Mickey Towel Art awaiting me in the room at the Boardwalk
It’s no secret to anyone that part of my job involves working with many talented and amazing mom bloggers. While I’m only a mom to my baby dogs, I do blog, occassionally so I have the experience to know what it takes to maintain a blog. It truly amazes me the work these women put into their blogs. The writing is often flawless, the stories are creative and captivating and the accompanying photos are all so professionally shot. I sit in shame and bewilderment as to how they do it and maintain their homes and families. My hats off to all of you. You inspire me. I will provide a blog roll list on one of my next updates so you can check them out yourself. I can’t do it right now because I need to be downstairs in a few minutes to meet the next wonderful mom bloggers - who are calling themselves on Twitter – #disneymochamoms. Follow our trail this weekend on Twitter.
Leave it to Disney to bring people together. Ok, I work there so I could be slightly biased. I had the good fortune Saturday night to catch up with a former co-worker, actually 2 of them, from my days in the TV newsroom. Michelle Stevens and her husband, Chris, attended a little event this weekend at Disney where we were able to catch up on old times. In fact, when I last saw both of them, they weren’t even dating. Now, nearly 10 years later, they’re married with two beautiful children. She’s now the editor of the Orlando chapter of Moms Like Me. We spent some time at dinner then visited the fabulous Rix Lounge at Coronado Springs. This bar is gorgeous! I consider it a fun adult-hidden gem at Disney.
So Laura and I went to the Grand Floridian today to meet up with one of our wonderful Walt Disney World Moms Panelists - Jodi and her family. While we were there, we were lucky to run into David from the Grand Floridian who offered us a tour of the Grand Suite! The Grand Suite is the most luxurious and largest suite at that resort. It’s GRAND! It’s a gorgeous 2-bedroom suite with panoramic views that includes the Magic Kingdom, Seven Seas Lagoon and the resort pool. Many a celebrity has stayed there over the years including the late Princess Diana. And fortunately for me, I had my Flip camera in my purse and took some video to provide you this exclusive “leanne production”.
I’ve spent the past 48 hours with an amazing group of mom bloggers at Walt Disney World Resort. We started Friday evening and experienced a whirlwind tour of some of the magic Disney has to offer families.
I’m always a slightly nervous heading into these weekends. It goes back to the feelings we all felt in high-school, wondering if we’ll be liked, will we be accepted, and will we get along. We all come from different backgrounds, different areas of the country, different living conditions, different family make-ups, different economic status. But the one thing I think we all had or felt, was an appreciation and adoration of the Disney brand.
I was honored to meet these very amazing women. There were 3 moms here who each have 6 children! Two moms with very 7-month old boys. Yet they were all so cool and calm and so much fun to be around. I’ve never been blessed with children, sadly, although I treat my two dogs as my kids. I had so much fun with everyone this weekend. AND I even had a golden opportunity to babysit a 7-month old for about an hour – and the precious baby never cried once! I did good.
I’ll share more soon. I had an extraordinary weekend – made many new friends and am totally exhausted. Having a glass of wine then off to bed. @magicalmoms ROCK!
My long-time friend Mike was in town this week and we had the fun chance to hit the Disney parks on Saturday. We headed straight to the Magic Kingdom early in the morning then hopped over to Disney’s Hollywood Studios in the afternoon. The weather was gorgeous! The crowds were manageable. And the fun was off the charts.
The obligatory Castle photo
it's a small world afterall
and it's still a small world afterall
View from aboard the Liberty Belle
Thaddeus, a fabulous singer at American Idol Experience
Thatddeus is only 16 years old with an amazing voice.
Ever since I was a little girl I have adored tigers, in particular bengal tigers. I don’t know how old I was, maybe 10 – 12 years old, I had a glow-in-the-dark velvet poster of a tiger hanging over my bed. Ah, those were the days. And – I ate Frosted Flakes for breakfast. (Please tell me you get the connection.)
Today I was at Disney’s Animal Kingdom meeting up with someone I’ve had an online connection with, but hadn’t met in person yet. Allison from Texas and I have been communicating through Twitter and Facebook for several months and today we finally said hello – face-to-face.
After spending time saying hello, I used the next 30 -minutes in the park (before my next conf. call) to head over to see my tiger friends. Last time I was there I captured a great shot of one yawning. I was hoping for the same spontaneous photo moment today. While the “action” shot didn’t happen, I still managed to take some great pictures of these magnificent beasts.
Aren’t they just gorgeous creatures? And to think I’m a dog person. Huh.
The Epcot Flower and Garden Festival opened this Wednesday. I wandered around World Showcase with my moms panel friends, Brigitta, her mom and daughter, Brooke; Laura, and my new Twitter friends Dawn and Bill. It was my first “tweet-up”. Kinda cool! Mickey must have pulled some strings to have such fan-tab-ulous weather for opening week. Hats off to all the horticulturalists who made Epcot look so spectacular. The Festival runs thru May 31 and includes weekend musical acts – like Davey Jones this weekend. Everyone should go – you’ll not only get self enjoyment but you’ll be doing your part to help the economy.
I was interviewed yesterday by Beth Kassab of the Orlando Sentinel about Twitter. It was fun to talk with her about not only Twitter, but social media in general. The article appears in today’s (Friday, Mar. 6) Business section. She followed the print article up with more online thoughts.
Then this morning, a consultant I work with showed me a website, My Sweet 16, that shows the 1st 16-tweets by any given twitter user. Now that was a little scary to see. It just goes to remind you that everything you do on the web is out there permanently! It’s often hard to remember that, but keep it in mind.
A colleague forwarded this article to me written by another blogger about how Disney, in this case, Walt Disney World, can be a model of success for websites and blogs. I found it a very intersting read and hope you do, too.
Hello and welcome to Leanne's Life! Before anything else - please know that this is my own personal blog and is in no way affiliated with my employer or any other company.
Now a little bit about me: I'm a native of Central Florida and work at Walt Disney World Resort. (And yes, it's a dream job!) Prior to my magical days at Disney I spent nearly 10 years at WFTV Ch-9 in Orlando. I'm a graduate of Rollins College. I love animals so you'll probably see quite a few stories here about my babies, Mikita and Jefferson.
I hope you'll enjoy my posts. Topics will be wide ranging from amusing stories about daily life to the excitement about something that happened at work, or maybe just my random (and sometimes silly) thoughts on something. Who knows!?
Thanks for visiting and please comment so I know what you're thinking.
