Dancing with the Mouse!

My week was jammed packed full of fun! The start of the week was normal just work FHE and sleep! Tuesday at work I got to go to the warehouse to get some stuff for festivals and because of that I got to wear jeans! I like it when I don't have to get all dressed up for work. The warehouse is huge and full of old a new stuff for Disney, kind of cool the things that are in there. Wednesday I got to work on my talk to speak in church today. I had a very different topic, speaking on the perpetual education fund and the other offerings on the tithes and offerings slip. It went well and I'm glad it's over. Then Thursday was an amazing day. I guy that works on my floor his wife works for La Nouba. Crowds have been down and to make it a better experience for everyone they were giving out tickets and so he secured some for us. La Nouba is an awesome show, I have now seen it three times and I love it. This time we were on the third row, and I didn't like too much being up that close. When the trapeze artists were performing it was hard to watch because they were right above me. I prefer seats further away so that I can catch everything.



When the show was over our manager had us wait around for a minute, we thought he was just going to tell us stuff about work, but no we were wrong. A friend of his works there and took us on a tour. I had gotten to go on a tour the first time I went with a guy from the ward, who had just left La Nouba a few weeks ago because he got a part in Dralion and is now training in Canada to join them on tour in Australia (rough life huh?). We got to see pretty much everything in the building, all 9 floors! It was neat to see how everything works in the show. I am usually not too afraid of heights, but the catwalk 7 stories up was a bit scary to look down. We even went up to the 9th floor and walked around on the grid, high above the seats! It was way cool. It was an amazing experience, that I wasn't prepared for, I was wearing heels, not good footwear for a 2 hour tour, but I survived and finally made it home at 1 am. Lazy Tiffany and her roommate slept in and Tiff didn't go to work the next day because she was too tired.

Incase you haven't figured out yet, I really love my job. It is pretty much one of the best jobs ever! My manager is amazing and knows all sorts of people. Friday after La Nouba all of us at work were like "Did we really just do that?" Who does our manager not know? I had even more fun at work on friday. I got to go shadow a Magic Music Days Guest Talent Coordinator at the Magic Kingdom. I was so excited because it was my first time ever to work at the MK. We met the marching band over by Splash Mountain and brought them backstage to the Magic Music Days facility where their bus was waiting for them. We gave the band some instructions and then had them get ready to march before the 3 o'clock parade. We got to lead them down the parade route through the Magic Kingdom. It was so fun, and we got to make sure that everyone was out of the way for them to march through. This is a job I could do more often. Then we took them back to the MMD facilities to change to go back into the parks. It was fun to talk to the kids and see how things were, how they were liking the trip and their favorite part. Some of them even wanted to know how I liked my job and how I got there. I like guest interaction like that, makes what I am doing more fun. Then after work Tiff, Tiauna and I went and saw Confessions of a Shopaholic. Go see it, HILARIOUS! It is funny and has some good lessons to learn.

Saturday morning I got to wake up way early to be at the Magic Kingdom by 7:30am. I was able to pick up a glorious 12 hour overtime shift for saturday helping with this crazy event called Twirlmania. We were meeting our first group of baton twirlers at 8am. They were marching at 10am. It took awhile to get them all gathered and marched backstage to MMD to get lined up for their march. This group was funny very interesting. It was about 200 girls from somewhere in florida. They were all ages, but that wasn't really supposed to happen. You see at Disney there are some things you see backstage that can be traumatizing to some, so they make it a rule that they need to be at least 8 to come backstage. We were talking to some of them and finding out how old they were. One girl told us that she was 5, but her mom told her to tell us that she was 8. So we marched them down the parade route and then released them back to their families and then took a lunch break and then got our next group of girls. The next two groups were intense, 500 of my closest baton twirling friends! We would get them gathered and start sending them down to keep things moving and relieve the congestion where they were gathering. Then we marched them again, and this time they were before the 3 pm parade, so there were lots of people already lining the parade route.

Getting ready for the last parade of the day was kind of the best and craziest. We had to take them to the staging area backwards because of timing of other shows and yada yada yada. We got them to the staging area and then waited for the new "Move it, Shake it, Celebrate" floats to come back in. When characters and other performs come backstage they quickly leave character, so they weren't too happy to come through the gate after dancing the past 30 mins to see 500 people waiting backstage. The Mad Hatter had the greatest face, he finished the song and then look over and made the face of, oh crap there are tons of people over there, dang it! I'm sure he might have been thinking other things but they aren't too Disney friendly! We then got to watch everyone take their costumes off. For some it is traumatizing, for me intriguing, I love the whole backstage process of stuff, and it doesn't ruin the magic for me. After that was all cleared it was time to step off for the 3rd time. I had so much time leading these twirlers, it must just be my love of performing and being onstage. I would love to pick up more of these shifts. Our first festival is this weekend. I am so excited to see how it goes. It is the Jazz Celebration, the first one that Disney has done, so it is fun to be part of the inaugural event, and there are some big name Jazz people coming. All I have to say is YAY for overtime! I'm excited for my paycheck the next to weeks.

Spring is in the Air

The past two weeks have been fun and crazy. I had a great time going home for my Grandpa Riding's funeral. I did a lot of laughing and crying that weekend. We had an older cousin sleep over at the Thacker's. Since it had been a long day, we did not last long. We started watching "Return to Me" and I can't tell you when I fell asleep, but I do remember some parts of it. I think Lindsay was the only one who finished the whole thing. Each of us had puffy eyes from crying all day! We can however blame the falling asleep during movies to grandpa, well my mom always blames it on him, so I'm pretty sure it's a true fact! I didn't take any pictures with my camera that weekend, but there are plenty taken by everyone in my family. It was a beautiful weekend. I love that my family is very close and we seem tough most of the time, but we also have our tender side. I think that everyone got a little teary eyed sometime during the funeral. That just shows you how much we love and will miss our dear grandpa! The greatest thing about the weekend was getting the chance to hold my baby Abby for the first time. It was so fun and I can't wait till i get home and she is older to play with her more. I also spent quality time with Cali, we sat and cuddled and watched tv for awhile, oh how I needed some time with my nieces! We went to Texas Roadhouse for my birthday and it was delicious! G&G Jones and Juleen also came along because it was Juleens birthday. I got her a great gift and I will post more of that later because there are some awesome pictures that go along with it!

Flying back to orlando was great fun. We had a 6am flight which was not fun, but the fact that it was super bowl sunday and the super bowl was in Tampa, so there were tons of Cards fans on our flight! We didn't watch all of the super bowl because we opted to go to break the fast and eat some good food. Sadly we missed the half time show. I had the opportunity to have helped with the half time show because my awesome manager has a side job working with casting for the half time show. I was sad I missed out on that chance and experience that now the rest of my team has, but going home was a lot more important. My manager did bring me back a hat so that is cool.

I have had the chance to have the new cast member training at Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM Studios) and EPCOT. They weren't as exciting as I thought they would be. I think part of the reason behind that is that the trainers taking us on the tours treated us like we were 5. At the studios tour, the 2 ladies taking us around were weird and I have worked for Disney longer then they have! They didn't really like us, it was funny, maybe because we kind of know more than they do and it was a group of 10 of us that have worked together for 3 weeks and then a bunch of newbies. The guys at Epcot were a little better, they even let us ride a ride. There was an old guy who could barely hear and was confused at what our job was, he didn't understand what we were telling him. We did get to ride one of the friendship boats around the lagoon to tour all the countries instead of walking the whole world showcase. It would have been fun, but it would have gone on forever!

Work has been fun, we are starting to get into the heart of festival season, so we actually get to start doing our own stuff and not random "I need an intern to do this for me job!" I am starting to not like those jobs, especially ones that involve phone calls. Most of you know how I HATE making certain types of phone calls. One of my jobs was to call random schools and getting info about their step teams for Disney's Step Classic. I did not like it at all, it was kind of like pulling teeth. Needless to say I didn't make too many. I did not have a problem however making confirmation calls to the directors. That wasn't bad because they are coming to the festival and I was going over stuff with them. Some of the directors are cool, and some crazy. It is just the whole band teacher stereotype! Makes me laugh all the time!

On tuesday night I went with Tiffany, Tiauna (tiff's roommate) and our friend Erin to see "New in Town" it is a hilarious movie. We laughed pretty much the whole time. Go see it so that you can laugh. I will probably buy it when it comes out and laugh some more! When we were leaving the theater at Downtown Disney, we were treated to a great surprise, the Weinermobile! We just had to stop and take pictures! Then saturday night we headed over to the studios to watch the National High School Cheerleading finals. It was great fun. We had a blast watching all the different teams, laughing at the intense parents, especially the ones with the photo buttons (I always get a kick out of those ones!), and the parents were loving it because they could drink (and I don't mean soda!) while watching their daughters cheer, now how could it get better than that?! Tiff, Tiauna and I are working on our routine, stay tuned for more info on that one. Go P.C. foxes!

Rollercoaster week!

This week I have had a rollercoaster of emotions! On monday it was a more relaxed day at work, since it was MLK day, so we got to wear jeans, and in the afternoon we went on another field trip! We saw some more venues and ended up at Animal Kingdom because one weekend the awards ceremony will be at Theater in the Wild where "Finding Nemo the Musical" is, and so we just had to watch the show to familiarize ourselves with the stage, oh and since we got there a bit before the show started we used our time wisely and rode expedition everest while we were waiting! How I love my job, it is the greatest!

Then on Tuesday was my cousin Valerie's birthday. A fun thing about that day is that her baby James decided to be born that day also. To add to it, he looks just like her so he is definitely a momma's boy! (I have pictures later of him from another special surprise!)

On thursday morning, my dear sweet Grandpa Riding passed away. It is so strange the range of emotions I have gone through this week. I am sad that he is gone, but happy for him. He fell and broke his leg in november and just hasn't been able to recover from it. It has been really sad to see him get worse, he wasn't my grandpa that I grew up with. I know that he is so much better off now. He lived a wonderful life and leaves behind an amazing legacy and posterity! I can only imagine the wonderful reunion that took place when he was able to see his parents who were both killed when he was really young. Each time I talk about this I start crying because I know it's true. He is having a wonderful time with them, and other family including my brother! We will truly miss him but are truly excited for what he gets to experience now. So Tiffany and I are headed home thursday afternoon for the funeral. One thing that I am looking forward to doing while I'm home is to hold my niece abby. She wasn't quite big enough when we left, but she is now! Don't worry I have already bought her more presents to bring her!

To top off my week, saturday was my golden birthday! It was great. At work on friday my co workers decorated my desk space and got a cake for lunch. I didn't get a picture of the cake because I didn't take my camera to lunch since I had no clue they were doing that. It was a fun surprise! The friday night me, tiff and her roommate Tianna went to watch Wishes (Magic Kingdom foreworks). We ended up watching them from the beach at the Polynesian Resort. It was fun to see the fireworks from across the lake. It is a great romantic spot to watch them, they have hammocks and beach chairs. We will definitely go again. Yesterday I went and played in the parks a little. It was fun to finally have a birthday button! For dinner Tiffany and I splurged and went to Princess Dining in Norway (in Epcot). When you first walk in you take your picture with a princess and ours was Belle. Then we ate lots of good food, and the princesses come around to your table. Great fun! Then there was dessert and they brought me a cupcake and a card signed by a bunch or princesses. When we were done we ran outside to see the last few minutes of illuminations. My birthday was great fun!


Baby James Gemmill wishing me a happy birthday. The goofy I gave his mother while she was on her mission to Canada, and that is where they live.



the delicious cupcake at dinner, complete with Mickey sprinkles!

1st AMAZING Week!

Life in Orlando is tons of fun. My new job is a blast. There are 9 other interns on my team and they are great. We get along quite well and are so excited for all of our fun adventures this semester. Our manager is a great guy and super nice and easy to get along with. We have met so many people the past couple of days and are kind of sick of introducing ourselves to all the different departments that we will be working with, and are ready to start introducing each other! I have a little cubicle that I work in, and I have a disney email account. It is great fun. We are also on the same floor as fairytale weddings, so I get to see fun stuff as i walk around the office.

The festivals that we will be running will get intense, but now it is very easy and not too much to do as we get ready for them. Part of our training this week has been tons of fun and I can't believe I am getting paid for it. yesterday we went around to the different venues at the different parks that our groups will be performing at for the festivals. We got to watch some of the College Cheerleading and Dance championships that were taking place at Disney Hollywood studios and Wide World of Sports. I have always wanted to see them, and I finally got to. They were so good. Also when we stopped to look at something at the Magic Kingdom we had to ride big thunder mountain railroad while we were there! I am so excited for all the things I get to do. When I first did my college program I was at a resort the whole time, and now I get to work at Epcot, Studios and a little Magic Kingdom



Kent State Cheer


US Naval Academy, since when did they have cheerleaders?


On a side note, I think hell has frozen over or something because the Cardinals are going to the Super Bowl. How did that happen? I'm not sure, but super excited about it. There is one thing that makes me way excited for it, so now please allow me to step onto my soap box for a moment. There is a guy who plays for the Cardinals that I went to Jr High and High school with, and is now going to the Super Bowl. So for all of you who have bashed Mesa Jr, take that! How many of you went to JR High with someone playing in the Super Bowl? That is my little soap box and now I will step down.

Orlando or Bust

So on Monday January 5, Tiffany and I packed up my car and headed for florida. It
was a lovely 3 day car ride. My students gave me a teddy bear so we named him Leo and he was our trip mascot. Well the fun of taking pictures only lasted till thatcher, and then we never stopped unless it was a nescessary stop, and that wouldn't be fun to take a picture of! We are now in Orlando and having fun. There is lots to do! More to come on our exciting new jobs!

So much to be thankful for

Last year I got Josh Groban's new Christmas Album and it is amazing, there is a wonderful song that makes you think, and yes we all have so much to be thankful for.

For as long as I can remember, my mother has taken care of children in our home. We have formed amazing bonds with some of the children. Sadly for some of them they don't come from the most stable of situations, and we create some sense of stability in their lives. Last night we were informed that one of the children we used to watch a long time ago was killed in a car accident over the weekend. It is a really sad situation because his father didn't want anything to do with him and his mother was left to raise him on her own. She tried her hardest, but it was still really hard for him to fit in and get over the problems he had. He at times would cause major frustrations, but we had to just keep going and make him feel welcomed and accepted. He finally had found a place were he found his nitch, and was on his way home from playing with I think his jazz band when the accident happened.

When things like this happen I am reminded of how fragile life is. My mother is amazing and has done so much for so many. She does so much for others, and often time gets taken advantage of by others, yet she just keeps on going. I love her so much and am so thankful she is mine. Christmas is always crazy with all her many projects, but I don't think I would have it any other way.

Christmas is going to be different this year. The Ridings always have a Christmas Eve Dinner, Program and Party. We eat, do the nativity, family talent and eat dessert. This year my grandpa is in a rehab center because he broke his leg 6 weeks ago and isn't strong enough to come home yet, so christmas eve is going to be different. We are just going to gather at the rehab center for about an hour, not the 4 or 5 we normally do. I hope it will be ok, but it will be, and we will all still be together. We are very thankful for his progress so far and can't wait till he comes home.

Another thing I am thankful for are my nieces. Cali is adorable and I love to play with her. She has so much energy. Little Abby is doing great and keeps improving. They are hoping to take her off C-pap on Christmas, and just be on high flow oxygen. It is amazing how much she is growing and the progress she is making.

Merry Christmas!

Orlando here I come!

I was offered today the internship of my dreams. I am moving to florida in January to help run music festivals at Disney World. Is that not the perfect job for me? I'm so excited. I leave in less than a month, but not sure yet, since it's about a 3 day drive from az(ewwwwwwwww). Tiffany and I will probably making the drive together because she is extending her college program and going to be working photopass, which is a perfect job for her!



I think one of the things I am most excited about is that Craig Jessop is going to be one of the adjudicators for one of the festivals. How awesome is that?