On the Floor and Out the Door!: a 17 day HalloChristmas, RunDisney, MNSSHP, HHN, MVMCP adventure! new 2/8!

[lvcourtneyy]

The meet and greets are a must when the lines are virtually nonexistent!

Exactly!

The drink event sounds fun. Next year, when Andi is 21, we can do one of these!

Oo that will be so much fun! The event was pretty cheap by Disney standards too lol.

’m glad things are getting better in NY and Happy Nurses Week!!

I hope you're doing well where you are and Happy (belated) Nurses Week to you also!!

 

[lvcourtneyy]

I don't know why but something about this photo just cracks me up. It's like we are just gonna politely pose in front of the ghost. Don't mind us.

Nothing to see here

Um yum!!! These look and sound awesome. Especially at 11 am when I've been up since 6 and am starving and trying not to eat until lunch.

Ugh I'm currently starving and just seeing the picture is making my stomach grumble lol

The walkway does look terrifyingly stained

Glad to hear that. Hang in there. We are all so grateful for everything you are doing!

Thank you so much! I hope you're all safe and well.

❤❤❤ Wouldn't we all love to see that right about now

Yes please

Love your purse!!!

Thank you!

Sounds like some awesome conversation right there. Why didn't you get a picture with him

I did snap a stalker style picture of both of them but I chickened out of posting them cause I always fear someone's gonna pop up and comment that it's them

 

[lvcourtneyy]

keep seeing signs we are getting better and other areas of the country are like whatever we will be fine and are just opening up. I hope we can slowley get back to normal, but i also hope not to fast.

I also have been very unmotivated on the boards! But i hope you are staying safe!

It's hard to know what the answer is but it would be nice to feel any kind of normal again if that's even possible.

I love this place!! Food is quick and good and well french!

I love it now too! We'll definitely go back.

HAHAH i will say this is always a risk with these events, what if we get seated with someone strange! or something like that!

Definitely a risk lol but it did make it funny

 

[lvcourtneyy]

Nice! I never see her without a wait!

Me neither!

We did one of these in Sept. It wasn't a Mix It Make It: I don't remember exactly what they're called offhand but it was a drink and dessert, wine and a cake we were served. It was in the same place We had a good time and would do one again!

Oo wine and cake sounds good to me. They were so reasonably priced too!

 

[lvcourtneyy]

Sounds like the class was a lot of fun!

It was! I definitely recommend trying one if you're there for Food and Wine.

And what a nice bonus to run into so many characters beforehand. Your character interactions always sound so entertaining!

We're always down for a good character meet!

 

[lvcourtneyy]

I'm praying that things do go back to normal soon Hope you're doing well, Courtney

You and me both. I'm grateful that we are safe and well- I hope you and your family are as well.

My absolute favorite QS place Pretty much EVERYTHING there is amazing and delicious

It was SO good! I can't believe we've never gone there before but we will definitely be back!

 

[lvcourtneyy]

What a fun event! That drink sounds delicious... I might have to hunt down the ingredients next time I venture to a grocery store.

It was fun and the drink was really good!

 

[lvcourtneyy]

SO good! I think we tried both of those (I think one was a ham and cheese croissant?) while we were down there as well...

I think you might be right! I have some vague memory of Mike getting ham and cheese lol. But so delicious!

Ok - this had me - so strange!

it was so odd but at least entertaining!

Finally got all caught up!! Thinking of you down in S.I. and am totally with you on hoping things start moving in a positive direction soon

I hope so- it's such a scary time right now. I hope you guys are doing well in the city!

 

[lvcourtneyy]

First, I hope you're doing well and taking care of yourself! Thank you so much for all you do and I hope your hospital in New York has become more calm. I don't think it will really get back to "normal" until there is a vaccine (even then, I think it will be a new normal), but I hope it can be more of a steady pace than an onslaught. Stay well!

We are safe and well thankfully . How are things by you guys? I think you're right about a new normal- it's just such a scary time.

I'm impressed you made it back to a park in the evening and didn't crash for the entire day. The filet at Le Cellier is delicious - I'd love to have it at Food and Wine sometime!

I am too lol! That filet is SO good. I could go for it now.

Holy cow, what a great deal on a hotel! I love staying on property at Universal, but that's an incredible deal!

I would like to stay on property still at Universal but this was a great budget friendly option!

I'm relieved they brought back the mushroom soup - the first time Anika and I tried it we were ready to lick the bowl, it was so good!

So good!

I hope your feet recovered from all the walking without too many troubles.

The older I get, the longer it seems to take to recover lol

 

[lvcourtneyy]

Dessert and uh... more dessert!

Hi everyone and my apologies for another trip report that I haven't updated in about a month.

However, as some of you have seen on social media, I had a pretty big reason for my absence!



I'm growing a human over here! Some of you probably knew this already but that in itself is exhausting and it takes almost all my energy to get out of bed these days lol. I'm 12 weeks now and the constant nausea seems to be getting better thankfully because I've really missed eating food.

With that said, let's head back to October and simpler times when I could drink alcohol!

----------------------------------------
After the lovely food and wine event, I was hoping to use the FP I snagged for Frozen Ever After but the window was still about 25 minutes away and Mike pointed out that we had other places to be. I reluctantly agreed with him to skip it but only under the condition that I was getting ice cream on the way back to the car!

So we made our way out the International Gateway to the gorgeous Boardwalk area.




And when you're on the Boardwalk wanting ice cream, there's only one logical place to go.



If you've never had Ample Hills, you need to ASAP! We have one here in Brooklyn also and it's just so good.



I got two flavors: Baked/Unbaked (vanilla ice cream with pieces of homemade chocolate chip cookies and brown butter cookie dough) and Ooey Gooey Butter Cake (the creamiest vanilla ice cream made with cream cheese and homemade gobs of St. Louis-style ooey gooey butter cake).



Both flavors are good and my go-to choices but the Ooey Gooey Butter Cake is AMAZING. I 100% recommend it.

Mike didn't get anything because he claims alcohol and ice cream don't mix . Not sure where he went wrong in life.

On our way out, we saw this awesome chocolate Headless Horseman sculpture!






We made one final stop in the lobby of the Boardwalk on our way to the parking lot where we found some amazing pumpkins decorated by the staff for a contest.



I attempted to take a panoramic shot to get them all in but it came out pretty choppy lol.





This Haunted Mansion scene was my favorite (even though they were all impressive) and the one I ended up voting for!





BB-8 is pretty cute too!









After our photo tours of the pumpkins, we walked back to the car to head to our next destination.

As you may (or may not ) know, there are very popular cookies sold at the Polite Pig in Disney Springs. They're delivered once a day and sell out very quickly. Of course this meant that I wanted to try these cookies lol but I found out from here or FB that the bakery, Gideon's Bakehouse, that makes them is located in Orlando and you can place a preorder for cookies and pick them up.

So before our trip, that's exactly what I did and I made the pickup time for after this event. The bonus of doing it this way is there are many other flavors besides chocolate chip that you can get!

The mistake I made was assuming that because the bakery was in Orlando, it was close to WDW where it was really a good 30-40 minute drive. It wasn't a bad drive and luckily we had the time, but I definitely wasn't expecting that.

But soon enough, we made it!



It was in a building with several other businesses. It reminded me almost of a food court setup and was pretty adorable.





On our way out, I was seriously tempted by a sign at one of the other businesses advertising grilled cheese happy hour. Have you ever heard of anything so amazing?!



Here are the cookies in all their 1/2 pound each glory!



Pictured are the classic chocolate chip cookie, peanut butter crunch and the Frankenstein cookie which was the October cookie of the month (The Frankenstein is a Halloween month celebration, made from pieces parts of all the candies you want in your bag, and topped with M&M’s that we lovingly place on the top OCD style to be sure you get all the colors. Break it open and you’ll find crushed Oreo Double Stuff and Chocolate Pieces.) Not pictured underneath are another chocolate chip, cookies and cream and triple chocolate chip!

Let me tell you- these cookies lived up to the hype for me! They were deliciously gooey on the inside and so rich. But we definitely didn't need 6 of them lol. It took me 3 days to make my way through one cookie! I would say they were worth the trip as long as you have the extra time and know what kinda drive you're in for lol.

We then drove back to our hotel by Universal to meet up with Steve and resume our Universal time!

On our drive back, we passed the Holy Land experience and I was trying to explain to Mike that it was a religion based theme park. He clearly didn't see the giant structures we were passing and was like "Oh yeah I could see someone building that someday" So I had to tell him they did build it already and I was trying to explain to him that we were driving past it.

Also, as we got off an exit, we were behind a large box truck that was driving on a very flat back tire and swerving all over the road. I was having visions of a scene out of Final Destination and instructed Mike to get away from him. Mike pulled up next to him to tell him his tire was flat and he was driving in all different lanes of traffic and he said "Oh yeah, I thought it wasn't driving right".

Luckily, we then made it back to our hotel intact with our cookies and got ready for our night at Universal!​

 

[DLo]

Congratulations!!!!! Thanks for the tips on Gideon’s cookies . I can’t wait to have Ample Hills again!

 

[disneyAndi14]

Congratulations on the baby news! So exciting for you two.
The cookies look and sound so good. These are on my list to try at Polite Pig some day.
Ample Hills is a favorite of ours!

 

[Raeven]

I'm growing a human over here! Some of you probably knew this already but that in itself is exhausting and it takes almost all my energy to get out of bed these days lol.

Congrats!

They were deliciously gooey on the inside and so rich. But we definitely didn't need 6 of them lol. It took me 3 days to make my way through one cookie!

We also went to Gideon's Bakehouse a few trips ago! But because they were so big and I ours seemed almost uncooked on the inside I kind of found them to be too much for me but I wanted to love them.

Also, as we got off an exit, we were behind a large box truck that was driving on a very flat back tire and swerving all over the road. I was having visions of a scene out of Final Destination and instructed Mike to get away from him. Mike pulled up next to him to tell him his tire was flat and he was driving in all different lanes of traffic and he said "Oh yeah, I thought it wasn't driving right".

Ahhh that sounds so scary.

 

[NancyLuvsMickey]

Congrats to both of you on your little Mouseketeer!!!

Mmmmm, drool.... Those cookies look AH-MAZING!!!!

 

[SimplyGoofy]

Wow, congratulations! Growing a human is hard work - it's no wonder you're tired! I hope the nausea subsides soon and you can enjoy food again.

Both the ice cream and the cookies look DELICIOUS. Also, a Grilled Cheese Happy Hour sounds like one of the best things ever!

 

[amazingact21]

I'm growing a human over here!

I've already said it, but again, congratulations!!! Are you already thinking about what and when the baby's first Disney trip will be?

Ooey Gooey Butter Cake (the creamiest vanilla ice cream made with cream cheese and homemade gobs of St. Louis-style ooey gooey butter cake).

Landon had a scholastic project that actually was all about the making of Ample Hill's ooey gooey butter cake. He got to (and because it's virtual learning, so did me and Evie) watch a video on the process and see behind the scenes at the factory. It really made us want to try some, because it looked sooo delicious!

Mike didn't get anything because he claims alcohol and ice cream don't mix

What?! That's insane. I have to have a Dole Whip with rum every Disney trip.

On our way out, I was seriously tempted by a sign at one of the other businesses advertising grilled cheese happy hour. Have you ever heard of anything so amazing?!

I've never heard of this before but it sounds amazing! I would totally try a Grilled Cheese Happy Hour.


Your cookies looked amazing and so worth the 30-40 minute drive out to get them. Plus the crazy flat tire driver!

 

[missangelalexis]

Congratulations again!!!! So exciting! Think of all the Disney things you will get to buy for baby!

Such cool pumpkin displays at the Boardwalk!!

Omg those cookies look insane!! And I'm glad they lived up to the hype!

 

[kastoney]

I could not be happier for you both. I cannot fathom how you have made it through the last few months period let alone pregnant! You are a true superhero!!!! That's one lucky musketeer right there.

Both flavors are good and my go-to choices but the Ooey Gooey Butter Cake is AMAZING. I 100% recommend it.

Oh yes. I don't even really like ice cream but this is SOOO good. Always worth the trip.

These are so cool. You are getting me so excited for our Halloween trip.

As you may (or may not ) know, there are very popular cookies sold at the Polite Pig in Disney Springs. They're delivered once a day and sell out very quickly.

I just recently heard about these and have no idea how I was so late to the party. Great idea to travel direct to the baker for some.

Let me tell you- these cookies lived up to the hype for me! They were deliciously gooey on the inside and so rich. But we definitely didn't need 6 of them lol. It took me 3 days to make my way through one cookie! I would say they were worth the trip as long as you have the extra time and know what kinda drive you're in for lol.

A half pound cookie is some serious business but glad to hear they lived up to the hype.

On our drive back, we passed the Holy Land experience and I was trying to explain to Mike that it was a religion based theme park. He clearly didn't see the giant structures we were passing and was like "Oh yeah I could see someone building that someday"

Is this a real thing?????? Religious and theme park certainly seems like an odd combination

 

[Mskia]

Congratulations on the baby! Your announcement is so cute.

 

[Woth2982]

I am just jumping into your TR! Loving it so far! So jealous of a 17 day trip! What a dream! Congrats on the baby! I totally understand the long break! I am due in Sept and took an entire month off the Dis (and Im not even writing a TR), I was just sooooo tired and sick all the time! I hope the sickness subsides soon and you can enjoy the second trimester. Unfortunately for me I think that second trimester burst of energy is a myth, but hoping it is your reality! Very exciting things coming up for you!