This year I opted to still use a Simplified Planner, but I went with a DapperDesk instead of the daily planner. I really loved the idea of having full pages for the weekends, and it also was really, really pretty. I am only about two weeks in, but I do like it a lot. There are a few kinks I am still working out, but having the weekends has been totally worth it!
So Brad made one favor for Melody’s Rainbow Ranger themed birthday party [more on that to come later], but I wanted to do something else too. Mainly because back during February, Melody found some erasers and bubbles she wanted to use as favors. This was before really knowing how we were going to do Brad’s favors. I hated for those to go to waste, so we did some favor bags too!
Now that we are nearing the end of summer, I figured I should share my Stitch Fix I received way back in early May. I made some requests that I wanted some cute summer clothes to wear at the beach, Disney World, and at all of our end of school year events. My stylist, Kayla, did awesome at picking out my clothes this time around.
So I first found out about crockpot candy many, many years ago at my last job. One of the admins brought it in one holiday, and I fell it love with it. I know it sounds crazy, but it was great. It is super easy to make, and it is a great holiday treat.
We decided to let Melody try gymnastics one more time this summer. She despised it during the summers before, but this one would be different. It was no longer a “mommy and me” style class, so we hoped this would give her more confidence with the independence. And it did! She loved it, and she has even asked to continue doing it in the fall.
July was a very busy month to end our summer. We tried to slow down and stay in town, but we also tried to make the most of our last month before Melody starts elementary school in August (this week, actually!).
I have a few teacher gift ideas that I used for both end of year gifts and now back to school gifts for her teachers. All of the products happen to be Simplified products. Some of them I wished I would have gotten myself before they sold out, but maybe during the fall launch!
My Noom Goal Specialist shared this recipe with me a while back. I love shrimp scampi, and this is such an easier way to make it by using your crockpot!
While I wanted to be sure and have food that Melody liked at her birthday party, I also wanted food to fit the theme. I tried to incorporate as much "rainbow” as I could and also appeasing Melody!
Something new to Disney World since COVID is their park pass system. It was originally put in place to truly manage park capacity in the early days of reopening after COVID. You could not park hop, so this kept Disney World in complete control of where everyone would be. Then park hopping started. They still require that you book a park pass for your first park, then after 2 pm, you can park hop to any park with availability. It looks like the park pass system is here to stay until at least January 2023. So I wanted to do a post about booking said passes. Check it out below.
Back in June, we took a quick trip to the beach with Brad’s family. We stayed at Gulf Place on 30A in Miramar Beach, Florida. We have never stayed in this specific area, but Brad’s family was familiar with it and had stayed there. We didn’t book the trip until closer due to the uncertainty of Brad’s work travel, so we only were able to get a room for 3 nights. But we made the most of our time there and had a lot of fun!
During our recent Disney World trip in May 2021, we stayed at Pop Century. During this time, there were still a lot of COVID protocols going on. [I am not sure when you are reading this as to the accuracy of how things are in the present, so keep that in mind.] With these changes, I wanted to refresh our experience at the food court here at Pop.
So if you have been here awhile or have been reading up on my Disney posts from the past, you will know we were NOT fans for Pop Century back in 2017. We had a lot of bad experiences here, and even though there is some nostalgia from it being the first Disney hotel Melody stayed in, it was totally not our favorite by any means. I never would recommend this hotel. Well back in May we gave it another try. Not because I wanted to, but when we booked our trip it was pretty much all that was available that was reasonably priced. So we gave it another go.
Like all of Melody’s birthday parties, I made her birthday banner for the Rainbow Ranger’s birthday party. I used the same cardstock that I used for her invitations, and I kept it in rainbow order just like she asked. The letters I kept in white.
Back in May when we visited Disney World, we were lucky enough to snag a boarding group for Rise of the Resistance. We went into the trip assuming we likely would not get to ride it, but we still booked a park reservation for one of our days for Hollywood Studios. We attempted to get it for 7 am. Read below about our experience. If you want to remain spoiler free, but you want to read about the boarding groups, you can read my post. I will keep the boarding group information at the top. Now as soon as you get beyond the boarding group screenshots, I cannot guarantee it will be spoiler free!
I have to admit, this was the hardest reservation for us to get at Disney World during our trip in May 2021. We really wanted this our first day for lunch, but we never got it. So we kept the reservation we happened to find before our trip for one of our evenings at Epcot.
June was much more busy than I expected it to be. Like exhausting level busy. So much so, we declared July no travel month, and I have cut back a lot of activities that involve leaving the house, ha!
This year we celebrated July 4th by spending the day at my parents’ pool and seeing family we haven’t seen since Christmas 2019!
For Melody’s 5th birthday, she wanted a Rainbow Ranger themed party. Well actually, about a month before she changed her mind to Doc McStuffins, but mommy had already bought Rainbow Rangers, so maybe Doc next year, ha. Anyhow, Rainbow Ranger itself was hard to find, but we did find lots of rainbow things we used along with toys we already had. Melody was specific and had to approve most things because she wanted everything to be in true rainbow order (aka ROYGBIV). The party itself turned out cute, and she loved it.
Back in May when we went to Disney World, we were able to snag a reservation for Via Napoli. I wasn’t entirely sure if we would keep it since my dad isn’t the biggest pizza fan, but we opted to go anyhow. Brad and I went back in February 2019, and we really loved it. So we thought it would be worth trying again. We were uncertain of how things would be since due to COVID, the International Program was on hold, but we still wanted to try it again.
