Happy Holidays from the Happiest Place on Earth!

Hi Everyone and Happy Holidays!

We've been having a lovely and festive season here and hope you are as well.

Our friends, Chad and Lisha, had us over to their place last week and had a chef come cook dinner for us, which was amazing. Their balcony is also a nice spot to watch the sunset over the marina.

Here we are!

This past Monday through Wednesday, Glenn took me to Disney Springs for a little getaway. I did not truly understand this, but Disney Springs was formerly known as Downtown Disney, and prior to that, was Disney's Shopping Village or something like that. Anyway, it is legit part of Disney World, located a couple miles outside of the Disney theme parks. It is really cute and was all decorated for Christmas, music playing everywhere, etc.

All of our friends and acquaintances were SHOCKED to hear that we have lived here for 6 years and have not been to Disney. We think we may make this a holiday tradition.

Anyway, it was a good photo opportunity.

Here's us at our hotel.

As we walked over to Disney Springs, this was our first view. It is located on Lake Buena Vista, and you'll see a lot of the hot air balloon that they have to give tourists a better view.

Tinkertoy statue

This is a restaurant called T-Rex which weirdly has a giant brontosaurus in front of it.

This is a pretty little lagoon that meanders through the town.

There are other notable landmarks like a giant volcano that occasionally spews fire (we have some pics of the volcano, but not the fire)...anyway, I digress.

This is Planet Hollywood with a giant curved video screen inside.

A giant tower, with a light post in front of it and a balloon behind it. I was being artsy.

This is the launch pad for the balloon.

And....the balloon.

This is the Boathouse, where we had dinner the first night. It was a very scenic spot.

Right next door they had these old fashioned cars that are actually boats. More on this in a moment.

So the next batch of pics are all from our view from dinner. We got to sit out on the water and had a lovely meal.

What is this? You guessed it... the car/boat.

And some other pretty night shots...

On the walk back after dinner, here's a giant paddleboat that is a restaurant.

And of course, the Loch Ness Monster made of LEGOs.

And a cool-looking sky over the volcano. I actually think this was from our second night because big storms rolled in that night.

Anyway, we also walked through a Christmas tree village which was OK, but crowded and everyone was posing in front of the trees, so no great pics really. It was snowing there though...

If you really want to see a Christmas tree, here you go...

Festive decorations in a shopping pavilion.

Anyway, back to our walk back to the hotel...

Lazy river

The first night we were able to watch fireworks from Epcot from our balcony, but they were very tiny in the distance, so we didn't take pics. The second night, thunderstorms took the place of the fireworks.

More shenanigans...

The second night, we ate at an Irish pub called Raglan Road that was really cool. Beautiful restaurant they supposedly shipped over from Dublin and reassembled in Disney. Besides great food, they had singers and fiddlers and dancers and it was a lot of fun.

Um. Let's see. Here are some other random pics.

This is the House of Blues that looked cool, but we didn't actually go there.

On the last day, it was COLD. So we were ducking into shops to stay warm. We went to the LEGO store, which had LEGO sets that were like $700 - $1,000! FOR LEGOS!

We also ducked into the T-Rex Place which was kinda funky inside.

Glenn is laughing because this little dinosaur turned and looked at him - everything was animatronic.

Anyway, that's it folks. Disney Springs was fun - no rides, crowds or lines, and fewer screaming children than you would expect.

Merry Christmas, Everyone!