We’re back with a rundown on last week’s vacation to the happiest place on earth, Disney World! By now you guys have probably picked up on the fact that we’re total Disney geeks. We talked a little bit about it here. And we even have a Disney-inspired print in our Etsy shop here. Even though we mainly chat about our house here on the blog, some of you have voiced that you want to hear more about us. So to capture our vacation, we decided to document it “Instagram style”.

Last Saturday morning, we packed up, threw our luggage in my parents’ SUV, and headed down I-95. It was a family affair. My mom, dad, little brother (Abram), Greg, and I all traveled to Orlando. When we, in the words of our English-speaking (as opposed to American English) navigation system, “reached our destination”, we met up with our other family members (my grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins) who live in the area. Yep, we’re one big, happy, Disney-loving family.

The drive from here to Disney is about 13 1/2 hours. It seems like a long drive, but it actually isn’t that bad, since there’s plenty of stuff to look at along I-95. I wanted to stop at a couple of antique stores, but I was out-voted. Next time. The main perk to driving rather than flying (for us) is that we don’t have to rent a car to have our own transportation while we’re down there. Disney has a ton of transportation options, but we like being able to come and go from the hotel as we wish. Plus, road trips are fun!

We spent most of our time talking, playing car bingo (um, no, we’re not too old!), and listening to Taylor Swift the UVA football game. My vote was Taylor Swift. But whatever. A perk of traveling down I-95 was the fast food choices. I know, totally unhealthy… but it’s a road trip! While we were in college, my and Greg’s favorite fast food stop was Zaxby’s, but here in Richmond, we don’t have one within a 50 mile radius. Needless to say, we had our fair share of Zaxby’s stops on our road trip. Oh! And Bentley went along for the ride, as well. We couldn’t bear leaving him at the “doggie hotel” for an entire week. So we decided to pack his bags, too, and bring him a long. He’s a very good travel companion. For the car ride, he really liked hanging out curled up in his travel crate.

We rolled into the condo on Sunday morning. (We decided to stay Saturday night in Brunswick, Georgia, since we couldn’t check into the condo until Sunday afternoon.) We spent the first day catching up with the family, going out to dinner, and getting settled in our room. We normally stay at a Disney hotel (The Contemporary Resort, The Boardwalk Villas, and The Caribbean Beach Resort are our top three favorites), but this time around, things were a little different. For one, there would be 11 of us, total. Secondly, we brought Bentley along this time around, so the place we stayed needed to be pet-friendly. Therefore, my grandma (the Queen of Family Vacation Planning), booked four adjacent condos at Vacation Village at Parkway. You could see Downtown Disney from our balcony, and we even caught a glimpse or two of the nightly firework show at Epcot.

Greg, Bentley, and I had our own 1-bedroom condo complete with a living room, dining area, full kitchen – (more than what we have at our house at the moment!) , bedroom, bathroom, and a washer/dryer combo. The above photos really don’t do the place justice. My grandparents’ condo was right across the hall. Their place  housed all of the food for the week and served as our family’s “central hub”. My grandma had the fridge stocked with enough lunch meat and breakfast ingredients to feed an army! There was also a good supply of games. The entire family is now addicted to Bananagrams. 

The rest of the week was spent hanging out with family, going to the parks, hotel hopping, dining at great restaurants, and generally relaxing. If you’ve been to Disney World, you know that there are so. many. things. to. do. There’s no possible way to give you a complete rundown of everything we did without using an unreasonable number of words. With that in mind, we decided to highlight our favorite things to do at Disney World:

FAVORITE RIDES: It’s impossible to pick out just one or two of our favorite rides. That’s like asking someone who their favorite child is. We don’t have a “favorite”, but we do have a few must-do’s that we, well, must do while we are at Disney World. For Greg, his must-dos include Pirates of the Caribbean and Philharmagic (which ranks pretty high among my must-dos, too). At the top of my must-do list is the Great Movie Ride at MGM Hollywood Studios and The People Mover (AKA Tomorrowland Transit Authority) at the Magic Kingdom. The People Mover is one of my very first Disney memories as a kid, and being one of the oldest rides, it’s total “classic Disney”.

FAVORITE RANDOM MUST-DO’s: Call us crazy, but Greg and I like riding the Monorail – even when there’s no place to go. Like the above failed attempt to take a photo of us on the Monorail? We find it relaxing to chill, have small talk with the people around us, and saying, “Por favor mantengase alejado de las puertas,” along with the recording over and over. I’m quite certain that makes us sound crazy, but that’s 100% okay!  Another random must-do for us is looking out for hidden Mickey’s. They are everywhere… in the carpet, railings, tile, rugs, murals, fabric… you name the place, there’s probably a hidden Mickey there. We even bought this book to clue us in on even more hidden Mickeys. I think it would be really fun to one day have enough photos of hidden Mickeys to put together a coffee table book!

FAVORITE RESTAURANTS: The Brown Derby is located at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and is first on our list of favorite restaurants. Not only is their menu always really good, but the old Hollywood atmosphere “has me at hello” everytime. For you I Love Lucy fans, remember the episode when Lucy goes to the Brown Derby for lunch and accidently dumps pie all over William Holden? Best episode ever. Kona Cafe at the Polynesian is another one of our favorite restaurants at Disney. One of our favorite things there isn’t even on the menu – it’s the Hawaiian Sweet Bread with macadamia honey butter they bring our before your meal. It’s delish! If we’re in the mood for a “Character Breakfast”, Chef Mickey’s at the Contemporary Resort is the place to be. We really like the atmosphere – even though we’re normally the only people there without kids! Another favorite and a must-do every time we visit WDW is dinner at California Grill. It’s located at the very top of the Contemporary Resort. Not only is the food superb (and the sushi amazing!) but the view is without a doubt the best view anywhere on Disney property.

FAVORITE SHOPPING SPOTS: A girl can shop till she drops in Downtown Disney. For real. I’m never really one for buying a ton of souvenirs while on vacation – though I like to hang on to things like our Magic Kingdom parking pass and chop sticks from Kona Cafe. Even so, Downtown Disney is a lot of fun to browse and stock up on post cards and that gift you promised your BFF. On this trip, we did score some Mickey ears for Bentley. And I must say, he looks really cute in them. My absolute favorite place to shop at Disney is Sid Cahuenga’s One of a Kind Antiques and Curios. It’s located right inside the gate of Disney’s Hollywood Studios, directly to your left. Okay, so the only thing I’ve ever bought in there was an Audrey Hepburn fridge magnet when I was 16. But that’s because this store is actually more like a museum than your normal gift shop. Every time we go, there’s something different. Last time we stopped in, they were selling the jacket Dick Van Dyke wore in Mary Poppins. I know, right?! I literally almost got emotional. Of course, I couldn’t take it home. Coming in at $65,000, it was a little out of our souvenir budget.

Sunday morning, after having a farewell family breakfast at Kona Cafe, we headed back to Richmond. We rolled into our driveway around 10:00 pm that night. Even though we miss the nightly firework shows, we’re glad to be back home, picking up where we left off on our to-do list.

I hope I managed to give you a good run down of our vacation. If I missed anything you’re wondering about, ask in the comments section and we’ll be sure to answer your questions.

It’s time for your well-deserved vacation and you’re busy packing all of the necessities for a break from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. But don’t rush out the door too fast! Here are nine things you need to remember before you head off for your vacation destination…

1. Turn off any breakers that won’t be needed while you’re gone. This can save you a pretty nice little chunk of change. Sure, you could just leave everything in the “off” position, and you’d still save some money, but many modern electronic devices still draw power even when they’re “off”. By turning off your breakers, you’re also doing a lot to lower the risk that your electronics will be hit by a power surge while you’re gone. Of course, don’t turn off the breaker to your fridge, air conditioner, or security system. You’ll still need these things (among a few others) to be running while you’re gone.

2. Clean out your refrigerator and pantry. Many people rush out the door dreaming of sandy beaches and not thinking about what their house might look or smell like when they get back. Before you leave, clean out any perishable items that might go bad while you’re having your fun in the sun. That way, your house doesn’t smell like a garbage dump when you walk in the door upon your return. Take the perishable food over to your parents’ or even a local food bank.

3. Clean, bleach, and plastic wrap your toilets. Yep, you read that right: plastic wrap. I’ll get to that in a minute. First, clean your toilet with your normal cleaning supplies to make it nice and clean. Who wants to come back home to toilet bowl rings? Then, pour in some bleach. This helps prevent mildew, which is part of what creates that musty smell in your house while you’re not there. This last (and strangest) step is optional, but great for people in warm, humid climates taking extended vacations. Tightly wrap plastic wrap over the bowl like you’re trying to seal up leftovers (that is, air-tight). You see, in warmer climates, water can evaporate from the toilet bowl and allow sewer/septic gas to leak into the house. You don’t want that. It’s smelly and can even be dangerous.

4. Set your air conditioner to a reasonably high temperature. Just bumping your temperature up a few degrees will allow you to save a decent amount on your power bill. However, setting your AC to 80 degrees (that’s about 27 Celsius for our metric friends) or more will cut your energy bill down significantly. Just remember that if your AC isn’t running much, it’s not taking the humidity out of the air, so be conscious of what the things in your house can tolerate. For example, musical instruments made from wood (guitars, cellos, pianos) don’t tolerate high heat or humidity very well, so if you have a high-end instrument, set your AC at the point where it will kick on every now and then to keep the temperature and humidity in check.

5. Turn off the water. Well, turn if off to whatever extent you’re comfortable. This is a matter of personal preference and may depend on how long you are leaving your house. Some people shut off water to their entire house while they’re gone. This takes the pressure out of your plumbing and ensures you won’t spring any costly leaks. Of course, turning it back on underneath the house right after a long car or plane ride isn’t exactly fun, so you could just hit the shutoff valves at each of your water-using appliances. The most vital are the washing machine, any leaky faucets, toilets that run constantly, etc. Of course, fixing these things before you leave would be nice, but not everybody may have that kind of time.

6. Buy timers for a couple of the lights in your house. These create the illusion that your house is still occupied, even when it’s not. Some timers even allow for different settings for different days. This is the kind of timer you want to buy. If all of your lights come on at the exact same time every night, it’s going to be rather obvious that they’re on a timer. Set each of your two (or more) timers to come on and turn off at different times each day. You might even set them to turn off or on near the same time to simulate someone coming home or going to bed.

7. Try not to order anything for delivery while you’re gone. Or, if you do, have it delivered to a friend or neighbor. There are two reasons behind this: 1) You don’t want whatever you ordered to sit outside for weeks on end. 2) Some professional criminals follow delivery trucks around to see if anybody answers the door when the driver knocks. This, along with leaving the packages on your doorstep while you’re gone, leaves the impression that you’re not around.

8. Remove any hidden keys. If no one is home and your neighbors aren’t extremely nosy, a burglar has virtually unlimited time to look around your house for keys. Make sure he doesn’t find any.

9. Recruit a friend to go by your house from time to time. You don’t really need to give them a key, either. All they need to do is pull in, make sure there aren’t any packages at your door, grab your mail, and ensure nothing looks broken or vandalized.

Do you have any helpful tips to add to the list? Let us know in the comment section!

Suitcase photo found here. Plastic wrap photo found here. Toilet found here. Light timer photo found here. Slight altered key rock photo found here

Last week, we scheduled two major projects to be done by a few contractors: tiling the master bathroom and staining the floors throughout the house. Since work was being done in the house and we couldn’t be inside while the work was happening, we took a little break from the daily grind of house renovations. Rather than just sitting around twiddling our thumbs and catching up on NCIS, we decided to spend some time with a mouse who wears red shorts. Yep, we spent the week at Disney World!

Though we were having a blast at the parks, shopping, riding the monorail and hanging out with Pluto, we were still attached to our iPhones posting blog entries, monitoring comments and checking in on the house projects via Ashley’s dad, who kept an eye on everything for us. Though we felt like we had it all under control even though we were on vacation, we still encountered a few bumps in the road.

Let’s back up a bit… Just a few days before we left for the Happiest Place on Earth, our tile guy got started on the master bathroom. After the second day, I went over to the house to check on the work.  The floor was completely tiled, but it was the tile that’s in our utility room, not the same tile that is in our new hall bathroom.  That was a major problem, since the tile in the utility room tile is one of those “it’s fine the way it is for the moment” situations. We’ll probably change the utility room floor down the road, but it’s not so bad that we need to rip it out anytime soon. However, we definitely don’t want it elsewhere in the house.

As it turns out, we had a little miscommunication about the tile… When we told our tile guy which tile we wanted for the master bathroom, we just pointed him toward the extra tile that we had in our outdoor storage area. Unfortunately, he found the extra utility room tile (which was kindly left to us by the previous owner) and thought we had changed our minds on which tile we wanted on the floor.  After discussing it with him, he ripped up the wrong tile and laid the right kind (at no charge) over the weekend. But no harm, no foul. Communication is key. Lesson learned.

Well, only a little harm. Because the floor guy couldn’t work in the house with the tile crew there, he needed to wait until the tiling was finished. Ripping up the tile took an extra day or two, so this delay also pushed back the floor guy’s schedule. As Ashley mentioned, the floor staining process started this past week. However, because the floor guy’s schedule had to be rearranged, he had to take a break between the sanding and staining process in order to do another job he already had lined up.

Now that all of the sanding has been done, the next step is the staining — which is beginning right now as I type. And we are very excited to see the result! Even though the process is taking a little longer than we anticipated (we thought it was going to be done when we came home from vacation), it’s still coming together. We’d rather have the job done right, even if it takes a bit longer, than have it poorly done because it was rushed.

When we rolled back into town Saturday around midnight, the first thing we did was go over to the house to check out the newly tiled master bathroom. I must say, it looks awesome!  I couldn’t imagine a better final product. Ash will be blogging about it tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Now that we are all Disney-magic-ed up, we are ready to get started on the rest of the projects that need to be done in order to start moving into the house.

Disney photos taken by us. Ashley took the photo of the tile in the shed… about 5 minutes ago.