Day 334: End of Frump...Again

It is the end of yet another month (can you believe that it's been 11 full months since I began this blog?), and that means, sadly, that it is the end of another month of Frumpstagram. Just as the last time, I had a grand time doing all the different pictures. I mean, I love posting Disney Pictures on my instagram. It's also made me realize that I need more pictures of WDW. We'll get there eventually though, I suppose LOL. Someday I'll have just tons of pictures to post.

Anyways, here's a recap of this month's Frumpstagram!

And finally we have the last day of Frumpstagram, It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas! Lately I've been seriously obsessed with the Osborne lights, which is weird because I generally haven't really liked them. I guess last year just got me out of the Grinch Zone. 

Next month I'll be doing another Disney Picture thing on Instagram, but I won't post them daily here like I have done Frumpstagram. Don't worry, I'll post them all at the end of the year in a blog post similar to this one. This time it's not Frumpstagram though, it's WhimsicalDisneyGram! It should be a merry time though! (See what I did there?)

Here's today's Disney History: 1835: Writer & Humorist Mark Twain is born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in the small town of Florida, Missouri. Walt Disney admired Twain's writing and so the famous author's name and image can be found scattered throughout Disney theme parks all over the world. 

Have a magical day!

Day 333: For Everyone

We all know I love Tangled. I love that movie like I love everything Disney...well, ok, more like I love Disney World and Once Upon a Time. It's in that high category of things I super love. So of course I have the movie here with me at college. I'm pretty sure I couldn't last without it (I think I've watched it twice since coming to college...).

But the other day Megan asked me if I had it home with me. She didn't have her own copy of it and her dad had seen the beginning part of it on ABC recently and wanted to watch the whole movie. Of course, I didn't have it, but a quick trip to shopko quickly fixed her problem.

When she asked me if I had it or not though we had a discussion about how we think it's awesome that Disney can make a movie that literally everyone wants to watch. Something that little kids love, us teenagers adore and will still interest our parents and other adults. That's not something everyone can accomplish, but yet it continues to be something Disney does time and time again.

I've probably blogged about this before actually, but I just had to bring that story up, about how her dad wanted to watch it. I thought it was awesome and kind of funny all at the same time. I actually spent most of the day working around our house (I'm actually writing this on December 3rd because I've just been so darn busy). We were making Christmas Cookies and setting up the Christmas tree and stuff. I filmed a bunch of it so there should be a new video up on my YouTube channel for that soon! =)

 

It's one of the last days of Frumpstagram, and today's prompt is "SHOPPING!" Obviously, because it is Black Friday, after all. So that works. I was going through my pictures and although I really wanted to do a picture of one of the actual stores, I couldn't find any before Facebook crashed. So I grabbed this picture instead, because my Han Solo in Carbonate was something I bought, and this picture just looks awesome...and it's in a store, at Disney. So it works.



Here's today's Disney History: 1934: Macy's Christmas Parade (later to be called the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade) features the first set of Disney balloons. Joining Mickey Mouse for the stroll down Broadway in New York City are Pluto, the Big Bad Wolf, and one of the Three Little Pigs, constructed by the Goodyear Rubber Company, Mickey measures over 50 feet tall.

Have a magical day!

Day 332: What I'm Thankful For

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Today is a day for us Americans to all celebrate what we're thankful for, and I'm thankful for a heck of a lot of things. But besides the normal things, such as family, friends, my cat and food, there are a bunch of other things I'm thankful for, so here's my top five!

5. Once Upon A Time

Let's just take a moment to thank everyone who works on Once Upon A Time for bringing us fans such a great and wonderful show each and every week. Honestly I think that the cast of Once is one of the best out there, and I hope they think they've got the best fans. Although we do get kind of crazy sometime (even I have unfollowed all kinds of people to avoid more spoilers), and I may get upset when there's a lack of CaptainSwan, I still love everyone!

4. Disney Movies

This takes into account Disney movies of all kinds, meaning that the Disney Parks Vacation Planning DVD's totally count too! I mean, just think about all those awesome movies we have! Beauty and the Beast, Princess and the Frog, Lady and the Tramp (gosh, on a "and the" thing here), Tangled and the newest addition, Frozen! And one can't forget about all the amazing Pixar films!

3. The Disney Band Trip

To be honest, I am SUPER SUPER THANKFUL for Disney Performing Arts giving us this opportunity to perform at Walt Disney World, and to the Seymour High School Band for putting in all the hard work to get us there. My dream has always been to march down Main Street USA, and that's something I never thought I'd be able to do, so now that I'll be able to do that in 206 days is just spectacular!

2. Walt Disney World

You really didn't think I was going to leave this one out, did you? Disney World is my home, through and through, and I honestly could not imagine a life without. Along with this, I am super thankful that I have been able to go to Disney as often as I have, because it's a part of me now, and I really think I'm probably a better person because of it (although I guess we'll never know). I wouldn't have my dreams of working for Disney without it, and I probably wouldn't have the same ambition on projects that I do now. Goodness, I wrote a whole memoir on stuff I've learned, so obviously I should be thankful!

1. Everyday Disney

Ok, I feel like this should be pretty obvious. I am super thankful for this blog and how I've, at least somewhat, kept up with it throughout the year. I guess now is as good of time as any to announce that I have decided to continue blogging after the end of the year, although I'm debating working on a slight redesign to get things going. I'm so lucky to have the ability and opportunity to share my love of Disney with everyone who reads this, and when I was thinking about whether I should do another year or not, I eventually came to the conclusion that life would no longer feel right if I didn't have my blog to write everyday! So thank you to everyone who reads this blog, whether this is the first thing you're reading or the 332nd!

And that's what I'm thankful for this Thanksgiving, although I'm pretty sure the list could go on basically forever.

 

Like this blog post, today's Frumpstagram theme is "What Are You Thankful For?" I talked a bit about what I said in #2, and how I'm thankful that I've had the ability to go to Disney and grow up with it. I don't think I can say enough times how thankful I am for that chance, since it's not something everyone has, and yet it has 100% made me who I am today!






Here's today's Disney History: 1944: Walt Disney pens a birthday letter to his younger sister Ruth (who will turn a year older December 6). He writes of his next feature-length release: The Three Caballeros. Along with his birthday wishes is a check because he "Hasn't the slightest idea what to send."

Have a magical day!

Day 331: Frozen

This is kind of strange for me, since previous to today, I've only seen one Disney Movie on it's opening day...ever. That movie, actually a Disney Pixar Movie, was Up, and I saw it with my Middle School Jazz Band at the Drive In Theater in Eighth Grade. But my fellow music majors and I have been freaking out about Frozen for weeks now, so when we were discussing when we were going to see it I had to make a decision. Either I go to see it over Thanksgiving break or feel completely out of place...and I'm supposed to be the Disney obsessed one!

So it was decided that I would go see it over Thanksgiving break, and since the rest of break is so crazy, it left me with one choice of day: Opening Day. Perfectly fine by me because I was so excited, and that now means that I have plenty of time to go see it again, and drag my best friends along with me.

You see, I adored this movie, and certainly recommend going to see it. The music has been stuck in my head all day (and yesterday too honestly, before I even saw the movie), the entire thing was funny, with adorable characters and a plot twist that I did NOT see coming. Plus it isn't a regular Princess movie as many people might think. Similar to Tangled, it's not the cookie-cutter Princess Movie. Instead of being about finding a prince, although Anna does plenty of that, the story is ultimately about the power of family and the love that family members share, meaning that it's absolutely perfect for Thanksgiving.

Plus, and I'll talk about this some other time more in depth when I make Round 2 of my Love Triangle Theory, we have just that, a love triangle! That's something we haven't had in a Disney movie before (at least not that I can think of off the top of my head), and it made me insanely excited! And I may or may not have found several little moments where I'm like "THAT APPLIES TO CAPTAINSWAN!" Yeah, it was a great time.

But by far my favorite part was how relateable the entire thing was for me. My friends and I are always putting Tangled references into our lives, but it's like this movie made references to us! Not the other way around! Like we have our little jokes with one another and seriously so many of them were in this movie and I could not help but continuously say "Megan needs to see this!" because it's just that funny!

I also Disneybounded for the showing I went to, although the theater was really not busy at all, so no one other than me really saw it, but you see it now, so that's good! If you can't tell I was Disneybounding as Anna, with my blue dress, pink scarf, black leggings and boots (those last two of which you can't see). I also had my hair in braids kind of like she does, only I don't have bangs so that was kind of difficult.

And when we came out of the theater things were, shall we say, Frozen! That's right, we had our first actual snowfall, which, for me, means that one has to drive way slower on the way home. It was awesome though, and totally fit the music we had playing all the way home...which I'm sure you can guess based on this blog post what that music was. And finally, to be honest, I can't even figure out which of them is my favorite character. I LOVE EVERYONE!

Overall, I think that, to a point, the film resembles Tangled, but it's in a way I can't quite pinpoint. I mean, it has the whole locked away in a tower/castle thing, the "I want to be free" thing, the magic, the adventure and the death solved by true love, but otherwise the story is very, very different, and I loved every moment of it. You can bet I'll be seeing Frozen again!

 

Frumpstagram asked "What's Cookin'?" and my only response can be pie...and lots of it! A year ago (ok, a little less than a year ago) I was at Disney eating that Apple Pie right there, for Thanksgiving Dinner. And since there's always plenty of pie at Walt Disney World, I think that more than counts for today's picture!






Here's today's Disney History: 1955: Bill Nye the Science Guy is born in Washington, D.C. Besides appearing on an episode of Disney Channelg's MMC, Nye acted as a science consultant for the 1997 feature Flubber. A comedian, TV Host, Science educator and mechanical engineer, Nye appears in Ellen's Energy Adventure in Epcot and provides the voice in the "antiquated" museum preshow to Animal Kingdom's Dinosaur. Nye also appears in the "Design Lab" of CyberSpace Mountain inside DisneyQuest at WDW where he refers to himself as "Bill Nye the Coaster Guy."

Have a magical day!

Day 330: Playing the Piano

Today is our last day of college before our Thanksgiving break, and lucky for me two of my classes have been canceled for one reason or another. That means that this morning I have extra time to do whatever I wish to do, even if I should be working on my homework. 

Well, what I DID do this morning kind of has to do with homework. I was talking yesterday briefly about the arrangement I have to do for my music theory class, and today that's what we were working on. So after a brief discussion in the classroom, a bunch of us went down into the practice rooms in the basement to use the pianos. I nabbed one for myself and went through my Disney Piano Music to try and come up with a song I wanted to do an arrangement of. 

I played through my two classic Disney movie books, or looked through them rather, playing a song here and there, and then thought that maybe I should move onto my book with my Disney Parks Music. I have no clue where or when we got it, but I love it because it has all of those Epcot songs stuck in it for voice and piano. This basically means that I have everything from Grim Grinning Ghosts to the song that this blog post is ultimately about. 

For what seems like the thousandth time, let's head to The American Adventure. Considering this is probably my second favorite attraction in all of Walt Disney World, I suppose it's sensible that it comes up so often, but that's beside the point. I was going through the piano book and happened to eventually find the last song, which I can honestly say I have never really looked at before. I just never had a need or want to I guess. I had no clue what was back there because I don't look at the song list on the cover either. That's just not how I roll. 

So I flip back there for some reason or another and what do I find? The song about the Pilgrims from The American Adventure! This is one of those songs that I've been wanting to learn for years and here it was, I've had it the whole time! 

And you can guess what happened next. I spent a good hour and a half learning this song, which I can now kind of sort of play. I'm a bit rusty on the piano, but that's why my books are there, so I can continue to play every once and a while so I don't totally lose my ability to play the piano. 

Don't ask me to pick it up and play of the songs from the book though, just out of the blue. Chances are I won't be able to play them and you will never have heard the music in your life anyway. 

 

Remember When...there were trees on Main Street USA? Yeah, that's today's Frumpstagram Picture, and I can honestly say that I don't really remember the trees all that well...if I ever actually saw them in the first place. This is one of the pictures straight out of some of my family's oldest Disney photo albums, and I love looking through them to see how much Disney has changed. It's ridiculous! 

Here's today's Disney History: 1942: The Warner Brothers romance film Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Peter Lorre, is released. A scene from this film is represented in Disney's Hollywood Studios' The Great Movie Ride. It is also among the trailers shown in the ride's queue area. 

Have a magical day!

Day 329: Save...Us?

Today's post, originally, should have been Titled Save Henry, but it looks like we're going to have to wait another whole week before we get to that. Why? Because there was no new Once Upon A Time last night, and honestly I think that fact is finally setting in. I mean, really, we should be able to get through this no problem, because if we can't then those 11 weeks in between this half and the second half of the season will kill us for sure (but we knew that already, didn't we?). And all week I was perfectly fine. I had no problem. Watched the few little videos I normally watch each week and everything was ok, but then I guess it just occurred to me that last night felt like Saturday night, not Sunday night, because I ALWAYS watch Once on Sunday! We've done it for two months now, so it was really really strange to not have that great finish to the end of the weekend...even if we are always super confused and angry when the episode finishes.

And now I don't even know what to do! I don't have an alto lesson today because I had it yesterday, so the one day that I actually would have a bunch of time to watch Once I don't have any Once to watch! Does this mean that I should use that extra time and work on my papers for my finals? Probably, and that's probably what I'll end up doing. I mean, I could work on my arrangement for my music theory class too...maybe I could do something Once inspired, even though we all know that it will end up being something Disney anyways. You'll hear about that some time in the next few weeks though.

So what is left? I mean, what was the point of this entire last weekend without our weekly Neverland? HENRY IS DEAD PEOPLE AND WE DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON! Goodness, this is terrible.

And while I found Crying Kitten quite amusing...that does not feel like an appropriate replacement for CaptainSwan.

 

Frumpstagram today brings us to the Epcot Resorts, and since my phone was once again being ridiculous I couldn't look through all my albums on Facebook to find main pictures of any of the resorts, even though I know I have some. So instead here's a picture of the Flying Fish Cafe at Disney's Boardwalk Resort! We ate dinner there on our last trip and I had the most adorable dessert of all time!




Here's today's Disney History: 1996: Disneyland's Main Street Electrical Parade comes to an end with two final performances. Disneyland Ambassador Chris Allen does a play by play "color commentary" with one of the local cable stations from atop Main Street's City Hall. It is estimated that some 75 million people have marveled at the bright lights of the procession since its introduction in 1972.

Have a magical day!

Day 328: Newsies

My roommate and I, like most roommates, have always shared the randomness of stuff that we like. I mean, I love Disney, obviously, and Once Upon A Time is just the TV show I'm always talking about. She watches One Tree Hill, so that's the show she talks about, but one thing that she's talked about since the beginning of the year is the musical Newsies. It's her favorite, and I've never seen the movie or the musical.

Well, until tonight.

I went home for most of the day, but when I got back I just wasn't feeling in the mood to watch Good Form for like the 20th time. Probably would just remind me that we have yet another week to wait until we find out what really goes down in Neverland. So instead I was like, I should watch a movie, and there was only one movie in my mind that I should watch.

Newsies.

So I went and I found it and I started to watch it and automatically I'm just like "THIS MUSIC IS THE BEST THING EVER." And I tweeted my roommate and eventually she ended up back in our room and we watched it up on our bunks on my laptop. It was a grand old time, and I have to say that I adore this movie. In fact I'll probably go and buy the soundtrack tomorrow just because I love it that much.

I also had a little freak out halfway through the movie because I was like, "This Denton guy looks familiar," so I look it up and it's Bill Pullman. For those of you who don't know who that is, he's been in a bunch of movies, but the one that I know him from is a little movie called Spaceballs, which is a serious parody of Star Wars that had me rolling around laughing the first time I saw it. He plays Lone Star, the play on Han Solo, and seriously it was just great...so there's that little portion of Newsies that freaked me out.

Overall I just loved the entire thing. Like I don't think I have more words...other than it's a fine life people!

 

Today for Frumpstagram the prompt was "Magic Kingdom Resorts," and since we already discovered I have absolutely no pictures of the Poly, and probably very few of the Grand other than my senior pictures I took there, I figured there was only one resort that I could pick for today (well, unless I did Wilderness Lodge...which is in the same category as the other two...or Fort Wilderness), and that's the Contemporary! Certainly Bay Lake Tower is one of my favorite places to stay now! Seriously!




Here's today's Disney History: 2010: Tangled, a 3D animated musical film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, is released to theaters. The 50th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics Series, it is largely based on the classic German fairy tale Rapunzel.

Have a magical day!

Day 327: Jennifer Morrsion

To be honest, I had no clue what I was going to blog about today. Like no idea at all. But this morning, yes this is a backstory first, I got an email from my saxophone professor asking me if we could switch my lesson to tomorrow instead of Monday. I was like "yeah, sure" although I honestly do the bulk of my practicing on Sunday and Monday, so that kind of messed things up. It also meant that I had to go to the practice rooms tonight to practice my alto.

So I'm sitting there practicing, and when I do practice, I spend about an hour and a half there and take little breaks here and there to clear my mind and keep me focused overall on the music. I find I get more accomplished if I take two or three 10 minute breaks in there, meaning that I still get an hour of practicing in every time I go. Sometimes I'll play piano (Disney music of course, but that's another post), and once and a while I'll go on my phone and watch YouTube videos.

In one of my breaks tonight I was doing just that, watching a YouTube video. I was scrolling through my suggestions for videos and happened to come across one that said Jennifer Morrison on Ellen. I was like "Oh, ok, let's watch." So I did. And then I LEGIT FREAKED OUT.

Here's the video, it pauses weird once and a while, but just stick with it:

DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME NOW!?!

Ok, so for those that might not totally understand, Jennifer Morrison is on Once Upon a Time (she plays the Main Character for goodness sakes), and that's why she was on Ellen. It all starts off with like the welcome and how they play Poker together and I'm like "I just love her hair and she's so adorable being all excited." And they talk a bit about Once and Vancouver and stuff and that's all nice and then...oh god. 

She grew up in a Disney family...apparently...and WENT TO DISNEY WORLD 27 TIMES BY THE TIME SHE WAS 18. 

I'VE BEEN TO WDW 24 TIMES AND I'M 18. 

To sum this up: Jennifer Morrison is now my favorite actress. 

And to top it off she continues to talk on about her trips and mentions Epcot (and my best friend noted that she said Epcot Center and that means that she was legit a true fan) and then SHE EVEN MENTIONS SPACESHIP EARTH (Ok...kind of...BUT STILL). AND THEN SHE MENTIONED FASTPASSES! 

If this is what death feels like then I'm perfectly ok with it. 

So seriously....this was awesome. And MADE MY WEEK and I'm like bouncing off the walls right now I'm so excited. OH GOD. This means that there's a strong possibility that at some point in my life I have been at Disney World at the same time as Jennifer Morrison when we were kids. AHHHHHHHHH....

 

Today's Frumpstagram theme is "Character Overload," so I went into my "Once Upon a Time" album on my Facebook page, which has a bunch of old pictures from when I was little and at Disney and I took all the character pictures there were and put them together. That counts, right? The middle picture is my favorite picture from my childhood like...ever. It's just so adorable. 

Here's today's Disney History: 1994: Epcot's Spaceship Earth reopens with a new narration by actor Jeremy Irons and a new ride score by Edo Guidotti. It is the attractions third version. 

Have a magical day!

Day 326: JFK

Today's blog post is one that I've been planning for a while. I guess really everyone is probably blogging about this today, or will make some mention of it, but I wanted to share how this has an impact on me as well, even though I was born decades after the actual event.

When I was a kid, because I start a whole bunch of stories this way, I remember listening a lot to a particular soundtrack from Disney World, which had different songs from all over the World. Specifically it has Grim Grinning Ghosts (because which soundtrack from the Parks doesn't?), Impressions de France, Tower of Terror, Test Track, Fantasia, and the one I listened to the most: Golden Dream from The American Adventure.

The song is played at the finale of the half hour show and is shown alongside clips from more recent events in our countries history. I know the song by heart, and could probably sing it all to you without the music playing behind me, and along with the music I've found that I also have the quotes from in the middle memorized, and those that know the song or the attraction enough know that there are three quotes.

The first is from JFK, the second from Martin Luther King Jr. and the last from the Moon Landing, meaning that all three are from are a particularly important time period. And you can see how this now connects to today's events.

Previously I've said how Disney has influenced my love of History, specifically through Spaceship Earth and The American Adventure. Goodness, we talked about it last week, but this is one of those times where it needs to be said. I have the utmost respect for our nation's history because of this attraction, and no matter what the circumstances, whenever I hear one of those quotes featured I get quiet, because they are important to all of us, even if we weren't alive when they happened.

That's why today is an important day no matter how old you are. If you are an American you should at least stop and think about the impact this day, 50 years ago, had on our country, and on your life. JFK is one of my personal favorite presidents, and his story one of my favorite portions of history.

A couple weeks ago my college's choir sang a song based and representing the life and assassination of JFK, and I almost blogged about it then, but decided to save everything JFK for today. The entire song you knew what was coming. You knew that eventually the shot would come and JFK would die, but even as it came you weren't ready. The sing shot on the snare still shocked you, and talking to some people in the choir, it sounds like no matter how many times they sang the song it still always made them jump a little bit.

The same can be said for the recent TV movie, Killing Kennedy, which, to be honest, I really only watched because Ginnifer Goodwin was starring in it. But either way, I am glad that I decided to watch and had my mom record it for me on the TV at home, because, just as the snare drum in the music, you knew the shot was coming. As the moments led up the assassination you knew it would be there, and yet it was just as shocking.

And so, I can't help but wonder what it was like for people who actually experienced it. Those standing in Dallas that day and heard the gunshot. The people watching on television around the nation as it was confirmed that the President of the United States had died. The family that was given that shocking phone call. Mrs. Kennedy sitting in the car. The people like my dad, students in school that were released early because of the news. He can still tell the story of where he was when the news was released, because that's something you never ever can forget.

That's why I think I love history so much too. Every piece of our lives is based on previous events. Our lives could be very different if anything had changed, and while it's fun to joke about History once and a while (I adored my HS History teacher for doing just that...making History fun), there are times when we all need to stop and be respectful. Times we need to stop and think about how our lives have been impacted on those who passed before us.

And sometimes we need to ask ourselves not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.

My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

 

Frumpstagram today was titled "Sunrise, Sunset," so I quick went through an Album of one of my Disney trips and didn't have to look to far, since the sunset on the way to Disney World (or sunrise...I see that more often than sunset!) is the best one ever! I absolutely LOVE taking pictures out of the plane, even if technically I'm not supposed to have my phone on...I'm a rebel spy though so....

Here's today's Disney History: 1999: Bob Hope appears at Disneyland to inaugurate a new tradition, the first official lighting of the holiday lights at the park. 

Have a magical day!