With this ring, I thee Dis. {Pre-Disneymoon trip report! Sept-Oct 2011}

[leeshiebean]

Ah, and so begins my very first pre-trip report!

That's me, Alicia. Long-time Disney lover (I've been about 8 or 9 times). Former meteorologist, currently working as a photographer/photo editor (so be prepared for lots of pictures, y'all).

This handsome fella would be my husband, Jon. He's been to WDW twice: once with his family when he was a kid and once with me for the Princess Half Marathon last year. I am happy to report that while he was once indifferent toward WDW, he really loved it when he went with me and is super impressed with how Disney does their thing. It's all in the details, as you know.

And we're going to Disney for our honeymoon!

As you can see, we are already married - have been since May 29, 2011. For several reasons we decided to take a delayed honeymoon, and we are both so glad we didn't go right after our wedding. Instead we took a mini-moon to Williamsburg (as new residents of Virginia, we wanted to see more of our state) with a stop in Richmond as well which held us over until the big trip.

But that's not why you're here, right?!

Disney-moon details:

Dates: Sept 27-Oct 6, 2011
Resort: Boardwalk Inn
Ship: Oh yes, there's also a ship. From Oct 2-6 we'll be sleeping abord the Disney Dream. This is a land and sea (or as I like to call it, a little surf and turf) honeymoon!

Wayyy back when we first got engaged (Sept 2009), our plan was to honeymoon in Bermuda. It was a short flight and would still give us the typical beachy/relaxing honeymoon vibe. But to have the length of a trip that we wanted (and a nice resort) it was going to cost quite a bit. Not that I have a problem with spending money on traveling, but before booking we tried tossing a few other ideas around.

Jon's mom was the one to bring Disney up first and we both loved the thought. Who needs a beach? Alright, Disney World it is! It's where my parents honeymooned so it's like I was going to continue the tradition. But then awhile later I came up with another idea: what if we added a Disney Cruise to our trip? I wasn't sure if Jon would like this idea but he loved it. So it was settled. We would spend the first half of our honeymoon galavanting around WDW, and the second half sailing the open seas.

We are both super excited and the big countdown has begun. Okay, well to be honest, in true Disney-fan fashion my countdown started the day we booked the cruise. But now that we're under the 50 days mark, it's really on. Every 10 days I'm cooking a Disney themed dinner, starting just a few days ago with a recipe from Biergarten. I'll update this with pictures of my next theme night which is a week from now. Hint: Princess and the Frog...



Engagement story: September, 2009

 

[PrincessAmongPrinces]

Hi there Virginia neighbor! Joining in
Your title grabbed me. I went on a Disneymoon too, and I think they're a wonderful idea!
You look beautiful in your wedding photos, and I adore the pic of you guys in your Mickey ears!
The land and sea trip sounds like the best of both worlds, and I can't wait to hear more about it!

 

[Merida]

Joining in as well!

And I have to ask - why former meteorologist? And what kind of meteorologist? I'm currently in grad school for atmospheric science (I'm a terrible forecaster because I think it's horribly boring, but my research work probably isn't much more exciting! )

 

[leeshiebean]

Thanks everyone!
Princess, where at in VA? I'm in the northern area and I like it here - we moved from Massachusetts this past November.

Merida, it's rare to find another meteorologist/atm. scientist anywhere, let alone on a Dis board! I'm a former because after four years of doing shift work, holidays, overnights, etc and being unhappy with it, I needed a change. I never thought that would be the case because I knew as a young child that I wanted to be a meteorologist. Even in college I loved studying and learning (okay well I didn't love studying, but who really does?). And I didn't mind having to put my time in with the crappy shifts, as long as it would get better as time went on. I would sit at work some days and look around at the guys near retirement who were still working overnights, or the parents with young kids coming in on Christmas day, thinking that it was so not worth it. There's no way I'd be happy doing that for the next 40 years. Jon and I both worked at the same company and decided it was time to look for new jobs and move away from New England and get a clean slate. He found a job (a 9-5 that allows him to work from home when/if he wants, which he does 4 days a week now), and I decided I was done with meteorology. I still love it and miss it, but I know I'm better off now not working those schedules. Besides, the job was so much less interesting than school was. What kind of research do you work on?

 

[PrincessAmongPrinces]

Princess, where at in VA? I'm in the northern area and I like it here - we moved from Massachusetts this past November.

I am also in the northern area I mostly love it here... I could do without the ridiculous traffic, and the high cost of living - but other than that, it's great!

 

[disneylovin24]

I love the idea of calling it a Surf and Turf Honeymoon

 

[leeshiebean]

I'm back! First, I'd like to present you all with a playlist to get you in the mood while you're surfing around the Disboards: "I'm going to Disney World!" playlist on 8tracks.com

If any of you use Spotify (it's really awesome, sign up for it!), I'm going to make a big Disney playlist and post it here soon.

Where to next? I guess maybe I should start before I continue; that is to say, perhaps I should give a brief overview of our engagement and wedding. Read on, if you like.

In September 2009, Jon and I were taking a trip to visit college friends of ours (Sean and Jess) who live in Tallahassee. After the trip was planned, they found out about a wedding they had to go to at the end of our planned week there. Jon and I said we were fine with the last minute change because we could take a road trip across Florida to... Kennedy Space Center. I know, Disney World is right there! Why didn't we go?! Well, Jon and I are also self-proclaimed space nerds, and this space nerd had never been to KSC before. We were going to Disney the upcoming March, so we planned to pass by and do the KSC thing instead. Trust me, it was hard, but I really wanted to go to the Space Coast.

After we had arrived in Cocoa Beach, I had asked Jon if he'd like to wake up early with me and take photos of the sunrise on the beach. This is something I typically do because I am a) a morning person, b) a photographer, and c) I love sunrises. Usually there's one morning on every vacation I wake up for the sunrise, and Jon knew it. He was planning on this ever since we had to change our plans to include Cocoa Beach.

Morning comes, we wake up and I exchange my jammie pants for shorts and that's about it. No hair brushing, no changing out of my jammie tshirt, not even a bra (seriously... and sorry for the TMI). Jon came out of the bathroom after taking forever and he was dressed and had brushed his teeth. I was getting impatient (me, impatient? nooooo.) because when it comes to photographing sunrises, time is of the essence! The good lightning only sticks around for a short time.

Finally we made it to the beach. I set up my tripod and got out my filters and lenses. Jon took a few pictures then started to dig in the sand and build a sandcastle. After I finished photographing, I turned to Jon and his sandcastle and took a pic. I even took a photo with the two of us behind the sandcastle, completely oblivious to the words Jon had written in front of it. Jon asked me if I saw his creation, to which I replied that yes, I'd seen it and taken photos of it. He says "look again" and I looked down for a few seconds and discovered the words "will you?" written in the sand in front of his sandcastle. Jon got down on his knee and said something I was sooo not expecting to hear that morning: "Alicia, will you marry me?"

Jon waiting for me to stop taking pictures already so he could pop the question, and me, totally oblivious. See the "will you?" in the sand? How did I miss it?!

[

I had thought that when the time came for Jon to propose to me that I would at least have a tiny inkling that it was about to happen. But instead I was in such a state of shock and disbelief that I dropped down to my knees and started crying and saying "are you for real?!". Five minutes later I finally took a look at the ring and let Jon put it on me. My mom has this antique-style ring with diamonds and a big sapphire in the center (my birthstone; she also has a ring with my brother's birthstone in it) that I've been coveting since the day she got it. It's gorgeous and the running joke was that she'd give it to me... someday. Morbid, right?! So back in June, when Jon and my mom started scheming this whole thing (and yes, he even asked my dad for my hand in marriage early one morning when we were visiting them, while I was still asleep and my dad was up working), Jon asked my mom if we could find the same setting as her ring. But it was no longer being made. Our family jewelers are friends of the family, so they told Jon they could cast a mold of my mom's ring and make mine from it. So essentially my ring ended up being born from my mom's, if you want to think of it that way.

Anyway, we spent the morning calling around to our parents and letting family and friends know of the news. We went to KSC and beamed from being engaged and from being in all of our nerdy glory. The next evening we checked out of the hotel and went back to Orlando to stay the night before our early flight. We celebrated in Downtown Disney at Cap'n Jacks (we had a great view and the crabcakes were delish!) and bought an engagement pin from the pin traders.

Oh, and some people might be wondering why Jon didn't propose in Disney. Well honestly, I don't know the real reason, but I believe it had something to do with the privacy of the moment. I had made hints in the past about wanting it to be a surprise and a private thing between the two of us. No restaurant, no crowds, not in front of family, friends, or strangers. I don't have anything against that (I promise), but I know I wanted to have my scary, sobbing reaction without people looking. There wasn't anyone around on the beach, so it worked out perfectly.

 

[leeshiebean]

Tonight I made a themed meal as part of our countdown to the honeymoon!

If you can't read the menu, it says creole BBQ chicken salad (bits of chicken tossed in a creole BBQ sauce on top of mixed greens); Port Orleans Resort's recipe for jambalaya;

and oven-baked beignets.

The jambalaya was spicy and excellent. The beignets, while good, are obviously nothing like what I imagine a real one to taste like (though never having eaten a real fried beignet before, anything friend and covered in powdered sugar has to be good).

I was going to do a theme night every 10 days of our remaining countdown, but I decided once a week would give me a chance to fit more in, so once a week it is! Next week's hint: ohana!

 

[Merida]

I had this written up and then I lost it. So - try 2!

Yeah, I really like meteorology, it's just all the questions that came with it! I never planned to do any sort of forecasting, etc., but that was all anyone would ask about. Especially when I am in location A and they are in location B and want to know a 7-day forecast for their location when they're half a state and a mountain range away. I went to Penn State, so a huge feeder into Accuweather and we heard ALL the stories about how they treat their forecasters and make them sign contracts basically giving up the ability to forecast for anywhere else. It's difficult doing the academia route as it's still old white man territory, but it's getting better. I'm doing more climatology work (though I wouldn't mind moving into boundary layer.. I'm crap at meso or synoptic though! I can look at a radar and decide if rain's coming. Not completely useless.) My current project is looking at land use changes and effects on various meteorological variables, particularly in the northeast United States. I'm not very far - my advisor is super nice and lenient so I get to pretty much research what I want as long as it fits with our funding, but I also don't have any framework to build off of.

Spotify is super fun! We also use Slacker Radio in the car.

Kennedy Space Center is awesome! My family used to go to the space center in Virginia (which doesn't have a name, if I remember correctly?) all the time. Did you watch the last shuttle launch?

You have lovely photography and ring! Personally, I like private engagements better than the huge, flash mob, viral-Youtube engagements as well (for all of my zero engagements).

Are those Fiestaware plates? They look very good with beignets either way!