Italian Sausage Soup Recipe

 When it's cold out, my go-to dinner is always some sort of soup. Not only is it a great way to warm up, but it can also help you clean out leftover ingredients from your pantry and fridge, which is exactly how this soup came to be!

My favorite part about this recipe is the broth, especially the little pools of it that get trapped in the shell pasta. Since I eat dairy-free, I'm not able to create creamy thick soups. Instead I love to combine vegetable broth with tomato sauce to give it a bit more of a punch. But you could easily leave out the tomato sauce for a thinner broth or substitute it with milk or heavy cream for a creamier broth.

The first thing you want to choose for this soup is a good italian style rope or link sausage. My family eats a lot of chicken and turkey sausage, so my preferred one for this recipe is the Gilbert's brand Caprese Chicken Sausage, but really any sausage will do. Just make sure that it is one you can slice into 1 inch rounds and the casing will hold the meat into a nice disc.

Once you have your sausage sliced, you will saute them in your soup pot or dutch oven with a little olive oil and your sliced mushrooms until the sausages have started to brown and the mushrooms have cooked down to half their size. Toss in the rest of your ingredients except for the pasta and bring everything to a boil. Then you are ready to add your shell pasta and simmer just long enough for it to be al dente, making this a great recipe for nights when you need a quick dinner.

If you give this recipe a try, I would love to hear what you thought of it in the comments below!

Italian Sausage Soup

Ingredients: 10 oz of Italian style rope or link sausage (sliced into 1 inch rounds) 8 oz of white or baby bella mushrooms (sliced) 2 tablespoons of olive oil 2 garlic cloves (crushed) 48 oz of vegetable broth 15 oz of tomato sauce 14.5 oz of diced tomatoes 3 oz of baby spinach (torn) 1 tablespoon of Italian seasoning 8 oz of small shells pasta (uncooked) salt and pepper to taste Shredded parmesan for serving (optional) Makes 5 servings

Directions: 1. Heat olive oil in large pot or dutch oven over medium heat. 2. Add sliced sausage, mushrooms and crushed garlic. Saute until sausage has started to brown and mushrooms have reduced to half their size. 3. Add in all ingredients but the pasta and parmesan. Stir to incorporate and bring to a boil. 4. Once boiling, add the pasta and reduce to a simmer. Cook for 6-7 minutes until pasta is al dente. 5. Top with shredded parmesan if desired and serve.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas With Prairie Lights!

If you find yourself in the Dallas/Ft Worth area around Christmas time, there is one event you should be sure to attend...the Prairie Lights! This drive-thru experience turns Lynn Creek Park in Grand Prairie, Texas into a Christmas wonderland that my family looks forward to every year.

At Prairie Lights, you get to drive through the park right off of Joe Pool Lake and view 2 miles of gorgeous Christmas light displays with various themes, moving features and even more surprises. The event opens on Thanksgiving night and runs through New Year's Eve each year, with the park opening each night at 6pm. The wait can get long some nights so make sure you are in line before 9pm to make the cut-off.

Every year new themes are added to the display, so the lights you see are always changing from year to year but a few of my family's favorites that are always there are the 12 Days of Christmas display that sings to you as you drive by and the light tunnel that sends you home in the most festive of moods! Other displays we saw this year included the Christmas Garden, Prehistoric Christmas and Santa's Village.

In years passed the midway point has given families a chance to stretch their legs in a walking light path, but to keep everyone safely distanced for the 2020 season the walking path displays have been added to the driving path and guests are given the option to purchase concessions and a touchless video experience with Santa right from the comfort of their cars.

For my boys, this annual event truly kicks off their holiday season and it's one that I hope we can enjoy for years to come! My recommendations for the best experience would be to order your admission ticket ahead of time online, go on a weekday evening, plan to get there before the 6pm open and grab dinner on your way to occupy the kiddos while you wait for the event gates to open. If you are interested in learning more about this experience or purchasing a ticket to attend, you can find out more information on the event's website here: Prairie Lights. And if you take your family, I'd love to hear about your experience in the comments below!

The Secret to Finding Work/Life Balance

 

When the idea of writing for this mom blog was first discussed, I was slightly hesitant because other than sharing my favorite recipes and my overwhelming knowledge of Disney trivia, I wasn’t sure that there was much I could be considered an expert on. So I did what most people in this era would do and asked my social media friends for suggestions. There was a variety of responses to get me brainstorming, but the one that struck me the most actually came from my sister, and it was the request to write about how to balance work and motherhood especially when you work from home. So before we dive into this topic that most, if not all mothers struggle with, I want to share with you a bit of my background so you can connect to where I’m coming from.

For the past 10 years, my life has revolved completely around my home. When we learned I was pregnant with my oldest, I left my job so that I could focus fully on my college courses with the goal of graduating before he made his debut. And after receiving my degree, I made the decision to stay home with my son with the idea in mind that at some point I would go back to the workforce. Fast forward a couple years and I learned that I do not do well when I feel like I’m idling without a sense of purpose, so over the years I have started a number of businesses based on my crafting abilities and products that I fell in love with. They all started as just a way to keep busy until my boys were old enough to attend school, but what I have learned in the process is that the typical office life of working set hours outside of the home just isn’t what I’m made for and doesn’t work for my family. Instead I choose to work from home, and while it has its blessings like the flexibility to attend school field trips and help care for my niece during the school day, it also has its challenges. For example, it’s very easy to get distracted from the writing this post when I have a clear view of the dishes piling up in the sink. 

Which brings us back to the topic at hand, how do you go about balancing your work with your life? And to be honest, my answer may shock many of you because I don’t think it’s possible. Now hear me out. When people talk about a work/life balance what most people envision is a perfect life where you spend equal time accomplishing both your work goals and your life goals. But it just doesn’t work that way, because not only are there way more pieces to the puzzle than just work vs life when you start breaking it down into categories like marriage, self-care, family, current job duties, future career goals, etc, but you also have to realize that all of these things are fluid and what they need to function on any given day has as many twists and turns as Rockin’ Rollercoaster.

Regardless of whether you work in an office or at home, there are going to be occasions where more time and energy is required to accomplish the task in front of you. Just like there will be milestones in your life that will require more focus, like the first year of marriage or having a new baby. And this is where most people will get hung up, because this idea of an equal work/life balance tells us that if we need to work overtime one month, that it makes us a bad mom or if we need to leave work early so we can make it to our kid’s football game, then we aren’t a motivated employee/business owner/etc. And it tells us that we aren’t enough because it makes us believe that there are other moms out there that have figured out something we haven’t, when the truth is, none of us are living that perfect equality because it doesn’t exist.

What does exist is harmony. The ability to understand that just because you need to focus on one aspect of your life right now doesn’t means the others will suffer forever. Knowing that you have goals for your future and that taking the time to strive for them now means more flexibility in the long run. Or knowing when you are at the place in your work career that you can take more time to focus on your family. Because in truth, your work/life balance should be just that, a balancing act that allows your time to ebb and flow between your various responsibilities without causing everything to break. The next time you think about your life, instead of picturing a scale, picture a lake. Most days, the water is calm or there may be a slight breeze pushing it to one shore or another. And every now and then a storm will blow in, causing the water to crash in waves and surge to a shore. But just like those storms in nature, the storms of your life (a new promotion at your job or your kiddo starting school for the first time) will not last long and the balance of time and responsibilities will return to your center. So instead of focusing on keeping things equal, focus on your ability to ride out the storm with your goal being the growth and peace that follows it.

How to Navigate Disney World's Mobile Ordering

For a few years now, Disney World guests have had the ability to skip the line at select quick service restaurants by placing a mobile order. And with the parks' current focus on social distancing, this little known gem has become the standard procedure at most of the casual dining locations throughout the parks and resorts. So here's some easy steps to follow on how to navigate Disney World's Mobile Ordering
 

Start by deciding which restaurant you would like to order from. You can do this by locating the open quick service restaurants on the map in the My Disney Experience app. Those that are requiring a mobile order have an icon that looks like a phone with a fork and knife bubble in front of it. Once you have found the one you want on the map, click that icon and it will give you the option to click on “Order Food”. Or you can scan the QR code found on signs at the entrance to these restaurants.

Now it's time to start building your order. First select your arrival window from the times available. Next you can browse the menu and click on the item that you are interested in. Then you'll select any side or beverage options available for that item and will click the blue “+Add” button at the top to add the item to your bag. Continue to select, modify and add items to your bag until you have your party's entire order added. Then click on “View My Order” to make sure it's all there and correct. If you need to make changes you'll click “Modify Order” but if it's ready to go, you'll select “Review Order Summary”.
 

Here is where you will provide payment information. If you have a card saved to your MyDisneyExperience account, it should automatically pop up as an option under the “Credit or Debit Card” section. But if you want to use a Disney gift card to pay for your order, you now have the option to select that payment method. Unfortunately, gift cards can not be saved to your MDE account, so you'll need to have the gift card on you to enter the card number or you can use my trick of saving the gift card numbers in a Note on your phone so you can then copy and paste the number into the app! Once you have entered your payment method, you are ready to hit “Purchase”.

Now your app should have a screen showing your order number with a button that says “I'm Here, Prepare My Order” if you are within your selected arrival window. Once you are close to the restaurant, hit that button and wait outside the restaurant. When your order is ready, the screen will change from a white background with the words “We're Preparing Your Order” to a dark background with the words “Order is Ready for Pickup!” Make sure to keep this new darker screen up on your phone because you'll need it to get your food.

Keeping your party together, show this screen to the Cast Member at the entrance of the restaurant who will let you inside. Then another Cast Member inside the restaurant will use this screen to direct you to the correct pickup window. And the Cast Member at the pickup window will need this screen to verify your order number and hand you your food. Once you have your food, you and the rest of your party may look for an open table in the restaurant to enjoy your meal.
 

But what happens if you close the app during this process? As long as you have purchased the order and you have allowed the app to send your phone notifications, you'll get alerts at the top of your phone when your food is ready for pickup. Or if you go to the profile section of your app (the 3 horizontal lines in the bottom menu), you can click on “Mobile Food Orders” to find your recent orders and see their status there.

Mobile Ordering is just one of the things that my family enjoyed on our recent trip to Disney World. So when you are ready to experience that Disney magic again, I'd love to help you plan your trip and share more of my firsthand knowledge with you!  Sheena@RopeDropTravel.com

 

Disney Park Tickets vs Disney Park Pass Reservation System

 

Since the start of this global pandemic, many things in our everyday lives have changed. Social distancing, face coverings and contactless payments are becoming the norm, so it only makes sense that vacation destinations since as Disney World and Disneyland would roll out policy changes as well. When the parks open later this July, one of the biggest changes will be the introduction of a new Disney Park Pass Reservation system, but it's also seems to be the change causing the most confusion so let's break it down.
 

A Disney Park Ticket is your purchase of entry into a Disney theme park, while your Disney Park Pass Reservation is your RSVP, letting Disney know which of their 4 Orlando or 2 Anaheim parks that your family plans to visit on each day of your vacation. Think of it like attending a semester of college. Your Park Ticket is your tuition, your payment to attend that college. While your Park Pass is registering for your classes, letting the college know which ones you want to take. This means that to enter a Disney park for the rest of 2020 and into 2021, you will need BOTH a park ticket and a park pass.

Just like college classes, the Disney theme parks are going to have a set capacity limit each day and reserving a Park Pass saves your place in that park. But it also means that Park Passes are limited and you will want to reserve them early to have the best chance at snagging the park schedule you want. And much like your class schedule, you can not double book your time, which in the case of Disney means that you may only reserve ONE park per day. So when you or your travel agent purchase your tickets, you will want to immediately connect them to your My Disney Experience account so that you can reserve your Park Passes right away. This does mean you will need to do a bit more planning at the start of your booking so that you know which park you are looking to visit each day, but please note that you will also have the ability later on to modify your Park Pass and reserve a different park as long as that new park choice is still available.

To summarize, Park Tickets and Park Passes are not the same thing but you will need both to enjoy the magic of your favorite Disney theme park. So when your family is ready to travel again, I hope you will reach out to me so I can help you navigate this new Disney planning process.

DIY Butterbeer at Home!

Walking into the Wizarding World at Universal is a dream come true for Harry Potter fans, as the streets of Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade transport you into the pages of the beloved books. And one of the things that makes the experience complete for many people is the famous Butterbeer. This buttery sweet drink is one of the most popular snacks on Universal property and since we can't currently be in the parks, I wanted a way to bring the magic of it home and this DIY Butterbeer recipe was born!
 

This recipe is easy to whip up in your own potion classroom (aka your kitchen) and wizards both young and young at heart are sure to love it! All you need are a few common dessert items and a hand or stand mixer. The drink base is made by combining cream soda, caramel flavor and butter extract. And the delicious, cloud-like topping is a mixture of heavy whipping cream, butterscotch, marshmallow and powdered sugar. Together they create a tasty Butterbeer fit for the magical world!

Ingredients:

2 liters of cream soda (chilled)

1 tsp of caramel flavor

1 tsp of butter extract

1 cup of heavy whipping cream

1/4 cup of powdered sugar

1/8 cup of butterscotch topping

1/8 cup of marshmallow topping

Directions:

1. Pour heavy whipping cream into a bowl and use a hand or stand mixer to whip until it becomes fluffy and creates stiff peaks.

2. Gently fold the powdered sugar, butterscotch and marshmallow into the heavy whipping cream, then whip once more until it once again creates those stiff peaks.

3. Very carefully add the caramel flavor and butter extract to your 2 liter of cream soda and stir.

4. Pour some of the soda mixture into a clear glass or mason jar and top with the cream mixture.

5. Enjoy!

If you'd like to see a video of the first time I whipped up this potion (along with a blooper of why you should be careful when mixing the soda ingredients), you can find it on my Facebook page and after you have tried out this DIY version and are ready to compare it to the real stuff at the Wizarding World, I would love to help you plan your perfect Universal vacation! You can email me at sheena@ropedroptravel.com for your free personalized quote today.

 

Your Guide to All Things TapuTapu at Universal's Volcano Bay

 

If you haven't taken a Universal Orlando vacation in a few years, you may not know that they currently have 3 parks for you to enjoy! There are the classic theme parks Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure, but did you know that Universal Orlando also has it's own water theme park called Volcano Bay? It has a beautiful Polynesian style theme with the Krakatau Volcano at it's center surrounded by 19 attractions and over 30 experiences, but what makes Volcano Bay really special is the TapuTapu wearables! I took my own trip this past summer to see what the fuss was all about and here is what I learned that these waterproof devices can do.

1. Virtual Line

All of the Volcano Bay water slides and raft rides utilize a Virtual Line system. That means that while you are waiting your turn you can float the Lazy River, grab a bite to eat or check out other areas of the water theme park. To get your spot in the Virtual Line, look for the kiosk labeled with the attraction's name close to the ride and tap your TapuTapu device on the symbol below the screen. This will start a countdown and when it's your turn, your TapuTapu will vibrate telling you it's time to return to that ride.

2. Interactive Experiences

All around the park, you'll find TapuTapu symbol pads that activate some unique surprises. They can light up caves, spray water or cause the Tikis around the park to do silly things like burp and squirt water. The kids especially love looking for these play experiences, so if your little one is iffy about the wearable I suggest pointing them out when you first enter the park, giving them a great reason to leave their TapuTapu on!

3. Walletless Purchasing

Using the Universal Orlando Resort app, you can attach a credit/debit card to your Volcano Bay tickets and TapuTapu, then use it to purchase food, drinks and souvenirs throughout the park. And you can also create spending limits for each guest in your party and keep tabs on their spending throughout the day! That way your wallet can be hidden safely away in the hotel room or a Volcano Bay locker.

4. Lockers

Speaking of lockers, Volcano Bay offers 4 different locker areas around the park. And when you rent a locker, your TapuTapu becomes the key! Just look for the kiosk to choose your locker size, tap your TapuTapu on the symbol and your locker will magically open for you. And you can assign up to 4 TapuTapus to the locker so multiple people in your party can access it throughout the day.

5. Snap Photos

Everyone loves a good selfie and with the beautiful setting of Volcano Bay, who wouldn't want to capture a pic or two? But there is no need to pull out your phone when you have your TapuTapu! Just look for one of the TapTu Snap Photo Spots, tap your TapuTapu and let the kiosk take the picture for you. It will then be uploaded to your user account on the app (the same one you used to set up your credit card) and from there you can view, purchase and share your photos. Any photos taken in Volcano Bay will also connect to your My Universal Photos pass!

So now that you know what a TapuTapu can do, how do you go about getting one? It's actually very easy! Everyone who goes to Volcano Bay will receive one free of charge when they scan their park ticket at entry. Then when you leave for the day, just deposit them in the drop boxes on your way out.
 

Want to experience the fun of TapuTapu for yourself? I would be happy to help you plan your own Universal Orlando vacation! Email me at sheena@ropedroptravel.com for more details.