Hi everybody! I'm so sorry it's been so long since I've updated. Sooo many things have happened. First things first, here are a few photos of the fall decorations!

These were on every single light post on main street.

They actually planted cornstalks so that the flowers looked "fall"ish

Ok, so Princess Tiana is here now! Her dress is actually the number one seller! It's beautiful. I had my picture taken with her the second day after she arrived at the Magic Kingdom. Apparently they had a coronation ceremony on the castle stage where all of the other princes and princesses, as well as Minnie and Mickey, of course, welcomed her to the Kingdom! I'm sad I missed it.

Here she is! Disney's newest princess with her Prince, Naveen!

This is just a random picture that I took one day. I absolutely love it so I thought I'd share it with you!

I also spent some time taking photos of the Move it, Shake it, Celebrate it Street Party Parade. Here's Mickey on his float! I just love his outfit.

Here I am in front of the main entrance with all of its fall decorations!

Ok, this may seem a little random, but on my first day of training to be a photographer at Disney they made us take pictures of this very trash can for about three hours. So the other day I went back with one of the girls who trained with me and we had our pictures taken with it!

I met the Up characters! They're so cute!!!

This is the most expensive sweater that I have ever bought and my mom wanted to see a picture of it. I was shopping at the outlet mall the other day and I walked into the Guess store, not planning on buying anything, and fell in love with it the second I saw it. When I saw how much it cost, I left and texted my mom asking if she thought I should get it or not. She talked me into it because I work so hard. It's by far the greatest purchase I've ever made!!! I wear it every single day now that it's gotten chilly here.

Onto the next subject...

Princess Tiana has her own Showboat Jubilee, a show that they put on three times a day. She comes parading through Liberty Square with a bunch of Mardi-Gras dressed dancers that toss beads and there is a live band. They walk onto the ferry boat where they perform about five songs from the new movie while they travel down the river. It's incredible and is by far my favorite show that the Magic Kingdom has right now. The songs are amazing and the style of the show is unlike anything they've ever done before. She's gorgeous, too.

This is the first part of the show where they march onto the ferry. This is Louis, the alligator. He's one of Tiana's friends in the movie and he has his own song about what he's going to do when he's human. It's adorable!

This is one of the dancers tossing beads. I just loved this picture...talk about timing! I realllllly want their outfits. They're beautiful!

This is one of the band members. I'm pretty sure they are the same people that perform in Frontierland...

This is Tiana singing one of her songs on the ferry.

Here's a picture of Doctor Facilier, the bad guy from the movie. The song that he performs is also incredible. I actually think this movie might compare to the old classics!

The people on the bottom row are the select guests who get to ride the ferry during the show! It's adorable, they get to hold decorations and wear different outfits during the songs. Unfortunately for them, they don't really get to see the show because everything is happening above them...

This is a picture I took of Space Mountain while riding the Tomorrowland Transit Authority (the people mover). They actually soft-opened it to guests earlier this week! Apparently they replaced all of the tracking and got new cars. I can't wait to ride it! It opens to everybody on the 21st.

This is a picture of the outside of Space Mountain...I am going to be really impressed if they can get it all finished on time. It seems like they have a lot to do in a week!

I don't know if you heard, but I ended up having to move into a new apartment because our old apartment reached half occupancy. My old roommates moved to Chatham Square to be with some boys that they meant...mmmhmmmm....

Anyway, they just moved me and Debbie down the hall! The new girls that I live with are absolutely incredible. I love them already and feel much more at home than I did with the last group of girls, but I do miss Annii. When they told her that she couldn't stay with Deb and I, she chose to move to Chatham, too because they have nicer apartments, even though their rent is higher. I still see her at work a lot.

So about my new roommates! Becky is from Texas and works at the World of Disney Store at Downtown Disney. Brittany is from Rhode Island and she works at Mousegear at Epcot. Vivian is from China and works at the Haunted Mansion. And Roxanne is from New Jersey and works attractions at DisneyQuest! They're all amazing.

Here I am with Becky!

I apologize ahead of time for the order of this post, but it's hard because I have so many pictures...

Now we're going back in time to before Halloween! We all went over to the guys' apartment and carved pumpkins! I actually carved the one that I grew in my backyard. Grandma and Grandpa brought it with them when they visited.

Here's mine! Isn't he beautiful!?!

Here we all are with our finished pumpkins!

On Halloween, my manager gave me a coupon for 50% off a meal at the Magic Kingdom, so I got together with a few other photopass girls (Brittany, Korbyn and Alex) and we went to Tony's Italian Restaurant...the one that's based on the Lady and the Tramp. It was deliiiccioussss. Then we all worked the party and it was a blast.

Working Halloween parties was so much fun! The guests really got into the costumes. One family dressed up as the entire cast of Peter Pan! They had a Peter, Wendy, the older brother and the younger brother, Captain Hook, Smee, the crocodile, a clock, two lost boys, two indian girls, Tinkerbell and even the dog! It  was sooooo cute! And of course there were lots of girls who went to the Boutique and were transformed into princesses and lots of boys who went to the Pirates League and were turned into pirates.

I just really liked this picture of me on the teacups...

As everybody knows, I auditioned to be a Disney Princess a while ago. And, as I'm sure you've heard by now, I wasn't chosen, but I'm still more than happy that I tried.  It was definitely an experience! When I got there...an hour early...there was already an hours worth of a line to get inside. So I waited in line...and took this picture when I finally got to the door...

Once inside, they took our height (I'm 5'8, by the way, in case you were wondering...) and then gave us a number. Then we had to wait another half an hour before they let us into a big, open room. They let about 50 of us in and lined us up in rows and columns. They told us that they were going to look at our eyes, teeth, skin and jaw and then decide if we could "translate well into cartoon." They looked at the first row, without saying a word, and then said switch. So that first row walked to the back and the other rows slid forward...it was so awkward!!! But they played hip music so it wasn't so bad...

Haha, it was the strangest experience of my life. They chose two girls out of my group of 50 (guys and girls) and then told us to have a great day and we left. I felt like a bunch of cattle. But like I said, I'm glad I got to experience it. One girl who is really good "friends" with the fairy Fawn, said that she went to auditions 12 times before she was chosen! So that made me feel better.

Anyway, now we're having Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Parties! I worked my first one last night and got to see the castle all lit up with Christmas lights! It's absolutely stunning. I also got to see bits and pieces of the parade, when I wasn't swamped with guests wanting their picture taken with the castle in the background. They blast Christmas music and have stands in all of the different lands that give out free gingersnaps and hot chocolate. Apparently I'm going to eat so many gingersnaps that I'm never going to want to see another one for the rest of my life!

But it was freezing last night! I had four hand warmers, two pairs of pants and my fleece on and I was still shivering! We finally turned our heat on this morning. I'm pretty sure it reached 50 degrees last night by 12:30 when I finally got to drop my position. I don't understand how it takes guests half an hour to leave when the park closes at midnight!

I'm working the party again tonight, but I start at Cinderella's Royal Table. I almost forgot to mention that I was finally trained to work there! I love it and I think it's one of my favorite spots to work now! There are six different positions. Photographer (taking pictures of the families with Cinderella before their meal), Lobby Assist (helping guests decide who's going to be in the picture before they actually reach the photographer, so that the line goes quickly and they aren't late for their reservation), Quality Assurance (looking at the photos that are taken and choosing which ones to print for each family), Fulfiller (taking the printed photos and putting the packages together), and two Runners (the people who take the finished packages up to the tables to hand out to the families). I love that I can actually do things besides take pictures for once!

I also started my classes, which I can't remember if I've talked about in any of my posts yet, and karate! My classes are great. They bring in speakers from different Disney departments and they talk about how they market their product to different groups of people. So far I've had people come in for Disney Vacation Club, Special Events, The Resorts, and next week is the Disney Cruise Line. I'm really excited for the Cruise Line because I'm sure they'll show us pictures of the new ship that not many people have seen yet!!! Last Tuesday they showed us pictures of the new resort that they're building in Hawaii! It's absolutely incredible.

And yes, I'm taking karate once a week too! It's awesome. I've learned three different blocks, three kicks and one punch. There are a lot of us in the class, about 25 I think, and most of them already have colored belts! But there are seven or so of us that aren't really interested in progressing through the belts and are just their to learn self-defense. It's really neat that I can punch somebody now without hurting myself!

I think that's pretty much it for now. I know that was a lot to put into one post, but sooo much has happened and I'm sure I'm forgetting some important things. Colleen's visiting in less than two weeks and I'm probably more excited than she is! We're going to do our black friday shopping at Florida's outlet malls! Then we have a breakfast reservation at Boma, one of the Animal Kingdom Lodge's restaurants. That's going to be a fun day.

Anyway, I hope everybody's doing great and I'll talk to everyone soon! In case I don't post sooner, I hope everybody has a wonderful Thanksgiving and I'm sad that I'm not going to be there, but I won't be alone because Colleen will be here with me! Thanks for sharing her!

Talk to ya'll soon!

A Wonderful Couple of Nights

Right now I'm sitting at the Orlando International Airport waiting to come home and I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. I figured I'd take this time to update since I am an hour and a half early for my flight and the past two nights have been very eventful. I have lots of pictures.

First things first, Wednesday morning Deb and I both woke up around 8:30 because we went to bed early and decided to go out for breakfast and then head to the Studios because I needed to find an Indiana Jones costume for Colin. When we got there and found a costume, saw the Muppets 3D show, the Little Mermaid show, and rode Star Tours. When we got out of the Muppets we ran into Lightning McQueen and Mater, who I didn't even know you could meet, so we got our pictures taken with them!...

That Disney bag in front of the man in the hat is my Indiana Jones stuff for Colin...He was a security guard in disguise making sure that nobody left "mysterious baggage." Disney's amazing, aren't they?

I had Deb take a picture of me in this Halloween hat because it's my favorite but I'll never spend the money on it...and let's face it...I'd never really be able to wear it anywhere...

Then we came home for lunch because Debbie had to be at work at 4 and wanted a chance to relax before being on her feet for the rest of the night. (She works at Beaches n' Cream at the Yacht and Beach Club Resorts, just in case I hadn't said that earlier.)

Around then two of my friends from work, also photographers, came over and we baked and decorated pumpkin cookies while watching the Little Mermaid!...

Alex is on the left, Brittany is on the right

(Alex is the girl that I met on my first day. She's from Florida. She's awesome and I love her. Brittany moved in a week after us and lives in the Chatham Square apartments, much nicer than ours, and she's from Detroit.)

This was my cookie that I made to look like a baby!

This was Alex's pirate pumpkin...

This was my normal pumpkin...

And this was our Mickey cookie!

As you can see, we're an artistic bunch of girls. Haha. Around 8:30 we went to Epcot to take photos and stayed til about midnight. It was an awesome night. It was really cool to go out with other photographers because they understand when you want to spend an hour in a gift shop in China just taking photos of stuff...

Like these little Buddha statues!

These were the most beautiful masks I had ever seen. 

They were all over $80. There was a reaaallyyy belligerent couple in there (because the food and wine festival is still going on) when we got there and they wanted us to take pictures of the masks for them because they couldn't take a still shot. It was really entertaining and they ended up buying a black and gold one.

Here we are in our French berets! 

Some little girl came up to me and yelled at me to put on a black one instead because she liked it better. She was like four and was actually really rude. I think she thought she knew me...It made me laugh.

This was a decoration in France...I just thought it looked pretty cool

This was a gorgeous, colorful perfume bottle I found in Italy.

These were the most beautifully colored wine bottles I had ever seen. They were in the wine cellar in France.

These were just a decoration in France, but I really liked how the picture turned out.

Well I'm boarding now! See everybody soon!!!

Boo to You!

I'm officially trained in everything! I went to my normal base on Monday to clock in and I found out that I was scheduled out of east base, which is where they deploy the photographers from to shoot the princesses, minnie and mickey, and the fairies in pixie hollow. I didn't even realize that I could be assigned there. Anyway, when I got there the only place that still needed a photographer was pixie hollow, and that requires special training. Well, lucky for me, they decided it was a good idea and spent three hours training me to shoot the fairies! My new schedule came out for next week and they only have me working out of the east base, which means I've been permanently moved to shoot those characters! It's great because the princesses make time go by soooo fast, but that also means that I get to shoot during the Halloween and Christmas parties, which I wasn't allowed to do out of north base! Yippee!!!

So yesterday I got to work my first 'Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party'. The first thing I got to shoot was Cinderella's glass carriage, which they only bring out for the Halloween parties and the Christmas parade! It's actually made of glass! There was a line before I even started and it was an hour wait for the whole 2 and 1/2 hours I was there! It was so cool! Plus there are speakers right behind it so you can hear the Halloween music really well. It's nice to hear something different besides the instrumental stuff they always play, even if it is Goofy singing 'The Monster Mash.'

After shooting the carriage they moved me to the Fantasyland Bridge, which is a normal shot that they do every night, but from there I could see the parade and Hallo-wishes! I'm not gonna lie, I couldn't see much of the parade, but I did see Captain Jack Sparrow on his pirate ship. But the fireworks show is absolutely unbelievable. It's completely different from the Wishes show they do every night. It's all scary and they shoot of fireworks all around the park so you're practically surrounded by them. It was beautiful.

After that I got to shoot the Haunted Mansion shot where they superimpose a ghost driving a ghost-horse-drawn carriage. It's really fun cause you have to make the guests do scared faces and some of them really go over the top. They bring out different characters, too. I actually spent my break walking around looking at everything because it was all new to me. You can take pictures with Snow White and all seven dwarves, the Queen of Hearts and Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee, and Donald Duck (dressed up as a pumpkin...) and Daisy (dressed up as a princess) throw a dance party by Ariel's Grotto. Oh! And you can get pictures with the princes, too, which you can't ever do during a normal day. Aurora is with Prince Phillip and Prince Charming is with Cinderella.

The park looks completely different, too, because they turn off all of the white lights and light the park completely with colored spotlights that they shine off of the roofs of the buildings and up onto the branches of trees. It's gorgeous.

I had my first day of class on Wednesday. It was just basic introduction stuff, but we played bingo to get to know each other and I won! So I got a cast-only pin, which was cool. We had free Papa John's and pop. It was fun and I'm excited for them to actually start. I chose the Marketing class where they bring in leaders from each of the different departments of Disney to talk about how they do what they do. From what everyone says, this is the time to network.

Anyway, I think that's all that's new for now. Grandma and Grandpa visited and we had a blast. Lots of shopping and eating, plus our resort was absolutely beautiful. Here are some photos from the past couple weeks and I'll hopefully update again after my first class on Tuesday!

This was our resort, Coronado Springs! It was way more than I was expecting.

Behind the palm trees is the lake that is in the middle of the resort. It's huge! On the opposite side is the main pool, which had a pyramid waterfall and sandpit. All very Mayan/Aztecan.

This was the fountain in the middle of our complex. It had the tallest palm trees I had ever seen! This picture is from the fourth floor, and you still can't see their tops!

This was the seating area for the bar that was on the lake, right outside our room. You can see the other buildings across the lake, all of them are rooms of the resort. Every building looked different, like a little city.

Sadly, I didn't take a picture of the whole room, but it was beautiful. This was what was on the bed, see the little Mickeys!

Grandma and Grandpa have more pictures of us together, which I'm sure everyone will get to see. Plus I got them started on their very first photopass! They got to see me in action and took pictures of me taking pictures of other people.

The rest of the pictures are just of me with characters...I'm building a collection!

Me and Deb with Donald

(Notice that I'm wearing my new M&M watch that my mom got me! I love it!)

Me and Deb in the sled at Blizzard Beach

Me and Deb with Stitch

Ok...this my seem random...and it is...but it's really cool because it's birthing season for the spoonbills, so they all have nests and they're sitting on their eggs. They're wild but they come to Animal Kingdom because they can eat lots and are protected. The zookeepers at Animal Kingdom have actually pretty much adopted them and monitor them now to make sure everything goes well.

Back to me...

Me with Lilo and Stitch

(One of my friends is 'friends with' Lilo, if you know what I mean.)

Me and Brer Bear

Me and Governor Radcliffe

(And no...I'm not wearing socks.)

Okedoke, well that's about it for now, I think. Hope everyone's doing well and enjoying the cold weather!! It's still 98 and sunny every day here. I'm forced to spend my free time at the pool. It's awful. I really wish I were spending my time at school instead, walking miles in the cold to sit for four hours in an overheated classroom. I miss it so much....NOOOTTTT!!!

But I do miss everybody and hopefully I'll see you all soon!

TTFN...Ta Ta For Now!