Updates!
This is a long post, I apologize.
As of yesterday, we are 2 months away from going to Disney! Hurray!
I've been really terrible, and haven't been for a run in almost a month
. It snowed fairly early, and I didn't want to even go outside into it, let alone run in it.
It ended up snowing 3-4 times over the course of a week, the snow was fairly thick by the time it started warming up again. I'm not sure if this link will work, but my big dog LOVES the snow, and Luke took a great video of it:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BLjzqAlgWM9/?taken-by=lukesheds
October also had Canadian Thanksgiving in there, but we ended up not cooking a turkey dinner for it - we did that the weekend before (and then again the weekend after)
. My work was crazy all month, and I ended up working on 3 of the Saturday's. Luke ended up getting sick in there for a week or so too, and I'm still at the point of running where I push myself too hard too fast without him there telling me to slow down. I know, lots of excuses. But I told him I would suck it up and go get a city gym membership this weekend (he's had one for years, and we even get discounts with our work) so we can get back to it, while running inside a temperature controlled building.
Halloween is a lot of fun in my neighbourhood! Last year, our neighbours and us were two of the only houses who went all out decorating. This year there were so many more! Diwali, the Hindu festival of light occurred the day before Halloween this year, and since the majority of my neighbourhood is Hindu, they all left their lights on for Halloween. We also live in a fairly new community which is still being built. Last year, we had 154 trick-or-treaters, and it was cold and rainy. This year it was clear and fairly warm (for Canada at the end of October), so I prepared 192 treat bags...and ran out by 7:30. We ended up having over 230 kids come to our door!
The light in the blow-up Minion crapped out, so that sucked. It was funny, I could see people stopping to take pictures of their kids with our inflatables all night. I looked out at one point, and a little girl dressed like Anna was trying to give inflatable Olaf a hug, it was so cute!
Yes, I am that person that dresses up my dogs in costumes as well...
And Luke and I dress up while handing out treats haha.
My mom found me an adult-sized Winnie-the-Pooh costume at a yard sale for $10
. I even wore it to work on Halloween. Luke was dressed up like a banana, but I don't have a picture of him on his own wearing it, just one with our neighobour who was dressed like a pickle....
The next day, I went after-Halloween shopping and found costumes for 75% off! I might have went a little overboard, and bought 3 for Luke and 3 for myself...
So I ended up with Snow White, Belle and Cinderella for myself (to go with the Anna costume I wore last year, and the Tinkerbell costume I bought last year after Halloween)... and Luke now has Iron Man, Spiderman and Darth Vader haha. All 6 costumes only cost $45, I couldn't say no!
Back to Disney planning updates - today was Fastpass Day and it went well
As I do my day-by-day plans, I'll put my selections in those write-ups. I'm still waiting for the Star Wars dessert party to be announced for January (and I figure it has to be, with Rogue One coming out in December). We talked about maybe doing a Wishes one instead, but I haven't heard great reviews, and I'm leaning more towards the World of Colour one in
Disneyland - which is the same price as the Wishes one, but includes alcohol. I don't want to spend money on three dessert parties in one month.
I think we've figured out our costumes for the 5km race, and if we can find a few things online, it will be awesome - and totally us! I'm going to keep that a secret until we're positive it's our plan.
I've been thinking about buying a Dooney purse on this trip for awhile, and kept looking at the different designs. I budgeted high for souvenirs, so I could afford to get one. I kept coming back to the Haunted Mansion one. I saw a post in one of the Disney groups I'm in on Facebook, and went to check it out...the Haunted Mansion Shopper (the big one, which was the one I wanted) was regular $248 on sale for $140.99, but there was a code for an additional 40% off that! The promo code dropped the price to $85! Shipping to Canada was a little pricey, at $39US, but it was still so much cheaper than paying full price! So, I hummed and ha'd over it for a few hours, but I finally pulled the trigger and bought it
Now to wait for it to show up! I'm really excited, I'll be getting onto the plane with my Mickey Mouse Vans backpack and a Dooney & Bourke purse - there will be no questions about where I'm headed!
We've continued looking at restaurant menus, and have realized we can't fit anything else in, so we've started making our list for ADR's for our next trip in 2018...
I didn't actually write a post about it, but we are 100% for sure reserved on a cruise now! I've already paid the deposit, and will start to funnel money into a Canadian savings account to try and have it paid off as soon as possible. (I'm not just putting the money directly onto the cruise because the Canadian dollar sucks right now, I figure it has to get a little bit better at some point over the next year, I'll give Disney the money at that point). I went as cheap as possible, and chose an inside standard stateroom. I'm a little nervous about the motion of the boat, so I made sure our room was in the centre of the boat and on the lowest deck possible so it's as close to the water as possible. I've heard that's the best option? If we enjoy cruising, we might splurge a little more for the next one after that, but I didn't want to spend a bunch of money and then hate it.
Speaking of our next trips, we know we want to go back January 2018 for marathon weekend again. I mentioned I really want to go in April/May at some point to see the Flower and Garden Festival, and Luke told me he'd love to attend a Halloween Party and Food & Wine at some point. I have no idea when this will ever happen, but it gives us something to plan for the future