After all, the right hat can make you feel like a Disney princess...
Wednesday, 27 March 2013
Happy Hats and Heads
We're back for another Wordless Wednesday and today the focus is on Disney headgear. As a guy who can't even stand to wear a baseball hat, this isn't exactly a topic near and dear to my heart, but even though I don't participate in the art of adorning my head with baubles, I do understand their importance.
After all, the right hat can make you feel like a Disney princess...
After all, the right hat can make you feel like a Disney princess...
Monday, 25 March 2013
Friends of MKTS - Arrows Sent Forth
Facebook: Arrows Sent Forth
Twitter: @ArrowsSentForth
Pinterest: Nicole Wiltrout
Google+: Nicole Wiltrout
WHO ARE THEY? - Nicole is an Indiana girl who is busy raising up her two young sons, referred to in her blog as Big Arrow and Little Arrow. Nicole claims that the title of her blog is drawn from a Kahlil Gibran quote: "You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth", but I'm pretty sure it's got something to do with the Hunger Games. Nicole strikes me as kind of a Katniss type. I can see her with a baby in a carrier on the front and a quiver of arrows on her back. I wonder if her husband is from District 12?
Friday, 22 March 2013
How to Torture Yourself When at Home for Spring Break
Today is the last day of Spring Break, and while it's been nice having Lori and the kids home, I've been going a little crazy not being able to get away. Family health problems have us confined close to home at the moment, so day trips to places like Crystal Mountain have been the only adventures we've managed to do. That doesn't mean that I haven't been dreaming bigger though. It seems that everywhere I look there's something taunting me...reminding me of places I could be visiting, and although some of it is unavoidable, some is definitely self-inflicted. If you ever find yourself in this situation, here's a couple of things you should avoid doing if you don't want to torture yourself.
Wednesday, 20 March 2013
Spring Training for Disney
With the closing of our local ski mountain yesterday, it's time to officially put winter behind us and turn our focus to the joys of spring. For me, spring means one thing, and that's Spring Training. It's that time of year when all the professional baseball players report to camp and start to get ready for a brand new season, but Spring Training isn't just for baseball. For me and all my fellow Disney addicts, there's a whole new season of theme parking to start training for. People think all you have to do is book a hotel and buy some passes, but the real Disney-philes know that there's a lot more to it than that.
Tuesday, 19 March 2013
Closing Crystal Mountain
A lot of people wait anxiously every year for the opening of ski season. Their gear is polished, their seasons pass is bought, and the only thing they have to wait for is enough of the fluffy white stuff to hit the ground that it's considered skiing and not falling down a hill. It's usually around December sometime that everything gets up and running. After that a certain number of people disappear each year, not to be seen again for the next three months.
Friday, 15 March 2013
My Luckiest Travel Moments
This Sunday is St. Patrick's Day, and though I know it's going to come as quite a shock to those of you who have seen me Riverdance, I'm not actually Irish. I have however, had quite a bit of the "Luck of the Irish" when it comes to traveling. Apparently you don't have to wear green or drink a lot of Guinness to earn a little share of the pot of gold. Sometimes you just have to be in the right place at the right time. These are five of those memorable moments when the lucky leprechauns seemed to be watching out for me.
The odds of getting a Royal Flush while playing video poker in Vegas are pretty slim. Roughly 40,000 to 1 with proper strategy, but if you play long enough, you'll most likely hit your fair share of them. The odds of actually having the Royal dealt to you however, are remote enough that a lot of avid gamblers will never see it happen. Not only did it happen to me, but it happened on a progressive machine, meaning that in addition to beating the 649,740 to 1 odds, I got a $650 bonus for doing so.
A couple of years ago I went on the StarMegaDo where a bunch of mileage plan junkies charter a plane and fly around the country. Somewhere between Chicago and Montreal I managed to lose my passport, and while a very generous border guard eventually allowed me entry back into my home country, it definitely didn't look like I was going to be able to make the next days flight to Denver. Fortunately, somebody found my passport before the group took off the next day, and although it led to a lot of scrambling around, I managed to get back on the MegaDo and off to Denver...where I promptly lost my wallet. This is why I don't travel without my wife.
Staying at the Hyatt Waikiki was a wonderful experience, and waking up every morning looking out over the ocean is the perfect way to start a day. In addition to the beautiful scenery however, one of the things we would watch from our balcony were the catamarans heading out onto the water, taking tourists for a ride out by Diamond Head. This looked like a really fun activity to us, but we were a little nervous about joining a tour as most of the boats looked like insanely crowded party cruises heading out, and we were with our (much younger at the time) family. Eventually temptation got the best of us though, and we decided that we would just suck it up and hope that our kids wouldn't see anything that would scar them for life. We made our way over to the beach and by some stroke of good luck, we were the only people to show up for that sailing. We got a private charter of a catamaran for the same price as a regular ride, and it was every bit as much fun as it looked. I will warn you however that catamaran captains feel much more liberty to drive head on into waves when there's only one family aboard. Probably the whole "fewer witnesses" thing if something goes wrong.
Stopping in Las Vegas for the night, we had a reservation at the Rio Hotel and Casino for a two queen, non-smoking room. While the hotel was kind enough to put us on their top floor, the first room they gave us was a smoking, king bed room. A call down to the front desk to explain that we really needed two beds got us moved a little further down the hall...to another smoking, king room. A slightly more perturbed call down this time got us moved down the hall to one of the biggest suites I've ever been in. This room had a full size kitchen (with industrial ice maker), dining room, a massive living room, and a couple of the biggest tubs you've ever seen. Of course it still only had one bed, but we decided to let that slide this time. After all, if we really needed to all five of us could have probably slept on the dining room table.
This was pre-family days, but it's easily one of the luckiest moments I've ever had in Disneyland. One night we went back to the park to watch the fireworks, but the crowds were fairly heavy and the weather was rather iffy. Instead of waiting an hour or so on Main Street to see a fireworks show that may or may not happen, we decided that we'd rather do some rides and watch the fireworks from wherever we happened to be when the time came. Just before the fireworks started, we jumped on the Matterhorn and as fate would have it, we got stuck. Fortunately though, out of all the places we could have stopped, we were just coming up to the tunnel that faces Sleeping Beauty's castle, so we got to sit inside the Matterhorn and watch the fireworks go off outside. I think they close the Matterhorn during fireworks now, but I'll always remember the best vantage point I've ever had. A true stoke of good luck.
This post is a part of Friday Daydreamin at R We There Yet Mom. If you didn't get here from there, you should really go check them out. There's people there who are even luckier than me. Bet they can't out-Riverdance me though.
Written by Steve Pratt
Wynn-ing in Las Vegas
The odds of getting a Royal Flush while playing video poker in Vegas are pretty slim. Roughly 40,000 to 1 with proper strategy, but if you play long enough, you'll most likely hit your fair share of them. The odds of actually having the Royal dealt to you however, are remote enough that a lot of avid gamblers will never see it happen. Not only did it happen to me, but it happened on a progressive machine, meaning that in addition to beating the 649,740 to 1 odds, I got a $650 bonus for doing so.
Throwing Out My Passport
A couple of years ago I went on the StarMegaDo where a bunch of mileage plan junkies charter a plane and fly around the country. Somewhere between Chicago and Montreal I managed to lose my passport, and while a very generous border guard eventually allowed me entry back into my home country, it definitely didn't look like I was going to be able to make the next days flight to Denver. Fortunately, somebody found my passport before the group took off the next day, and although it led to a lot of scrambling around, I managed to get back on the MegaDo and off to Denver...where I promptly lost my wallet. This is why I don't travel without my wife.
A Private Ride (and Attempted Drowning)
Staying at the Hyatt Waikiki was a wonderful experience, and waking up every morning looking out over the ocean is the perfect way to start a day. In addition to the beautiful scenery however, one of the things we would watch from our balcony were the catamarans heading out onto the water, taking tourists for a ride out by Diamond Head. This looked like a really fun activity to us, but we were a little nervous about joining a tour as most of the boats looked like insanely crowded party cruises heading out, and we were with our (much younger at the time) family. Eventually temptation got the best of us though, and we decided that we would just suck it up and hope that our kids wouldn't see anything that would scar them for life. We made our way over to the beach and by some stroke of good luck, we were the only people to show up for that sailing. We got a private charter of a catamaran for the same price as a regular ride, and it was every bit as much fun as it looked. I will warn you however that catamaran captains feel much more liberty to drive head on into waves when there's only one family aboard. Probably the whole "fewer witnesses" thing if something goes wrong.
The Rio Can't Count to Two
Stopping in Las Vegas for the night, we had a reservation at the Rio Hotel and Casino for a two queen, non-smoking room. While the hotel was kind enough to put us on their top floor, the first room they gave us was a smoking, king bed room. A call down to the front desk to explain that we really needed two beds got us moved a little further down the hall...to another smoking, king room. A slightly more perturbed call down this time got us moved down the hall to one of the biggest suites I've ever been in. This room had a full size kitchen (with industrial ice maker), dining room, a massive living room, and a couple of the biggest tubs you've ever seen. Of course it still only had one bed, but we decided to let that slide this time. After all, if we really needed to all five of us could have probably slept on the dining room table.
Watching the Fireworks from the Matterhorn
This was pre-family days, but it's easily one of the luckiest moments I've ever had in Disneyland. One night we went back to the park to watch the fireworks, but the crowds were fairly heavy and the weather was rather iffy. Instead of waiting an hour or so on Main Street to see a fireworks show that may or may not happen, we decided that we'd rather do some rides and watch the fireworks from wherever we happened to be when the time came. Just before the fireworks started, we jumped on the Matterhorn and as fate would have it, we got stuck. Fortunately though, out of all the places we could have stopped, we were just coming up to the tunnel that faces Sleeping Beauty's castle, so we got to sit inside the Matterhorn and watch the fireworks go off outside. I think they close the Matterhorn during fireworks now, but I'll always remember the best vantage point I've ever had. A true stoke of good luck.
This post is a part of Friday Daydreamin at R We There Yet Mom. If you didn't get here from there, you should really go check them out. There's people there who are even luckier than me. Bet they can't out-Riverdance me though.
Written by Steve Pratt
Wednesday, 13 March 2013
I'm a Freezer, Not a Flasher
When you're as famous as I am, you have to turn down a lot of invitations in life. Tea with the Queen was tempting, but apparently they don't have Diet Coke as a drink option, so I passed. I was almost the guy who did the free fall to Earth from the edge of space, but I like to feel the wind in my hair and we disagreed on whether or not the helmet was really necessary, so they went with somebody else. Then there was the time they asked me to go to North Korea and talk to that dictator guy. I prefer not to get too involved in politics so I declined, but you should see the guy they sent as my replacement!
Monday, 11 March 2013
What Happened to More Kids Than Suitcases?
Were you worried about us? Have you been visiting the More Kids Than Suitcases site daily for the last week and wondering just what kind of super-tragedy could be keeping us from sharing further stories of strangeness? Have you begun to organize search parties to scour all the ice cream parlors and Starbucks locations west of Ontario?
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