Under the Cap: Hi Mom!

I had visitors! Yay! What a blessing to have my mom, Loren, and Janie come visit me for a week just when home was starting to feel a little too far away :) I was able to get quite a few days off to spend some quality time with them, and we had a blast! After meeting up for dinner upon their arrival, the next day we wandered through Disney's Hollywood Studios park and then got all dressed up for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. It was really fun for me to go as a guest to this party after experiencing so many parties as a cast member.

These parties are held in the Magic Kingdom park and are their own ticketed event with a special parade and fireworks display as well as awesome decorations, exclusive merchandise, and characters that you don't normally see in the parks are available for meet and greets! We took a lot of our time with walking around the entire park trying to hit up all of the trick-or-treat locations, and we ended up very very successful! On my other full day off, we attended EPCOT's Food and Wine Festival which is a seasonal event that takes place in EPCOT daily. There are about 25 stands representing different countries, and you get to devour all of the different foods of the world! We had a lot of fun taste testing and filling out our little passports that they give you at the park entrance.

To conclude their stay, we had dinner in Disney Springs at the T-Rex Restaurant because Loren and I are actually 12 year olds and our moms really love us. If you've ever been to a Rainforest Cafe, it was very similar to that except everything was dinosaur themed! We ate in the jungle which was of course next to the ice age and behind the giant blow up octopus in the prehistoric ocean!

I am so thankful for their visit and was so happy to share my temporary home with them :)

Since I last posted, I've completed my first Disney Seminar Class, Disney Heritage. This was a really fun class to take as it was basically a history lesson on Walt and Roy Disney, the early animated movies, Disneyland, and the Florida project which has come to be Walt Disney World. This week, I began my second seminar class, Leadership 101, where we're discussing Disney's structure of management that has ultimately led to the company's great success! I'm finding that this is intriguing to learn about from both a guest and a cast member perspective. In the next classes, we're going to be learning about what it means to be a good leader/manager and we will eventually be having a class where Disney Leaders and Executives will come meet with us for some Q&A.

Yesterday, our apartment celebrated another birthday - yay for Luci! We had brunch (with Mickey waffles, of course), I had class, then met back up with everyone at Hollywood Studios where Luci and I rode Tower of Terror twice in a row because it's our favorite! We all then took aim at Toy Story Midway Mania (another favorite)! When we came home, the house was decorated for Luci, and there was cake and candles and singing in the dark (because ambiance is important in all scenarios) and just overall awesomeness filled our apartment before she met up with other friends of hers for most birthday festivities.

This week, my schedule worked out where I have three days off in a row; it's been nice to be able to take care of errands and laundry without rush :) I'm still loving my work location and my coworkers. I now feel fairly confident in the tasks of the cone shop which is comforting. One thing that has really stood out to me while at work is the simple blessing of the physical location of the cone shop; I look out the west windows and can see Main Street USA and any entertainment that passes by, and then I can look out the north windows and there's the freakin' castle!!!

These past two months have gone by so fast, and I know the next two are gonna go by even faster! Getting excited for Christmas time!!

All love,

Carlie