As cheesy as it sounds, even going to Disney World as an adult feels pretty darned magical.  We took my munchkin on a family vacation to the house of mouse over the last week and have returned home exhausted, but happy.  It was so much fun, I wish my husband had been able to get more time off of work so we could have stayed longer!


Seeing all the sights and sounds of Disney with a four-year-old is really special.  His eyes would light up when he would see a character that he knew, especially those that didn't have big, heavy costumes and could actually talk with him.  He was even a bit shy with several of the princesses that he met, which was just adorable.  





He loved all the rides we went on, with one exception - the Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin ride scared the crap out of him the first time around, but he later demanded to try again and loved it the second time.  I think his favorite ride was probably the Toy Story Mania ride at Hollywood Studios, which really was a blast.  When you wait through the line, all of the toys in Andy's room are people-sized, so you feel like a toy, and much like watching "Toy Story," you see lots of toys you had when you were growing up, which is a lot of fun, too.


The Electrical Light Parade at the Magic Kingdom was quite possibly his favorite part of the entire trip.  Between the music that seemingly dates back to the first time I saw the parade many years ago and the familiar characters, he had a huge grin on his face the whole time, and so the grown-ups in our family.

 
The Tomorrowland Speedway at Magic Kingdom was probably a close second to the Toy Story Mania ride - especially because the munchkin could actually steer the little car, which ran on a track so even with his limited steering skills, no one would get hurt.  A grown-up had to ride with him to reach the gas pedal, but he had so much fun driving!

I realized last night that I'm almost back in the swing of normalcy again and yet I forgot to share some photos from my trip!


We saw some snow, which was great.  The kiddo was super excited about the snow, though it was only on the ground for a day or so.  He made his very own teeny tiny snowman, a few snow angels and several snowballs.  It was so great to see how happy the trip made him.  We celebrated his fourth birthday on the trip as well, complete with a fantastic Batman cake that put a huge smile on the kiddo's face.



Lee and I also took a trip to the Wisconsin Quilt Museum, which was full of unexpected surprises.  The first thing we saw when we walked in and hung up our coats was a very familiar looking quilt block - the star crossed block I just wrote a tutorial for last month!  It was interesting to see how the quilter chose to sash and border the quilt, which I suspect might just inspire me when I finish up my star crossed quilt.  I've never added cornerstones to sashing before, it might be kind of fun to try that for once.


The museum also had a quilted representation of the museum itself on display, which was really amazing.  Inside were several "quilts" hung on the walls, all cross-stitched.  Seeing those lovely blocks and quilts made me want to cross-stitch again.  I haven't done that in eons!


When we moved into the barn, there were two exhibits to see.  One was a Girl Scout exhibit, showing the history of the Girl Scouts through quilts, but none of those photos turned out very well.  My photos from the second exhibit turned out much, much better.  The second exhibit was called Connecting Thread: A Line of Design.  Each piece had a piece of red cording or thread running through it and connecting it to the other pieces.  It was definitely a unique concept.  I haven't seen a whole lot of art quilting before, so I wasn't too sure what to expect, but I.  We saw a lot of stunning quilting stitches in an art quilting exhibit featuring work by the Milwaukee Art Quilters group.  Here are a few of my favorite free motioned designs:



These quilts really showed off some amazing FMQ'ing and I will definitely be looking at these photos before I free-motion my next quilt.  So inspiring!  To see the rest of the quilts on display in this exhibit and read more about the challenge, click here.

Lee also showed me her local quilt shops, and naturally, I found a few things to bring home.  I totally plan to hang the quilter's star block lights in my sewing room to brighten things up a bit.  They are just so cute!  I was excited to see the King Tut thread, I've really been wanting to try it for a while now.   The Hera marker has also been on my shopping list as of late, I've been wanting to try using it for marking quilting lines and designs after I saw Kati use one with great success.


I'm looking forward to actually turning on my sewing machine and hopefully sewing a little bit today!