. Another oldie but goodie in our opinion. It's like a staple. I couldn't NOT ride it. There's something about hearing Judi Dench's voice and smelling the fake fire...anyway.

When I got off I went to grab the stroller and noticed a curious little squirrel was literally hopping from stroller to stroller hunting snacks. I didn't have my phone on me at the time or I would have taken his picture!

We went to the Character Spot (another indoor exhibit) to meet Mickey, Goofy and Minnie! FYI: Epcot has the most A/C of all 4 parks!

Next we checked out The Seas with Nemo & Friends, we were all starving so I was able to get our dinner at Coral Reef changed to lunch! After riding Living with The Land and Journey Into Imagination with Figment we went to lunch. We got a table right next to the aquarium so had an awesome view of the rays, sharks and even some sea turtles!

I had the strip steak with cheddar mashed potatoes and green beans, Hardy had the Mahi Mahi. Both dishes were so so so super good.

After lunch we went to take our turns riding Soarin'. Persephone got to run a muck with some other kiddo's inside the waiting area of Soarin'. Hardy wanted to go do Mission Space and Test Track so I pushed the stroller into the Innoventions building (which I hear is being re-done soon...to what I don't know). Anyway it was super cool and for the most part quiet. Eventually Persephone passed out! If I had had a pillow, I probably would have done the same. Hardy and I have always been like hardcore "park" people. We get up at the crack of dawn, go to the parks and stay until there's absolutely nothing else we want to do. Persephone was an honest to God trooper following our footsteps, but in our old age....we realize we need some more down time! Our next trip will be longer so we can take advantage of the resort pools and just relaxing in general.

Once the Princess awoke, we rode Ellen's Universe of Energy. In true Disney Junkie fashion, Persephone started asking to ride Goofy's ride and Dumbo a few times that day. We were considering hopping back to MK, but that night was Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party and we didn't have tickets for it. As we left Epcot, I stopped in their Guest Relations office and bought the passes for MNSSHP. We jumped on the monorail and headed for MK!

We saw so many neat costumes coming and going. I never got pictures with any of them. It was pretty darn crowded considering you had to pay extra on top of the park ticket. I was expecting it to be a little lighter, but I was wrong. Maybe because it was a Friday night? Mainly the spaces where people were trick or treating and meeting specific characters were most congested. Ride waits weren't horrific. In fact we got on Haunted Mansion in less than 20min.

Persephone got to meet Goofy again...

Please just take a moment to look at the joy in this girls face.

We did a little bit of trick or treating. The line to meet the Seven Dwarfs (yes literally all of them) was sooooooooooooooooooooooo long. I also saw Jafar, Gaston, Aladdin and Abu, Fairy Godmother and I'm sure some others I can't recall. We left around 10pm...waited forever for a bus of course. I feel like the Value resorts are always the farthest bus stops!

Sep 22, 2015

Disney Vacay Day 2

Thursday we headed to Magic Kingdom!

Our first stop was to meet TinkerBell at Town Square Theatre.

Then we hopped in line to meet Mickey - the only one who talks!

The mouse himself took a moment to sing Persephone the Happy Birthday song!

But the video for that is on my cell phone.

I don't know why, but we almost ALWAYS do Magic Kingdom counter clockwise.

After walking through Main Street U.S.A. we stopped and got some pastries at Starbucks and headed towards Tomorrowland.

We rode Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin

Then Hardy took Persephone on the Astro Orbiter.

The three of us rode The People Mover

"Paging Dr. Morrow, Dr. Tom Morrow" :)

Hardy went and rode Space Mountain while Persephone and I sat down for Carousel of Progress. A lot of people find this one cheesy,

but it's nostalgic for me and I love every minute of it.

From there we took to the new Fantasyland and let Persephone have fun

on Dumbo and Goofy's Barnstormer.

She did superb on her first "roller coaster"!

She also rode Haunted Mansion - so proud of that :)

In front of Belle's castle

We had a fabulous lunch at Be Our Guest.

The check in process was a little time consuming, but I like that they brought

your food to you -vs- you carrying a tray.

We didn't sit in the main dining room, obviously EVERYONE was trying to do that.

Hardy and I both had braised pork with mashed potatoes and vegetables. I had the masters cupcake (with the gray stuff) and it really was delicious.

I think the icing is made out of crushed oreo's.

As soon as we put her in the stroller and walked over to Adventureland she zonked out.

I changed our fastpasses for Jungle Cruise to a later time so she could ride it.

Once she woke up we did the Magic Carpets of Aladdin, Peter Pan, the Carousel, then Hardy and I took turns using our FastPass for Seven Dwarfs.

For dinner we ate at Crystal Palace with Pooh and his friends.

I'm always surprised, Disney buffets are still pretty darn decent food.

Pooh, Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore all came to the table to visit Persephone.

She was so cute and sweet waiting for them.

From there we did our Jungle Cruise passes, rode The Magic Carpets of Aladdin again.

Then went to ride Dumbo, Barnstormer and The Little Mermaid.

Once we finished riding The Little Mermaid, we got in line to meet Ariel!

Luckily after that the wait time for Cinderella/Rapunzel and Elsa/Anna had dropped to 30min (they were both 70+ all day) so we went ahead and jumped in line!

"Punzel"

Is it just me or does this Cinderella favor Zooey Deschanel?

Elsa was sweet and wrote Happy Birthday in her autograph book!

Princess Anna!

On the bus ride back to the hotel, I realized we were literally at MK for 14hrs.

Next up....EPCOT!

Sep 21, 2015

Disney Vacay Day 1

As many times as we've been to Disney we've never flown. I snagged what I thought was a good deal through Southwest after a friend used them and I'm so glad we did. An 8.5-9hr drive may not be HORRIBLE, but you just waste so much of your possible vacation traveling.

We had to get up at 3:45am on 9/16, my BFFLADYFI Tabitha drove us to the airport. We left at 7:00am and landed safely around 8:20am. Persephone did great! She watched Monsters, Inc on Mimi's iPad most of the time and looked out the window. Only once during our descent did she mention her ears bothering her.

We were so proud of her. Once we landed, we hopped on Disney's complimentary Magical Express to get to our hotel. The BEST part about this was because we chose the DME prior to our trip, they mailed us luggage tags and we didn't even have to find our suitcase after the flight. Disney picked it up and had it in our hotel room once it was ready. The motor coach was nice and comfortable and not crowded. Upon arriving at All Star Music, the bell stand was able to hang out to our carry on suitcase and put it in our room later too!

I chose Kingdom Strollers to rent a stroller and I'm so happy I did. I didn't want to lug ours around and also didn't want to risk it being damaged. We chose to rent the City Mini which was so awesome. It collapsed in one pull of a strap and was a super smooth ride for Persephone. It also came with a small cooler and a stroller poncho! I also loved how far the canopy went down to block the sun from Persephone.

Since our room wasn't ready we hopped on the bus to Hollywood Studios!

I pre-purchased the Memory Maker (which allows you to download, order, print..etc all of the photos taken during your trip using Disney's Photo Pass). I really tried hard to stop as many places as we could to get our photos!

Our first ride was one of my personal favorites, The Great Movie Ride :) From there we headed to Muppet Vision 3D. Then we met Lightning McQueen and Towmater.