November Adventures - Working in Ireland, Becoming a Trainer, Volunteering & Thanksgiving!

The first few weeks of November were exhausting, yet ever so awesome!

I have been working 6-day weeks for the last month or so; to be able to save up some money so I can do some traveling later in the year.

On Saturday November 9th - there was a special event happening at Disney; The Wine & Dine Half Marathon which was a 13.1 mile course through a number of the Disney Parks and finishing at Epcot.

I started work at 11-30am that morning and was due to finish at 9pm. However; I was offered the chance to work for an extra 7 hours at the Ireland Food & Wine stand!

Normally, I would never extend a shift that long; however, I had previously asked my managers for six weeks if I could work at the Ireland stand during the Food & Wine Festival - and now I finally could! 

Working at the Ireland Stand was absolutely amazing! It didn't feel like work; especially with the length of time I was there! 

It was amazing seeing the Wine & Dine Marathoners with their medals and it was amazing to speak to some of them also!

November just seemed to get better and better though, when I found out I had been picked to become a Disney Trainer!

I attended a Disney Trainer class and received my amazing trainer pin that day.

I trained one of the new arrivals, Emma; and I was extremely lucky to spend five days training her. She made my job so much easier and she picked up everything so quickly. It was lovely meeting and training her.

A few weeks later, I was able to take some much needed time off work to be able to volunteer with Special Olympics Florida. This organisation is very important to me, especially after volunteering as an Event Services Manager with Special Olympics Ireland last year.

I volunteered at the Florida Fall Classic, and my role was to be a 'Fan in the Stand'. I was able to make some amazing posters for the kids that were there, who were all between the ages of 2 and 7. Talk about cute! 

At the end of the evening, all of the volunteers created a guard of honour that the kids ran through - which was fantastic and the smiles on their faces made it all worthwhile!

My experience with Special Olympics Florida is making me extremely excited about further volunteering whilst living in the US.

November was also the month of a very unique day as the whole of the US celebrated Thanksgiving. 

It's days like these that make me personally feel so thankful for having the opportunity to live and work in the USA - and even when I'm having a bad day, I always try to remember how incredibly lucky I am to be here.

So that's November over and done with - It's now December and it's only 24 days until Christmas! I'm looking forward to spending Christmas with my amazing Disney friends. Keep an eye out for more updates!