Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party

Hello Dreamers! 

Happy Monday! also, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!

Is there ever such thing as a Happy Monday? Sounds kind of like an oxymoron to me.... but that may just be me.

If you follow me on Facebook then you will have already seen all of these photos, but for those of you that don't.... here ya go! Last Tuesday I went to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party with my friend Ashes back home at Walt Disney World. We've been going to Disney on and off since I was in middle school, but for some reason this was the first year that I attended the Halloween Party!

We got to the park around 4PM because even though the event doesn't officially start until 7PM they still let guests enter around 4 so that they can ride some rides if they are only there for the party. It was the perfect time to get some photos of all the decorations and what not. The first thing Ashes and I did was to go look for some pins at the stores. We knew they would have special pins just for the party and we both wanted some.

Since my birthday is actually tomorrow, and one of the reasons that we decided to go was to celebrate my birthday, I got this nifty button that I got to wear. All the cast members that saw it wished me a happy birthday and I even got a brownie with dinner in celebration.

Ashes and I wanted to get on the Pirates of the Carribbean ride since it is one of our favorites, but unfortunately it was closed down for maintenance. We did manage to stumble upon this awesome treasure hunt though that we never knew existed! We completed 3 out of the 5 maps before it was time for dinner and we got side tracked. Next time I will finish the last two so I get all the maps AND the treasures! For those of us that are into scrapbooking and memory keeping, these maps and treasure cards are perfect memorabilia for our albums. I am working on my album this week, there will be pictures and a walk through video once I am done with it for those that are interested!

Excuse our derpy faces here! We decided to give vlogging a try and this is when I took a photo instead of a video. haha. We are both still pretty new at it and I will have the video up on my YouTube channel sometime this week. 

So I won't lie to you, this was our number one priority of the party, haha. We both love Nightmare Before Christmas (I'll include the video that I got of meeting them in my vlog) and it was definitely worth the wait. We ended up having this really nice family behind us and we sang with their daughters for the duration of the wait and had fun talking with the parents.

This was my birthday hug from Sally.

For those of you that aren't going to watch my vlog: If you are going to the party and you want to meet Jack and Sally, here is a tip for you. Get there at 4PM and immediately get in line (they are at the gazebo over near the Christmas shop) that way you don't have to wait long. They get there around 5 and the cast members close the line around 930-945. The earlier you get in line, the less time that you have to wait to meet the characters.

After this we went and rode the Haunted Mansion ride and did some trick or treating while waiting for the other main events to start. We decided to go to the later times for the events so we could enjoy the park and not feel rushed.

The Hallo-wishes event was fantastic, if not blinding. I love the colors that they had on the castle and how it was more villain themed to fit the occasion!

For a photographer I took some terrible shots! Haha. I decided against bringing my big camera because I didn't want to take the chance of damaging it, so I did most of the photography and videos on my cell phone. For the most part it has a decent camera, but the lighting for parts of the Hocus Pocus Villian Spectacular was terrible! 

The show was phenomenal and thanks to being handicapped, we actually got to see the show up close and personal. Which is really nice when you're short like Ashes and I are. Haha. It's definitely a must-see in my opinion if you go to the show.

We only saw part of the Boo-To-You parade, because we wanted to beat the traffic out for our 1 hour and 45 min long drive back to my parents house, but what we did see what phenomenal as well. I love seeing everything decked out in Halloween. Whoever thought to combine Halloween and Disney is an absolute genius in my opinion!

Thank you so much for stopping by and checking out my blog post! Make sure to keep an eye on my YouTube channel for the vlog as well as the scrapbook mini album that I am working on to document the trip!

Hope you all have a fantastic Halloween!

YouTube: Scrap journal V.1 Flip Through

Hello dear friends!

I just posted a new video up on my YouTube channel. 

This is a walkthrough of Volume 1 of my scrap-journaling. This isn't the best quality, but I kept putting this off and I finally just had to get the video out!

I use a Moleskine notebook that is cut down to fit inside my MJDori. I picked this notebook up in a 3 pack at Target when I was home this past June. My mom and I worked together to cut down the notebook and round out the edges.

This notebook started out as a couple of lists of things that needed to be done while I was home in June for my brothers graduation. It wasn't until I was at Fort Eustis when I stumbled upon Courtney at The Little Ink (she is linked at the end of this blog post).

I print my pictures using my Canon Selphy printer that I ordered off of Amazon. I use Pic Collage on my iPhone to print out multiple small pictures at one time.

I get my washi tape and stickers from various places: Michaels, the PX, and the craft store on my local base, as well as the one on Graf.

Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns.
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Here is a link to the other YouTube channels mentioned:

Courtney at The Little Ink

Ali Brown YouTube

Serena Bee: YouTube

Here is a list of some of the products that I used in this project.

Sweet Stamp Shop: online store

Glendori: By Paper Flower Etsy Store

Pretty Sheepy Stickers: Etsy Store

International Geek Girls Pen Pal Club 

My Adventures: Frankenstein Castle 2015

Hello friends!

Two posts in one day! 

I couldn't help it! I was just too excited and had to share with you guys!

Last night, K and I went with our Outdoor Recreation group to the biggest Halloween celebration in Europe! We went on a 3 hour bus ride to the FRANKENSTEIN CASTLE! Yes, THE Frankenstein Castle!

I borrowed K's Jack inspired dress because I didn't have a costume. She got the dress from Hot Topic some time ago, I'm just amazed that it fit. I am bigger around the shoulders and wider in the sides then she is, but the dress fit. I just needed some help pulling the dress off over across my chest and shoulders. Since it is October in Germany, of course it's cold, so instead of wearing black tights, I just wore my black skinny jeans tucked into my almost knee high black converse. I've had these shoes since I was 16 years old. I spent the first 10 minutes of trying to get dressed just lacing these shoes up! After that I put on my fedora, added some black eye shadow, black stitches around my mouth, and then black lip stick. I also added some stiches around my throat. It was totally awesome!

This is K and I before we got on the bus. She decided to go as a punk-rock Alice from Alice in Wonderland. It definitely fit her personality. She bought the crazy wig yesterday morning at a German  store and was way too stoked for that.

 I didn't take as many pictures as I should have. I was too busy trying to keep my hat on my head. One of the monsters walked up to me and when I didn't jump away or scream, he snatched my hat off my head. I had to chase him and it took me 10 minutes and a lot of patience to get my hat back.

The details of the castle were absolutely amazing. Sadly we weren't allowed into the castle, but we were along the side of it. There was a whole path that we were directed around. Almost all of the monsters were silent, didn't speak a word. They just walked amongst the crowd and go after the people that run or scream. The only part that I didn't agree with was them being allowed to put hands on you. This isn't fun because they all liked putting their hands around people's throats and that made me really uncomfortable. 

 This is a graveyard that was just passed the tunnel of death. The picture on the right was pretty cool. The monsters looked like Ork's from The Lord of the Rings, it was very interesting. They were almost a little creepy, but it was AWESOME!

We watched an awesome show where a bunch of the monsters danced to a bunch of different songs. The best part was that they were all American songs (to include Thriller), but that was the only English part of the entire experience. For some reason they put the stage directly behind this massive tree that blocked the view of the stage unless you were right up front. And since I am short, I missed a lot of the dancing. It makes me really sad, because what I could see, was pretty awesome.

I found myself some Minions! They sounded like they were British, which made asking for a picture all too easy! They were more then happy to take a picture with me, apparently they had been doing so ever since they got there.

I wish that I had remembered to take a picture of the drink menu. K really enjoyed the Spicy Monster Kisses while I stuck with a regular ole Jack and Coke. We each had two of our respective drinks, although I had to down the second one pretty quickly because drinks weren't allowed into one part of the event. I don't advise anyone to quickly drink over half of a Jack and Coke... ever.

K and I got really lucky when we got there, in how we hooked up with a group of elementary school teachers that were on the bus with us. We all decided to stick together, which made it all that much more fun! I just think it's funny that we found a group of teachers to stick with. These teachers were a bunch of fun though! Two of them got super scared at two separate times! It was so funny!!!!

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There you go guys and gal's. I am really glad that I didn't bring my dSLR camera with me like I had wanted to. There was not where near enough room for me to feel comfortable carrying that around with me. Not to mention that one of my hands was securely wrapped around my hat once the monster snatched it off my head. I really can't wait to actually get this all written in my scrap journal. Once I finish my home work today I am going to catch up on my October Daily around my birthday dinner with my usual crew. 

I hope you guys had a wonderful Halloween!

Be on the lookout for my upcoming posts of my October Daily album. 

I am going to share them in weekly intervals!

"I Love" Sunday's v.47

Dearest friends

Happy Sunday!

I hope this post finds you well.

This is one of two posts I'll be sharing today.

Today is an extra special post! Cuz today is my 24th birthday!

That's right, today is my birthday.

I usually don't really care about my birthday, I haven't since I was 18....

but I figured that it was worth mentioning. 

This is the last birthday I will be celebrating in Germany, and I am spending it with some dear friends

** It's a little odd to me how quickly we've reached the end of October. This dismay favorite month after all, but it just flew by! It's like I just blinked and poof it was gone. I've received several packages of happy mail throughout the month. And I even started a new project. I'm still working on it, and I will share it in segments once I get parts of it completed.

** I completed my exit interview with the VA, which just puts me one step closer to going home! It means that all my stuff with the MEB is done! Thankfully, because that was an infuriating process. It's no surprise, since it has to do with the military and the VA, which all move at their own pace. They need to figure out how to move the whole process along. Once we reach this point, we want to just hurry up and move on, start another chapter in our lives. I'm going on 8+ months of dealing with this.

** Been working on catching up in my October Daily. I know that I am behind and it's sad, but it doesn't surprise me. Although I wasn't insanely busy this month, I spent a lot of free time doing my homework and I had a couple of events that I was a part of. I did my best to make notes in my monthly plan book about events, but I didn't have enough time to document them in my scrap journal. Now that the month is over I can take a breather and get caught up. That is exactly why I love my monthly plan books!

** Had a sensing session with our units higher ups, which was about as interesting as I thought it was going to be once I saw who was in the meeting. It turned into a complaining session (no surprise) but the important part is that the higher ups actually listened to what was said. They made changes where they could, which makes me happy. That doesn't happen nearly enough. It needs to happen more often (not the complaining, but the changes that could be made)

** Thursday was the 22nd birthday of The Nightmare Before Christmas! *happy dance*

** Thursday also had me having dinner with one of the NCO's that I used to work with. She was my first NCO when I got to Germany. We were supposed to be going to the going away dinner of my friend Dustin, but G had the day wrong so we missed it. To make up for it, we went to an awesome little Greek place in a nearby town and had dinner. We talked and caught up and just had a good time.

** Yesterday was Halloween!!! My favorite holiday ever! And to top that off, K and I went on an Outdoor Recreation trip to the Frankenstein Castle. There is a post on that trip coming up later this evening!

** Today is the last week of classes for me! I am super stoked about that!!!! I am all for continuing my college education, but online classes have been a little difficult. Sometimes I need to be in a classroom to have access to a teacher.

.: Little Loves:.

|| My friends | music | cola | Jack & Coke | scrap journaling | Nutty Bars | traveling | candy ||

Overall, it's been an interesting week! 

Hope it was a good one for you all!

I'm sad that October is already over. However, that means I am one step closer to going home.

"I Love" Sunday's v.46

Hello Friends

Happy Sunday!

** Monday was the Dokumentationszentrum visit in Nurnburg, it was all about the Third Reicht and everything that led up to the Holocaust. That was a 3 hour adventure (like no lie, 3 hours long) where they give you a device that translates all the exhibits. After that we went to this 3 story comic store where they actually had English comics! I was so super stoked!!! I got 3 Batman comics that I needed to add to my collection, a Copic Multiliner in 0.5, a Copic Multiliner in brush size small, and a new purple Copic marker to replace the one that doesn't work. I was so super stoked about it that I really had to limit my spending that day. I needed to wait until I got paid to go back and look at more stuff.

part of a panorama that C took that he sent to me of the Nazi Parade Field

** Tuesday was a shamtastic kind of day, where I laid around and didn't do a whole lot. My main priority was to continue printing photos out for my journal, since it was one of the last things that I needed to do to complete my journal. I was also finally inducted into my local chapter of the VFW. It's only taken like 5 months, ha ha ha. There were some circumstances that got in the way.

** Wednesday brought me to the lovely YouTube channel of Serena Bee and her October Daily. It's a Halloween version of Ali Edward's December Daily. I've already written a post about my plans for October Daily now that I found her project. If you love Halloween like I do, you should check her out!!!

** Thursday was a super busy day for me. The majority of my day was spent at a craft fair trying to raise awareness and funds for the upcoming Breast Cancer 5K being held on 24 October. I did a LOT of talking (got pretty tongue tied eventually), met some awesome new crafters in my area, and bought some amazing handmade products! 

After that I finished the first volume of my scrap-journal inspired by Courtney of The Little Ink (YT) and Raven Ink (blog). I am super stoked about completing this project and there will be a flip through of this video on my YT page here soon. I just have to finish editing and posting two other videos first!

After that, it was time for a work dinner for a Hail & Farewell at a local German restaurant. I love events like this because they foster a sense of camaraderie and community between everyone in my unit, despite rank. The families come with as well, and it's a big event for us. We said welcome to about 20 new Falcons and their families and good-bye to 5 or 6 people that are leaving us here soon. It's always quite the adventure.

** Friday was spent editing photos from my adventures from this past weekend and catching up on blog posts. I started my new journal, edited some videos for my channel, and watched some TV.

** Yesterday I picked up some new Halloween decorations for my room. I can't do a whole lot of decorating, but I will do what I can. Haha. I got some new candle holders, a new mug, a new plastic cup, and some stickers for my October Daily project. 

.: Little Loves :.

|| journaling | meeting new crafters | inspired by other bloggers | everything HALLOWEEN | scented candles | YouTube | Dr. Pepper | German food | photography ||

What are you loving from this week?

Tomorrow is also my blog's first birthday! Make sure you stop back by and check out that post!!!

My adventures: Hemhofen Medieval Fest 2015

Happy Tuesday dear friends!

This weekend was a four day weekend to celebrate Columbus Day (in reality, we're supposed to get a four day every month so we can go travel around Europe but they try to make it fall on holidays if possible to make it more legit). On Sunday, the usual crew and I made a trip about an hour away to a small medieval festival.

Some of these pictures are watermarked, they ARE my photos, just being used from my photography business. The ones that aren't watermarked were never edited for my business.

This is the sign that leads up to the front of the small festival. It's no where near as big as what I am used to (I really do love Medieval festivals and Renaissance Fairs), but it was still pretty awesome. Thankfully it was a gorgeous day outside, a little chilly, but gorgeous none-the-less. We had an absolute blast today.

There was a blacksmith as soon as you walked into the event. I tried to get pictures of him actually working but there were people in the way when that happened. One of the officers I work with said that the photo above looks like I took a picture of an old time photo. I promise it's not the case, haha. I just edited it this way!

This was a band that was playing as we walked around. They were singing in German (of course) but the music was really pretty! I love how they were all dressed up!

Dom is such a good test subject to take pictures of. He was in the middle of eating something when I snapped this, but it sometimes is hard to get him to look at me for long.

This is the mug I got from the event. I got some mead first but the cup was just a regular clay cup without anything on it, so I didn't keep it. This cup I got was full of some peppermint tea. It was yummy, the first time that I tried that. 

This is my absolute favorite picture that I have taken to date. Dom was getting a little squirmy in his stroller and his mom took the spoon that he was playing with since it wasn't ours. I tried to distract him with my camera. Please let me repeat that I LOVE this picture. 

In the center of the event was a fenced off area, where these guys used the space to joust and perform. it was pretty entertaining to say the least.

There were these three ladies dancing after the jousting was over. It was pretty interesting to watch, they were very fluid and in time with each other.

This guy was walking around and I just thought he was wearing the coolest outfit! He didn't speak any German when I went to ask if I could take his picture, but he understood what I meant when I pointed at him and then my camera. When I said thank you in German (one of the few things I learned how to say when I got here) he tried his best to say you're welcome in English. He was awesome!

This was when we were heading back to the car. Dom is very much a daddy's boy and loves walking with him when he's able. This picture was just too cute to pass up taking. 

Overall, as usual, we had a blast on our outing. I really am going to miss this small group of people, my extended family, when I go back to the States. I love the adventures that we go on during the weekends.