| Wish I was at Disney World  Tanya's Daily Scoop CURRENTLY IN: ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA Hello my dear Travelin' Cousins fan base as well as to all of our new readers, The past few days have been HOT and while I realize that it is not as HOT as it will get (Aug/Sept surprisingly seem to be the hottest months here in SoCal IMO). But nevertheless I feel like the heat was just turned on out of nowhere. So, I do hope that it chills out - so to speak, before we are really faced with Summer...unless the Summer was just so perfectly on schedule this year and came right at the turn of the seasons. Hmm. Anyways and anyhoos I reckon that the entire country (USA) looks as though it is going through a heat wave, with some very unreasonable temperatures!  Meanwhile although I know that the month of June is always HOT in Florida, I am still going to live vicariously through my dear cuz Travelin' Elisa and cousins Gianna and Kelsey while they enjoy themselves on a Disney Vacation!  Find this on Etsy While I went to Fashion Island with my mom, both sissies, BIL and niece yesterday for a little therapy - my favorite type of therapy. Then I made a lovely Tuscan Style Pasta Dinner for my favorite crew - the Fam Bam and we all played a fun and laughter filled board game. My today wasn't really all that exciting! I had some errands to run that I wanted to be finished with before traffic got miserable and before the hottest part of the day, then I went with the gals to Hobby Lobby, with Cosette to the gym, then hung out poolside with my mom, Brigitte and Cosette and now I am relaxing here on my patio sipping a delish Iced Coffee as I write my side of the blog. I think I am getting hungry. (Either that or seeing the super YUMMY sounding and delish looking meal that Elisa ate, has developed quite a hunger inside of me!) I still have yet to try Raglan Road at Disney Springs but so far I think my favorite meal at Disney Springs was at Morimoto Asia Restaurant...it was sooooo good!  Morimoto Asia Interior (c)michelin guide  Somehow I only managed to get a picture of the dumplings that we had (c)travelincousins.com In the meantime while I have some downtime, I'm gonna be filling in my Costa Rica Itinerary, as well as planning out my wardrobe for that trip as well as a few others, which are two of the things that I find most fun in the trip planning stage. So be sure stay tuned for updates on that! I'll leave you with a pic from one of the days that we were at Disney Springs from our trip this past February...  Disney Springs (c)travelincousins.com Catch you guys back here soon. Ciao 4 now, -Travelin' Tanya | Summer Disney Trip - Day 1 - Disney Springs  Elisa's Daily Scoop CURRENTLY IN: ORLANDO, FLORIDA  (c)travelincousins.com Good morning!! I'm writing to you from JFK International airport. It's only 8:34a and we've already had an interesting morning. Me and my gang awoke at 3:30 am so we could leave by 4am for our 7am flight. To our surprise, the flight was delayed to 8:40am, so lucky us, we got to sleep another hour. When I awoke again, I saw that the flight had once again been delayed to 9:30. Not terrible, but of course, the result is that we will arrive to Orlando a few hours than we had originally planned. We were lucky enough to have Gianna's boyfriend, Robby offer to drive us at what began at such an un-Godly hour, and then wait out all the delays with us and drive us.  Kelsey and I rode in the backseat while Gianna rode shotgun in the front (c)travelincousins.com The time delay was really no biggie, but we did have a lunch reservation at Raglin' Road in Disney Springs for 12:45pm so we changed it to later in the afternoon, just in case there were any more delays of any kind. T S A R A N T Since I don't as yet have much to report on our trip, I thought I would do a quick rant on airport security. If there was ever time that a human being could relate to cattle going to the slaughter, it would have to be while going through security at the airport. With all due respect to the polite and friendly TSA workers, most of them are on a power trip, do not know how to smile and have a lack of communications skills worth nothing. I get filled with tremendous anger the moment I approach the security area and generally speaking, this anger escalates to murderous rage by the time I'm walking around, being barked at by idiots in masks, who are imbued with the power they possess in this 4th amendment violating job. Fortunately, considering that I'm supposed to be the Queen of High VIBE as host of The High VIBE Show on The Transformation Talk Radio Network, I tried my utmost to fill myself with positive and upbeat energy. As I would find myself about to complain or get annoyed, I repeated affirmations "This is a great experience," "This is the best airport experience ever" and others. The result... Well, we got the nicest agent who checked our ID - friendly with an actual human personality; When we got to the "bin" area, it was civilized and we were able to put our belongings up without being pushed and prodded; Then, as you may or may. not know, I have a real issue with the walk through x-ray machines that you have to raise your hands -- well, as fate would have it, we were guided to go through the walk through one. Even the guy who collects the bins was jovial and thanked me for giving him our empty bins and offered me a job!! And there you have it - the power of positive thinking and manifesting!!  Waiting to board our 2-hour delayed flight at JFK (c)travelincousins.com The only unfortunate thing was that with all the delays, our seat assignment got messed up and we were separated. Well, actually Kelsey and I were together and Gianna got separated. But, being the good mommy, I let the girls sit together and I took the lone (middle) seat. Once again, my positive mindset paid off!! I wound up sitting next to the nicest young woman and we had a fabulous conversation! I was thrilled that she was able to garner some good travel advice from me, being a native New Yorker, since she moved to New York and was originally from Orlando. Big shout out to Arielle if you are reading this!!! I had a wonderful flight and even managed to watch an old Guy Ritchie movie from 2015, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. based on the television series. It was entertaining since I love spy movies.  Since the Disney Express bus service to the Disney World resorts is no longer running, we caught a shuttle bus to the hotel. Everything the rest of the day worked out perfectly. We got the hotel, changed, checked our luggage and headed over the Disney Springs, where we arrived at Raglin Road just in time for our 3:30 reservation.  On the bus to Disney World resort. Gianna being silly with her gum (c)travelincousins.com We'd never eaten there before and boy oh boy was it both delish and delightful!!! The restaurant has a number of vegan options on their diverse Irish menu. Not to mention the dancing entertainment with their talented Irish step dancers!!  (c)traveincousins.com  (c)travelincousins.com  Interior (c)travelincousins.com  (c)travelincousins.com We were quite starved since we hadn't eaten all day except for a piece of fruit and snack on the plane. So we all pretty much ate every morsel of everything that was put in front of us. This included the delectable brown bread which they serve complimentary, and paired it with a Guinness and sugar reduction with olive oil. We were in love at first bite! Now, I will preface it with the fact that this bread is not vegan (as most of you know I'm a mostly vegan, unlike my dear cuz who is 100% vegan). The recipe contains buttermilk. (I found a Youtube video with the chef from Raglin Road making the bread - it is soo easy to make)  Yummy brown bread with a Guinness and sugar reduction with olive oil. (c)travelincousins.com Next, we shared "Sure I'm Frittered" - broccoli and corn fritter with a sweet corn puree and fire roasted pepper relish.  "sure I'm frittered" appetizer (c)travelincousins.com  (c)travelincousins.com Next, were the main courses --- I have the vegan shepherd's pie, Gianna had the "Chicken Ple Do Try" and Kelsey had "That Salad with Chicken". All the dishes had such cute names!!  "This Shepherd Went Vegan" - faro barley, carrots, wild mushrooms, green onions, peas, rutabaga topped with olive oil mashed potato with a burnt onion gravy (c) trvelincousins.com  "Chicken PIe Do Try" - chicken, wild mushrooms & leeks in a white wine cream sauce wrapped in pastry (c)travelincousins.com  "That Salad with Chicken" - chicken breast, arugula, broccolini, pickled red cabage, roasted butternut squash, confit tomatoes, red quinoa, honey mustard dressing (c)travelincousins.com Then... the dancers came out and the fun began. It was lively and festive and made me wonder why we had never eaten here before. Well, I can certainly tell you we will eat there again!!  Irish step dancers at Raglin Road (c)travelincousins.com We kind of rolled out of there from eating so much and just walked around the Springs, in and out of the stores.    (c)travelincousins.com  (c)travelincousins.com  (c)travelincousins.com  (c)travelincousins.com  (c)travelincousins.com  (c)travelincousins.com  (c)travelincousins.com  (c)travelincousins.com  (c)travelincousins.com  Beautiful mural of one of my fave animals (c)travelincousins.com Just got back to the hotel for a restful evening - early start tomorrow as we venture to EPCOT!!! Bye for now! -Travelin' Elisa |
