Disney World (3/3): Hollywood Studios & Magic Kingdom

Thursday: Hollywood Studios & Magic Kingdom

Yay, we've finally made it to my personal favorite day of our vacation! Even though it was a monsoon and the worst weather of our entire trip, I had an absolute blast at Magic Kingdom.



First, we took a shuttle to Hollywood Studios in the POURING rain. My umbrella even broke the second we jumped off the bus, so I immediately bought us ponchos (goodbye $17 for a piece of plastic).



obligatory jumping photo #3



Since Hollywood Studios is mainly outdoor attractions and everything was closed, we only stayed for about 2 hours before heading back to the hotel to dry off and wait for the storms to clear before heading to Magic Kingdom...



Finally, the rain ceased!







Space Mountain and The Haunted Mansion were even better at Disney World. I loveeee Disneyland (I actually prefer it over Disney World), but these two rides blew it out of the water. So much fun!


Friday: Heading Home



While at the MCO airport, we randomly passed this awesome arcade! If you haven't seen The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, I highly recommend watching it; it's one of my favorite documentaries and available on Netflix!





Bye Florida! and Virgin America, whom I will never fly through again if I can help it.

Disney World (2/3): Animal Kingdom

Wednesday: Animal Kingdom

We slept in pretty late since Jon suddenly (and randomly) got really sick and was up all night. After taking it easy, we headed out for another rainy day adventure. Luckily in Florida, even when it rains it's still warm. In fact, it's almost just as warm at night as it is during the day. I blame the humidity, but I'm also not complaining.





My breakfast. Werther's caramel chewy bar leftovers from Karamell-Küche, located in the Germany pavilion at Epcot.



obligatory jumping photo #2



Dinosaur was pretty much the exact same layout as Indiana Jones in Disneyland, but fun nonetheless. I love that Bill Nye (the science guy!) talks to you overhead while you wait in line.





So many awesome animals and plants on the Kilimanjaro Safari. This tree can live up to 9 months without water, so cool!



After the Safari ride we grabbed some lunch at seemingly the only place with vegetarian options, Rainforest Cafe. What a headache that was and probably definitely my worst experience at a restaurant ever. Let's just say that our waitress didn't speak English very well, argued with us when we tried to order what was clearly written ON the menu, didn't know or understand what a vegetarian was (come on, it's 2011), couldn't comprehend our simple order after 10 minutes of explaining and then proceeded to completely mess up our order. Something I hope to never relive.



Expedition Everest was the last ride we planned on hitting before we left the park. We were next in line when a big storm hit. They shut the ride down, but allowed us to wait for the storm to pass. Since we were covered and next in line, we waited it out; an hour later and we were off! By far the scariest/highest drop roller coaster I've ever been on. I don't do big roller coasters and I don't do drops, but I sucked it up for Jon on this one (and I'm glad I did).



See ya tomorrow!

Disney World (1/3): Epcot

We're home from Florida and just picked up our computer after it was in the shop for a month due to a crashed hard drive. It's nice to have most of our music and pictures back, but it's still sad knowing that some things are gone forever. I highly recommend backing up your data and if anything ever goes fishy with your computer, take care of it immediately.


Okay! Onto Disney World!! I'm going to be posting our trip in three parts, for each day that we visited. We didn't take as many photos as I had hoped, but the weather was awful for the majority of our trip.

Tuesday: Epcot

We woke up bright and early and made it to Epcot at open. This was pretty much the only time we saw sunshine...











obligatory jumping photo #1





Club Cool, pretty much the same thing as World of Coca Cola that I visited and blogged about from Vegas. Jon and I didn't spend much time in Club Cool, but I had to see if there were any flavors that I hadn't tried in Vegas--nope!





Epcot currently has the International Flower and Garden Festival going on (until May 15th) and all of the flowers, gardens and topiaries were amazingly well done and so colorful!







Disney World was even growing artichokes!



My favorite ride at Epcot had to be Test Track!



After we left the park we went out for dinner at Portabello in Downtown Disney, across the street from our hotel. The lighting was too dim and my photos didn't turn out. All is well though, because this place was wayyyy overpriced and not even that good. The best thing about dinner was having Jon try pistachio gelato for the first time!

lightlife #2

#2: Smart Ground - Original

One of my favorite products by lightlife are these Original Smart Ground meat crumbles... I use them for tacos, spaghetti, sloppy joes and my favorite dip!

The other night we had NACHOS!



Put some chips on a pan and smother 'em with toppings! We chose black olives, jalapenos and cheese. Bake 'em at 350 degrees til the cheese melts, about 10 minutes. Cook the meat crumbles the same way you would tacos and pour 'em over the top. Don't forget a side of salsa and/or beans, guacamole, sour cream to dip!



This wasn't even all of the meat crumbles! I took what was left over and made two tacos for breakfast the next morning.

What I liked: I love how versatile these puppies are! Like I said above, I can use them for tacos, spaghetti, anything that calls for ground hamburger. Plus it's my favorite lightlife product.

What I disliked: Umm, nothing! Maybe that I never have enough in my fridge ;)

Thanks, lightlife!

outfit post

My very first outfit post! I wanted to share this one first because I get a lot of comments on this fabulous dress.


dress: lucca
belt: forever 21
shoes: bakers

While visiting Denver back in 2008, I came across this cute little number at Buffalo Exchange (a second hand store, for those of you without). I really liked the dress, but somehow managed to talk myself out of buying it then and there. Two weeks later I was back in Denver and decided if it was still there, I had to buy it... and to my surprise, it was! Now it's one of my favorite dresses.



These shoes I had to have after I fell in love with the pair of Diors that Carrie wears in Sex in the City: the movie. It's not often that you'll catch me in a pair of stilettos and as a matter of fact these babies sit on the top shelf of my closet in almost mint condition. Hmph.





Lastly, I have to give my good friend Kingston photo credit for taking these photos for me!

Foodie Friday: Homemade Banana Bread

I love love love fresh baked banana bread, but I'm not a fan of nuts in my breads, so the options are very limited on where I can buy from. Jon found my new favorite banana bread recipe. We've made it THREE times in the past three weeks!

Vegan, nutless and super duper delicious!



What you will need:



+ walnuts are obviously optional, you can add them to the batter at the end.





Mix all the dry stuff. In a separate bowl, your largest bowl, mix soy milk and apple cidar vinegar.



While you let the soy milk and apple cidar vinegar mix stand, mash the nanners.



After a few minutes, add the nanners and the rest of your wet ingredients to soy milk mix.









Cook on 350 for one hour (make sure the bread is fully cooked by inserting toothpick, it should come out clean).


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For those of you who didn't enjoy or couldn't follow along with my overuse of the masking tape feature, here is the preparation recipe from the website:

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Lightly oil a 9"x5" loaf pan and set aside.

2. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugars, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.

3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the soy milk and cider vinegar and let stand for 2 minutes. Add the mashed banana, canola oil, maple syrup, and vanilla extract, whisking until well combined. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, mixing until just combined (do not overmix!). Fold in the walnuts if using and pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for about 1 hour, or until a toothpick inserted into the center emerges clean. Allow the bread to cool on a wire cooling rack for 20 minutes before serving.