The Happiness Project: February (pt.5)

The Happiness Project

February 2015 : Remember Love

Marriage

 

Part 5

 

{Give Proofs of Love}

 

Whatever love you feel in your heart, others must see by your actions.

 

- express affection

-say "I love you"

- hug often

- leave unexpected notes, messages, or emails

- be silly sometimes

- do small gestures of love

- be considerate

- special treats

- spend time together

- have a "date night"

- go to bed at the same time

- never criticize

- try doing a "week of extreme nice"

(no nagging, criticizing, or snapping)

 

When thinking about happiness, we tend to focus on the other person to change in order to boost our happiness. In fact, you can't change anyone but yourself. When you give up expecting your spouse to change (within reason), you lessen anger and resentment, and that creates a more loving atmosphere in your marriage.

 

 

 

Our 2015 Disney Vacation (February 11 - part one)

Day #7 - Wednesday February 11 2015 (part one)

Our original travel plans were to check out on Friday morning and end the Disney part of our trip. Before coming to Florida, I had suggested doing something different on the drive home, like visiting a city we've never seen before. We could drive a few hours north and spend Friday in St. Augustine, spending the night there, and starting our road trip home on Saturday. We both thought that would be fun.

When we got back to the room last night, we started talking over our plans for our remaining two days here. We always start getting a little sad at this point in the trip and start to dread to see it come to an end. We had two park days, two lunches, and two table service meals left on our package. The more we talked about our remaining days, the more we both wanted to stay right in Disney the extra day on Friday and scrap the plans for St. Augustine. This made us much happier about our remaining time in WDW knowing we now had another extra full day/night. This changed our plans a bit though since we now had three days left instead of two. We could add another night to our stay, but would have to pay OOP for meals and entertainment.

No problem - I already had a Plan B.

Today, we would skip the parks and save our two remaining park days for Thursday and Friday. First of all, we needed to see if we could add another night to our stay, so we headed to the front desk. It again, took a little juggling, but we got the same room for the extra night. Next stop, catch the next bus to Downtown Disney! We were doing a "fun day" today, and first on the agenda - do Characters In Flight.


Up until last year, Peter didn't care to ride the balloon over Disney. He isn't too keen on heights, but last year, he was ready to try. Wind stopped us from riding then, and again on our first day here this year. We were hoping it was operating today. We were almost to DTD when we saw this.............

YAAA!!!!!

 

 

We headed straight to the ticket window, bought our tickets,

and soon we were flying over WDW!!!

 

 

 

 

 

lots of construction going on at DTD.....

 

coming back down....

 

As we were coming back down, the wind started to pick up a bit. As we were getting off, they closed the ride again. I loved it!! Peter liked it, but is okay not to go up anymore. It was an awesome view of WDW and I am so glad we finally got to ride it.

 

 

We planned to have lunch at our next stop, but we stopped for a snack before leaving DTD.

We shared a pretzel w/cheese & a diet coke from Wetzel's Pretzels.

($4.24 or 1 SC for the pretzel) + OOP for the soda and cheese

 

 

We hopped on the bus headed to Swan & Dolphin. We were headed to Fantasia Gardens for some miniature golf and that was the best way to get there. We got off at the front of Swan, walked through the lobby and out the back door.

 

Then we walked over past Dolphin

 

past the playground and basketball court

(I couldn't help but think of Nathan as he always searched for a basketball court when in Disney).

 

across the street and you're there!

 

 

The Happiness Project: February (pt. 2, 3, 4)

The Happiness Project

February 2015 : Remember Love

Marriage

 

Part 2

{Don't Expect Praise or Appreciation}

 

Sometimes we want, even more than help, a little praise or appreciation.

We tell ourselves that we do certain chores or other things "for our husband", or "for the kids", or others, but when it goes unnoticed or unrewarded with words of praise or acknowledgment, we often feel resentment or hurt. We kind of set ourselves up for disappointment when they don't get involved in "our" projects or don't notice what we've done.They do notice, they do appreciate, and doing things doesn't always require that "gold star". It makes it even more special and genuine when we do receive a thank you or act of appreciation.

  

Part 3

{Fight Right}

 

"Marital conflicts fall into two categories: issues that can be clearly resolved and those that can't. Unfortunately, more conflicts fall into the open-ended 'How should we spend our money?" or "How should we raise our children?" categories than the easier "What movie should we watch this weekend?"

 

"It takes at least five positive marital actions offset one critical or destructive action, so one way to strengthen a marriage is to make sure that the positive outweighs the negative. When a couple's interactions are usually loving and kind, it's much easier to disregard the occasional unpleasant exchange."

 

-Stop snapping.

-Stop blaming.
-Fight right.

 

 

Part 4

{No Dumping}

 

At first this sounds good....it's all about pleasing me....but if this saying is true, that's a big responsibility. You do tend to make people happier when you tend to your own happiness-but it goes beyond that. By being happy yourself, you are better able to try to make others happier.

 

"Happy people generally are more forgiving, helpful and charitable, have better self-control, and are more tolerant of frustration than unhappy people, while unhappy people are more withdrawn, defensive, and self-absorbed. Happiness has a particularly strong influence in marriage, because spouses pick up each other's moods so easily. A 30% increase in one spouse's happiness boosts the other spouse's happiness, while a drop in one spouse's happiness drags the other down."

Gretchen observed while doing the project that the happier she seemed to be, the more her husband tried to make her happy, and when she was unhappy-for whatever reason-her husband went into a funk. So part of her attempt to be happier- she resolved, "No dumping", especially on her husband. She would bring up her worries if she really needed her husbands support or counseling, but wouldn't dump her minor troubles on him.

 

 

Our 2015 Disney Vacation (February 10 - part two)

Day #6 - Tuesday February 10 2015 (part two)

Next, we went over to watch Muppet Vision 3D. We had never seen it before, so we thought we would mark it off the to-do list. It is super corny, but cute (and it brought back tons of memories of all the Muppet shows I watched with the boys when they were little).

Another to-do (for me), was to have my picture taken on the giant bug at the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground. Peter (again) thinks I'm silly, but humors me. It is the cutest place for kids to play.....

....but was super crowded and Peter was not about to wait for all those kids to clear out so that I could climb on that huge bug to get my picture taken. LOL

Well, at least we actually walked through this attraction. Maybe I'll try again next year....not!

It was time to take a ride on Rock n' Roller coaster.

I do single rider line on this ride, since I ride solo. Peter waited for me outside while I rode. The single rider queue took at least 30 minutes to get me backstage, then another 20 or so to finally get in the limo.....one of the longest single rider waits I've had....well worth the wait though. I love, love, love this ride!!

I was now ready for a snack, so we stopped at Hollywood Scoops and I got some mint chip ice cream ($4.79 or 1 SC) and we got a Diet Coke to share (OOP).

We both love The Great Movie Ride, so that was next. Of course, the gangster joined us for the ride. We're yet to experience the western version of the ride.

We walked over to Streets of America hoping to catch the last show of Lights, Motor, Action but we were a few minutes late. Instead, we just toured around and took some pictures.

We saw Cinderella's coach....I saw the trailer for the movie coming out in March and it looks good!

I hadn't pre-booked an ADR for tonight, so last night we browsed through our options and decided on Hollywood & Vine right here in the park. Hollywood Studios was only open until 7:00 tonight, so we stayed all day for our 6:20 ADR time. We walked over to H & V around 5:30 and just sat on a bench and people watched (and got our picture taken in front of Echo Lake....since the hat photo-op location was gone).

At 6:00, I checked us in, we were called 5 minutes later. It was not crowded at all and best of all, no wait. We both really liked this buffet!

The chocolate fountain dessert bar was soooooo good!!!

We both agreed, we would return here again sometime.

$74.53 or 2 TS (+ cash tip)

We took the bus back to the resort after dinner. We considered trying to get into Fantasmic, but decided to call it an early night. We've only seen that show one time and it was so chilly that we really didn't enjoy it as much as we could have. I put it on the list to do again next year.

We had a great day at DHS!!!!