Orange Bird

Markels Making Magical Memories–Day Ten

Disney Springs; 13,011 steps

The theme for the tenth day of our trip was shopping. Since we were staying at a Universal property, we decided to take the bus to the Universal CityWalk, where we picked up a few wands we regretted not buying at our day at the theme park a few years ago, and visited the iconic symbol of Universal Studios:

We didn’t spend too much time there, though, because our main destination for the day was Disney Springs, which is a huge outdoor mall that I think is supposed to make you think of Rodeo Drive:

I’m not sure what we were looking for exactly, but we did find an enormous Disney store and a huge Lego Store, both places that gave us the opportunity to buy a few more souvenirs.

There were lots of other cool shops, too, including Cherry Tree Lane, where I assumed I’d find a dress I’d want to buy (I didn’t), and where I didn’t expect to find Orange Bird!

There was also a pin trading store with some familiar faces:

We stopped to try the poutine at The Daily Poutine:

There were displays for Pride Month:

It was a fun place to visit!

We continued the theme of shopping at Publix to stock up on a few additional food supplies since we were running low…I really like that grocery store chain!

When we got back to the hotel, we headed to the Bayliner Diner to use our complimentary dinner tickets.

I had the Cabana Bay burger, which, if it hadn’t been so well done, would have been possibly the best burger I’ve ever had. Even being so well done, it was delicious, and that’s high praise coming from me, the person who likes her burger to arrive at the table still moo-ing!

Everyone else enjoyed their meals, too…Ladybug’s tuna looked especially amazing!

Up next: Our final day at Disney’s parks.

Tasty Tuesday–The First Disney Dinner

If you know anything about me, you know I love themed meals and hands-on activities. When I started planning our Disney-focused summer school (details to come!) to coincide with our postponed family vacation, I knew I had to find some kind of cookbook to go with our experience. I really hit the jackpot, because a new cookbook created for the 50th anniversary of Disney World was recently published, and it contains recipes from all kinds of park locations!

I planned our first “Disney Dinner” to go with the last day of the 2021-22 homeschool year last week…a real kick-off to summer vacation! We started the meal with a Disney classic, the Orange Bird Flip. Yes, it contains raw eggs, which might be scary or disgusting to some, but we liked it!

The main course was Puerco en Salsa Verde from the Mexican pavilion at Epcot. In addition to cooking the pork, I also fried the potatoes and made the salsa verde from scratch (which may have been a mistake, because now my family wants me to never buy jarred salsa verde again!)…I was pretty proud of the effort I put in!

For dessert, I made the Brown Derby’s grapefruit cake:

Yes, you noticed correctly…I even bought two special serving pieces to go with our Disney Dinners…and Orange Bird cup and what is technically a Mickey Mouse pasta bowl, but also works well as a plate. In the end, they’ll make good souvenirs as well as dishes! I’m looking forward to trying more recipes from this cookbook (and one other one I already had) this summer!