Tag: Christmas

SeaWorld’s Christmas Celebration

Published on by LeslieLeave a comment

We seem to fill our December with holiday outings, trips, and adventures. So you can imagine how excited I was when SeaWorld San Antonio invited me out for a day to enjoy their park and experience their SeaWorld Christmas Celebration. This holiday celebration is one of Texas’s largest, and we had a magical time experiencing all that SeaWorld San Antonio had to offer.

SeaWorld San Antonio is an animal theme park located in San Antonio, Texas. At 250 acres, it is the largest of the SeaWorld Parks, the others being in Orlando and San Diego. This park has educational animal encounters, incredible rides, multiple shows, and a separate waterpark called Aquatica. As a child growing up in San Antonio, we often took trips to SeaWorld, and I am pretty sure SeaWorld was my first theme park experience.

Please note that SeaWorld San Antonio has many safety measures in place during the Covid-19 Pandemic. Guests two years old and older must wear face coverings while in the park, physical distancing measures are in place, hand sanitizer stations are located throughout the park and, upon arrival at SeaWorld, they will check your temperature. We also noticed that the rides were being wiped down and cleaned every hour, which was nice. All of these precautions made us feel safe during our trip to SeaWorld.

We had big plans to wake up early Sunday morning and spend the entire day at SeaWorld, but after my toddler woke up a little grumpy, we decided to wait to go until she had her afternoon nap. Luckily, SeaWorld was open until 9:00 pm, so I knew that we would have plenty of time to enjoy the park even if we arrived in the afternoon. My daughter napped until 3:00 pm, and as soon as she woke up, we were on our way.

Upon arrival at SeaWorld, our temperature was taken, and we headed off to enjoy ourselves. Our first stop was the Sesame Street Bay of Play, a child-friendly spot with smaller rides for kids and a huge playground area (currently closed due to Covid). In this area, you have the opportunity to meet your favorite Sesame Street characters, and my daughter was so excited to see Elmo (socially distanced, of course).

We also enjoyed Elmo’s Christmas Wish, a cute show starring Elmo, Cookie Monster, Rosita, Grover, and Zoe. My daughter probably would’ve been happy staying in the Bay of Play area all night, but there was more to see!

We continued through the park, where we saw cute Christmas photo spot setups based on the 1960’s classic, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. This area seemed to draw a crowd (and I can see why!), so we moved through rather quickly. But, my daughter and husband were able to quickly grab a picture with Yukon Cornelius.

After a quick stop to check out the flamingos, we stumbled upon the Fireside S’mores area (which might’ve been my favorite part of our whole visit).

This area had live music, hot cocoa, and the chance to roast your s’mores! We purchased a s’more kit, and my husband and I had so much fun roasting our s’mores over the fire.

We also grabbed some hot chocolate in this area and a delicious shortbread Christmas Tree cookie for my daughter. The Fireside S’mores area is the perfect place to have a sweet snack and take a break!

Around this time, the Christmas lights started to come on, and we were getting excited. My mom came along with us, so my husband and I decided to quickly ride The Great White Roller Coaster and Wave Breaker: The Rescue Coaster before it got too dark. Both of these rides offer breathtaking views of the park, and I genuinely think they are some of the best roller coasters that I have ever been on.

After our rides, the Christmas lights were on so we snuggled my daughter in her stroller and headed off to look at the lights throughout the park. SeaWorld San Antonio’s Christmas Light Display is the largest in Texas and does not disappoint!

There were so many beautiful lights and areas to see; it felt so magical. I truly love that you can stroll through SeaWorld San Antonio and take it all in without feeling rushed.

Although we didn’t have time to do everything that we wanted to at SeaWorld San Antonio, we truly had a so much fun and cannot wait to come back. I was so pleased to see the safety precautions that they have made during Covid and even more excited to see all of the Christmas lights. I am so thankful that SeaWorld San Antonio invited us out to experience their park and give us the opportunity to create some wonderful memories as a family.

If you are looking for a wonderful way to create memories during the holiday season, look no further than SeaWorld San Antonio.

Sending love and magic.

Mickey Mouse Gingerbread Ornament

Published on by Leslie1 Comment

My dream has always been to work with Disney in some capacity, and my dreams come true because today, I had the honor of being featured on Disney Parks Blog. I wanted to share the craft that I created for Disney Parks Blog, my Mickey Mouse Gingerbread Ornament. This craft is so much fun to make, and it looks super cute hanging on your Christmas Tree. 

Mickey Mouse Gingerbread Ornament

Before starting, print out your Gingerbread Mickey Template and carefully cut out the exterior stencil, interior stencil, and face.

Step 1. Using your marker, trace two Gingerbread Mickeys using your exterior stencil on the brown felt. Carefully cut out each Gingerbread Mickey.

Step 2: Place the Gingerbread Mickey interior stencil on one of your Gingerbread men and trace around the outline with white puffy paint. Add paint squiggles on the arms and legs of the Gingerbread Mickey, let dry.

Step 3: Once your Gingerbread Mickey is dry, place it on top of your second Gingerbread Mickey. Using your needle and white yarn, carefully sew your two Gingerbread Mickeys together with a whipstitch. Before completely stitching up the Gingerbread Mickey, stuff with polyfill.

Step 4: Using your Mickey face stencil, carefully trace Mickey’s face onto your black felt and cut the face out. Hot glue the eyes, nose, and mouth onto your Gingerbread Mickey.

Step 5: Now it’s time to decorate! Using your puffy paint and ribbon, add buttons, rosy cheeks, and a bow tie (or a hair bow if you want a Gingerbread Minnie).

Step 6: Hot glue a looped ribbon on the back of your Gingerbread Mickey so that it can hang on your Christmas Tree!

I hope you love this Mickey Mouse Gingerbread Ornament as much as I do. I can’t wait to share even more Disney Christmas Magic this holiday season.

Sending love and magic.

Life Lately

Published on by LeslieLeave a comment

These past few weeks have been so busy! I feel like I haven’t had a moment to sit down and catch my breath, let alone write a blog post. Halloween flew by, and then, between daily tasks and getting ready for the holidays, I haven’t had a break. I wanted to share today about what is going on in our life lately.

I swore that I would hold out on decorating for Christmas this year, but after Halloween was over, I changed my mind. I was so ready for the cheeriness of Christmas; I put up our Christmas Tree almost immediately. The funny thing is that when we bought our house two years ago, I walked in and knew exactly where I wanted the Christmas Tree to go, and now putting it up is something that I look forward to. Once the tree was up, the rest of the house had to be decorated as well. Although I’m not finished decorating, I’ll give you a glimpse of what our naked tree looked like. In a couple of weeks, I will do a full blog post on how our home is decorated for the holidays.

Speaking of Christmas, I have so busy preparing activities, recipes, and crafts for the upcoming holiday season! This year, my hope is to get my daughter her own small tree to decorate, and I plan to help her fill it with Christmas crafts. I plan to share all of these crafts on my blog and Instagram, and they will be full of Disney magic (of course).

In September, my family and I took a trip to Cinnamon Shore in Port Aransas, Texas, to celebrate my daughter’s 2nd birthday. While we were there, we unanimously decided that we needed to go back ASAP, so we booked another trip. This past weekend we were all able to go again and had a fantastic time. We stayed in the same home (Happy Kat Cottage II), rented golf carts, and even went fishing. On Saturday night, we had a bonfire set up on the beach for our family, and we were able to roast marshmallows and make s’mores. It was the best weekend, and of course, we are already talking about going back to Cinnamon Shore next year.

While we were at the beach, my family and I played a super fun game that was sent to me. The game is called Sketchy Tales: Disney Edition, and it would make the PERFECT Christmas gift this year! Sketchy Tales is like a Telephone and Pictionary combination and perfect for families (even if you’re terrible at drawing). You start by pulling a character card and an action card (Mickey Mouse and Kissing a Goldfish, for example). You draw what the cards say and then pass them to the next person who writes down what they think you drew, and they give it to the next person who then draws what they wrote down (and so on). Once the card gets back to the original artist, they get to decide which drawing was their favorite, and that player gets the point. You can purchase Sketchy Tales: Disney Edition at Target and on Amazon (I’ve included my affiliate link for Amazon, if you purchase through this link, I will receive a small commission).

Overall, these weeks have been busy but so much fun! I can’t wait for Thanksgiving and Christmas activities (and social distancing) as we try to navigate to the end of the year. I have so much fun planned, and I hope that you stick around for it.

Sending love and magic.