It’s about smiles, laughs, and magical moments. And the most important thing to remember with that last one is that magical moments can’t always be planned. In fact, the best ones are those you never saw coming. I’ve learned, with a bit of help from Walt, to hold some space in both our plans and in my heart for the unexpected.<\/p>\n
Like many things in life, this is a lesson I knew when I was a child, but forgot as an adult.<\/p>\n
One of my favorite memories of a magical moment happened our family trip to Disney World when I was in third grade. We were at a character breakfast, one that my mother says she made reservations for only after arriving at Disney and likely just one day in advance. Pluto picked my little brother up, chair and all and carried him around. It was hilarious.<\/p>\n Typing it out I realize that it sounds a little weird, and perhaps you had to be there, but it was a moment of pure joy that’s been a lasting happy memory for all four of us. Three decades later, we still talk about it and cannot help but smile each time we do.<\/p>\n That said, I’m a planner. I love to research. (Gotta use that law degree somehow, right?) Knowing what to expect makes me happy. I also appreciate maximizing our dollars and having a bit of a game plan helps us do that. So, to help me walk a fine line between planning and overplanning, we have made a list of “must see” or “must do” items.<\/p>\n Each family member picks one thing that would make their trip magical. Those items go to the top the list, and we consider the day (or days, depending the location of items) a big success when we’ve had those wonderful experiences.<\/p>\n Everything else is like icing on the cake (or Mickey rice krispie treat, as the case may be.)<\/p>\n As we look forward to our upcoming trip for the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration<\/a>, I am really trying to let go of the planning. The good folks at Disney have that all taken care of, and they’re professionals. I trust them. We do have a bit of time on our own, so we’re batting around our priority list.<\/p>\n Here’s what is at the top of our list right now:<\/p>\n * Cronut (croissant donut) in Epcot<\/p>\n * Beauty and the Beast show at Hollywood Studios<\/p>\n * Seeing Rafiki at Animal Kingdom (We’re hoping he’ll hold up our stuffed baby Simba and recreate the Circle of Life moment.)<\/p>\n * Rock N Roller Coaster at Hollywood Studios<\/p>\n What works best for you when it comes to Disney planning – are you all over it, or do you prefer to wing it? Would love to hear in the comments what is on your “must do” list. And if you want to follow along while we’re at the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration, check out #DisneySMMC<\/p>\n You May Also Like: <\/strong>Disney Social Media Moms Celebration: Dreams Come True #DisneySMMC<\/a><\/p>\n Prior Post: <\/strong>Facts about Mother\u2019s Day<\/a><\/p>\n Please like Mom Factually on Facebook<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n You can also find Mom Factually on Pinterest<\/a> and Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Disney World is ginormous. Bigger than Manhattan, with just as many people but fewer honking taxis. You cannot see and do it all in one trip, and certainly not in one day. We’ve been fortunate enough to visit Mickey and friends a few times and there’s still so much that we haven’t done, seen, tasted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1937"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1937"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6242,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1937\/revisions\/6242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"IMG_0162\"](\"http:\/\/momfactually.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/IMG_0162.jpg\")
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