Monthly Round-Up: November 2017

Eccck, it is such a cliche to say that time is flying, but man oh man, it is so true!

November was a somewhat difficult month for me, as I returned to work full time after my surgery, and I really struggled. I was in so much pain (you can read about that here). So I didn't feel well, I was way behind on my paperwork and seeing my clients, and that always stresses me out. But I'm finally feeling better, and I am getting close to being caught up, so that is positive. And I got rid of my final drain last week!

Adam & Link spent a week up in Wisconsin for Thanksgiving, visiting with Adam's parents. Link is a freakin' natural treasure up there.  He gets so much love and treats, and everyone makes over him. And he is such a good boy. The car ride was 15 hours long, and he never even made a peep. This picture is him watching squirrels from their big window, he stayed perched there all the time.

I spent Thanksgiving missing my boys terribly. But my friend Dana, had invited me to spend Thanksgiving with her family, and they were so nice to me. The food was good, and I had a lovely time. It's so good to have friends who care about you not being alone on a holiday. Heck, my other friend Lark, even stopped by later that day, and brought me leftovers from her Thanksgiving.  I truly felt thankful all day.

This month, I went and saw the movie Coco, which I absolutely fell in love with. It was so beautiful, funny, and emotional. I cried like a baby. Now I could have lived without the Frozen "short" at the beginning of the movie, but I won't hold that against the movie.

Also, Taylor Swift released her new album, Reputation, which is currently on repeat on my phone and in my car. I've always loved Taylor Swift, and I'm not ashamed of that fact. I love almost all the songs on this album. My favorite right now is King of my Heart. I'm so into Taylor right now, that I've even dived into the podcast, Holy Swift, all about her songs. Those girls are fun to listen to.

In December, I am looking forward to our weekend trip to Disney, and a quiet Christmas at home. 

Love,

B

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W Girls Do Disney 2017 Trip Report: Part 5

We spent the early morning and afternoon hours at Animal Kingdom before heading to the airport. I do believe in squeezing every bit of enjoyment out of a Disney trip, even if that means getting home on a fairly late flight.  

I feel like I should report that these are stock images  from Memory Maker. I did not take these, if you can't tell. HA. But one of the first things we did, which I had never done, was see the Festival of the Lion King. What a fabulous show that was!  I loved the audience involvement, it was colorful, and I loved the dancers & acrobats. 

A ride on Kilimanjaro safaris is a must do on any trip to Animal Kingdom. I love it because you never know what you will see. We loved the group of rhinos huddled together, we said it was like, "us three friends." But the highlight (and unfortunately I didn't get a picture of it), was the new baby elephant, Stella!! She was so adorable. 

We rode Expedition Everest and Dinosaur! We also had an on going joke, that when the T-rex popped out, Anna didn't even spill the drink that she had in her lap! I had hoped to meet Baloo and King Louie this trip, since I had a Jungle Book shirt on, but the times didn't work out, so we hung out with Pocahontas instead!

Our tradition upon leaving Disney is to have one, nice goodbye meal. Our restaurant of choice was Yak & Yeti, and it was sooo delicious, especially the Cream Cheese Wontons. Cream Cheese Wontons are kind of special to us, as there was a Chinese restaurant we used to frequent often during our college years, where we would order plates and plates of cream cheese wontons! 

After lunch, we headed back to the resort and on to the airport. Unfortunately, there was flight delay after flight delay due to horrid storms, but we luckily made it out just in time. It was a long airport night for sure. We wore our ears through out the flights home, which elicited bemused smiles from the other passengers. I think wearing the ears home on flights is a new tradition.

This is a wrap on Disney World 2017, I am going back in less than a month for a quick Christmas trip with Adam. I'm also going to be posting some of my digi scrapbook pages I made from this trip. So yeah it's Disney overload all the time on the blog, but I can't help it I love it so!

Love,

B

 
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W Girls Do Disney 2017 Trip Report: Part 4

 

Day 4 was Hollywood Studio day. But before heading to the park, we had breakfast at O'hanas at the Polynesian. Stitch is at the top of my list of favorite Disney characters, and even though I've been to Disney so many times, I have yet to meet him, so I was pumped.

Stitch did not disappoint. He danced with us and he "licked" us, and when he discovered Anna lived in Tupelo (the birth place of Elvis), he was ecstatic!  And at O'hanas instead of the Mickey waffles, they have Stitch waffles! The whole morning was perfection. Meeting Stitch is probably my most favorite character meet so far! 

Many people are down on Hollywood Studios lately. And I totally understand why. They have shut down so much to make way for the new (Star wars land & Toy Story land), but I always enjoy my time here, and I am able to spend a full day here easily. Many times it feels like a much needed slow down day, after so much go, go, go. 

One of the new things I noticed about HS park this trip that I loved, is all the Star wars touches they have added. Several times during the day the Storm Troopers marched around the park, and I loved that! 

Our trip was a few weeks before the release of the live action Beauty & the Beast film. We were so excited to have the opportunity to see Belle's yellow dress & the rose prop from the movie. We also got to watch the first 15 minutes of the movie, we were so excited! 

We had some really great, new character meet n' greets this trip. Olaf was really cute but he was very tough to hug, and he did not feel very "marshmellowy." I loved his summer oasis though.

But Chewbacca was the star. He was hilarious! He "coughed" up a furball, and he gave it to Jana. We were all rollin. And Chewie was very huggable. 

After a day of shows and a few rides, we finished off with dinner at Hollywood Brown Derby. I had never eaten there before, and I loved the classic decor and delicious food.  

The next day was actually Mardi Gras, and we spent it at Universal. I will be honest, I'm not the biggest fan of Universal. It doesn't hold the same magic and appeal for me as Disney does. I do not feel compelled to keep going back again. Outside of Harry Potter world it is just kind of "meh" to me. But Anna had not been to Universal before, so we were all game to go.

We all bought some special beads, and we had some character fun before we headed to Harry Potter World. We met a minion and Beetle juice. Beetle juice was funny and "gross" of course. He pretended to lick us. And I got some coffee, and I wanted to take a "cute picture" with it. 

In Harry Potter World, we enjoyed Butter beer and lunch at three broomsticks. Anna was picked to participate in the Olivander's ceremony, and she designed her own wand. And I rode dueling dragons and Gringott's bank ride for the first time ever. 

We left early afternoon from Universal. Jana and I went for a swim and a dip in the hot tub back at the resort. We had dinner at the food court, and we all got king cake and beignets to celebrate the holiday. We spent the evening packing, as we were headed out the next day after a morning at Animal Kingdom.

Love,

B 

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W Girls Do Disney 2017 Trip Report: Part 3

Our 2nd park day was to my favorite park, Magic Kingdom. Magic Kingdom is always the epitome of Disney magic for me. I will say our day got off to a rocky start though, it is kind of a long story. But we were basically verbally attacked by a family for "line jumping" when getting on the bus to the parks, which we definitely didn't do. And it was definitely #petty (as we joked through out the day, any one else see that Jimmy Fallon skit)?

But can was talk about how cute we were in our matching outfits and ears? We had decided we would dress alike on MK day, and I found some cute matching shirts and ears off of etsy. We got so many compliments throughout the day.

The highlights of this day were riding Peter Pan first (per tradition), dinner at Be Our Guest Restaurant, and all the rides that were basically walk-ons after half the park left after the  firework show. So many of the rides just feel different at night, especially Splash Mountain & Big Thunder Mountain. And believe it or not, no ride scares me more than Splash Mountain, it's that big drop! Gets my heart racing every time.

I ate at Pinocchio's Villiage Haus for the first time, which wasn't bad, and we of course loved our dole whips.

I however did lose my phone when it fell through the cracks of the seat on the Peter Pan ride, but through the magic of Disney, they were able to mail it back to me a week later (which explains the decrease in the amount of pictures taken the rest of the trip). All of the pics going forward, I got from memory maker or from my friend's phone.

When I realized I would not have my phone for the rest of the week (and I didn't know if I would ever get it back at that point), I decided to not make a big deal of it. I could have been really upset, but I decided not to let it ruin my day or damper my friends' fun.

But I will say not having my phone allowed me to be more present, and I only missed it when my friends were checking their phones at dinner, and I had nothing to occupy me.

We closed down Magic Kingdom that night, just the way I like to roll in Disney.

Love,
B

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5 Days Post Op

Last Friday, I had three procedures. I had abdominal skin removal, a tummy tuck, and liposuction. I was pretty nervous, but it was something I've been wanting to do for a long time, and it ended up going fairly well.  I did not only do this for cosmetic reasons, the extra skin has also caused me health issues. As I would get rashes underneath the fat rolls, and I have suffered with back pain, throwing my back out on multiple occasions.

I am pretty pleased with the results. It is so crazy to me to have a flat stomach.  The fat roll the surgeon removed from my abdomen weighed 15 lbs! And in weird news, they made me a new belly button, as they removed my old one. That fact blew my mind.

Recovery is going OK. I haven't been in an immense amount of pain, but I'm taking my pain pills on a regular schedule to avoid pain. I do have a lot of medications, even one in shot form. I have two drains attached to my abdomen in order to drain excess liquids from surgery. But those are having to be emptied less and less as the days progress, and I'm hoping to go down to one drain pretty soon.  I also have to wear a binder around my stomach at all times to keep it compressed.

I've been overall pretty tired, napping a lot, and taking a shower takes up almost all my energy. But I'm starting to walk more and more, and just today I walked to the end of the street and back, which is good progress. 

I've been overwhelmed with gratitude for Adam, and how well he has taken care of me. Every morning he empties and cleans my drains. He makes sure I get my blood thinning shot and all my medications on time. He reminds me to stay hydrated and makes me walk around, even when I don't want to because my incision is hurting. He has prepared almost all my meals. He has helped me shower. And since I have to sleep in the recliner downstairs, he has slept every night on the couch. We are having a family camp out in the living room. He is amazing, and it is such a reminder that I am so lucky to have him. 

Heck, he even filled in for me at bowling league night.

Even Link has been quite the sweetheart. He seemed to understand when I first came home that I wasn't feeling well. He stayed by my side, and he often times looked concerned. And not once has he tried to jump on my lap or up on me, like he typically would. He has such a gentle heart.

My friends have also been super supportive, checking on my frequently with text and calls. My friend Lark stopped by on her day off to visit, and she brought me Starbucks & cookies. And another friend, Anna, sent me some adult coloring books and colored pencils. How sweet and how fun!

The best part of having this operation done is that it has reminded me how loved I am. I'm usually pretty independent, but it is nice to know when I need help, there are so many people willing to do so.

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A Weekend in Lexington

During the first weekend in June, my friend Lark and I took a weekend trip up to Lexington, Kentucky. We were there to eat lots of good food and tour a beautiful city. 

On the way up, we chitchatted about everything, and when we weren't talking were were jammin out to Ed Sheeren on Pandora & my Britney Spears playlist. It was silly, it was us, and it was a near perfect road trip.

Lark had heard from a coworker that there was a lovely farmer's market in Lexington, and this was our first stop, when we woke up on Saturday. We enjoyed browsing the vendors, and we drank boba tea and tried the maple apple butter biscuit. 

The main reason I wanted to go to Lexington was to visit the Mary Todd Lincoln house. Anybody who knows me, knows what a history freak I am, especially presidential history. So I definitely enjoyed seeing the home where Mary Todd Lincoln spent her teen years. I love old houses and old furniture. 

After we finished our tour, we drove over to Crank & Boom for some ice cream. Crank and Boom is supposed to be the best ice cream shop in the state of Kentucky. And it was super delicious. I had a scoop of Bourbon caramel in a waffle cone. And before we left the shop, we posed for a picture in front of their selfie wall.  

It was getting hot out, and Lark and I both love a little downtime on vacation. So we decided to hang out at the hotel for a bit after our stop at Crank & Boom.

We ended up having a delicious dinner at Middle Fork Kitchen Bar. There are no words to describe how much we loved it, especially those Vermont Cheddar Scallion Pancakes! Yum.

After dinner, we took a walking tour of Lexington with Dr. Coleman. It was so fun. He was a great story teller, and we learned so much about the "Wicked City." And Lexington is just BEAUTIFUL. And that picture of the door I took? Totally #doorgoals. 

On Sunday morning before we left town, we stopped by North Lime Coffee and Donuts, for coffee and donuts (duh). Espresso chip was definitely my favorite!

Lexington is such a mix of traditional Southern culture with a hipster quality, I would love to return and explore some more. 

P.S-I'm working on getting my blog up to date on some of the trips I've taken in 2017, hopefully I can. I miss blogging, just haven't been very motivated lately!

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