Happy May everyone! This year is just flying by. So, a little confession. Not surprisingly, I'm a Food Network and Cooking Channel addict. I've been watching both for years. Unique Eats & Sweets, Secrets of a Restaurant Chef, Throwdown, the list goes on and on - culminating with my foodie crush Alton Brown.
Then Food Network Magazine happened. *happy dance in my kitchen* And that's where this month's recipe comes to you from. I was all over the cheese issue, and we love some macaroni and cheese in this house. So the easy answer to dinner was Philly Cheesesteak macaroni!
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Our friend Angela @ Destinations in Florida is here today to tell the details of the FREE DINING PROMOTION released by Disney today. Although it's currently only for Disney Visa holders, it'll be released to the general public in a few days. I always love getting quotes from my travel agent so I can think about my options. I know from experience, using a TA to do your calling, internet surfing, and putting together scenarios saves a TON of time....and it's free! You can scroll down to request a quote, or use the box on the right sidebar. Angela has been so sweet to provide us with a great Disney travel article every Sunday here on My Favorite Finds. I'm certain she will be a fabulous TA to work with in planning your next Disney trip!
Are you ready for FREE food at Disney World? The most popular Disney World discount is now available for guests that have a Disney Visa Card. For everyone else, stay tuned. This same discount will be released to the general public on May 9.
Disney’s Visa cardholders can get a free Disney Dining Plan for travel dates of 9/2/13 – 9/25/13. You must purchase a package that includes a minimum of 3 nights accommodation at a Disney Resort and a minimum 2-day Base Ticket. If you stay at a Disney Value Resort, the Quick Service Dining Plan is free. If you stay at a Disney Moderate or Deluxe Resort, the Basic Dining is free.
You can also upgrade from the Quick Service to the Basic Dining for an additional $19 per adult per night and $3 per night per child. You can also upgrade from the Basic Dining to the Deluxe Dining for an additional $45 per adult per night and $20 per night per child.
Book by 7/31/13. Disney will require a deposit of $200 and final payment is due 45 days prior to arrival. Both the deposit and final payment must be paid with your Disney Visa Card. This discount is currently available just for Disney Visa Cardholders, but will be released to the general public on May 9.
This discount is on a space available basis. However, it is blacked out for campsites at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort, 3-Bedroom Villas, and Little Mermaid Rooms at Art of Animation Resort.
Call us at 336-8800-5607 or email at angelas@destinationsinflorida.com to book today! Be sure to tell me Carrie @ My Favorite Finds sent you 
Angela is a Disney Vacation Specialist and Orlando Travel Expert with Destinations in Florida. She specializes in traveling with young children, and children with food allergies. She would love to plan your next vacation! You can contact her on facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/AngelaDestinationsInFlorida or email at angelas@destinationsinflorida.com
Learn About Destinations in Florida
Picture this: You are going to Walt Disney World. They most amazing place ever! Lots of rides, characters, shows, and food all over the place. OH NO! Food… Lots of food, Cupcakes, Ice Cream, Dole Whips, Pretzels, and Popcorn, almost everything a food allergy child can’t have. Yes, this sounds easy enough. Just don’t give it to them. This is the common belief, and I thought this way before having a food allergy child. My exact thought was: Yes, it’s sad your child can’t have that, but don’t give it to them, and they will be alright, correct? WRONG! When you are a food allergy parent and child you have to think of things people don’t always think of. You must remember that someone could of eaten that Mickey Ice Cream Bar, had it all of their hands, then grabbed the lap bar on Winnie The Pooh, and now my kid has it on their hands, and now I have to get out my epi-pen.
It’s crazy what you have to think of as a food allergy parent, but out of everywhere I have ever taken my child Disney is the most accommodating and helpful for my food allergy child. Today I want to share with you Three Tips for Traveling to Disney with Food Allergies.
Food Allergy Tip Number 1: Remember the wipes. I use baby wipes all over the world. Do I wipe down a ride before he gets on? Absolutely not. But do I wipe his hands as soon as we sit on a ride? Yes I do. He poor little hands should be raw by the time our vacation is over. I wipe them when we sit on a ride, when we get off of a ride, when he sits on a bench, when he touches an elevator button, the list is endless. For some this sounds obsessive, but he has a deathly allergy of peanuts, eggs, and corn syrup. Trust me, it’s in everything, and it’s everywhere. I’d rather wipe his hands down and look like a germaphobic mother, than to have to pull out my epi-pen or Benadryl on my vacation.
Food Allergy Tip Number Two: every restaurant you go to in Disney World, including Quick Serve Restaurants are beyond accommodating. Be sure to tell the waiter/waitress/cashier that you have a food allergy child. The Chef/Manager will then come out and speak to you about what your child can have on the menu. When we went to Rainforest Café at Animal Kingdom, unfortunately there was not one thing that my child could have on the menu. Nothing. The Chef went to the back, came back, and went back to the kitchen again. Finally, he created a meal that was not even on the menu for him. Now that is some service!
Food Allergy Tip Number 3: Try not to obsess. Yes, I say that after I just made the confession that I wipe his hands down after everything he does, but the chances are very slim of your child having a reaction from touching the lap bar on a ride. Disney is very clean, they clean all the time and you don’t have to worry about food particles being left in various places. They are very good about cleaning all of this up. Enjoy your time! I know as a food allergy parent, that my mind goes to places it shouldn’t on a regular basis. My mind wonders to what if that child who just gave my child a hug had peanut butter on his hands… We need to just step back and have a good time!
When I am in Disney I feel that it is a vacation from my child’s food allergy. This is because Disney does the work for me! They tell me what he can eat! I wish restaurants all over the world would do this! It would make life so much easier! So, Food Allergy Parents use the tools that Disney gives you and take a vacation from the fear of food allergies!
Angela is a Disney Vacation Specialist and Orlando Travel Expert with Destinations in Florida. She specializes in traveling with young children, and children with food allergies. She would love to plan your next vacation! You can contact her on facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/AngelaDestinationsInFlorida or email at angelas@destinationsinflorida.com
Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Pound Cake....sounds like a mouthful of decadence, right? Well, that's one way to put it. Then you add a peanut butter glaze, and it's all over. Oh.my.stars. If you are a chocolate peanut butter lover, like myself, you'll for sure want to add this to your Pinterest boards. Or, if you're like me, it'll be on your Peanut, Peanut Butter & Chocolate Board, which is saved just for this lovely combination! At any rate, I wanted to share this with you all today! You'll need some milk or coffee to go along with it-it's dense, rich, and so yummy!
Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Pound Cake
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Welcome back for another Pinworthy Projects party! I can't wait to see what you have for us this week! I know our pinning fingers have been busy with the inspiration and recipes shared each week. Last week's most viewed links were:
Crockpot Honey Sesame Lettuce Wraps @ Domestic Superhero
Easy Envelope Pillow Covers @ Nifty Thrifty Things
While you are here, enter to win a Custom Mickey IPhone Skin from Crafty Disney Girls. Follow the link on the right sidebar to enter.
Let's start the party! Spread the word....we want to reach 200 links this week! Can we do it?! I hope so!
Hello again My Favorite Finds readers. I'm excited to be back for my second contributor post. If you don't know, I'm Kelly and I blog at Here Comes the Sun. Today I've got a personal story of mine about finding "home" no matter where you live along with a free printable for you. I hope some of you can connect and relate.
How many of you have ever picked up and moved to a brand new city? I've done it twice in my adult life. The first move was to Baltimore for my first job out of school. I moved there, got married, bought a house, had kids and thought we would be there for good. But after ten years there, we knew that the place we were was not the right place for our family. The school system that we were assigned to was not at all what we wanted for our children. We could not afford the houses in the neighboring counties but knew that we desperately needed to move. I could have homeschooled my kids but I have found that it takes a certain type of person to be a full-time teacher and I am just not cut out for that.
As the beginning of kindergarten loomed, we worried about what we were going to do. We knew that we would probably have to move out of state for a lower cost of living and better schools for our children. My husband got a job transfer within his company to Wilmington, NC on January 7, 2011. In just six short weeks, we cleaned our house from top to bottom, packed it all up, repaired everything we could and put it on the market. Let me tell you that going through 10 years worth of stuff in the attic and basement was less than fun.
At the end of February, we moved to Wilmington. I had been there only once to visit a friend. Unfortunately my friend had since moved cross country to Denver. We arrived in Wilmington not knowing anyone. It's been a little over 2 years now and even though I know we did the best thing for our family, it is still hard. It is hard to think of this place as "home". We live in a rental house so it is difficult to personalize it and make it homey. I equate "home" with buying a house, putting down some roots and knowing you will be there for the long haul. I know we will probably be here for the long haul and I don't anticipate moving out of state again but the house where we live sure does not feel like "home" to me. Little by little it is getting there but it is a slow process.
Can anyone relate? I created this printable to remind myself that home is not about where you live, but it's about where your family is. You can make any place your home.
There are four colors to choose from. Each is 5x7. Click on the download links below to download each one.
All printables are for personal use only
In addition to free printables, I also create party printables that are available in my shop.
Thanks so much, Carrie for having me today!
Let's keep in touch!
Pinworthy Projects last week was great! We were down a few links.....so be sure to spread the word with your friends so they can come and share their awesome projects and recipes, too! And, if you're featured on one of our sites, share it on Facebook, Twitter, or even Pinterest!
While your'e here, enter to win a Custom Mickey Iphone Skin from Crafty Disney Girls. The link is on the right sidebar......
Also, I'm declaring the month of June to be all about Summer Vacation! I'll be sharing some of my {FAVORITE} vacation tips....lots of Disney for sure....and I've invited some of my fellow bloggy friends to share their Disney Vacation and Summer Vacation themed projects, recipes, and tips. You won't want to miss it!
Now onto this week's features! If you were featured, grab a button from HERE and show it off!
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Disney's Animal Kingdom resort is by far one of my {FAVORITE} resorts on Disney property! The theming is absolutely fantastic, and the atmosphere of an African savanna makes you feel transported to a world away. Our family had an opportunity to stay at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge, and I want to share with you what we loved about it.
What we LOVED about Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge:
- The lobby. Honestly, we loved it. It is so gorgeous! The wood floors, African themed totem poles, and bright colors really add to the resort.
- There are huge windows all around Jambo House with viewing decks. You can go out, or look out the window, and see animals in the savanna. When we were there, we'd often make a stop on the way back to our room to see if any giraffes or zebras were roaming around. Sometimes we saw some-it was super cool!
- The pool area was great for our kids. The pool at Animal Kingdom Lodge-Jambo House-is a zero entry pool. That is so nice when traveling with little kids. Also, the pool area is just big enough to have room for fun, but small enough that I could keep an eye on the boys while they enjoyed the water slides and still play with our little one in the shallower area.
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So, we love us a good Disney countdown in our house. The days are passing {slowly}, but there's excitement every time I change the number! Last year we did the paint chip countdown-and I wrote a fun fact on the back of each one which made it super fun for the kids. This year, I wanted something that I could start even earlier-you can only fit so many paint chips on an 11x14 canvas, right? So after scouring my When You Wish Upon a Star board, I decided to use my Silhouette {shocking, I know} and create this fun countdown to hang in our kitchen.
DIY Easy Disney Vacation Countdown
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Today I am going to share with you the DIY Distressed Sign I made for a friend. She has a "woman cave", and it's all beach themed. She also happens to be the secretary where I work, so I thought it'd be awesome to make her something for her beach room as a Secretary's Day gift! I had pinned a lot of design ideas to my CC {Carrie's Cameo} Pinterest board, and finally settled on making my own. Love it! I was so tickled to give it to her, and she had lots of squeals over it. It was a GREAT moment! Anyway, I am so in awe of all those Etsy ladies who work hard to make these signs and sell them...it's a lot of work, but the end result is fab! I didn't take a ton of pictures along the way, so I am showing you the finished project, and laying it out in step by step directions. I love it so much, I want to make another one! The best part is, I used all materials we already had at home-including the wood!
DIY Distressed Beach Sign
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