Happy Halloween!

Hello, dearest friends!

Can you believe Halloween is tomorrow?  It's sometimes surreal to me, because I've been celebrating Halloween since the first Halloween Party at Magic Kingdom, which was way back on September 11th. :)  Similarly, I'll be celebrating Christmas starting November 7th, when Cinderella's Castle will begin getting lit up every night with icicle lights for the Castle Lighting show. :D  Disney is the best place on earth to work for if you love the holidays! :D  A full third of the year is devoted to them. :D

So holidays are in full swing; I've been doing the Halloween Parties four times a week lately, plus rehearsals for the Castle Lighting show and the Christmas Parade.  Busy busy!  On top of it all, I had no less than five groups of friends coming to visit in October! 

The first friends to come were Ken and his son Cory over the first weekend in October.  We all got to eat at Beach Club, and they invited Joe and I to their Bay Lake Towers room (super fancy, near Magic Kingdom) to watch fireworks and look at pictures of really cool, super expensive exotic cars, which both Ken and Joe are into. :)  I knew enough to point at the picture and say, "Oh look!  Pretty!"  :P 

Next, my friend Bastien came with a couple of his friends the second week of October.  Bastien is from Paris, and his two friends were from England and Holland; all of them work at Paris DisneyLand and were on a two week holiday.  They came to visit DisneyWorld and then DisneyLand. :D  I had SO MUCH fun with them!  We all hung out at Epcot during the Food and Wine Festival, and it was so neat to realize that Entertainment can cross all cultural and language barriers.  One of my best friends, Coleen, was also there that week, and even though most of us didn't know about half of the group, by the end of the day, we were all good friends, sharing food, fellowship, and laughter. :D 

As I mentioned, Coleen came to visit, mostly for a conference for her work, but she was able to hang out with me for a couple of days to catch up on life, and she and Joe even went to a Halloween Party together, where they got to see Minnie in the Halloween Parade.  That is a cherished memory now, to see best friend and boyfriend freaking out when Minnie blew them a kiss. :D 

Overlapping a little bit, my mom and her friends Carrie and Kara came to visit for a week.  While they were here, Susan Thornton and her family were here for a few days as well, so we all had a massive meet n greet after one of the Castle Shows one day, which was, in a word, epic. :D  So much fun, family, and friends! :D  I tried to spend as much time as possible with my mom, although my work schedule was not exactly mom-friendly, since I was working about 65 hours that week. :/

I absolutely love when my mom comes to visit, because everyone I work with quickly discovers who she is in the crowd.  It's really hard to miss her; she looks like me, stands front and center every show, wears shirts with Minnie Mouse on them, and she constantly is singing along to the songs, clapping her hands, blowing kisses, or drawing hearts to Minnie and the rest of the Dream Along cast. :D  My friends later told me that she brought so much energy to the show, she reminded a couple of them of their own moms who would do that for them, and overall, everyone kept saying how they saw the pride and love beaming out of my mom towards me. :D  Thanks, Mom!

And lo and behold, that brings us to the end of October.  November promises more busy weeks with my casting and the additional Christmas parades and Castle Lighting shows, plus whatever else Scheduling decides to surprise me with. :) 

I hope you all have a magical Halloween full of treats (and no tricks), and a wonderful November that starts just day after tomorrow! 

I love you all with my life!
Megan