mental health

Halloween time at Disneyland! My must do’s.

Being an October baby, Halloween is my JAM. From the decor to the scents, everything about fall and halloween is magical to me. Throw Disney into the mix? It’s my ultimate.

Photo: Disney Parks Blog

I have two trips coming up this season so The Beardless Coffee and I are going HARD on the planning. To kick off this awesome season of blogs and magic, I wanted to come on here and talk about my must do’s when it comes to visiting Disneyland during halloween!

Mickey Pumpkin photos!

It’s not halloween at Disneyland without our good ol’ friend Winky Blinky. He’s the center of the Main Street Pumpkin festival, and is the epitome of Disneyland halloween fun. Stacked high up on a pile of pixie dusted pumpkins, Mickey glows happily to greet you coming in, and winks at you on your way out. This is one of the best spot to get photos at during this time, and the line to be front a center gets LENGTHY. My advice? Stand over to the side away from the pumpkin and model your little heart out with it in the background. Camera angles are everything when it comes to crowds and snagging a good picture.

Snacks, Snacks, Snacks.

One of my absolute favorite parts of Disneyland in any season is the snacks. I’m shamelessly the girl that counts down the entire year until the release of pumpkin spice, and let me tell you, Disneyland DELIVERS.

Image result for halloween snacks disneyland
Photo: Disney Tourist Blog

A few honorable mentions: Pumpkin Spice Beignets from the Mint Julep bar in New Orleans Square, The pumpkin spice churro with optional cream cheese dipping sauce at the cart near Haunted Mansion, and the pumpkin spice funnel cake fries at Award Wieners in Disney’s California Adventure. There’s also an array of cute caramel apples and cake pops in each bakery at the park! Whatever your personal tastes may be, Disneyland will always have something for you during the holidays!

Haunted Mansion Holiday!

Jack’s back, y’all, and I’m HERE FOR IT. This is my favorite ride, hands down year round.

Image result for haunted mansion holiday
Photo: Disney Parks Blog

Every Halloween season, Jack Skellington arrives and gives the entire Haunted Mansion a makeover and leaves it up all the way until January! With Nightmare Before Christmas being my favorite movie, this ride is meant to be my favorite. I’ve recently gotten Andy into it so much that he can sing some of the songs better than I can and I’m not even mad about it. If you’re in Disneyland at any point from September to December, definitely head over to the mansion. If you hear eerie jewelry box music, you’re getting warmer. Also, you can meet the man himself over at the Port Royal store in New Orleans Square!

Halloween Screams Fireworks

Photo: WDWNT.com

Normally, these fireworks only happened at Mickey’s Halloween Party, but since Oogie Boogie decided to take over California Adventure this year, these fireworks will be shown to the public every night over at Disneyland! Hosted by Jack Skellington himself, this show contains all of your favorite creepies and crawlies, has an homage to almost every villain, and even have a “scream” along at the end! These have been a favorite of mine since the first Mickey’s Halloween Party I went to and I’m so excited to see them again.

I can’t wait to go on these next two trips and enjoy all of the spooky fun that’s ahead! What’s your favorite holiday at the Disney Parks and why do you love it so much? Go find me over on instagram and tell me! Happy Hauntings!

So I ghosted my blog for a while – Here’s why.

Some people really underestimate what it takes to be a content creator on social media. It looks as easy as just slapping a filter on a cute Disney pic and choosing a couple of hashtags to caption it with, but it goes /MUCH/ deeper than that. For those of us who really commit to growing our social media presence into more of an influencer platform, its long nights of pitching to brands with long emails, setting up the next month of posts in a layout app to make sure your feed looks cohesive and flows well, all on top of making sure you stay on a consistent schedule and ENGAGE, ENGAGE, ENGAGE!

Still doesn’t sound like much? Add that to being a toddler mom, failing small shop owner, and retail manager wife. I stretch myself so thin without realizing it. It’s hard for me to slow down and just cherish what’s in the moment while I’m always thinking of the next 6 moments ahead of time.

By all means, I’m not complaining. I willingly choose this life and could delete all social media right now if I wanted to. I do this ultimately for my future self. I love looking back at where I was 2, 4, and 6 years later and watching how much I’ve grown as a person, a mom, and now as a content creator. It’s crazy to me to look back at posts from 2015 and what I thought was /good/ content back then. Have you ever cringed at something you posted years ago and think, “Why would I ever think that was a good idea to post for the world to see?”. Welcome to my everyday life. This helps me appreciate my current content even more. I’m constantly on a quest to better my content while still keeping the real life, unfiltered element that my followers have grown to love about me. I may post cute post photos in all of the popular picture spots in Batuu, but I’ll also post the 16 sweaty, crying, tantrum fueled photos that led up to that one half smiling photo I THANKFULLY captured.

I know what you’re thinking: Sarah, this is such a first world problem of a post. Honestly, to me it’s not. This is my life and my story to tell and I understand it can sound like so little of a problem, but its much deeper than that TO ME. To get to the bottom of this post, and the reason for the title; I ghosted my blog months ago. Why? Because emotionally and mentally I couldn’t keep up with it. The thought of logging in and taking the time to write a mini-essay made me want to curl up in a ball and cry. My husband and I have had the roughest year of our lives this far, and it’s all happened in the last three months. He recently switched jobs unexpectedly which has been a financial nightmare and we’ve been living every day just praying for good news. Today, he finally started his new job and I’m seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. In turn, my consistency in my content creating has plummeted. I’m missing deadlines, my orders in my small shop are INCREDIBLY late (luckily I have amazing customers who understand that life happens and love my products enough to wait for them.), and I completely deserted this blog. I was so excited to start my new series about how to successfully plan a Disneyland trip step by step, but that quickly took a cold spot on the back burner for a while.

I’m feeling better and finally getting back to business. No more putting things off, no more giving into depression. I’m back, I’m here, and just in time for three back to back Disneyland trips. Two for business, and one for a really fun bachelorette. I can’t wait to bring you guys along! Let me know what you’d like to see on here!

If you’d like to keep up with me on a more day to day basis, please follow me over on instagram! @thatdisneylandfamily

❤ Sarah