Top moments of 2017
- Jan 1, 2018
- 8 min read
HELLO WORLD! I know it has been a while since I last blogged and after some deep reflections I think I realized this year that blogging isn't quite my calling. Although I haven't posted in a while (read: 6 months oops), I thought to finish off my 2017 (and this blog) I would treat you all with a little post detailing my favourite moments of year. I know, I know, if I had kept up with this blog you could have been kept up with these moments throughout the year instead of my having to condense them all here. BUT I hope you will appreciate them all here now, despite my procrastination and laziness.
10 - Family visits
Even though I was living away from my home in Canada for three-quarters of 2017, there was definitely no shortage of family throughout the year. My mom herself visited me in the sunshine state four times. My dad twice. Grandparents twice. Aunts and cousins twice. Brother once. This doesn't include when I myself also visited home three times throughout the year while still working at Disney (twice scheduled and one unexpected visit). And of course, now that I am home I am soaking in as much time with family as I can. This Christmas was especially special for me - after missing Christmas last year it was really nice to see and spend time with all my close family members. My favourite moments with family this year though are definitely when they came down to visit me in Disney. Who doesn't love sharing joy and magic with their loved ones! I loved seeing the expressions on their faces as we had new experiences together, whether it was the ride Flights of Passage in Pandora at AK, watching Happily Ever After for the first time, or going to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. I wish we could take family vacations to WDW all the time!
9 - Moving in with my husband and wife
I know what you are thinking.... Husband?! Wife?! Well, I'm sure you can figure out who my "husband" is. Even though I'm not married yet, Matt and I are fortunate enough to be living together again in the big city of Toronto! But who is this wife I speak of you ask? Eileen of course! AKA the best roommate I could ever ask for. For those of you who haven't read any of my few previous blog posts, Eileen and I were roommates while working at Disney. We love living together so much that we decided to keep it going in Toronto. Even though Matt probably hates third wheeling with us all the time, I really am so lucky to be living with two of my most favourite people in the whole entire world.
8 - Meeting Sorcerer Mickey... my FAVE Mickey
TBH (unpopular opinion warning) I really really really dislike meeting characters. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing my favourite characters in FOF or in the castle show or even from afar on my way to work. However, when it comes to personally meeting characters, I have a hard time feeling comfortable. Like, what do I do, what do I say?! However, on the one year anniversary of me working for the company, I decided to pay a visit to my good ol' boss Mickey Mouse and everything changed. And this wasn't just any ordinary Mickey Mouse, this was my FAVOURITE Mickey Mouse - Sorcerer Mickey! Being a lone adult meeting characters can be pretty weird, so all I really wanted as an autograph in my story book and a cute pic, but Mickey went above and beyond and made this meet and greet really special for me. I will never forget this meeting with Mickey because I didn't get the "love & shove" - he really made me feel like a priority and like he valued my visit. I'm tellin' you folks - the magic of Disney really exists.
7 - Celebrating my birthday at work
Ok so two of my birthdays in a row have been spent confined within the cellar walls of Le Cellier at Epcot. In 2016, it was my very first day of work as a seater in the restaurant. No one who I was working with knew it was my birthday, so it wasn't until after work that I could celebrate with my handful of new friends. By the time my birthday rolled around in 2017, I was familiar with pretty much everyone who worked there, so there was no shortage of bday love. Normally I hate working on my birthday, so this year when I was scheduled a MID (10:45am-10:30pm) on my bday I seriously considered calling in "sick". However, considering this was my last Saturday working at the restaurant before my program ended, I decided I should stick it out to make the $$$. And boy, am I glad I did! Turns out my mom planned this big surprise with my managers and arranged for there to be balloons and cupcakes to be had with all my friends and co-workers during pre-meal (right before our shift started). It really brought me back to those good ol' elementary school days when mom brought you cake on your bday at school during lunchtime. This moment made the top 10 list because it made me realize how loved I was at work but also at home by my family and friends from afar.
6 - Meeting princesses at MK with the best potatoes
One of the items on my Disney program bucket list was eating at Cinderella's Royal Table, which is the restaurant inside of Cinderella's castle at MK. It's really hard to get in there though because its so popular, so for most of my program whenever I considered going, I could never find a reservation. However, shortly after Hurricane Irma (September 2017) many people unfortunately had to cancel their vacations and reservations, so there were many last minute reso's available. During this time I was luckily able to get a reso for breakfast the night before with five of my closest friends, and we not only had an amazing meal together (except for a minor incident with raisins) while meeting 5 princesses but we also went on to meet 3 more princesses afterwards! So in one whole day we met Cinderella, Jasmine, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel, Snow White, Tiana, Rapunzel, and Merida. And even though we decided later that we would rather be more like a potato than a princess, I still loved sharing this day with them at the Magic Kingdom.
5 - VIP viewing and backstage meet & greet with the Lion King show at AK
Even though this moment was really special for me, it was even more special for Eileen. It was her program dream to meet a tumble monkey from the Lion King show, and as I previously stated, dreams do come true at Disney. If I had thought of this ahead of time, I would have asked her to write this portion of my blog post. I imagine it would have used the words "OMG" and "screaming" A LOT of times. We laughed, we cried, and we really did scream aloud during this show and meet & greet. The cast was absolutely amazing and we loved their energy during the show. I wish every Lion King show could be like this one.
4 - I said YES to the dress!
That's right folks, I already have my wedding dress! And while there are no sneak peeks here, what I want you to know is that I am going to be the prettiest bride Niagara has ever seen. LOL I kid I kid, I joke I joke. I do love my wedding dress, and I cant wait to see myself in it on my wedding day, however what made finding my wedding dress the most special was spending this day with my closest family and friends. After coming home from Florida and immediately moving to Toronto, it was really hard arranging times to visit with all my besties. The day that I found my wedding gown is really special to me not just because I "said yes to the dress", but because I got to spend it with my mother, my mother in law, my maid-of-honour and three bridesmaids - aka the most important women in my life.
3 - Completed my Disney program!
Most of the time, endings are a sad thing. Completing my Disney program was definitely an ending and it was definitely a sad thing. I loved working at Disney. And while I have stated in previous blog posts that "work is work" and that sometimes there can, in fact, be bad days in the most magical place on earth, I was very sad to leave my job at Disney. But I was also very happy. Leaving Disney meant new beginnings - I was moving in with my fiancé and Disney bestie, I was starting a new life in Toronto with a job at private school teaching math (later to be replaced with a job at a school board in Niagara), I was moving literally down the street from my childhood best friend, and I would be able to see my parents and family much more often. While I'm a firm believer that there is no such thing as too much Disney, by the last few months of my program I definitely realized that I was ready to go home. So when it came time to say goodbye to my job there, I was still happy because I completed my program the way I had intended to (which included a one month extension). Being able to say that I worked at Disney for 13 months is definitely something I will always be proud of.
2 - Vacay to California
DISCLAIMER: HONESTLY THOUGH, NOT SURE IF ANY VACATION WILL EVER TOP THIS ONE (SORRY MATT). Picture this: four girls, five days in LA. Disneyland. California Adventure. Hollywood Walk of Fame. Griffith Observatory. WB Studio Tour. Comedy Store. Santa Monica Pier. Golden coast. WOW. The most amazing five days with my best girlfriends I could have ever imagined. Since I never actually wrote a full blog post about this vacation, I thought I would treat you to a gallery of photos to showcase how awesome this trip really was. I loved this vacation. Sorry I misspoke... I LOVE (present tense) this vacation. Let's do it again (Eileen, Darien & Mel, I'm looking at you).
1 - Getting engaged (obviously)
This shouldn't be a surprise to many of you, especially since I have A) constantly wore an engagement ring since April of 2017 (outside of work of course), B) posted about this on every social media I have in my life AKA facebook and insta, plus, C) I also, in fact, have written a whole blog post about this moment in my life. Prior to getting engaged, Matt and I were together for over four years! Getting engaged, although anticipated, was a very amazing moment in my life! I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with Matthew and I can't wait to celebrate our decision to spend the rest of our lives together with our closest family and friend at our wedding!
Well, folks, there you have it. Whether I have inspired you to follow me through my captivating writing (lol) (do captivating writers write"lol"?) or through forcing you to read this because you are my friend, thank you for following me on this journey of attempting to blog. TBH this will probably be my last blog post on this page. It would be too much to catch up on what I missed during the past six months. And I will probably never do a Disney program again (read: PROBABLY. Not making any yay or nay promises). ANYWHO, I hope you all had as awesome of an year as I did, and I'm sending you all positive vibes for 2018. Hopefully 2018 will be everyone's best year yet.
Lots of love, Stephanie xoxo
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