Happily Ever After Begins Here -- An Oct. 2012 TR Updated! 11/17!

[Pixel Dust]

I've been sorely tempted on some of those 60D deals. But my understanding is that the T2i and the 60D have the same sensor. If I decide to get something, I want more than just additional bells and whistles. So I'm waiting and watching for the price and feedback on the 70D. Oh, and for the camera fairy.

August 2013, $1199 body only. It's already up on B&H for pre-order.
http://petapixel.com/2013/07/01/canon-unveils-the-70d-dual-pixel-aps-c-sensor-brings-snappier-autofocusing/​

 

[mom2rtk]

August 2013, $1199 body only. It's already up on B&H for pre-order.
http://petapixel.com/2013/07/01/canon-unveils-the-70d-dual-pixel-aps-c-sensor-brings-snappier-autofocusing/​

That's funny. As I typed that last message, I realized today was 7/2 and the info was coming then got distracted and didn't go look. And then it just appears here! Thanks Franklin! Now to just wait for the reviews. And that camera fairy.

 

[fabulousfive]

Thank you Missy & Franklin for always responding to our questions, giving advice, and just sharing your love for The World! Sending extra pixie dust your way this 4th of July!

 

[sue_88]

beautiful photos!!!

 

[Missyrose]

Thank you Missy & Franklin for always responding to our questions, giving advice, and just sharing your love for The World! Sending extra pixie dust your way this 4th of July!

Thank you so, so much. We both feel so lucky to have gained so many Disney friends over the years while doing our TRs. And we love sharing our trips (and love for The Mouse) with all of you! I hope you and everyone else had a lovely holiday yesterday. We went up to the roof of our beach house and were able to see the fireworks from Ocean City, Bethany and Rehoboth, 360 degrees of fireworks. Plus, there were lots of people on the beach in front of our place shooting off their own fireworks, so it was a fun night all around! I'll post some of Franklin's 4th of July fireworks pics once he uploads them!

beautiful photos!!!

Thank you!

​

 

[DJRosko]

Thank you Missy & Franklin for always responding to our questions, giving advice, and just sharing your love for The World! Sending extra pixie dust your way this 4th of July!

+1 and amen to that!!

 

[fabulousfive]

Thank you so, so much. We both feel so lucky to have gained so many Disney friends over the years while doing our TRs. And we love sharing our trips (and love for The Mouse) with all of you! I hope you and everyone else had a lovely holiday yesterday. We went up to the roof of our beach house and were able to see the fireworks from Ocean City, Bethany and Rehoboth, 360 degrees of fireworks. Plus, there were lots of people on the beach in front of our place shooting off their own fireworks, so it was a fun night all around! I'll post some of Franklin's 4th of July fireworks pics once he uploads them!

Thank you!

No way, we were just in Bethany Beach & Rehobeth last week!!!! I grew up going there & my parents' had a beach house for a long time. Now we're renters again. You'll have to let me know if you ever rent your place. We love going there as a family! And yes, the fireworks are so great there. I'll have to check out the pics. IT IS A SMALL WORLD.

 

[Tiggerrn2]

Thank you Missy & Franklin for always responding to our questions, giving advice, and just sharing your love for The World! Sending extra pixie dust your way this 4th of July!

ITA! Love checking in with the two of you. & Franklin's photo tips have been great!

 

[Missyrose]

No way, we were just in Bethany Beach & Rehobeth last week!!!! I grew up going there & my parents' had a beach house for a long time. Now we're renters again. You'll have to let me know if you ever rent your place. We love going there as a family! And yes, the fireworks are so great there. I'll have to check out the pics. IT IS A SMALL WORLD.

I loved the whole OC/Rehobeth/Bethany area. Sadly, we don't rent out our house, it's filled with us almost every weekend of the summer (my dad practically lives up there all summer).

ITA! Love checking in with the two of you. & Franklin's photo tips have been great!

We love having you check in!
​

 

[Missyrose]

We last left off with a really fun night at the Halloween party. We stumbled, exhausted, into bed that night -- glad that we didn’t have any early morning plans for the next day. We work up the next morning and didn’t have far to go for breakfast. We were trying Boma for the first time!

Yeah, we look a little tired, but aren’t we cute in our matching Dumbo shirts?

I had heard nothing but raves about Boma’s breakfast, so I couldn’t wait to try everything.

I went to get my first plates as Franklin snapped the pictures. So what did I get?

Well, as some of you may remember from past TRs, there’s nothing I dislike more than runny eggs on a buffet. So I was very happy to get some ham and cheese scrambled eggs made to order (well done), just like I like them. I also got a couple of chocolate chip pancakes, potatoes and sausage.

Franklin’s plate looked like this:

He had the egg scramble of the day, sausage, Disney bacon (ew!), potatoes and ham from the carving station. He also brought back some ham for me along with the French toast bread pudding for us to share.

Everything was delicious! Fresh, hot, everything you could hope for in a buffet meal. The CMs were very attentive, as well. They kept our drinks replenished (Frunch juice for Franklin and iced tea for me) and kept the table fairly uncluttered as we finished with plates. We tried to not over stuff ourselves because we had very special lunch plans: A Food and Wine Festival beer pairing lunch at Via Napoli.
So after breakfast, we headed for the bus stop. It was Epcot time!

We headed straight for the Festival center once we arrived at the park.

Chase had a special lounge set up for Chase Visa cardholders. There were comfy chairs to hang out and cool off. There were free drinks and charging stations for phones and iPads.

Another perk for cardholders was VIP seating and viewing for that day’s Eat to the Beat concert (Boyz II Men!) and Illuminations. For the concert, you had to pick one of the three shows and you were given a color-coded wristband. And Illuminations had a wristband as well. They were first come, first serve, so we weren’t sure if there would be any left as it was well past rope drop by the time we arrived. But we were in luck! We got wristbands for the second concert and for Illuminations!
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[Missyrose]

Franklin was itching to go grab a couple of Mission Space FPs for before lunch. I was quite content to sit in a comfy leather chair, watching classic Disney cartoons. Soon after Franklin came back (and charged his phone for a bit), it was time to head back to the World Showcase. The cranberry bog looked, um, interesting.

Actually the thought of the cranberry/liquid combo baking in the warm Florida sunshine was kind of gross so we didn’t spend too much time looking at it.

I was so excited for our lunch at Via Napoli, it was our first Food and Wine Festival event! We’d always just visited the kiosks and enjoyed the concerts. So signing up for one of the planned meals was a very exciting departure for us. And we’d never eaten at Via Napoli before, so this lunch was a double bonus for us.

The lunch would be a four-course meal, with a special Italian beer paired with each course. The executive chef and a special beer expert would guide us through the food and drink we’d be enjoying that afternoon.

Yep, we’d be needing a lot of glasses that afternoon! We were seated at a four-top table with a lovely woman and her mother.

They were F&W vets who had previously done a few wine-pairing meals, but this was their first beer pairing. We’d all be newbies today! There was a table in the middle of the room with info on each of the beers.

I was smart enough to take notes on my phone and email them to myself, otherwise I wouldn’t have remembered half the details from this lunch. It was a lot of never-ending beer glasses. The pairings would start with the lightest beers and get heavier and darker as the day went along. The first beer was L’Olmaia.

It was a 6.5 percent alcohol brew, made in the hills of Tuscany. It was paired with the first course: mussels and beans in a white wine broth.

Jackie was our beer connoisseur, she’s on the left. Gabrielle was our guide to the food, he’s on the right. I’m just going to go ahead and say it. Gabrielle was adorable, funny, adorable, witty and did I mention adorable? Not a bad view for lunch. Hehehe.

We were in the lovely little annex off the main dining room at Via Napoli.

Time for beer No. 2!

Beatrice was a lovely model for Franklin’s photos throughout the meal.

The second beer was also from Tuscany. Contessa was a more hoppy-tasting beer with 7 percent alcohol.

It paired with the pizza. I was so excited because there were two pizzas I’d been dying to try at Via Napoli, the margherita pizza and the four-cheese pizza, and both would be part of our second course. Why choose?

I liked the margherita, but LOVED the four-cheese. As we finished that course, they brought around the third beer.

Strada S. Felice is from Northern Italy. They brew roasted chestnuts right into the beer, which produces nutty, caramel notes. Here’s the thing you need to know about me, I’m not the hugest of beer fans. I like beer enough. But I usually have to be in the mood to drink a beer. This third beer, I love, love, LOVED it. Couldn’t get enough. It didn’t taste like beer to me at all. And god bless Beatrice, she just kept refilling my glass.

The beer was paired with a roast-fired lamb chop and Semolina cake.

The fourth beer, L’Olmaia, was another Tuscan beer with peppercorn, coriander and bitter orange peels added for flavor.

It was paired with dessert, a zeppole al lemonciello. It was fried dough with this amazing lemon sauce on the side. It was such a satisfying and delicious way to end the meal.

It was such a fun meal, a great first Food and Wine event for us. It was a lot of food and even more beer. Our glasses never stayed empty for more than a minute or so. Which meant we had drank a lot of beer by the time we were finished.

Gabrielle thanked us all for coming and gave us his card as we left, he was such a wonderful host!

​

 

[fabulousfive]

Love the latest installment of your trip report! It's great to see Boma as we are planning on eating there this next trip. Love the Dumbo tees too!

 

[JustTinking]

Wow! The meal at Via Napoli looks great! Although I have to say I wouldn't make it through all those beers. First, I wouldn't remember anything I ate, which would be a shame, and second, the pix, when I remembered to take them, would not be as sharp and lovely as Franklin's! Does the meal come without the beer course? Or perhaps substitute a wine or two?

 

[Missyrose]

Love the latest installment of your trip report! It's great to see Boma as we are planning on eating there this next trip. Love the Dumbo tees too!

Boma has shot to the top of our list of favorite Disney breakfasts, though it will have to battle Kona for the top spot!

Wow! The meal at Via Napoli looks great! Although I have to say I wouldn't make it through all those beers. First, I wouldn't remember anything I ate, which would be a shame, and second, the pix, when I remembered to take them, would not be as sharp and lovely as Franklin's! Does the meal come without the beer course? Or perhaps substitute a wine or two?

I wouldn't remember anything I ate if I hadn't taken notes and had Franklin take pictures! This meal was just beer. They typically do wine-pairing lunches at Le Chefs and Tutto Gusto during the festival. And then there are some other really fancy meal choices during the festival. Thank goodness it's only once a year or we'd go broke!​

 

[Missyrose]

We last left off with us finishing up a delicious Food and Wine Festival beer-pairing lunch at Via Napoli. We had no set plans for the afternoon, so we wandered out into the World Showcase. It was busy, but not crazy packed. People had gathered around a juggler in Italy.

Then we hung a right and wandered over to Germany.

The mini train’s town was having its own Food and Wine Festival.

We stopped for a quick photo in the picturesque World Showcase.

What did we need after a beer-pairing lunch? Why more beer, of course! We actually split up, Franklin headed for the really long line at the Beermaster’s Collection, while I had plans to hit up the Germany kiosk and the caramel shop.

It was all really tasty, but I don’t think either of us realized how full we were from lunch until we had a table-full of F&W treats in front of us.

With a couple of beers in our hands, it was time for some tunes! We had our Chase Visa wristbands for the first Boyz II Men concert of the evening.

But when we got into the theater, we saw there were some open seats closer to the stage. What we didn’t know before we sat down, was there was a bit of a side show that would end up being even more entertaining than the music.You see, there was one guy in the audience who was clearly the biggest Boyz II Men fan on the planet. He was READY for this concert. His hair was gelled and perfectly coiffed, the sleeves of his gray button-down shirt was rolled just so.

His girlfriend was there with him, sitting in the row behind him and all through the concert he kept turing around to scream “this is my jam” or “can you believe this?!?!” The girlfriend seemed to get progressively more annoyed with each exclamation. She wore the McKayla Maroney not impressed face the whole time. And I was pretty convinced she was going to break up with him before the show was over.

The funny thing was he had brought pictures from Boyz II Men’s Eat to the Beat concert the year before and every time any of the band members came over to that side of the stage, he tried to get them to sign the photos. They all ignored him and he looked freshly devastated each and every time. But that didn’t keep him from getting down with his bad self during each song. Why is people watching so fabulous at Disney World?
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[Missyrose]

Back to your regularly scheduled concert. It seems after performing in full suits (and sweating to death) in October 2010,

Boyz II Men had learned to dress more appropriately for an outdoor concert in Florida.

Hooray! The music, as always, was awesome.

They did a really nice mix of their biggest hits and some awesome covers.

The concert was so good, that after a quick bathroom break, we headed back in for the second show. And we ended up with seats closer to the middle of the stage this time.

The show was even better the second time around. They even did one of our favorites, their cover of “Amazed” that we’d heard them do for the first time in 2010.

We thought about staying for the third show, but the kiosks were calling. Plus, we knew we’d be able to hear the music from outside the theater. Stay tuned for more F&W fun next time!
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[FancyNancy]

Yum that beer tasting looked fabulous!

Also, your update on the rabid Boys II Men fan had me laughing so hard. "This is my jam" oh god His poor girlfriend!

I swear Boys II Men look like they haven't aged one bit!

 

[wiigirl]

Awesome!

 

[Mommy Poppins]

Great update!!! Hope the engagement is coming soon!!! Can't wait to hear what Franklin planned!!!!

 

[happenin2you]

I'm not a beer fan, but that meal at Via Napoli looked amazing!

That guy at Boyz II Men is hilarious. Franklin did a great job of catching some really good expressions on the couple.

I bet that show was fabulous. I would love to see them on a future trip, whenever I finally make it to food and wine =)