How-To: Make a Towel Bunny

If you've ever been on a cruise (and even if you haven't, now you know), each time you enter your room, you will find a towel animal hanging out on your bed. This summer, one of the classes on the ship was how to make some! So I thought I would share with you all how to make one! I'm not as good as the staff on board, but I tried my best. It's hard to explain in words how to make these, but hopefully the pictures help. Please leave a comment if you have any questions! 

Things you'll need:

1 large towel

1 medium-sized towel

Step 1: Place your large towel in a landscape position and roll the left and right ends to the center.

Step 2: Fold towel in half so that the crease is on the outside

Step 3: Twist the ends out a little bit (this will be the feet of your bunny). 

Step 4: Take 2 legs into each hand and pull outward (this part is hard to explain, try to follow the picture!).

Step 5: Put large towel aside. Now take your medium-sized towel and fold in half, landscape-wise, and have the folded side facing away from you. 

Step 6: Put your finger in the center of the top of your towel, take the bottom right corner of the towel, and pull straight down. Do not fold, just pull. 

Step 7: Repeat on the right side, and you will have something that looks like a bat. 

Step 8: Fold the top corner underneath, a couple of inches. 

Step 9: Fold the sides of the "bat" towards the center, like you did with the large towel. 

Step 10: Flip over the towel, and it will look like this! 

Step 11: Pull the ears down a little bit, and you have your bunny head! Place it on top of the large towel. 

Step 12: Accessorize! 

The class was provided as part of a campaign to sell their how-to book, Towel Creations. The campaign is part of a larger effort for Carnival Cruiselines to raise $1,000,000 for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital! I ended up buying it on the ship for $14.95, and 100% of the proceeds were donated.

Cook-venture: Jalepeno Poppers

My pharmacist gave me her extra jalepenos from her garden, so I made a classic with them. Poppers! I've made them a couple of times before, and adjusted the filling a little bit each time. This time, I added feta cheese and used chives instead of green onions. Adaptation at its finest. 

Half the jalepenos and scoop out the seeds and white membrane.
*Tip: Wear gloves or create a Saran wrap barrier.  The spice WILL stay in your fingers if you don't*

Cream cheese, feta cheese, extra sharp cheddar cheese, Frank's buffalo wing sauce,
and chives (you can use green onions if you have them)

Spoon the filling into each jalepeno, and top with chopped bacon bits. 

Bake at 375 degrees for 30-40 minutes. 

I'm sorry the final picture isn't very pretty, but some of the bacon slipped off too because the jalepenos were so small (only about an inch and a half long!).

There are lots of variations you can do with these poppers, but I would definitely always have at least the cream cheese, cheddar cheese, and buffalo wing sauce.

What have you tried?

Summer Travels: The Final Vacation - Wizarding World of Harry Potter (tips and pics)

As previously mentioned, I have been to Harry Potter World 3 times now. Each time, I have learned something new about taking advantage of all your time there. 

Tip #1: Get to the park right when it opens. It officially opens at 8AM, but you can park starting at 7:30AM. That way you can be some of the first to go to Harry Potter World. It's all the way at the back of the park, so it's quite a walk, but it's best to go from the back to the front of any park. Errol and I arrived at 8AM, not knowing about the 7:30AM trick yet. We went straight to the Hogwarts ride, and there was already a 30 minute line at 8:10AM! 

Tip #2: Enter Hogwarts line through the store connected to it. The real line begins outside of the ride, and it is a line to get to the locker rooms to temporarily store your bags before getting into the line for the ride. You can enter the locker room through the store, and it is so crowded no one would ever know that you came in that way. Bypassing the first part, you have now skipped half of the line! 

Tip #3: Take a separate tour of Hogwarts castle. There is a lot to see inside Hogwarts, but you may not be able to truly absorb it all while in line. You can walk through a separate aisle through the castle, with your bags (and thus, your camera), and at your own pace. 

Tip #4: Have an early lunch at Three Broomsticks. If you've followed Tip #1, you probably get hungry earlier too. Having lunch early, around 11AM, you will miss the long lunch line! 

Tip #5: Buy a Butterbeer with souvenir cup early. Turns out that if you buy a souvenir cup, you get discounts on Butterbeer refills and soda for the entire day. 

If you are an HP fan, you will love HP World. You enter the park, and you're in Hogsmeade. To your right, you'll see the Hogwarts Express. Every 30 minutes, there's a performance (Hogwarts choir, Beauxbatons danceres, Durmstrang dancers). You can have lunch at the Three Broomsticks, and Hogshead is also attached where you can get a pint. You can buy Every Flavour Beans at Honeydukes. And so much more! 

For anyone curious, Butterbeer tastes exactly how you might imagine. But no, it's not alcoholic. You can buy frozen or soda-style, and it is delicious. The best way to describe it is a butterscotch cream soda. The foam on top is the best part, and is actually added separately. 

If you're a Rockefeller, you can afford to buy all of the merchandise. But if you're a poor student, the next best thing is to take pictures with the clothing as if you did buy it all :)

Any of you who are planning to take a trip to Islands of Adventure, please let me know if you need any more tips! It's definitely worth the long lines. Next trip will hopefully be to England to see the actual sets!