The First Week - Check In Day!

January 22, 2013 - Check In Day!

Check-In

It was about 70 degrees at Vista Way during check in.
Definitely not in Utah anymore! ;) 

That first morning I woke up at about 5:30am (still 3:30 in my mind..) to get to check in at 7:00. I met up with my new friend Kelsey, a girl from Michigan who I met on Facebook. We were planning on being roommates. Her mom was kind enough to drive us and my things over to check in. (So grateful for kind people! ..also happy about avoiding taking a taxi.. haha!) Check in went pretty smoothly, except for the fact that we were going to have to be put in Vista Way.. we both had heard some sketchy things about it and just felt more comfortable staying somewhere else, but in order to do that, Kelsey and I had to be separated. That was definitely taking a leap of faith to be put with 5 girls I knew nothing about. but it was out of my hands at that point and I just hoped for the best. 

My Apartment

I ended up in the newest and nicest apartment complex!

I went into my apartment expecting the worse, an awful apartment, terrible roommates, but got the complete opposite. (thank goodness!)

The apartment was super clean, and nice, and a lot bigger than I imagined.

The Living Room! This is where we live! :)

The Kitchen! (1 fridge. 6 people.. it's kinda like a  puzzle. haha)

Mine and Sammie Jo's closet. (I have a lot more clothes than I thought!)

My Side of the room :)

My bed! not very comfy, but extremely adorable :)

This is my decorating style. 

Our Living room/Dining room.

The first week here, I had the idea to make All About Me things that say things like our school, major, birthday, and then the important stuff like Fav Disney movie, princess, park etc. :) Then under these, we post our schedule for the week so we know who is available to play in the parks with us. ;) On the right side is our cleaning schedule Jess made, that says who is going to do either Garbage of Dishes for the day, which has worked pretty well so far!

The view from our balcony.

  But the best part about my new apartment life is my roommates! The greatest group of girls ever! Like seriously, I have no clue how I got so lucky! We all get along great and are all like best friends! Get to know a little bit more about each of them on my page: Introductions-The Cast.

Now time to brag about what an awesome family I have! While unpacking I found some hidden little gems in my suitcases! A very essential bottle of fry sauce (i was really worried I wasn't going to be able to eat fries again! cause heaven knows I can't do it without fry sauce!), A jar of nutella (that actually lasted me like a whole week! haha!) But the most special item of them all was a card from McKay and a CD she made with all of mine and her favorite songs, like seriously, if there was a playlist that could describe our relationship, that was definitely it! She'll never know how special that was to me, and whenever I miss the fam even a little bit, I listen to it :)

(taken two days before I left) This girl right here, is the best friend I could ever ask for!

Missing the sisters for sure! LOVE YOU BOTH!!!!!

Casting

After getting somewhat settled into my new room, it was time for casting which is basically where they make sure we have all our paper work and such finished in order to begin working. But this was the first little taste of Disney we all got. Lots of us boarded a bus (the first of many) taking us to the Disney Casting building, and as soon as we passed under the Welcome to Walt Disney World Sign, everyone on the bus went crazy with cheering and screaming, it was so exciting!! The building also had lots of magical Disney touches. Tons of awesome artwork, Disney character sculptures, the doorknobs were exactly like the one's from Alice in Wonderland! And this was just the place we filled out paperwork! Another reason Disney is amazing and magical :)

Once Upon a Time...

It's been exactly a month since I moved to the most magical place on earth! So far it's been an absolute blast, and a dream come true! I have already met so many amazing people and had so many crazy adventures! I thought it rather selfish to keep all this fun to myself though, so I made this blog to keep all my family and friends updated with my life. :)

Well I've got quite a bit to catch y'all up on, so I think I'll start at the beginning of my adventure. Yep, that sounds good :)

Goodbye Utah! See ya in about 8 months!

The day I left was a huge step for me! Not only was I moving away from my family for the first time.. I was moving close to 3,000 miles away! So as you could imagine, I was a little freaked out. Saying goodbye in the airport was like a scene in a movie, I swear there was a whole lot of slow motion waving, blowing kisses, and some tears as I turned to go into security.. call me dramatic but that's how it felt. I was very proud of myself for getting through security and finding the terminal without having a panic attack, the only hiccup in the process was the fact that I couldn't lift my carry on over my head to get it into the over head compartment, but I quickly made a strong friend who helped me out. :) From then on it was 7 hours of sleeping, and eating delicious airplane snacks.
I got to the Orlando International Airport about 7:30 eastern time, found all my luggage and by some miracle got it all to the shuttle that was going to take me to my hotel. On the shuttle there was another girl also checking in the next day for the college program. She was going to be doing Quick Service Food and Beverage. The whole way there we couldn't stop talking about how excited we were to get started and we both squealed every time we passed a Disney World Billboard. haha!
When I finally got to the hotel, the first thing I did was call some of my friends and family. While Skype-ing with my family I decided to check and see if I was able to see where I would be working while at Disney World (I hadn't been able to because prior to this I already worked for Disney at the Salt Lake City Disney Store, and it hadn't updated my location) All I knew was that I was going to be working somewhere doing Merchandise. Really I was happy to be in WDW, but obviously there were some places I wanted to work more than others. Magic Kingdom being my number one, then any of the other parks, then the resorts, then Downtown Disney. Well my friends, dreams come true! I was going to be working MAGIC KINGDOM MERCHANDISE in FRONTIERLAND!!!!!! Was this real life?? I really couldn't have been happier :)
That whole first day out on my own really couldn't have gone any better. I guess I gave my family a little bit of a hard time for not coming with me to get me settled in, but my mom had said that if I made it through that first day I would have an amazing feeling of self accomplishment. That was exactly what happened. I felt like if I could get all the way to Orlando by myself I could do anything! :)