Wishes And Pixie Dust

Follow the journey of a Wisconsin family of 4 who relocated to the Walt Disney World area in July 2011

Category Archives: Friends


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Getting, and Staying, In The ‘Disney Mood’

I’ve been asked how to stay in the Disney mood during down times, blah days and just for inspiration when needed.  As we hit our 40-day countdown, I’m happy to share some of the things we do to get in, and stay in, the Disney mood.

First is our collection of Disney music.  Music from the movies, TV shows and theme parks take up a huge chunk of my iPod and iTunes library.  An easy way to get the magic going.  I keep a selection of our favourites in the playlist on the right for you to enjoy.

Second, I listen to Disney podcasts on a daily basis.  Some come out weekly, some more and less often; but I always have some ready to listen to every day (even going back to older past episodes.  These are great shows giving excellent information and they all entertain while informing.   I can highly recommend all of the podcasts on my list below to you.  I start with my “Top 6” and then list, in no particular order, all of the podcasts I listen to weekly; all are available on iTunes.

  • The WDW Radio Show – My number 1 can’t miss podcast.  Hosted by the amazing Lou Mongello, a true Disney ‘genius’.  I’ve listened to WDW Radio from its beginning; having been a huge fan of Lou’s since the days of the long-gone and fondly remembered MouseTunes podcast.  Lou is my favourite source of Disney information and he has many rotating regular guests (Jim Korkis, Tim Foster, Beci Mahnken and others) who bring an excellent mix of Disney History, current news, reviews, travel tips, ‘Top Tens’ and just plain fun to every episode.  Lou is the author of The Walt Disney World Trivia Books (Volumes 1 and 2) and the Producer/Host of the Audio Guides to Walt Disney World.  He also hosts a weekly live video Disney Newscast every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET.  No one I know pursues their dream with a passion quite like Lou does, and his Disney credos of “If we can dream it, we can do it.” and “Keep moving forward.” are ones we follow as we move forward with our Dream.
  • WDW Today – My number 2 can’t miss podcast.  Matt Hochberg, Mike Newell, Mike Scopa, Len Testa, Annette Owens and an unlimited number of special guest hosts provide first-rate information and reviews along with current news.  They answer listener questions on a variety of subjects and always know their stuff.
    Matt Hotchberg also hosts several Hollywood Studios web sites.
    Mike Newell also owns and operates MouseWorld Radio (www.mouseworldradio.com), a great online radio station for Disney music and theme park music lovers.
    Mike Scopa is a regular contributor at AllEars.net.
    Len Testa is the co-author of the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World (a must read) and creates the touring plans available at TouringPlans.com.
  • Be Our Guest WDW Podcast – My number 3 can’t miss podcast and another I’ve listened to WDW Radio from its beginning.  The BOGP team of Mike, Rikki, Pam, and Debbie are always entertaining and informative combining reviews with ‘how to’ and trip reviews from many guests.  Mike also runs the Magical Mouse Radio station on Live365, an awesome collection of Disney music and Park Loops.
  • Betamouse – An awesome podcast for those of us who are both Disney and tech geeks.
  • PassPorter’s Disney and Beyond – If you are a fan of the PassPorter guides or just want to listen to a family-driven show bringing you family-friendly tips on WDW and beyond; this is a ‘must listen’.
  • The WDW News Today Podcast – Tom Corless and his group always entertain and inform.
  • Disney Film Project Podcast – A great new podcast delivering awesome reviews and in depth discussion of favourite Disney movies.
  • WaltCast – An overlooked and underrated podcast featuring interviews with many great celebrities.
  • Disneybrit Podcast – A UK-based podcast giving insight into the Disney Parks here and overseas.
  • Inside the Magic
  • Your MouseCast
  • WEDway Radio
  • inner mouse
  • DestinationD
  • MouseVent – A seasonal Christmas series of short podcasts from many different Disney podcasters.
  • Magical Definition Podcast – Lou Mongello’s former MouseTunes partner, Nathan Rose, hosts this podcast.  And if you’re a fan of Jim Hill, he co-hosts this informative show.
  • Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Pod
  • MouseStation
  • LaughingPlace.com Disney Podcast
  • Disney Dudes Podcast- A show with a little “zing”, Wayne and Trace have a very unpredictable format, but this show is strictly ‘Adults only’.
  • Magic Never Ends – An occasionally updated podcast/vidcast sharing the Disney Parks Magic through the eyes of a young family.
  • The DizFanatic “Ears On Ears” Podcast
  • Remember the Magic
  • Mr. Frank’s Wild Ride (mrfrankswildrides.com)
  • The DIS Unplugged
  • Mousetalgia
  • WDW Memories Podcast
  • WDW Fan Boys Podcast
  • Mouse Lounge Podcast
  • Character Breakfast – Disney Variety Show
  • A Window To The Magic
  • Trapped on Vacation
  • MouseChat
  • YWaitDiz – A new podcast that gives info and ride audio from your favourite attractions.

I also enjoy reading many Disney sites, news sites and blogs.  My ‘ongoing’ list:

I’ll start off with the one we follow most ardently right now, the blog written by our good friends (and fellow WI to FL relocators) Amy and Craig Petermann.

And finally, I enjoy the many Tweets and Facebook updates from our many online Disney friends.  You all bring smiles to our faces every day.  🙂

~Mark.


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Farewell to Rosenow

Today was another series of “lasts”:  the last time I will drive to and from the schools, which surprisingly feels very weird, but more importantly, it is the last time Catie and Ben will see the inside of their respective schools.  Catie will miss her friends more than the school, but poor Ben has been having a rough adjustment with transitioning on.  At fifth grade graduation yesterday, the principal gave a small talk about the “Rosenow Way” (Rosenow is the name of the elementary school):  the school environment is a close-knit community, where teachers treat the students as their own children, and the students are always welcome back to the school to visit.  He said, “you can always come back home”. Ben has been attending Rosenow since 2003–eight years is a long time in a young child’s life, and especially with a child who has autism:  it’s so very hard to walk away from what is familiar.

 

We reached an important milestone in the Vitek household today:  we brought up the few remaining items that were left in the basement.  It may not seem too monumental to some, but this is the first time ever that we have been living in a house that does not have piles and piles of boxes in the basement.   This is what was left in the basement:

So we have added to our Goodwill/Freecycle pile 🙂  We have been trying to pack at least a box a day, if not more.  We have started to organize our photos/videos/candles into the bags they will go in our car trunk.  With our pictures we are throwing away the duplicates and those stored on the computer.  We can always order more prints.   When we first decided to move in July, we were totally unaware that certain items could melt while in transit, notably crayons, videotapes, candles, and potentially cassette tapes and photographs.  Well, we knew about crayons, having previous experience during a family vacation trip to St. Louis, but didn’t think about the rest.  🙂  The framed pictures are being packed, but we will be bringing all the non-digital photographs with us, as they are totally irreplaceable.  Life before digital cameras:  the horror of it all!  :=)  Looking back, I don’t think we would have altered our decision, as it is important to us that the kids finish out their school year in Wisconsin, which they have.  We also wanted to make sure that we move in the summer months, as moving in the dead of winter, which we have done, is certainly not an ideal situation, and one to be avoided if at all possible due to the potential for delays and detours due to the weather conditions.

We wish everyone a magical and happy weekend!

 

 

 


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Baby, It’s Hot Outside

We almost felt like we were Floridians yesterday; our high reached 97 degrees, with the heat index in the 100’s!  While we are enjoying the weather (after all, this is what we are moving in to!), we do wish Mother Nature would tone it down a little, if nothing else but to save on our electric bill!

We received a shipment of boxes late Monday afternoon, and one of the boxes he brought was a huge TV/Large Picture box, which we requested for Ben’s marble vortex toy.  At first we thought it might be a little too big,  but then realized the toy and several odd-shaped items could fit in there as well, so we’re actually quite happy that the box was over sized.

We’ve been experiencing a series of “lasts”.  We recognize that certain things we do will be the last time we do them, possibly forever (but who knows what the future holds?)  We met with our insurance agent yesterday, to find out information regarding the steps we need to do to transfer our policies down to Florida.  We have been with this particular agent since we first moved to Fond du Lac from Chicago, twelve years ago.  We’re finding it’s hard to walk away from local businesses that we’ve patronized for so long.  It’s not going to prevent us from moving, but it’s also producing sadness and a feeling of loss that really we did not anticipate.  There are a lot of unique businesses that only exist either in this city or in the Midwest, that we will be walking away from.

One of these establishments is Friar Tucks, and we decided to take advantage of the kids still being in school, and do a last visit.

This is a small bar/restaurant that serves the absolute best one-third pound cheeseburgers.  There are a couple other locations in Wisconsin, located in Oshkosh and Manitowoc, and our son Nick works as a cook at the seafood restaurant this same company owns.

This morning we will have another “last”– our son Ben’s 5th grade graduation.  This is also a tough moment, as we have had children attending this particular elementary school for eight years.  Ben is particularly having a hard time separating from this school, his friends and teachers, and especially his aide, who has been a constant in his life since Kindergarten. She entered his life at a time when the school district was moving away from 1:1 aides as “not being in the best interest of children who have autism”, and we are so thankful that she has been able to remain by Ben’s side in spite of that fact.  We will post pictures later of the celebration!

We will stop posting updates on the “Wishes-And-Pixie-Dust” friend on Facebook effective July 22nd, so we encourage you to friend and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.   We plan to post a lot of pictures along the way using Twitter, and will be able to post blog updates each night.    We are Mark Vitek and Jen Vitek on Facebook, and @FondyMark and @jvitek on Twitter.  We do encourage you to friend and follow both of us, because we won’t be posting the same updates on both accounts.  It depends on who’s not driving!

Have a magical day!!


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From AOL to Facebook

It is an accurate statement to say that social media has a significant impact on all of our lives.  We have the ability to connect with individuals who live in many different parts of the world–strangers who become friends.  We feel fortunate to have made so many friends on Facebook who share our dream of the love of Disney; even if you have no plans to relocate to Florida, we still have the common thread of Walt Disney.

You might say our relationship and subsequent marriage started on the Internet.  We met on AOL in a dating forum, and because Mark at the time worked for United Airlines at O’Hare Airport, he was able to fly up to Wisconsin for weekend visits.  Our relationship evolved, and after a short engagement, we were married fourteen years ago this September.   Since that time, we have met and made new friends through the use of Yahoo Groups and emails, and now with the advent of Facebook, the ability to connect with more friends has really increased.

We don’t believe that we would have the courage to make this move without the support of our friends on Facebook and the search engines of Google.  🙂   We wanted to take the time to say thanks for following us and encouraging us as we make this huge step of relocating from Wisconsin to Florida.    There are still lots of details to attend to and boxes to pack, but we really feel like Florida is our home now, mainly through the people we have met online.  So, thank you!

We started this blog mainly for our own purposes, as a fun way to document our adventure.  We didn’t expect that we’d make new friendships and learn new information along the way!    We’d love to hear feedback from you, if there is a particular aspect of moving you’d like us to blog about, or if you’d like to be a guest blogger, please feel free to contact us about that as well.  We’d like to think that this blog is yours as well. 🙂


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100 days and counting…..

As we reach the 100-day milestone, we thought it would be fun to make a list of 100 things that we plan to do once we are settled in Florida.   (We consider buying annual passes to Disney as part of being “settled”; so you won’t see it on our list!)  🙂  These are in no particular order, and certainly not an exhaustive list,  just thoughts that popped into our head.

1.  Resort hop. We have only ever stayed at POR-Riverside as a family, and we really want to experience each resort on property.  So even though our current goal is to live 20 minutes away from Walt Disney World, we plan to do weekend stays at each resort, over the course of a year or two, and really take in the charm and uniqueness each resort has to offer.

2.  Enjoy a Dole Whip

3.  Attend Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party

4.  Attend Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party

5.  Go on a Disney Cruise!   Right now with living in Wisconsin, the price of getting to the cruise has been a huge obstacle for us.    We’re of the mindset that if we’re going to spend that much money, we’d rather spend it at WDW!    Cruises are really very reasonable as long as you don’t have to travel over a thousand miles to get to one.

6.  Explore Animal Kingdom Park. There are so many areas of AK that we have not discovered simply due to the intense Florida heat, or lack of time available to us.  We have done the basics, such as Expedition Everest, Kali River Rapids, Festival of the Lion King, Nemo & Friends and Kilimanjaro Safari, just to name a few.  (There are more).  But it seems that there is so much more to Animal Kingdom to take in, and we are looking forward to being able to do that in the cooler Florida months, when we have the time to dedicate to it.

7.    Go to Magic Kingdom in the evening just for the parades

8.    Have brunch at Chef Mickey’s

9.    Ride the monorails, just for the fun of it

10.  Start a new tradition of celebrating birthdays at Walt Disney World

11.  Ride Splash Mountain at night during Wishes

12.  Ride Big Thunder at night during Wishes

13.  Listen to Lou Mongello’s audio guides while on Main Street/Adventureland/Fantasyland/Liberty Square and take the time to absorb all the details

14.  Have lunch at Le Cellier

15.  Watch Illuminations on a winter’s night, enjoying the fact that it is warm & there is no snow on the ground

16.  Go to Universal

17.  Go to Sea World

18.  Explore the beaches of Florida–kids have never been to the ocean before.  We plan to go to both sides of Florida:  The Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean

19.  Dinner with FL friends

20.  Being able to meet Facebook friends who do not live in Florida but come to Walt Disney World on vacation.  Shelley Urick Jones , we look forward to meeting you!

21.  Lou Mongello’s WDW Radio Meets of the Month

22.  Exploring the city of Clermont and getting to know our new home city

23.  Spending time in the Parks with Stephen and Judy Demeritt

24.  Meeting Marilyn Johnson in person!

25.  Go to Gatorland

26.  Enjoy the Osborne lights at the Studios as many times as possible

27.  Enjoy making new friendships with all our Facebook friends who live in Florida

28.  Walking through the World Showcase at Epcot while our kids are in school.  We have not been able to explore all the countries because of the kids not wanting to spend time there.

29.  The various shopping opportunities, not only at Walt Disney World, but at the many outlet malls in Orlando and the surrounding areas.  Ikea!

30.  Just enjoying the whole adventure of relocating to a new state!

31.  Day trips to explore Florida:  cities in particular that pop into our heads for no particular reason are Tampa, Naples, St. Augustine, and Jacksonville.

32.  Shelling at Sanibel Island

33.  Chuckling to ourselves in February when the temperature is 80 and sunny, knowing that back in Wisconsin it is probably blowing and snowing and bitterly cold.  Will we miss snow?  No we will not!

34.  Taking in Bob Jackson’s show at the Port Orleans Riverside resort!

35.  Staying at the Port Orleans Riverside resort for old times sake!

36.  Christmas shopping at Downtown Disney

37.  Riding down the Sassagoula River from Port Orleans Riverside to Downtown Disney (and vice versa)

38.  Exploring the cities of Lake County

39.  Visiting Celebration for leaf drop (to replace the Fall we will be missing in Wisconsin)

40.  Being there for opening day of the new Fantasyland

41.  Resort hopping at Christmas to see all the different Christmas decorations

42.  Counting garbage cans to make sure the Demeritts caught them all  😉

43.  Trying on every hat that is sold on Disney property

44.  Food and Wine Festival

45.  Enjoy a carrot cake cookie

46.  Visit Star Wars weekend

47.   Dinner, lunch and/or breakfast with Lou Mongello

48.   Movie at the Downtown Disney AMC theatre

49.  Trying all 500 flavors in the Coke Freestyle Dispenser

50.  DisneyQuest

51.  Enjoying the streetmosphere entertainment

52.  Festival of the Masters

53.  Going to the Night of Joy

54.  Flower and Garden Festival

55.  Holidays Around the World at Epcot

56.  Sounds Like Summer at Epcot

57.  The Candlelight Processional

58.  Finding a good Friday fish fry!

59.  Visiting the Kennedy Space Center

60.  Riding TTA during Wishes

61.  Sit at each of the Parks and take time to “people watch”

62.  MLB Spring Training

63.  Pick a fresh Florida orange from a tree

64.  Go swimming on a warm December day

65.  Enjoy a “work at home day” with Craig Petermann at Epcot

66.  Take a family Christmas picture at WDW

67.  Earn all the Gowalla WDW stamps and pins

68.  Be one of “those people” checking in all over Lake Buena Vista with Foursquare

69.  Move in to our new apartment in Clermont

70.  Find the best pizza places in the area

71.  Our first Saturday library visit to our new “home” library

72.  Stroll the Boardwalk

73.  Share a Kitchen Sink at Beaches & Cream with the family

74.  Wild Africa Trek at AK

75.  Pirates and Pals Fireworks

76.  Backstage Magic Tour

77.  Family Magic Tour

78.  Get a haircut at The Harmony Barbershop on Main Street USA

79.  The Pirates League with Ben

80.  Keys to the Kingdom Tour

81.  Walk through Fort Wilderness Campgrounds at Christmas to see the campers’ decorations

82.  See a University of Florida football game

83.  Stay in the Magic Kingdom until the wee hours of the morning to enjoy the peace

84.  Orange Bowl Parade on New Year’s Day

85.  Have a holiday sandwich at the Earl of Sandwich

86.  Have a diabetic friendly treat at Babycakes

87.  Go to Butterfly World

88.  Swim with the manatees

89.  Explore Florida’s state parks

90.  Visit the Everglades allligator farm  http://www.everglades.com/

91.  Hearing the word blizzard and knows it only refers to a waterpark or a DQ dessert!

92.  Go to Port Canaveral and watch the Disney ships leave port

93. Finding all of the local arts and crafts shows and fairs.

94.  Getting to see the White Sox play in Tampa Bay.

95.  Being able to get more exercise by taking walks and biking the trails of Lake County year-round.

96.  Enjoying the scenery of Florida, knowing that it will stay green year round, and not become brown and dead for six months out of the year.

97.  Enjoy a hot dog at Casey’s whenever we want one

98.  Sit at Cosmic Ray’s and enjoy an entire Sunny Eclipse show

99.  Take a yearly family picture in front of Cinderella Castle.

100. A family picture and mini-celebration immediately after we cross the Florida state line on our way to becoming Florida residents!