I watched every single episode of this year’s show and was really torn between who should win – Crystal Bowersox or Lee.  They both were fabulous singers but with completely different styles.  Lee really started coming out of his shell the last few weeks and won the audience over with his shy personality and his great vocals.  After seeing him today work the crowds, he really does seem like a genuinely nice guy. I’m happy for him that he won, and I have no worries for Crystal whatsoever.  She’ll go on to also have a stellar career as well.

Lee signs autographs for the fans at Disney’s Hollywood Studios on Memorial Day (May 31, 2010)

The finale moment of the American Idol Experience where Lee DeWyze congratulated the shows winner.

Lee DeWyze on stage giving good luck wishes to the performers.

Brody – the man in the middle – was the winner of the day’s first show at American Idol Experience.  He’ll go on to compete in the finale show.

And finally, I became a photo-journalist of sorts today – when WESH picked up my TwitPic from the parade.  Pretty cool!

]]> http://leanneslife.com/2010/05/31/american-idol-lee-dewyze/feed/ 1 http://leanneslife.com/2010/02/16/disney-social-media-moms-celebration-photos/ http://leanneslife.com/2010/02/16/disney-social-media-moms-celebration-photos/#comments Wed, 17 Feb 2010 01:39:31 +0000 Leanne http://leanneslife.com/?p=954 The Disney Social Media Moms Celebration officially wrapped up four nights ago and I’m still in recuperation stage.  Although today I finally was able to put in a full work day without zoning out. My apologies to my online friends because I have not been keeping up with the content demand. And I’m so thrilled about you visiting my site. I’ve never had so many comments on any one post before and it really thrills me to no end. (Insert giddy smile here.)

I still need some time to gather my thoughts for a coherent blog post on the entire event. I’ve been visiting some of the site from the bloggers who attended and I am so impressed with their writing talents and amount of content they publish.  Janice and Susan from 5 Minutes For Mom are simply amazing!  Their energy levels are through the roof and it shows in their website.

While I gather my thoughts, here are some photos from the event. These are a compilation of my pictures, plus photos from Preston Mack – the official Disney photographer on Friday, and Josh Hallet of hyku.com who attended Thursday’s breakfast with Guy Kawasaki.

Kathy Ireland captivated the audience with her eloquent presentation.

Backstage with Kathy Ireland. What a beautiful person she is!

Walt Disney World Resort President Meg Crofton welcomed the moms to the first ever Social Media Moms Celebration.

Maxine Clark, founder and Chief Executive Bear of Build-A-Bear Workshop delivered the opening presentation that set the tone for the rest of the day.

Cool shot of the American Adventure rotunda where Guy Kawasaki presented. Photo compliments of Josh Hallett, hyku.com

Marissa Jaret Winokur had the crowd laughing with her creative presentation on how she uses social media.

Chris Brogan and moms from the conference at Epcot on Thursday nights.

Chris Brogan and me at the end of the day’s events on Friday. Oh yeah – the Muppets showed up for the festivities, too!

ABC’s Extreme Home Makeover star Ty Pennington at Thursday’s Volunteer Family Celebration event at Epcot.

The new Guinness World Record for structure made out of canned food. The food was all packaged up and distributed to local food banks in Florida and Georgia, enough to feed 70,000 meals!

We wrapped up a very fun yet busy 3-day social media conference for moms and their families at Disney last week. For me, it was exhilarating to meet so many people that I’ve befriended through Twitter over the past year and to finally put real faces with Twitter IDs and avatars.  Some people were very easy to recognize from their itty bitty photos on their bios and others totally caught me by surprise. (Yes @dcanoli I’m talking about you!) It was wonderful to see some of my online friends again in person – Allison, Jeni, Cooper, Erin, Janine, and of course, my WDW Moms Panelists Margaret, Diane, Kathy, Joanne, Terry, Suzannah and Andi.  It was just such an experience to meet so many wonderful people and spend time with them.  I also have to give a shout-out to Susan and Janice, Jennifer, Amy and Maria for all their help in making this event a reality. I know I’m forgetting many folks and I’m so sorry. I think if I recalled everyone this blog would be 20 pages long.

More to come on the activities and wonderful speakers.  (Such as Guy Kawasaki, Chris Brogan, Kathy Ireland, Maxine Clark, Marissa Jaret Winokur and the hilarious Maryellen Hooper)

I spent part of the day yesterday (New Year’s Eve) at the Magic Kingdom working a Cross-U shift. For those not familiar with this every so often, usually during peak periods, salaried cast members will be asked to work a shift in the parks to help out.  The exciting and sometimes intimidating part of this is that we have no idea what job we’ll be assigned until we show up for our shift. My assignment this year:  Popcorn stand at the Castle hub in the Magic Kingdom. I was in charge of filling the popcorn orders as they came in. It was pretty easy because there were only two size options – a small box or a souvenir bucket. Once our team got a flow going we were rockin!  I’m positive we were the best and most efficient popcorn stand in all the parks yesterday.

It was so much fun to see everyone at the parks having such a good time. At 4pm the cast started handing out the New Year’s Eve hats and horn blowers which quickly added to the buzz along Main Street.  If I had anyone to hang out with I might have just stayed at the park for the rest of the night to ring in the year. It seemed everyone was having a great time.

I feel very blessed going into 2010.  While I have few tight personal friendships, those that I have I cherish.  I am also grateful for the many wonderful people I work with and for those amazing people that I met through work (read: Moms Panelists and bloggers). Your support and encouragement means so much to me.  I appreciate everyone so much and wish you all the very best in the coming year.

For those that have asked – Jefferson is doing fine.  He cooperated so quickly I am actually stunned.  The boxer shorts lasted less than 24-hours.

Here’s where the lump was removed from his right hind leg.

Happy New Year to all!

I flew in late Wednesday night and came home Friday afternoon.  One of the benefits of working for a large corporation (The Walt Disney Company) with multiple sites around the world is the ability to travel to some of those locations and visit with colleagues I don’t get to see very frequently.

After we got through our mandatory work stuff (you know, meetings etc…)  my colleague Tom and I snuck out for a little Disney fun.  Tom had never been to the Disneyland before so it was all brand new to him. This was my 3^rd time in the park so I led him to my favorite attractions first.  I knew he had to experience Pirates of the Caribbean – Disneyland style.  Their version of the attraction has some awesome differences from the one at Walt Disney World – like 2 waterfall drops, air blast effects and a longer ride through the storyline. It’s a must do if you get a chance to go there.  I love it

We then made our way over to the Haunted Mansion.

Again the exterior of their Mansion looks very different from the one in Florida. I have to say – this attraction blew me away!  The Haunted Mansion Holiday is inspired by Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.  The holiday overlay starts from the moment you walk into the first room and then continues throughout the entire ride. It is amazing and so much fun.  I have to admit, I was not expecting such a fun experience and was taken aback by all the attention to detail the Disney Imagineers put into this attraction. I know, I should never be shocked at how they always think of everything, but it was inspiring to see such creativity.

With just a limited time for fun over, we had to boogie on back to the hotel and head home.  Side note:  The lack of direct flights from LAX to Orlando is frustrating.  Our choices were either to leave at 7am or the red-eye at 10:45pm.  We opted for the 2:30pm flight that stops in Atlanta and got us back in Orlando at 1:00am Saturday morning.  LONG DAY!

View from take-off at LAX.

]]> http://leanneslife.com/2009/12/08/40-quick-hours-at-disneyland/feed/ 1 http://leanneslife.com/2009/11/21/tyra-tiana-little-princesses/ http://leanneslife.com/2009/11/21/tyra-tiana-little-princesses/#comments Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:50:10 +0000 Leanne http://leanneslife.com/?p=863  

A Friday evening at the Magic Kingdom in the fall makes for a very fun time. 

Add in Disney’s breath-taking holiday decorations and it gets even more spectacular. 

Add on to that -  a once-in-a-lifetime meeting of about 20 little princesses at a nighttime tea party under the glow of the amazing glistening Cinderella Castle with the newest Disney princess - Princess Tiana and it’s sure to be a wonderful night.

By wait – there’s one more add – bring on world famous Tyra Banks and her TV crew and – whoa!!

Just look at the face of the little girl behind Tyra looking up in awe of meeting both Princess Tiana and Tyra at the same time!

To piece it all together, Tyra Banks taped a segment for her talk show (The Tyra Banks Show)about Disney’s newest and first African American Princess – Princess Tiana.  (Tiana debuts on the big screen on Dec. 11 in the new Disney movie, The Princess and the Frog.) Tyra surprised three little girls on her show last week with a trip to Walt Disney World to meet Princess Tiana IN PERSON. 

The setting was as charming as you can imagine - a royal tea party at the base of Cinderella Castle, draped in lavish holiday lights with incredible desserts, hot cocoa, tea and punch.

Tyra was so wonderful with the girls. You could see that they truly looked up to her, not only because she’s tall (ha ha) but they were so excited to meet her.  And by the way, Tyra looked sensational!  Her hair was pulled back and she wore a button-down yellow tee paired with slender jeans topped off with tall red staccato 5-inch shoes. Way to go, girl!

The girls and their moms were waltzing with each other, laughing  and taking in every moment of this beautiful night. 

This segment will air on Tyra’s show this Wednesday, Nov. 25.  Check your local listings for channel and time. 

I have to thank the wonderful and talented Leigh Caldwell who shot almost all these photos and allowed me to use them.  She is a wonderful person and not only a good photographer but also a great writer. She authors the blog “Theme Park Mom.com” that, as the name alludes, focuses on theme park destinations and families.

I also want to give a shout out to my other bloggers who attended the Tyra-Tiana evening – Lorraine from “Ask Wifey” – who is also pictured above dancing with her daughter; and Stefanie of Mommymusings.com who I met about a year ago at Disney. They have wonderful blogs and I encourage you to stop by and check them out.

I was fortunate to be in Atlanta when the announcement was made today. Dozens of volunteers from around the city gathered at the Butler Street YMCA for a day’s work to clean up the facility.  So many wonderful people got down and dirty planting, gardening, painting, building benches, cleaning, and helping any way they could. Disney entertainment teams kept the place jammin’ with music.  Colorful Mickey Mouse balloon towers aligned the work areas. A fabulous acapella quartet from Voices of Atlanta rocked the house. And the weather, slightly chilly, but nonetheless spectacular. And of course, a Disney event wouldn’t be complete without a little character – and who better than Goofy and Pluto to lend a helping paw. Er, I mean hand.

Two members of the Walt Disney World Moms Panel also attended, Jennifer and Heather both of the Atlanta area.  Heather had her entire family joining in the volunteer activities at the crack of dawn – weeding, painting and planting flowers. They were such an inspiration.

For all the details on how to get in on Disney’s Give a Day Get a Disney Day, go to www.disneyparks.com.

VoluntEars painting artwork for the amphitheater.

Moms Panel Jennifer, Laura and me outside the Butler Street YMCA

Voices of Atlanta – Awesome group! 

Good luck everyone!