How to get special souvenirs at Disney World!

What is our other favorite park at Disney World?

Surprise! It's Epcot!

Yes, we love Epcot so much that when we only had 1 and a half days to spend at Disney World, the Magic Kingdom got the first day and Epcot got the second!

Epcot really is fun for the whole family, although for some people it has the reputation as being the park that is the least fun for kids.  All of our family believes it offers something for each of us.

There is all kinds of international fun to be had at Epcot. One half of the park is called World Showcase. Eleven countries are represented through architecture, food, rides and shops. As you can see here, Petunia has a grand time, even in the shops.  These shops are just one way to get a very special...even exotic...souvenir from Disney. And...we have a favorite one! Can you guess which country?  We'll get there in a bit.

  In Epcot, there seem to be characters that either you cannot see in other places or that are harder to see elsewhere. Since many of Disney's stories take place in foreign countries, Epcot creates a natural place to see some of these special folks.  For instance, Beauty and the Beast takes place in France.  So, Petunia has gotten to meet and talk to Belle there. In fact, she was once first in line and Belle walked up to her, took her hand, and walked her over to the photo spot. How special!

Well, since this visit was in October, Duffy (Mickey Mouse's teddy bear) was dressed up in his jack-o-lantern costume when Petunia got to meet him.

As if this trip wasn't already awesome, we got to meet up and spend lots of this day with good friends of ours who we now live far apart from.  In fact, these friends re-introduced Disney to us in our adulthood and I can thank them for my extreme love of Disney parks now!

Petunia and their oldest have been friends since birth!

 All kinds of amazing sights at Epcot!

Did you guess that our favorite shop was in the "country" of Japan? It is!  Read on for the details of how to get a souvenir that I often tell people about and many people have never heard of.

It is one of our very favorite things to do at Epcot. In fact, it was on my Top 3 list for the day.

In the department store in Japan, you can go in, pay a very reasonable fee, and pick out an oyster.

There is quite a to-do made over your oyster selection and anyone in the store can witness the hullabaloo! Fun to have others join in your ceremony and to watch it happen for others, too!

 After all the fanfare, your oyster is opened to reveal its treasure.  A pearl!

The pearl is yours to keep!  I have seen large pearls, small pearls, colored pearls and even twin pearls come out of the oysters.  You just take your chance, pick which oyster you want and that's what you get.

At that point, you can take your pearl and go, or leave it there and have it made into a piece of jewelry. On this trip, Petunia and I each picked a pearl and had them set into necklaces. Talk about a special souvenir!

One thing I love about going to Disney World is that there is so much to do that every trip can be different.  Each time, I try to repeat our very favorites while also trying plenty of new things.  New for this trip was the princess dinner at Akershus Royal Banquet Dining Hall.

We were pretty excited to get in there!

And were we ever right to be excited!  The food was different...all kinds of food in a large buffet, so no long wait for food once you get in. While you're waiting to get your seat, your family gets a photo with a selected princess and you are given a 5x7 copy of it while you're there.  Another special souvenir!

The best part, though, are the conversations and the HUGS with the various princesses that come around to greet you while you're eating.  As you might can tell--especially if you're a parent--the look on Petunia's face made the "expensive" dinner worth every penny!

 Childhood memories are made from moments like these!

 We emerged to the most gorgeous evening! What a magical day, indeed!

 We didn't leave before getting a second ride of the day on one of our established favorites--Soarin'!  That was also just about the first thing we had done that morning because it was--you guessed it--part of the Top 3 for the day!

We saw, rode, greeted, and ate much more.  These are the special highlights, though. It was a short trip, but I hope this helps you see that even with only a couple days, and a little bit of planning, you can pack a lot of magic into your time at Disney World!

Someday Saturday: Sequoia National Forest

Photo credit

I really have a thing for majestic trees.  I absolutely enjoyed our family's vacation north of San Francisco to the Muir Woods just last year.  Those trees are large, of course, but their real claim to fame is their height.  Still on the bucket list for the Powells are the big, fat, giant sequoias!

Visit the official page of the Sequoia National Forest to learn even more facts like these:

1. The Giant Sequoias really are the world's largest trees.

2. This tree only grows naturally in a narrow 60-mile band of mixed conifer forest on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California.

Fascinating!

I think I have been drawn to the beauty and mystery of trees since my mom introduced me to this poem as a young girl.  Enjoy!

Trees

By Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

Be a hummingbird!

Headlines (and social media stories) can be so hard to read that it seems easier to look away from the reality they present.  Teen suicides. Drug abuse. Homeless families living in storage sheds. Babies with terminal illness. Kids being abused or neglected.  If you pick up the rock and look at the horribly creepy crawly things under it, it is normal just to want to slam the rock back down and walk away.

I know as much as anyone that the amount of need faced in our communities can be overwhelming. In our own part of town, a fairly well-to-do area compared to the national average, our compassion staff personally knows homeless families, hungry kids, teens aging out of foster care with nowhere to go and no one to show them the way, under-resourced people falling through the cracks of society, and people who have lost hope.

It can be overwhelming to know where to start.

There are some resources from our church and some others in the area. Some services are provided by government and non-profit organizations. But the need cannot be met without ordinary people getting involved.

Average families, who have to deal with their own mortgages, jobs, children, carpools, sports lessons, friendships and dreams, are the ones deciding they also have the capacity to carry just a bit of the burden of someone else who has too much to bear.  They inspire me! As we continue here together, I hope you will get to meet some of them...at least virtually.

To make a difference, you don't have to change everything. Just do what you can.  As told by Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai, here is

The Story of the Hummingbird:

One day a terrible fire broke out in a forest - a huge woodlands was suddenly engulfed by a raging wild fire. Frightened, all the animals fled their homes and ran out of the forest. As they came to the edge of a stream they stopped to watch the fire and they were feeling very discouraged and powerless. They were all bemoaning the destruction of their homes. Every one of them thought there was nothing they could do about the fire, except for one little hummingbird.

This particular hummingbird decided it would do something. It swooped into the stream and picked up a few drops of water and went into the forest and put them on the fire. Then it went back to the stream and did it again, and it kept going back, again and again and again. All the other animals watched in disbelief; some tried to discourage the hummingbird with comments like, "Don't bother, it is too much, you are too little, your wings will burn, your beak is too tiny, it’s only a drop, you can't put out this fire."

And as the animals stood around disparaging the little bird’s efforts, the bird noticed how hopeless and forlorn they looked. Then one of the animals shouted out and challenged the hummingbird in a mocking voice, "What do you think you are doing?" And the hummingbird, without wasting time or losing a beat, looked back and said, "I am doing what I can."

If you decide you would like to be a hummingbird and carry your drop of water to a burning fire, there are many places you can start.  Let me briefly introduce two national organizations that we have begun to partner with which bring long-lasting transformations.

The first one is called Safe Families for Children.  Here is how they explain a bit about their service: "When crisis strikes, many of us rely on relatives and our church family for support. But for some parents, there isn't a safety net. Often problems such as drug addiction, domestic abuse, incarceration, or illness can be debilitating, making it impossible for parents to care for their children...Since 2005, Safe Families for Children has offered sanctuary to thousands of children, minimizing the risk for abuse or neglect and giving parents the time and tools they need to help their families thrive. The ultimate goal is to strengthen and support parents so they can become Safe Families for their own children."  You can help out with Safe Families by being a host family temporarily to children or by serving as a Family Friend who supports hosts.  If you have any interest at all, go check out their website!

The Open Table is the name of the other wonderful organization.  Their vision is "A movement of servants restoring people in poverty to our communities through relationship and the investment of our own vocational and life experiences and personal networks."  Basically, it's this: if you know how to function in life and society because you had anyone care for you along your journey and show you the way, now you can be a member of a Table and pay it forward through sharing of your advice, your network and, most importantly, your friendship.  Their tagline is: The Triumph of Relationship Over Poverty.  I love that!

Go fill your beaks, hummingbirds!  Whether you work with Safe Families for Children, The Open Table, or any local place, the important thing is to do what you can.

I think it's time to share!

For a year now this blog has lived in my head and even on the internet, but it's been a little lonely.  I've spent hours writing and many more hours, actually, thinking of what all I would want to write, if I ever claimed a little virtual space of the universe again. I do like to keep a record for myself, but I knew if I started this blog, I hoped there would be some value to others, too.  I figured the only way I could do that was to write about what I know, which were the very topics I wanted to ponder anyway.  Isn't that lucky?

So here you'll find all sorts of posts, but the topics will center around family, travel and compassion.  Wherever any of those intersect is my especially happy place!

For travel, there will be some trip reports from vacations far and near with tips that may be helpful to others, inspirational pictures and locations that may go on our wishlists, general travel topics and value tactics from time to time and a feature I call Memory Monday, which is just a snapshot of one particular moment or a picture that inspires me.

For compassion, I will strive to share what I have learned these last several years, which has been so much about what it means to love well. My teachers have been both others wiser than me and that grandest-teacher-of-all -- the making of and learning from mistakes. Here's a big hint that I hope won't spoil you on all future reading: Relationship is the key to everything.

For family, well...those posts are about my heart.  I love doing life with my family and want to encourage others to combine travel, family and compassion wherever possible.  If there is anything about one of these topics you'd like to learn more about, please let me know. I am looking forward to community here at Have Heart Will Travel!

Memory Monday: Whale Watching in Maine

 Whale watching in Maine is a fascinating experience!  I feel extremely blessed to say that I have gotten to partake in all sorts of neat adventures and activities in my lifetime, but whale watching is in the top few on a short list!

We rode on the Atlanticat, a state-of-the-art catamaran, according to the company who operates it.  This was a much appreciated gift of an outing, from and with Nana and Gramps Fuzz, Petunia's grandparents, who are part-time residents in Maine. (Yes, that means more posts will be about Maine in the future! It's a lovely place!)