Tag: Magic Kingdom

Magic Memory Monday – Daisy Hugs! – November 18, 2013

I’ve missed a couple posts in the past week as we have had company over and I haven’t been able to get at the site and still do my Goofy Challenge training.  But that should all be sorted now and I can get back to putting up some more posts.

For the Magic Memory today this picture caught my eye as I was reviewing some old pics from our December 2010 family trip to Disney World.  We were wandering out of Epcot to take the monorail to Magic Kingdom when we randomly ran into Stitch and Daisy doing greetings.  A bit of a strange combination but it was good – plus there wasn’t any wait so we were able to come up and visit them really quickly.

Our daughter couldn’t get to Daisy fast enough – basically flew into a hug.  I managed to snag a couple quick pictures and our daughter was just so excited.  She was less than a month over 2 at this point and getting that hug from Daisy was a huge highlight for her.  Any time we went anywhere for the rest of the trip and we saw characters she would ask for “Daisy hugs”.

It is pretty amazing to me how much the Disney characters can touch people (kids and adults) and become such a big part of them.  Our daughter still loves Daisy to this day 3 years later.  Considering what kids could latch on to instead, I’ll take my daughter looking for “Daisy hugs” any day.

K and Daisy Duck in Epcot
K and Daisy Duck in Epcot

Magic Memory Monday (2) – Rapunzel – November 11, 2013

Following in the theme of the post from earlier today of our daughter K’s meeting with Cinderella in Magic Kingdom – this next pic was from a few minutes later when K met with Rapunzel.

The cast member playing Rapunzel really captured the fun of the character from Tangled and spent a lot of time laughing and joking with K.  The laughter and fun seemed very genuine and our daughter certainly had a lot of fun with her.

I don’t know if it was because it was pretty quiet or just what, but K got to spend a lot of time with the princesses that night and she loved every second of it.  She was so happy and excited and this picture seems to capture it.

I love seeing moments like this where the kids can just let go and have fun.  Awesome.

K and Rapunzel in Magic Kingdom
K and Rapunzel in Magic Kingdom

Magic Memory Monday – Cinderella – November 11, 2013

Today’s memory comes from our last family trip to Disney World (in Jan/Feb 2013) – our daughter (K) had a few Disney Princess dresses with her on this trip and it was a bit of an imperative to see as many of the Princesses as possible on the trip.

We got lucky a few times during the trip where the meet and greet area in Magic Kingdom for the Princesses was pretty much a walk up with only a few families in front of us.  Both times we stopped in they had Rapunzel, Aurora and Cinderella (with the order reversed one visit to the next) meeting with folks.

The cast member who was playing Rapunzel both times was awesome, she really captured the energy of the character as portrayed in Tangled.  But today’s memory was of Cinderella.

We were next in line and while we were waiting the PhotoPass photographer had some issues with her equipment and quickly wandered off stage to fix it.  Once Cinderella had finished with the people she was visiting with she noticed the photographer wasn’t there and wandered over to us in line and took our daughter’s hand and walked her over to the greeting area to talk.

Luckily I had our camera out ready to go – even still I almost didn’t get this shot – luckily the Canon T4i I use frequently is a pretty quick camera and good with lower light conditions.

It was a big moment for our daughter and the cast member playing Cinderella really made her day.  It was a pretty cool.

K and Cinderella in Magic Kingdom
K and Cinderella in Magic Kingdom

Magic Memory Monday – September 23rd, 2013

Ok time for Magic Memory Monday #2 – This one was from our first family trip to Disney World as well – same day in fact as the first Magic Memory Monday post (link).

We were on Main Street waiting for the fireworks show Wishes to start.  I was holding my son up so he could see around and my wife grabbed the camera and took a shot as he leaned his head into my chin.

This is definitely a nice picture of the 2 of us with Cinderella’s Castle clear and lit up in the background – definitely no mistaking the location or that we were both quite happy at that moment.

The closeness with my son at that moment is something I still carry with me – in fact I keep a copy of this picture on my wall at work as a reminder.  These are the kinds of moments that can happen anywhere but Disney just seems to excel at finding ways for them to happen more often.

Fun side story here was that as the fireworks began we were worried that as he was only 17 months old at the time he might get scared by the lights and the noise.  We needn’t have worried though.  He jumped as the first set of fireworks blew into the sky but then he started clapping and yelling boom!! and yay!!  I think we went to various fireworks shows around Disney World 5 or 6 times on that trip and he would do the same thing each time.  It was awesome to see him enjoying the show and really getting into it.  There is another of those memories that will stick with me for many years to come.

Magic Kingdom - Cinderella's Castle and my Son
Magic Kingdom – Cinderella’s Castle and my Son

Magic Memory Monday – September 16th, 2013

So I am finally getting a bit of an idea on how I want to use this sister site to biggoofyrunner.com and one thought is to post up some of our family Disney pictures and talk about the memory and feelings that come with that picture.

So to start I will go with one of our first pictures taken on our trip in January 2008.  It was my first trip as well as the first trip for our 17 month old son.  My wife had been a few times previously when younger.  I did the full marathon that year and my wife did the half.  We stayed at the Pop Century and this picture was from Magic Kingdom coming down Main Street just after we came in on our first day.

 

Main Street in Magic Kingdom on first visit
Main Street in Magic Kingdom on first visit

 

Looking at this picture I can see the awe and wonder on our son’s face.  There was a moment of happy right there and it was just one of many on that trip.  I did a full marathon on that trip and I don’t really remember much about it to tell the truth besides a few moments here and there…but I can remember so many moments of the joy and wonder from our son from that trip.  That trip started the love affair with Disney World and because of moments like this one I have ended up back there 7 more times between 2008 and 2013.

I have heard anecdotes that say travel broadens a child’s mind and with what we saw with our son I would definitely say that is true – you can almost see the synapses sparking in this picture.