Sartorial Saturday–Thank the Phoenicians

“Remember how easy it was to learn your ABC’s? Thank the Phoenicians, they invented them.”
Spaceship Earth

This isn’t the first time I’ve shared a fashion based on EPCOT’s Spaceship Earth, but it is the first time since riding it last summer!

Shortly after we got home from our trip, I ran across a kickstarter for a Spaceship Earth-inspired crossbody bag, created by the designer behind Charmed & Cozy. I immediately fell in love, and I was thrilled when the goal was met, and equally happy when it arrived in a very timely fashion! Aren’t the colors pretty?!?

Of course I had to style it with my Spaceship Earth dress!

I went with blue accessories this time, starting with a Yemak cropped cardigan and including a stack of Splendette duchess bangles, my Meteor Jewelry Starlite necklace, and an Erstwilder brooch perfect for the theme…it’s all very mid-century marvelous, don’t you think?

I added my sparkly silver shoes and a sparkly silver belt to complete the look:

I don’t usually wear my crossbody bags across my body (I’m weird that way), but I’m very happy that the strap on this one is long enough that I can if I want to!

It’s a good size bag, too…I can definitely fit all my essentials plus a few extras!

I’m loving that I’ve embraced Disney-inspired fashion!

Tasty Tuesday–A Look Back at Disney Dining

For the last few months, I’ve been sharing all of the Disney Dinners I’ve made…here’s a look at each dish we tried from either a Disney cookbook, or an online resource with copycat Disney recipes:

We also tried quite a few thing while we were at the Disney parks (my favorite was the Dole Whip!):

And we enjoyed one very special dinner at the Hollywood Brown Derby:

This wraps our summer of fun Disney dinners, but I’m looking forward to trying (and retrying) recipes from our Disney cookbooks in the future, and I’ve already pre-ordered The Official Disney Parks Cookbook, which is scheduled to come out next February, so we’ll have even more new recipes to try!

Happy Anniversary EPCOT!

Today kicks off the celebration for the 40th anniversary of EPCOT, the evolution of Walt Disney’s original plan for the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow! I’m so glad we had the opportunity to be there this year! Here’s a look at the park’s most famous landmark, Spaceship Earth, in the Florida sunshine and lit up at night:

And a closer look at its distinctive structure:

EPCOT is definitely my favorite of the Disney World theme parks (it has the World Showcase and Figment, plus it’s where I met both Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck!), and I really hope that I’ll have the chance for a return visit someday!

A Final Look Back at Our Disney Vacation

Here’s one final look back at the Disney portion of our vacation, focused specifically on a few pictures that didn’t seem to fit anywhere else, starting with me at Epcot’s World Showcase at the two places in the world I’d most like to visit: Germany and England (with Eeyore, of course!):

I managed to get a selfie with each of my daughters on a ride they really liked (the teacups, Dumbo, and the carousel):

And another pair of pictures of me at the Magic Kingdom…same day, but with an outfit change!

I think that’s about it for things I wanted to share…it certainly was the trip of a lifetime!

EARidescent Evenings

Time for one last look back at the beautiful “EARidescent Evenings” at the parks of Walt Disney World in celebration of the 50th anniversary. The color scheme is so pretty, and everything just glows with happiness!

We didn’t see the Animal Kingdom in the evening because we spent less time there in general, and they’re not open as late in the first place, but I assume the Tree of Life has something fantastic, as well! It’s a perfect visual representation of “The World’s Most Magical Celebration!”

Hidden Mickey?

We had such good intentions of finding “Hidden Mickeys” while we were at Disney World. We were prepared to look everywhere, and we even had a a list of some of the known ones as a starting point. But…I guess we were just wrapped up in the experience, of being there (we is actually a good thing!), because for the most part, we forgot altogether, and even when we did remember, we couldn’t find them. Except for the one on this manhole cover we spotted our first day at EPCOT.

Does it count? I mean, I think it does? If you weren’t looking down at the right moment, it would be easily missed. So I say it counts, and at least we have evidence we found one of them!

Summer School 2022

What can I say about this year’s summer school? One thing is for certain…I know I’ll never top it!

Yes, we had a reading list, and there were some amazing choices on there (Ladybug in particular really enjoyed many of the titles), but this summer was all about travel and experiences, including visits to Walt Disney World’s EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. It was like four days of field trips on steroids, where we went on rides, built things, and even learned things! (And let’s not forgot the three days of field trip equivalents in Washington D.C., where we visited monuments and memorials and museums, toured the US Capitol, and walked the grounds of George Washington’s Mount Vernon! Plus the day at Kennedy Space Center after our Disney fun concluded!)

Back at home, we kept the Disney magic going with art projects:

And games:

And lots and lots of cooking! We had 12 “Disney Dinners” at home over the summer (plus the one we indulged in at The Hollywood Brown Derby), which let us sample copycat recipes from the theme parks and the Disney World resorts:

Ladybug and Bunny especially enjoyed baking and decorating some Mickey Mouse cookies:

It wouldn’t be summer school without a Lego build, and we found the perfect set to reflect our summer fun!

And we squeezed in a few craft projects, including an amazing pumpkin coach, a cupcake liner lei modeled by Stitch, and a string art Mickey Mouse head that left glitter everywhere!

We also watched a ton of Disney documentaries (thank you Disney+) and classic Disney movies, some we had seen before, and some that were new to us. I especially loved the mid-century documentaries from when the theme parks were just getting their start, but the more modern ones, that focused on attractions we saw at Disney World (and their California counterparts) were fascinating, especially after we had the experience of seeing them first-hand.

Like I said, there won’t ever be a summer school like this again, where we were able to blend fun and learning and so many experiences together, but I’m really glad we got to do it once in our lifetime!

Around the World at EPCOT

Without question, my favorite thing about EPCOT is the World Showcase. It’s the thing I most remember from my childhood trip to Disney, and it was just as cool as in my memories! Here’s a look at the various countries, starting with our neighbor to the south, Mexico. I think it’s really cool that the two ports of entry are the countries that border the US to the north and south!

I loved the stave church that represents Norway:

China’s architecture is unmistakable:

I might be biased but I think Germany was my favorite country to visit:

Italy looks just like I imagine the actual country does:

We breezed through America pretty quickly because, let’s face it, we already live here!

I loved the blue accents in Japan:

Morocco is the country I remember the most from first Disney trip, but we didn’t get to walk around it too much this time because our time in that country was spent huddling under an archway during a storm:

France is as charming as you would expect:

After we visited France, we crossed the “channel” and entered the United Kingdom. If Germany wasn’t my favorite country, the U.K. definitely was!

We ended our around-the-world journey in Canada, which is a mix of native design, and something vaguely similar to the U.K.

This may be as close as I ever get to international travel, but at least I got to see some really cool things (and eat some regional foods) at EPCOT!

EPCOT International Flower and Garden Festival

I didn’t realize until fairly close to the beginning of our trip that we were going to be at EPCOT for the tail end of the International Flower and Garden Festival…I’m so glad we were there! In addition to beautiful flowers, there were topiaries everywhere in the park. Most of them were of Disney characters, but there were a few others, as well.

The festival takes place EPCOT, but the Magic Kingdom had topiaries of the world’s most famous mouse couple out front, as well!

EPCOT has festivals of different types running pretty much year-round, and I think this was a particularly fun one to attend!

50 Years of Disney World

The sliver lining in the cloud that was us having to postpone our Disney World vacation for a year is that we were there for the park’s 50th anniversary, the “World’s Most Magical Celebration.” The celebratory atmosphere was everywhere at the parks, but especially with the golden statues of Disney characters scattered throughout the Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and the Animal Kingdom. We didn’t see all of them, but we also didn’t do too badly!