Day 1079: Lights on Lights on Lights

With the Osborne Lights coming to a conclusion at the end of this holiday season, I can't help but be...well...pretty sad. As much as I miss the original lights I grew up with as a kid, it's always hard to see a tradition at Disney go. But Christmas light shows go far beyond the Dancing Lights at Hollywood Studios. So I did a bit of research and found a few of my 2015 favorites to share with you!

We absolutely have to start out with some Star Wars, because that's really what this 2015 holiday season is all about. Maybe Disney could just do the Osborne Lights in Star Wars land and time them all to Star Wars music? I think it would work pretty well!

And then there's this, which just flat out TAKES THE CAKE: 

I was only about halfway through my research when I found that one, but now that I found it I don't even want to find something else. I'm done. This video wins. 

I'm apparently a bit bias when it comes to IllumiNations. 

Have a magical day, and share some of your favorites in the comments below! 

(Note: This blog post was written on December 22).

Day 702: 101 Smiles

Here we have another post that definitely involves Jennifer Morrison. December 3rd marked the end of something JMo started in an attempt to bring more positivty to Twitter, called #101Smiles. The concept was simple, is simple, you post a picture a day, for 100 days, of something that made you smile. It can be anything, and some pages, such as The Ugly Ducklings page, gave daily challenges of something that made you smile within a certain category.

It just so happens that #101Smiles started on the very first day of classes here at SNC, meaning that the challenge took place over the majority of the fall semester of my sophomore year of college, and it's taught me a lot of lessons. As I said on Twitter, #101Smiles is something I didn't even know I needed. It's one of the main reasons I came out of the last two years with an extremely positive attitude, and it's certainly brought me a lot of smiles over the past 100 days. So let's take a look back. Here's the collage I put on Day 101, made up of most of the pictures I shared over the 101 days:

There were a lot of great moments stuck in there, such as the time that I made Jennifer Morrison crave churros (see THIS POST for more on that story), or that time she liked our dorm room (HERE!). There's the CaptainSwan tea, and Baby Sven (Also liked by JMo!), Halloween with my darling roommates, movie times, cupcakes, Starbucks, weird adventures, tweets, Disneybounds, Fastpass reservations and plenty, and I mean plenty, of smiles. 

I did this challenge on a whim. After all, why wouldn't I? Jennifer Morrison is one of my role models and certainly is my favorite actress, so when I saw the opportunity to join in, I jumped on the band wagon faster than you can type a tweet. What I didn't expect was for it to lift my mood so much. Just sitting down at the end of the night and thinking "What made me smile today?" lifted my mood and definitely made me a happier person. 

So here's a HUGE thank you to Jennifer Morrison for starting this, and a special shoutout to the #UglyDucklings that made me and so many others feel loved. I'm definitely sad to the see the end of #101Smiles, but I can't wait for the next one, #101Smiles2015. 

If you didn't participate in the challenge, that's alright! It's never too late to start, and just because I'm finished and so is Jen, it doesn't mean that you can't join in on the fun. There's still tons of people facing the challenge of a picture a day of a smile, and I highly recommend that you do the challenge, no matter where you are. Just because it's past Day 101 doesn't mean we have to stop smiling! 

Have a magical day!

(Note: This blog post was written on December 19 due to finals). 

Day 642: Life is Made Up of Moments

It seems that suddenly (as I go back and make up these blog posts that have had topics for weeks and I just haven't had the time to write), that there's a surplus of OUAT posts, but I suppose that's alright. After all, OUAT is a part of Disney, if only through the fairy tales and ABC, and that means that it's fair game around here. This time it also involves our dorm room though, and you all know that I love incorporating little bits and pieces of Disney into my dorm room.

Over our recent Long Weekend (two days off of school!), I spend an entire day in my Mom's craft room working on the Monsters Inc. door decs and this little beauty:

We've known from the start that we wanted Christmas lights in the back room, but we also decided that the wall needed some color. Eventually we decided that it would be a quote canvas. You see these things all the time on Pinterest and I've always wanted to try my hand at making one, but never had the time or reason to actually do so. Until now. 

We discussed the quote itself for quite some time because I eventually suggested "Life is made up of Moments. Good ones; Bad ones, but they're all worth living." It's a quote I've talked about many times, as it's actually my favorite quote from Once Upon A Time, and it just seemed to fit, especially since my roommates and I are all sort of together because of the show itself, but I already talked about that in a blog post. 

Regardless, I figured I would share the canvas since I previously shared the Christmas Lights on the wall because Jennifer Morrison liked that particular picture. I couldn't not share the finished wall, now could I!?! 

Have a magical day!

(Note: This blog post was written on October 20).

Day 620: Christmas Lights

I collect many things, and tweets from famous people is one of them.

Now there are a few things I consider. Really, if a famous person (or anyone with that little blue check mark or who is on TV or is in a band, etc) tweets you back, then that's obviously a huge win. It doesn't happen very often, especially when you get into those high ranking twitter users. Yep, Colin O'Donoghue I'm talking about you. I classify this as Level One.

Level Two features the retweet, because who doesn't want to be retweeted by a famous person. That's a pretty darn awesome thing to have happen, especially if they quote your tweet and say something like "I LOVE THIS!" Happens on occasion...although I don't think I've ever had this happen to me specifically. Someday I tell you, someday.

And then there's a Level Three, not to be underestimated, the favorite. These are great because it shows that whoever you tagged is indeed looking through their mentions and happened to notice yours. I definitely count these in my collection because they're pretty easy to get.

Over time I've had a lot of favorites and mentions. I have a L1 Colin, of course, as well as L1 from Adam Horowitz (x3), Raphael Sbarge (Archie) and various others from the Once Cast as well as Top Gear America and others. Like I said I don't really have any Level 2's, but I do have a great collection of Level 3's, including this brand new one.

The other day I spent a good couple of hours putting up Christmas Lights in our dorm room. Since deciding we would room together last spring, my roommates and I have always talked Christmas lights in our room. It's a popular decoration on Pinterest and you see it throughout dorm rooms here at SNC. It took us a few weeks to get it done, but with a couple of free hours I put myself to work on various activities around our room, and those lights happened to be one of them. They look pretty great, huh?

Well, I posted this photo on Instagram after finishing, and then included it on Twitter as my photo of the day for #101DaysOfSmiles, which is 101 days of photos of things that make us smile started by Jennifer Morrison. She's participating and is encouraging everyone else, especially the Ugly Ducklings, to do so as well. Of course, I picked it up right away myself on my first day of the school year, oddly enough.

But later that day as I stood with two of my roommates in one of the buildings on campus before class, and my phone went off with a Twitter Notification, we ended those last few minutes before learning with a favorite from Jennifer Morrison herself.

That's right everyone, Jennifer Morrison likes our dorm room. BEST. DAY. EVER.

And that's just part one...there's still a canvas to be put up!

Have a magical day!

(Note: This blog post was written on September 14).