A Very Merry Disney Christmas!!

I love Disney at Christmas!! There is so much to see and take in and it is simply beautiful!!

Here are some of my favorite things about Christmas at Disney! 

1.) Osbourne Family Lights 

You just can't beat them! And, it even snows!! In Florida! 

2.) The Trees

I love seeing the trees at all the different parks and resorts!! Each one is so unique. 

3.) The Grand Floridian

If  you are a Disney lover, if you are a Christmas lover, then the Grand Floridian can not be missed. The Grand Floridian is gorgeous no matter when you go, but at Christmas it is just perfection! The trees, the banisters, but mostly? The gingerbread house! Babe and I went the other night and spent almost two hours just walking around. The gingerbread house is covered in hidden Mickeys and we spent a good chunk of time trying to find them all. It's also wonderful to just stand in the middle of the lobby and take it all in. I can't get enough!

4.) Epcot

We are waiting to go to the Candlelight Processional, but I am can't wait to see it now as adult. To see the meaning it will take on when I can understand it more than I did as a child and it was just this thing my parents drug me too when I really wanted to just ride rides. Epcot grows more dear to my heart each time I go. I can't wait to hear the story of Jesus and walk around the world showcase to explore (and eat yummy food) holidays around the world. 

5.) Jesus

Yup, Jesus! I love so much that the true meaning of Christmas is not left out of the beauty that is a Disney Christmas. Hark, the Herald Angels Sing plays through the light show. A beautiful manger scene sits at the opening to a street with endless lights at Hollywood Studies. At Epcot a wonderful cast of people is set to tell the Christmas Story, while a glorious chorus sings about the Good News! It really doesn't get a whole lot better than Jesus and Disney together!!

This year I dropped hints pretty much screamed at Babe that I would love for Santa to fill my stocking up with Disney love (that an honey). I figured since he might need a refresher on some fun stocking ideas that I would share some of my favorite Disney stocking stuffer ideas with all of you. Just join the giveaway below for your chance to stuff your own stocking with a little Disney magic. I will email the winner the day after Christmas! You will get all these fun goodies, plus a few extra Disney surprises. Nothing like getting presents once it's all said and done. All of these little happies are some of my favorites. I especially love the his and hers car toppers, because my Minni always makes my car so easy to spot!!

*Also, if you are ever looking for a cheap souvenier to buy when you visit Disney, head to the Grand Floridian and check out their bath shop on the second floor. Great gifts in general, but for something inexpensive they put together little baggies of the ends of their bar soap that is left over from the bigger soaps people buy per slice.  They are usually about $3 dollars a bag and often full of the Mickey ear soap options.
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Breezy Unpacking// Our Time on the Carnival Breeze

This current post is a tactic, an unpacking tactic. I hate unpacking! I hate unpacking so much that my suitcase (which has now been home for over almost 2 weeks) is still in the corner of my room... FULL of clothes. And since this post here beat out unpacking it, it will probably remain full for another week. My husband encourages urges me to please unpack it... bless his patience! So while it sits and soaks in the glory of its island smells I figured it would be a great time to "unpack" said trip.

We are big cruisers. We have spent the last two years cruising over New Years. This year however, due to rates, it was A LOT more economical to cruise during Thanksgiving. We have never been gone on a big family holiday and I will be honest when I say that I missed being with everyone more than I thought I would. I did NOT miss the sometimes added stress that the day can be bring though. Our Thanksgiving (with the exception of trying failing to get wifi to faceTime home) was as relaxing as could be. We spent it exploring Aruba and enjoying a nice dinner aboard the Carnival Breeze.

Most of our previous cruises have been through Carnival, but the Breeze has by far been our favorite ship. The amenities were wonderful and we loved the food choices. Our ports of call were all spots we had never been too and were all fantastic.

  These are my top 5 loves of the Breeze

*Please pardon my grainy iPhone pics... I did not bring my good camera. Yes, I am sad about it.

1.) The Food- The food choices on the Breeze are great. With other cruises there are always options, but it can usually mean subpar option 1 vs. subpar option 2. The Breeze has wonderful lunch options, Guy's Burger Joint,  Fat Jimmy's BBQ, and my personal fave, the Blue Iguana Cantina burrito bar. Guy's burgers were Babe approved and had all kinds of yummy additions/ sauces to use to build your own burger. Burgers were even open into an early dinner and so we chose to do that a few times. We only ate in the main dining room 3 out of 8 nights. And don't worry about the waits, even with a full ship we never waited any longer than we would wait for Chipotle or Five Guys during lunch at home. The Italian restaurant that required a small fee for dinner was free for lunch. It was sit down and really good (lasagna, yum!). This did take a while and the basketball court was overhead, but it was worth it. The Red Frog Pub also had really yummy small plate options for just $3.33. Andrew got the wings and I got the sliders, which we both devoured and quite enjoyed over a game of checkers!
**Cruise insider tip- If you are willing to pay for the steakhouse on ship we totally recommend it!! Great food and not unreasonably priced for the food you get. However, if you set a reservation for the first night of the cruise (when less people are willing to go) you receive a free bottle of wine with your meal. We chose to have 1 glass with dinner and then take the bottle with us to our room. We use it during the cruise to make wine coolers for by the pool. Use the morning juice (mix orange and the passion fruit) with white wine for a fresh and light flavor.

** You are also able bring a bottle of wine (or a 12 pack of soda/water) per person on Carnival ships. We brought a sweet red with us and use that make sangria. Mix the red wine with the lemonade available for lunch and some fresh fruit from the salad bar and your afternoon pool refreshment is set to go!

2.) The Movies- Another reason we only ate dinner in the main dining room half the nights was because of all the great Dive in Movies! There is a big theater screen out on the pool deck. Deck loungers + blanket + a wonderful movie line-up + POPCORN = one happy me!! You may be able to take the girl away from her house, but home can be with her wherever she goes! The last night of the cruise we literally watched movies from 6 until midnight. Movies included newer releases like Fault in our Stars, Maleficent, How to Train Your Dragon 2 and Divergent.

Photo from Carnival

3.) The Spa- Oh how we "enjoyed" the Dominican Republic! We didn't leave the ship. This was the one day that we didn't have anything researched and so we were planning to just get off the ship, explore town and then get back on. However, the nearest town was still a bus ride away and it had started to rain as were were exiting the ship. We made it down the gang plank, discussed our options for -5 minutes and turned right back around and headed to the spa. We chose to spend the money, that we would have spent on getting into town, on the use of a days access pass to the spa suites. These were thermal therapy rooms with these body-form, heated, tile beds that were just glorious. There was also a Thalassotherapy pool that we are still not sure of how it works other than the fact that after a day using all of these amenities our bodies felt 10 years younger. If we can splurge the next time we will choose to stay on the spa floor... all the rooms have balconies and full week access to the spa rooms. However, I think if we choose that option we may never see any other part of the ship.

4.) The Activities- From the awesome water slides, to the sports square with a high-ropes course, to the Harry Potter trivia this ship had so much for us to do. Though we did spend a lot of time lounging in the sun we were able to get active when we wanted to. Which was good for Babe, because while I could sit, unmoving (save turning the pages of my book), he prefers to have something to do every now and then.
**Cruise tip- Cruising at Thanksgiving was the perfect time for people looking for a spot by the pool. Maybe it was because the Breeze is a bit bigger than our past ships, but I didn't really feel it had much more lounge space than other boats. However, we never had to fight for a place to soak up the sun. On previous cruises we Andrew would have to rise at the crack of dawn, scrounge for chairs and hope our stuff didn't get moved onto one chair should he get up. That or we would have to find two chairs, at opposite ends of the ship and move them into a crook in some obscure corner. On this ship we always had a spot. It may be because the Thanksgiving cruise included a lot of younger families, whose kids wanted to be by the slides, verses when we cruise over New Years when there are very few kids on the ship and mostly couples or college groups looking to lounge during the day and party at night.

Grand Turk Lighthouse Trail

5.) The Destinations- We loved  the stops on this cruise (Grand Turk, Curacao, Dominican Republic, Aruba). And while we did have to drive to Miami, which is the furthest we've gone to get on a boat, we found that it was worth it. We are also getting our cruise legs and are a little more adventurous with how we spend our time. We don't book through the ship and it usually ends up serving us well. More on all of that later, because Grand Turk (my new favorite spot) needs its own post, this one is getting long enough as it is. To see my reviews of each port head here! 

Insider Tips
**If you are going to book a spa service, always wait for a deal. You can attend the spa raffle that goes on right before/ during the sail away party. You can win services or the will offer a deal for any of those who attend and don't win. While this is one of the cheaper deals they offer, the prices are known to go down during days when the ship is in really popular ports.
** Depending on your VIFP (Very Important Fun Person Status) you may get invited to a member cocktail and appetizer party. Your cruising partners can go with you even if they are not the same status as you. You get free drinks and food during the party and while they bring around pre-made drinks, you can order anything you want. Also, do NOT agree to take part in the stage act for a free prize unless you simply enjoy dancing on stage. Your free prize is the already free pizza and you miss out on actually getting to enjoy the free food at the party.

Any other cruising tips you know of that you would like to share? 

I am always looking for insider extras. 

Books Lists and Life

Right before Thanksgiving a good friend and fellow blogger wrote, not one but two, wonderful book lists and encouraged others to do the same. The first list included the books she hopes to read in 2015. The second list was the 15 books that have made an impression on her and that she found worthy of adorning her bookshelf for a lifetime to come. You can find hers here at Boundary Stone!

These are mine...
The books that have a permanent spot on my bookshelf:

1.) The Jesus Storybook Bible, Sally Lloyd Jones- Every bookshelf needs this!

2-8.) Harry Potter (all 7)- J.K. Rowling- These book changed the trajectory of how/what I read.

9.) Mercy, Jodi Picoult 

10.) The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis 

11.) Where the River Ends, Charles Martin, this book (and #9) changed the way I saw my marriage, made me think about it in a new way and it scared me, in a good way. 

12.) Unwritten, Charles Martin- This was my favorite fictional book of 2014 and will be added to my shelf to read again. 

13.) Jesus Calling, Sarah Young- Those quite moments with God? I need them. This book has helped me set the pace for those moments. 

14.) Redeeming Love, Francine Rivers

15.) The Story of Ferdinand, Munro Leaf- I collect children's books like it's my business, but this one, it just settles my soul. 

16.) The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern- Because sometimes you need just one more. 

And because my love for quotes is one of the original reasons I started this blog, these are some of my favorites from the books listed above: 

* "If God had wanted us to act on instinct, He wouldn't have given us the power to reason."- Mercy

* "Do you know how you can love people more on certain days? It wasn't the way your hair looked when the sun hit it just right or the feeling of your hands locked around mine. It was because on that day, at least, you didn't give up."- Mercy

* "It is our choices that show who we are, far more than our abilities." -HP and the Chamber of Secrets

* "We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided." -HP and the Goblet of Fire 

* "We all live, we all die, but it's the part in between that matters. To love well... that's something else. It's a choosing- something done again and again and again. No matter what. And in my experience, if you so choose, you better be willing to suffer hell." - Where the River Ends

* "I don't care what trash the world throws at you, don't let it muddy your reflection."- Where the River Ends 

* "The hurt reminded me of what was, and is, beautiful. Of what I'd known and lost. Of love given. And taken away. The more it hurt, the sweeter the memory. So while I mind the hurt, I live with it." - Where the River Ends 

* "All hearts have but one request. One simple, unspoken, undeniable need. On undeniable fear. To be known. You can stamp it. Kill it. Box it up and hem it in. Numb it and close the door. Bury it and nail it shut. Encase it in stone. But eventually, the needs of the hart will tear the door off its hinges, unearth it and crack the stone. No prison ever built could house it. Those of us who think we can are lying to ourselves. And to those next to us. Hope never dies." -Unwritten

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 "Maybe broken is not the end of things, but the beginning. Maybe broken is what happens before you become unbroken." -Unwritten

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* "Love, the real kind... is opening your bag of you and risking the most painful statement ever uttered between the stretched edges of the universe, that "this was once me."- Unwritten

So, now that I have rambled out quote after quote at you, here are the books I hope to read in 2015: 
1.) The Jesus Storybook Bible, Sally Lloyd Jones- Because I want to read this every day, for the rest of forever!
2-5.) Chronicles of Narnia (starting with Book 4)- I so want to finish this series
6.) The Meaning of Marriage, Tim Keller- I started this 4+ years ago after we got married, I would like to finish it.
7.) Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis
8.) A Life Intercepted, Charles Martin
9.) Codependent No More, Melody Beattie- Also started, closed the pages until I came to terms with the fact that I had been codependent since childhood and now I want to finish what I started.
10.) Things Christians Like, Jon Acuff- Really just anything by him, I saw him speak at the Orange Tour and the man be FUNNY! 
11.) The Light Between Oceans, M.L. Stedman- This book has been on my need to read list for 2 years now. 
12.) The Normal One, Jeanna Safer 
13.) Bad Girls of the Bible: and What we can Learn from Them, Liz Curtis Higgs 
14.) The Prodigal God, Tim Keller 
15.) Leaving Time, Jodi Picoult 

Any other recommendations of books to add to my list this year?

Unlikely Faith

This advent season, my church is walking through a series called The Way to the Manger. It is all about the women in the lineage of Jesus. Jesus wasn't born into a family of well-to-do, line-avoiding saints. Jesus was born into a family that included a background filled with woman who were no different than you or me, sinners. Sunday we heard the salvation story of a harlot names Rahab. We learned of her unlikely story of faith that saved not only her life, but the lives of all connected to her. 

How does a faith like that work? It works because of Love, true love. Deep down, kick-you-in-the-gut, more-than-my-own-life, Love. God knows our stories. He sees our hearts. He knows the ugliness and the beauty inside them. He forgives what needs to be forgiven and He fosters in us the shiny bits, the bits where He shines through. That's what makes faith look so unlikely. He's what makes an impossible love possible. All salvation stories seem unlikely, because it can seem so unlikely that we can be loved, just because. 

Maybe your salvation story is a long one, with detours and bypasses, or maybe you found God while singing in the  shower one day when you were still a kid. Or maybe you are waiting for yours to start, still thinking that it is too unlikely that with your history, your current story, that you could ever be love by Perfection, but you are! You already are. Either way the journey is never a wrapped up package in one tidy little box. Faith grows and changes. At least mine sure has. I fell in love with God the way I fall in love with most people in my life. I clung but from a distance, playing the part, making it look like I was all in, backing up when things got too close, until little-by-little, weary-step-after-weary-step, I tripped right into a relationship I couldn't get enough of. I always believed, just as I always believed in a fairytale romance and a happy, storybook ending. And then, I learned what a true fairytale looked like. I learned that it falls hard each night after a long day of living, but that it falls comforted. I learned that it is both messy and glorious, that it fights through storms that come out of a cloudless sky. I learned that it is a process. I learned that my ability to be loved had nothing to do with the things I did or didn't do, with the way I did or didn't act or with how clean my life looked. My ability to be loved just had to do with being me. Me, the sinner. Me, the daughter of a King. 

Jesus came for sinners. God called them by name and Jesus came. My sin? I call it "the dreamer". Dreaming isn't a bad thing. One should never let go of dreaming. One should however, dream righteously. I didn't dream that way. I created fantasies in my head of things I knew that God would never want for my life. Sure that picture looked pretty, it looked fun, it looked inviting; sin typically does. But what I was really doing was pulling myself out of my reality. I lived in a world of "what ifs" and not what is- a world that wasn't mine at all, but some unknown character in some unknown world that just happened to resemble my life. I am learning the whys- to avoid pain, to create a wall to deal with loss, to live in a pretend world where pretend hearts can only get pretend broken. But that's living a lie, one that can ultimately do nothing but shatter your reality. I guess if I was being honest with myself I would have to call "the dreamer" lust. I would lust for things that would ultimately lead to my destruction. I lusted for a world where I could pretend bad things didn't happen, because I was afraid of loosing everything I held close (maybe, that makes my sin fear- fear and lust). I lusted for a heaven here on Earth.  But we aren't promised that. We lost that when our human nature out won our God nature and sin entered the world. Heaven here on Earth, that would now be a place without the direct nearness of God and that isn't Heaven at all. 

So, I am learning to dream righteously. I am learning to dream of the impossible possibilities because they are God possibilities and not me possibilities. I am learning to shut off the pictures in my head that tell me I am not right where I should be or to take those fantasies at face value and jot down the idea for what could make a "wonderful" fiction story, if only I could finish it. That was always the problem with my "dreams", they never had an ending. They never had an ending because they ever got to the part where real life came into play. They never got to the part where they had to deal with real issues; with sadness, death, change or new beginnings. They never had an ending because the real ending to any true story comes when I can say, face-to-face to the God who loves me in spite of all my sin, "I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith" and He can tell me "welcome Home."  

Christmas Wish List 2014

Dearest Santa, if you need

some ideas for what to put under the tree

Here area few of 

my favorite things!! 

1.) My top books for this season!! I have yet to read Unwrapping the Greatest Gift but so want to have this treasury for years to come as we celebrate Christmas both as a couple and someday as a growing family. I am currently reading the Jesus Storybook Bible and I can NOT put it down. Since my copy is borrowed from work I would love to have one of my very own. EVERY child, big and small, should own this book!! 

2.) Oh how I love movies!! Santa Babe gets me some each year, but in case he needs so help these are the ones that my heart would cherish. Saving Mr. Banks is a movie I could watch for hours on end. 

3.) I LOVE Ashley Brooke Designs mugs and this is my current new fave!! 

4.) Popcorn!! Popcorn is my love! There is a dance, there is a process, don't judge!! But how much cooler would my popping experience be with Mickey Ears?! 

5.) Bees!! I want bees in my backyard! Glorious, buzzing, wonderful bees!! The Williams and Sonoma Backyard Beekeeping Kit is my ultimate dream. 
** Disclaimer- I know that both #4 and #5 are pipe-dream presents. "Santa" has repeatedly told me that our yard is not well suited for bees and will also tell me that logically our current stove popper is a more sensible way of popping corn! I will therefore settle with a stocking filled with popcorn for my stovetop and... 

6.) Honey!! I love honey, hence why I want bees. This cute little tea kit from the Savannah Bee Company would be right up my alley. Though I do love all kinds of honey and do not discriminate. I try to always have local honey on hand for allergy purposes, but I do not currently have a little honey keeper and the little bottle is perfect for on the go use! Yes, I take honey on-the-go! I have some hidden in nooks and crannies at all my frequented stops. 

Linking up with A. Liz Adventures and friends for My Favorite Things 2014!