I love being part of such a big program. The best part is the relationship side – meeting so many new people and reconnecting with so many people I’ve been social with online. My only regret is not getting to spend time with everyone.

I love meeting the moms and meeting their families.  I’m so struck by how they manage so many things at one time and still maintain huge smiles on their faces.  I tend to usually get the comment “You look stressed.”

I love seeing the looks of joy and awe in the eyes of the children.  At the Disney Junior dance party the kids seem to be mesmerized by the characters and the action on the stage.  It was so much fun to watch.

At the Talk with a Disney Chef & Sommelier, I was so impressed by the questions asked by the group. They were asking things I never would have thought of – so insightful!  This was a big hit.  Who doesn’t enjoy some serious Disney dining?

The speakers were awesome!  Chris Brogan (above) delivered another humorous yet informative talk.  He’s just plain spectacular.  What I love most is how he engages with the audience.  He mingles with them during the entire conference. This means so much to people – uh – called relationship building!  He’s a master at it.

We scattered little surprises throughout the Celebration, like a Duffy surprise after lunch.

Ah, to be back at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort – lakeside, on a gorgeous spring night, listening to live music. That was nice!

This weekend I’m planning on a super-duper mani/pedi to get relaxed.  I may even pay a few bucks extra for some extra foot massage time. Just sayin’…..

I’ve been spending this morning working on last minute emails and documents for the conference.  My Mikita has been right by my side waiting patiently for me to get done and spend quality ball time with her.  I’ll take a few breaks and entertain her since she’s been such an angel today. I’ve got iTunes cranked to my favorites songs and looking out the window at a spectacular gorgeous day.

I love putting events like this together.  While some days it’s no picnic the reward happens when it all comes together when everyone arrives.  There is an extremely talented team working together on all the details.  That’s also what makes it rewarding.  I’m blessed to work with awesome people.

The weather forecast for this week (as of this morning) was sunny and warm. Let’s keep our fingers crossed it stays that way.

Looking forward to meeting and seeing everyone in a few short days.

Our journey was a three-hour trek from start to finish which included gearing up and the mini-training.  Walt Disney World Moms Panelist and blogger Suzannah of Zannaland has a terrific summary of the experience on her blog – here.

For me the most terrifying  (and yes, I mean terrifying) part were the two walks across the shaky, swaying rope bridges.  First over the hippopotamus river, then once you catch your breath from that it’s on to crossing over the crocodile pit.

Yes, those are real live 20-foot crocs below sunning on the island and swimming in the water.   Oddly, I was so nervous being so high up and concentrating on the swaying bridge that I never looked down at the ground.  I was holding on to both sides of the ropes so hard and focusing on where my next step would go.  As you look closely at the bridge you can see the planks are unequally spaced and purposely broken so you have to walk very slowly and carefully to not fall in between them.  UGH!!  I have no idea how those other people managed to stop and shoot photos while on the bridge.   The cool thing about Disney is they have the trek guides taking professional photos of you all along the way.  So when I download my Disney Photo Pass pictures later today there will be some of me actually on the bridge making the terrifying journey across.

The good news is – I did survive.  I made it across both bridges albeit with quite a few more grey hairs on my head.

And from there the trip was a piece of cake.

My biggest challenge with this experience will be the high-in-the-air rope walk over the crocodile pit.  Yes, the height scares me some, but my bigger fear than that are the crocodiles.  Living in Florida my whole life I have a huge fear of alligators and reptiles in general. Huge fear!  So, if I can overcome this I think I’m going to have an amazing time!

Wish me luck!  Check back here for post-trip pictures.

Mike and I had mutually decided last year that the Grand Canyon would be a perfect vacation for us this year.  Neither one of us had ever been before and it was high on our list of “places to see before you die”.

Days 3 and 4 of the Southwest Spendors trip with Disney granted us our dream of finally seeing this breathtaking creation.  Photos do not do it justice. The awe of the size, colors, depth, landscape, sounds and heat are too much to capture with any kind of camera. But I tried —

Look closely – that little blue speck in the center is Mike!  I refused to climb out there.

Went out at 5:30am to take this shot.

Another morning shot.

We had a choice of activities in the afternoon – I chose mule riding which was fun except the guy you see riding in front of me kept whipping his mule for no reason. I was so angry with him for doing that.

A little deceiving – this wasn’t “my” mule ride. I happened to be walking along the Bright Angel trail on the South Rim when I heard “clumpity clump” behind me. Lo and behold a wrangler was leading this pack of mules down into the Canyon.

My mule’s name was “Algebra”.  She was the best mule in the bunch.  I was surprised at how big mules are.  These guys were as big as horses.  Even though it was 105-degrees out this day, we were required to completely cover up from head-to-toe including wearing wide-brimmed hats.

While I was muling – Mike opted for the faster paced helicopter tour of the canyon. He had a blast!  It was a 45-minute flight and he got to sit in the front seat!

This was the view from our hotel, the Thunderbird Hotel, located in the Grand Canyon National Park.  Although it was more like a Motel 6 accommodation, the stellar view makes it worth the missing in-room luxuries.

Our tour included a stop at the Desert View Watch Tower built in the 1930′s to provide the widest possible view of the Canyon.  Mike is looking out from the top floor of the tower – which is about 5-stories tall.  I have no exterior shots because there were two huge construction cranes flanking it doing maintenance work.

A final photo before heading up to Utah for our next adventure.

Our trip started in Phoenix where we met up with our future travel companions in our group.  There were 25 in this group for the week, 19 adults and 6 kids – the youngest was 5 years old.  Interesting there were quite a few women traveling alone with their children.  Most everyone had some experience with a Disney vacation whether regulars to Disneyland or Disney World and several were DVC members.  About half the group were Adventure repeaters.

We loaded a luxury motor coach and started our 2-hour drive to Sedona where we would spend the first two nights.

The scenery in every location we went to was just incredible.

Sedona, AZ

Sedona, AZ

Me, Mike in Sedona

The Amara Resort where we stayed in Sedona. A beautiful boutique hotel.

Was this Walt’s inspiration for Disney’s Big Thunder Mountain? We were told it was.

Our last stop in Sedona was to a Vortex where we saw this stunning view of what legend has was Walt Disney’s inspiration for Disney’s Big Thunder Mountain Railroad attraction in the Magic Kingdom.  Could be!

Funny thing at the Vortex, when we arrived around 9:00am there were three women already there circled together and chanting. I’m sure they weren’t too happy to see a big tour bus show up on their quiet ritual.  We weren’t there long and we weren’t intrusive. They just kept on chanting.

Our next stop – the Grand Canyon!

DISCLOSURE:   Nothing to disclose!  I work for Disney but paid for this trip completely on my own for my summer vacation.  If I hadn’t had a good time, I would say so.

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/2010/03/15/happy-5th-anniversary-to-me/ http://leanneslife.com/2010/03/15/happy-5th-anniversary-to-me/#comments Tue, 16 Mar 2010 01:08:57 +0000 Leanne http://leanneslife.com/?p=988 Five years ago I started this blog to share my stories and adventures of my life in Hong Kong. I was headed overseas for a 4-month assignment and thought a blog would be a cool, inexpensive way to stay in touch with my family and friends. The blog was originally named “The Life of Leanne”.

me, Mike Hyland at Hong Kong Disneyland, 5 months before Grand Opening

I can’t believe 5 years have passed. Since then I’ve been back to Hong Kong for another 2-month stint in 2006, spent 6-weeks in Paris in 2007, toured Madrid and Barcelona in 2007, been to 4 Super Bowls (7 total) and so much more (WDW Moms Panel, Disney Parks Blog, Twitter, Facebook, and so much more.)

Super Bowl XL in Detroit  and trying to look deep in thought in Paris 2007.

What kind of a mom would I be if I didn’t bring out the baby photos!?! (Please don’t click away – these are worth seeing and there’s not very many of them.)

This is one of my favorite pictures of Jefferson. Total action shot!!

Here’s a photo of Ashley- my very first dog. She lived to be 14 years old and was quite a girl! She was an awesome dog.

And then came Mikita in December 2007.

And following Mikita’s arrival was the re-friendship with Mike.

I’ve had some really wonderful life moments shared with you here on the blog. I’ve been struggling lately trying to figure out where it goes from here. I have to be honest, I’m confused with all the advice I read on blogging and the “rules” they establish for bloggers and realize I don’t fit into this realm, based of what they consider the “right” way to blog. I blog about everything in my life – my dogs, my man, my friends, my work life, my home life… everything. Yet the “experts” say I should have a niche and focus. This thinking has me all confused and wondering if I should even continue on.
But I will. I enjoy this, even if it’s not what a blog expert says it should be. I hope you continue to read my blog. It will be what it has been for the past 5 years – a blog about my life. A blog about what I do, who I am, what makes me happy. I don’t write this for advertisements so I have no guiding light other than my heart. I hope you continue to stop by once in awhile and enjoy what you see.

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!

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!