Hello Epcot!

Here is Emily and I saying hello to the world famous giant Epcot golf ball!

Wow... that's all I can say.

In just two weeks I have:

1) Been through all four parks, and one water park at Walt Disney World Resort ( and one hotel resort ;) )

2) Started my first ever company paid, on the grid, federal papers, actually hourly pay... job

3) Seen many if not ALL of my absolute favorite characters and had full fledged conversations with them!

4) Touched every single gown of each of the Disney Princesses... a wonderful dream come true <3

5) live in an apartment, and enjoy all of my roommates and keep everything pretty much clean!

6) Almost cry and break down because I've never been worked so hard in my life...

7) Gotten my first-real-actually-my-own pay check

8) PAID TITHING ON MY FIRST-REAL-ACTUALLY-MY-OWN-PAY CHECK!

9) Talk with a manager for the first time to request Sundays off

10) Wrote a letter to my manager explaining why I need Sundays off to accompany the letter my bishop gave me

Whoo! Is that all? Emily and I keep saying that we feel like we've been here for months just because we've gotten so much done, but we've only been here two weeks! Crazy... Never, when I graduated High School, never did I think that in just one year I would be sitting in an apartment in Florida, typing out my first few days of work working for the Walt Disney World Resort as a Costuming Cast Member on my blog... never could have even dreamed it....

but I'm glad that dreams.. even dreams we don't think up at first... come true...

Kelly and Emily

Friends through it all. Love you Em!

Magical Chaos... The Joy's of a New World

OK... wow. So let me fill you in on the last couple of days... trust me, it's a doozy.

Now I flew from Sacramento to Orlando ALL DAY on tuesday and settled at a lovely resort called the Regal Sun on Disney property. Very nice if I do say so myself. That bed could not have felt better after all that traveling. After settleing into the room for a minute, I sat down and paused and thought oh my goodness, I'm in a hotel room, in Florida, working for Disney World with one of my best friends.... and no parents... it was a little thrilling to think that I'm spending the night in a beautiful hotel room with a girl friend and my parents wont be sleeping in the bed next to mine... wow.

So we wake up the next morning and have a quick little bite to eat in the lobby, and then the fun began... alright now we got ready and headed off to get a cab. Ok, this was my first ever cab ride and it was pretty nice! We got our hotel to grab one for us and they got us a beautiful Excursion with plenty of room for our 200lbs of stuff we brought with us.

We arrive at the check-in point at Vista Way apartments and we go through this HUGE check-in process ( getting keys, apt #, signing paperwork, being carted around from one building to the next... very complicated.. BUT WE DID IT!) So we get through this huge process which started at 9:00am and ended shortly after 12:00pm.

Now, our apartment is absolutely beautiful, and we probably have the biggest bathroom known to college students because it's basically a master suite with a huge walk in closet and takes up the entire back wall of the apartment. So nice, and I only have to share it with Emily! Perfect!

So that night we meet up with some friends to go get some ice cream at one of the resorts...

This is what we ordered....

For ten people... we ordered two... I felt like I was going to burst by the end of it. BUT IT WAS AWESOME!!! Eight scoops of ice cream, a full can of whip cream and every topping they had! Ah-mazing! ( The Kitchen Sink at Beaches and Cream at the Beach Club Resort)

After getting completely Chocolate Wasted, we headed back to the apartment to sleep it all off.

Thursday was exciting for the sheer fact that we had no food in the house and we needed desperately to go to Walmart. After going through practically every food isle and getting a couple cleaning essentials, we ended up spending $90 for the both of us! Quite spectacular. The problem was getting it all home... with no car... taking buses... oh, boy...

That's Emily with half the groceries on our bus. I had just that much on my arms... can't believe we actually carried all that home...

So then we decided to take naps after that long journey. And when we awoke, we had many asking if we wanted to explore Downtown Disney! Of course we would, we replied!

Oh so much fun... :)

Now the next morning was my first day of work, aka: Orientation/Traditions. Now, they took me to a lot of places I can't say on the web, but I was giddy like a school girl when I saw Cinderella's Castle for the first time! Now, when we got back they started talking about a lot of different things we needed to know, and then there was a knock on the door and there was this huge present box with a bow on it, and then out the other door came in MICKEY MOUSE! THE BOSS HIMSELF!!! It was so cool!!!! Then he told us that the present was our NAME TAGS!!! I screamed.. I really did. I could not keep composure at that point. I'M WORKING FOR DISNEY WORLD!

Life Comes at You Fast...

These last few weeks have been an absolute whirl wind for me. I don't think 3 weeks could have gone by any faster. Here I was practically wishing I could hurl myself all the way to California so that I could get home from school instead of having to wait those super long hours during the car ride home, and now I'm typing what might be my last post before I'm in Orlando, FL!!!

We spent today just getting ready. Making sure I was packed, that I knew where I was going and how I was getting there. Making sure I had all the correct paperwork printed and filled out, and that I said goodbye to any dear friends I have here in Tracy.

Then I realized as I was putting the last of my stuff in my suitcases....

9 months... 9 months....

It was like one of those moments in the movies where you hear the voice in your head echo a certain phrase a million times over and over again, and you always think it will stop with the next one but it doesn't... I never thought that I'd be spending 9 months of my life away from home and away from my family and friends my first first year out of High School. I am going to be living independently across the entire country for 5 whole months... and then flying immediately back to school to jump into classes. I wont see my parents until April 2011... It feels like April 2010 was just yesterday! As you can see, life's catching up to me.. as Momma likes to quote the MasterCard commercial... "Life comes at you fast..."

But I can do this. I just got through some of the worst challenges and hardships these past six months on my own! I moved to a new state in the debt of winter ( -19 degrees!!!), I survived a horrendous first date while maintaining my dignity, signed up for my own classes and made the adjustments myself to fit my needs, auditioned and was cast in my first college production (and had a fabulous time. thank you Barber of Seville Cast and Crew! ), Got MONO for 3 weeks and was incapacitated and threating to enter the emergency room BUT I SURVIVED AND KEPT A 3.1 GPA!!!, I also got through some of the worst roommate drama ever endured by one woman.... BUT I DID IT! I didn't come home, I did threaten to come home and cried to my mother like a baby for about a solid month, BUT I DIDN'T COME HOME! I finished my first year of college and that means that I can live across the country in a big city and figure things out and live to tell the tale, right? ...right?

Oh, boy... well, here goes nothing, right? No turning back now... WISH ME LUCK!!!

Self Loathing...

Deep sigh... Ok this is really depressing. When you think you lost a whole bunch of weight and that your size 14 jeans should be falling off you, but then you slip them on right out the dryer and they fit almost snug is like getting a lollipop and then having the flavor be something like vomit or buggers. I can never catch a break. Never. Most of the women I know can go for three weeks, eat whatever they want, not care about if they work out or not, and MAINTAIN their weight. Not me. I so much as think about not exercising and I gain a pound. I'm sorry to say that in the last 3 weeks I have gained 11lbs. It's disgusting. How can anyone gain 11lbs in just three weeks! It makes me sick...

Well, what I've learned is that theres no point in moping about it, because then you just go for the easiest "fix" for your depression and have an extra bowl of ice cream, or one more peanut butter cookie. Whats the harm in one more since you've already screwed up, right? Wrong! The only way to change a habit is to kick it. Complaining about how horrible something is, doesn't make it any less horrible. You just have to button those extra tight jeans ( because they look good, dang it!) and walk out saying "Next week or the week after, this will be different. These pants will need a belt in about a month" and you think of how your going to make that happen. For me, I'm going to track all my food intake for the week next week and then make adjustments. Exercise shouldn't be too hard since I'll be running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to figure everything out! haha, well onwards! New goals, new friends, new adventures! Cheers to goal making.

So Much To Do!.. Then Wait..

So I've been packing for the last week, mind you I've never packed "fully" for the trip yet, meaning all clothes, shoes, bathroom items ect. completely tucked away in my suitcases, no. BUT I have had to think about packing ALL WEEK! Trying to get 9 months of my life into two suitcases proves to be a tougher task than I thought it would be.

Alas, I did it. Everything except my carry on for the flight and one last laundry day ( which isn't extraordinary) is packed away and ready for Tuesday. Wow... it feels like just yesterday Emily and I were getting everything packed for our weekend in Salt Lake City for our Character Auditions for Disney World in March. We kept saying "I just wanna go to Florida now!" and "I'm so excited! Why do we have to go through an entire semester of school first!" and now, LOOK AT US! We're flying across the country in one day to start our training for one of the biggest companies IN THE WORLD! Sigh.. nothing could be more sweet.

I'm just a little nervous on how things are going to pan out as far as transportation goes. We have a wonderful guy whose one of our college reps back at school who said he would give us a ride from the airport to our hotel, but I'm concerned about getting to our check-in point. If we aren't there before 12pm, we can consider ourselves terminated. The working world... it scares me a little. BUT WE CAN DO THIS, right Em!? Mickey, save us a spot, cause we're comin' your way!

New Me, New Chapter... NEW CLOTHES!

Alright, so I have ave some fantastic news. For two years, I hated shopping. "Now wait a minute" you might say "That is not happy news!" Oh, but wait, dear friends, just wait.

Again, I say, I hated shopping for two solid years. Now here comes the "Because". Because I was too big to fit into any of the styles people my age were wearing. I had grown out of American Eagle, Aeropostale, Anchor Blue, and Pac Sun; the most popular stores in the tween/ teen world! The last time I could remember my fat butt fitting into an American Eagle Jean was 8th grade. The last time I remember fitting into any pants at Aeropostale was 6th grade! Torid, a plus size "Style Store" had become my default for any "In style" fashions. If it weren't for that store I would have been reduced to the plus size faded glory tops at Walmart ( which are never age appropriate for high school...)I suffered to say the least, through my high school years.

But now....

I can pick out at least one item ( clothing.. not accessories) in every store I go to! A year ago, I walked into stores and know for a fact that nothing would fit. NOT ONE SINGLE ITEM! But now, my whole worlds different. I mean, look at what I found in the clearance racks!!!

Home Again! ... Home Again...

So the thrill of being home again has kind of worn off. Not for the fact that I've had my wisdom teeth taken out just two weeks ago, but for the fact that in the three weeks that I've been home, I've gained back 8lbs...

Now mind you this isn't a complete shock. I haven't been doing much exercise ( if any at all... does shopping count?) and I've eaten just about anything that's put in front of my face, and with my mother cooking most of my meals, I've probably downed enough calories to make a sickly child in Taiwan pretty plump. Now this is a little discouraging after having put up that last post about me losing so much over the last 6 months, but it's only 8 lbs, not 80. I've gone from a size 22 to a snug 12 ( I know it says 10 in the previous post. You can thank my mother's wonderful cooking for the added size... Love you mom.. Grrrr) But this is something I knew I'd have to deal with when I finally finished my first year of College.

Returning to the real world...

For the past six months, I have lived in what we BYU kids like to call the "Rexburg Bubble". Nothing comes in, and nothing goes out. It's this perfect little world that you create for yourself, and in my case that included eating a fair amount of veggies and fruit, and drinking so much water I was peeing like a camel all day. It also meant that I was walking up this treacherous (ok.. maybe mildly steep... a hill) mountain, everyday to get to my dorm, 3-4 times a day! I also had a set aside hour to work out on the Cardio Machines. I readjusted my life up there to suit my wants and needs of gaining a healthy lifestyle, something that is near impossible to do when I am around friends and family at home. Not because it's their fault, but because they have their own routines too, and I was involved in the same routines when I lived here. I can't expect to change everything I've lived with for 18 solid years in just three weeks! Like I said, near impossible.

I've found that I'm the kind of person who enjoys change. Ever since I was little, I liked changing things up. I don't think there has ever been a school year where I didn't rearrange the furniture in my room during the Christmas break. I also like fresh starts. Back to school was always like Christmas for me. New back pack, new clothes, new pencils, binders, books, paper, and a new start to maybe get that principals honor roll ( never happened... life sucks...) but I have come to see that I do well when my surrounding change. This is why I am so grateful that I have the fantastic opportunity to work for Disney World, and live in an entirely new environment for FIVE WHOLE MONTHS! I am hoping that this drastic change in scenery will open up a new chapter in my journey for that long awaited goal weight of 120. I've come this far... no turnin' back.... So Eat My Fat, Calories :D !

This is Kjoy signing out!

Love and Peace <3