Saturday, January 29, 2011

woohoo


my blue main entrance pass came today!!!

(I know it's backwards)

YAY!

xoxo,
Natasha

Thursday, January 27, 2011

dreams

I have the weirdest dreams. Seriously.

A few weeks ago, I dreamt that I was a rectangle.

Per Alex's request, I have decided to start sharing some of these dreams here on my blog. Maybe you have had some of the same dreams? Maybe reading about my dreams will make you think I'm crazy. Maybe you have weirdo dreams that make mine seem totally normal (if this is true, please share!! :D)

2 nights ago, I dreamt that I knew Justin Bieber and he had decided to let me know his biggest secret....he was born a girl and got a sex change when he was 8. I was sworn to secrecy and at some point had to hide him by putting him under the couch cushions and then laying on top of the couch. The dream felt SO real and felt like it lasted forever.

I am definitely not a Bieber hater (I've got the Bieber-fever! haha) so I'm not sure where this came from but I guess I never really know where my dreams come from (again, I dreamt I was a rectangle...)

xoxo,

Natasha

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

magic

I'm telling you, this place is magical.

I have literally had tears in my eyes at some point during EVERY one of my shifts in the castle so far (happy tears of course!). Cinderella's Royal Table is full of magical moments - we recognize a prince and/or princess of the day at the start of every meal, we welcome "royal families" into the castle to share a meal with some of their favorite and most-loved Disney princesses, we give the prince and princesses swords and magic wands to use for our special wishing ceremony, we make memories.

When working inside the castle, I love to watch the families that come in together...their excitement is contagious and just knowing how special this meal is for them fills me with so much joy. Tonight, there were quite a few daddy-daughter tables and at one point one father was dancing with his princess in-between courses. We had a table of older ladies there to celebrate their dear friend's 80th birthday. Also, tonight I got to see my first in-castle proposal....it was so sweet!

I don't think I could have gotten any luckier with my location. I can honestly say that I love going into work every day and I definitely know now more than ever that I need to be in the business of making memories for people in some capacity.

xoxo,
Natasha

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

PAC

Yesterday I was able to pick up a PAC (Parade Audience Control) shift from the Extra Hours Hotline! I knew before I came down here that I wanted to pick up one of these shifts before my program was done -- and I was able to do it in the first two weeks!

The shift was SO much fun! First of all, the costume is adorable. I like my costume at Cinderella's Royal Table BUT the PAC costume was much more flattering :) There was a pep-talk meeting before the shift started and then we were all assigned our locations. For the electrical parade I was stationed outside of Tony's and Exposition Hall and just directed traffic with my blue "light saber"

After the electrical parade passed, I was moved up to main street and directed traffic during the new castle show and Wishes. I was in the perfect spot to see the shows and the best part was I was getting paid to watch them!!! :)

This was my view while "working" last night:
(I took this picture from google)

First PAC shift was a success! Can't wait to pick up more :)

xoxo,
Natasha


Monday, January 24, 2011

excitement


Alex will be here on February 3rd!

:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

We are using my cast discount and staying at one of the All-Star resorts. I am SO excited and can't believe it's so close!
I'm off work today and tomorrow so look out for some more updates!

xoxo,

Natasha

Friday, January 21, 2011

park orientation

A day or two after Traditions (all of the days seem to blend together here) I had my park orientation at the Magic Kingdom! The orientation that you participate in depends on your work location (park, resort, etc). My class was called "Once Upon A Time Is Now" and I LOVED it :D

Again, I don't want to ruin any surprises for anybody so I will just say that it was a lot of fun, I learned a lot, and I am more excited than ever to be working at the Magic Kingdom!

xoxo,
Natasha

Thursday, January 20, 2011

traditions

All Disney employees, from the CP participants to the big executives, have to participate in the Traditions class. At check-in they gave us all an assigned time for Traditions. I was originally assigned the afternoon class with my roommate Lisa but we both received calls the night before from the Casting department informing us that we had been moved to the earlier one! We were both pretty excited about this because you get your ID that lets you into the parks at Traditions and we wanted to break them in that night!

When I was doing my research on the DCP, I always wanted to know what happened at Traditions but found a recurring theme among the blogs that I read -- they always kept it a secret! And guess what? I'm doing the same thing!!! I would really hate to ruin the surprises for any other future Disney employees!!!!! But I will tell you that Lisa and I met some nice people from BYU-Idaho....here is the picture to prove it (haha):

After all the excitement I had lunch with my mommy and then we decided to head to the Polynesian (Lisa's workplace!!!!) to get a dole whip and sit on the beach. Of course we took pictures...

Unfortunately, our fun had to come to an end that afternoon and my mom had to fly home :( We both shed a few tears as she dropped me off at my apartment.

That night, the ladies of Chatham 23102 (me and the roomies haha) decided to use our shiny-new cast ID's to get into the park! We started off at Disney's Hollywood Studios but found out when we got there that there was only an hour until park closing. It was a very successful hour though! We rode Tower of Terror, Rockin Roller Coaster AND Toy Story Mania :)
Epcot was our next stop...we grabbed some dinner and margaritas in Mexico and worked our way around the World Showcase. We finished off the night watching Illuminations and then went home!

xoxo,
Natasha

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

check in day

Check-in day for the DCP was crazy busy! I met my roomies outside of Vista around 7:45AM and soon after that the line was opened and we began the whole process. First you are given a nametag and your program guide and then you proceed into the line for housing stuff. We got very lucky and were given the complex and room type that we wanted! Some other people in line near us were not so lucky :/

There are a few other stations that you stop at and then you are on the bus to casting! I was SO excited to be going into the casting building. It was my first time ever and knowing that I was going in there having already been offered a position with the company made it that much more exciting :)

Once inside, you are given your location (I'm at Cinderella's Royal Table!!!!) and then you visit a million more stations. It feels like you are there FOREVER. At the end they have a PhotoPass photographer there to take your picture, so look cute ;)

I had my mom pick me up at Casting so I didn't have to ride the bus back to Vista and we went to my apartment. After doing a little bit of moving in, my mom and I went to have some lunch and later on that afternoon the roomies and I headed to the housing meeting.

Here is a picture of me and my lovely roommates on check-in day:

For dinner that night, my mom and I had reservations at 'Ohana. OMG SOOOOOO GOOOODDDDD! We had been there before for breakfast but dinner there is a different beast entirely. We ate until we were about to burst and then headed back to our hotel for the night.

Here are some pictures from dinner:


xoxo,
Natasha

Friday, January 14, 2011

moving

Obviously to participate in the Disney College Program I had to move from California to Florida.I flew here with my mom (left the car at home with Trey) on January 8th.

Packing to leave was no fun...it's hard to fit 4 months worth of stuff into 4 bags! I also had a hard time accepting that I wasn't going to be living in the apartment with my three favorite boys (Rocco counts!) for an extended period of time!

The night before I left, we went to Arcadia to have dinner at the dumpling house. It was SOO good - like always :)


Saturday morning was full of some tearful goodbyes, excitement, and nerves. The flight to Minneapolis was good. We had a row to ourselves which is always nice. We had a short layover in Minneapolis and then it was on to Orlando!

All of my bags arrived when they were supposed to (yay!) and after retrieving them, we got our rental car and headed to the Pop Century hotel.

Check-in took forever but we finally got checked into the 60's section (the building with Mogli and Baloo) so we dropped off our bags and headed to Downtown Disney for dinner! We ate at Earl of Sandwich and were happy to see that we were there on the last day of the holiday sandwich!

That night I met up with Kristina and Alek and we just hung out for a little while.


once upon a time is now


I'm here!

My mom and I landed in Orlando last Saturday and I have been SO busy since then. I know that all of the bloggers say that they are always so busy and that they never have time to update their blogs but I never knew how true that was until I got here!

But anyways, here I am updating my blog :)

In a nutshell, everything has been great so far! I had a fun mini-vacation with my mom before check-in started, got the apartment I wanted (with great roomies!), was assigned an amazing location, and have had a lot of fun at my orientation sessions!

Instead of one long post, I'll break it up into sections so look out for posts on the following:

Moving
Check-in
Traditions
Park Orientation
Apartment

Then I should be all caught up and be back to regular posting :)

xoxo,

Natasha


Thursday, January 6, 2011

love


I love this man.

and will miss him terribly when I'm gone.

xoxo,

Natasha


Wednesday, January 5, 2011

disney thoughts

"Around here, however, we don't look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we're curious... and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths..."

- Walt Disney


xoxo,
Natasha

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

year of eleven crafts

No, I didn't make a resolution on how many crafts I am going to make this year (although, that does sound like the kind of resolution I could stick to!) BUT I couldn't think of a title for this post and since I have 2011 on the brain I thought..."why don't I post eleven of my favorite crafts that I make this year?!"

So that is what I have decided to do :)

My first favorite craft of 2011 is this:


It's a bathmat I made out of used wine corks....cute yea?

xoxo,

Natasha

Monday, January 3, 2011

its a new year


Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. To these I commit my day. If I succeed, I will give thanks. If I fail, I will seek his grace. And then, when this day is done, I will place my head on my pillow and rest.


This will be my 2011.

xoxo,

Natasha


after


It took a while for me to get this post up because I was sick since getting my hair cut :(

So here are the pictures as promised....


xoxo,

Natasha