bundle of joy.

disney's animal kingdom has a new family member! meet the newest baby gorilla.. a girl, still yet to be named. i could probably stare at this gorgeous photo forever. seriously.

it honestly amazes me how much animals really are like humans. they think, they reason, they love. read the entire article here.

vacation part three.

part three . disney world
every time i go back, i'm tempted to stay. i lived in orlando and worked at disney world for three months in the fall of 2008. i had just graduated college and was not ready for the real world. so i decided to do the absolute opposite.

a tip for anyone planning a trip to disney world: DO NOT go during president's day week. especially when it also happens to coincide with mardi gras break and the daytona 500.

we did it once before and swore we'd never do it again, but my dad read the calendar wrong this year and before we figured it out, the plane tickets, hotel reservations, and rental car were all booked and paid for. smart, right? so, being the savvy disney world know-it-alls we are, we went anyway. [side note: if i had a dollar for every time i saw someone wearing a saints jersey or a random "who dat" chant broke out, i'd be a rich girl. it was amazing.]

there were a few major things we didn't get to do because the lines were simply too long or the fastpasses were gone by 30 minutes after park opening. but, we've done them before, and inevitably, we'll do them again, so no biggie.

this has probably been one of the coldest winters i've ever experienced here in the south. multiple days in a row where the temperature doesn't get above 50 degrees. [laugh all you want, northerners, but that's not normal down here!] unfortunately, southern florida was no different. but, as i've said.. i love that place. my facebook status from the last night explains it perfectly.

yep, that's right. bring it. and now, my three-part vacation recount is over. back to your regularly scheduled programming.

there's a great big beautiful tomorrow..

i never get tired of disney world. i've been there at least once a year since i was 8, i worked there for three months in the fall of 2008, and i just got back from a week's vacation a few days ago.

i mean, how could you resist this? the sky doesn't even look real.

p.s. it isn't. it's magically created by giant disney smoke puff machines. seriously. don't tell anyone. that's classified.

last year's trip seemed like a disaster waiting to happen for the first 24-48 hours. some highlights:

-a broken arm and a sprained ankle the night before our flight. yes, i tripped over carpet. i shouldn't be unsupervised at any time.

-a 5 hour flight delay.

-a foreign "cab" driver who warned us of the dangers of devils (boys) and exchanging e-mails with them.

-finally checking into the hotel at 3 a.m. only to find out that we were at the very back of the complex. liz's rolling suitcase refused to stay upright for more than five seconds at a time during this journey.

so, needless to say.. we figured this time around just COULDN'T start off any worse. and thankfully, we were right. the car ride (which we decided was a million times better than flying) seemed much shorter than 8 hours, probably due to the fact that we filled it with singing and dancing. disney tunes, *nsync, and backstreet boys. a winning combination fo sho.

i'm realizing that if i go through the entire 7 days of our vacation, this might possibly be the longest blog ever, so i'll hit the highlights.

-seeing some good friends that are still down there working.

-getting a teenie tiny packet of pixie dust when we walked into magic kingdom for the first time.

-riding tower of terror a total of 10 times. (which is a feat in itself considering from the ages of 8-19, i refused to step foot inside that dang deserted elevator)

-riding the aerosmith coaster with the lights on and then getting evacuated off. we were rewarded with fastpasses. for some reason, when i was down there working, we got really excited when the rides stopped. some weird thrill.. who knows.

-jellyrolls. jellyrolls is a dueling piano bar at disney's boardwalk, and if i lived there, i would go every night. i LOVE it.

you can read liz's account of our vacay HERE :)

22 going on 5.

<-- i will be there in 4 days.

it's been exactly 6 months today since i left working at the happiest place on earth to return to reality. reality loses. by a landslide.