We were recently asked to participate in a “Disney Friends Blog Hop” for people to discover other Disney blogs in the community. (You can learn a little more about that at the the bottom of this post!) We also realized with many new visitors recently it may be a good time to share a bit more about the two authors behind the posts. There are two things we tend to get asked pretty frequently. Many people are curious of how we decided to launch a Disney based blog geared towards an adult crowd. Many people are also curious about the term “DINKs” (Dual Income No Kids) and we wanted to touch a bit on our journey to decide to be childfree. So here is a little peek into the world of Julie and Andrew…
One of our favorite memories: Our Disney Fairytale Wedding!
Our Story
Once upon a time boy met girl. Well, actually girl’s father decided to set them up. (LOL). Andrew was working for Julie’s Dad at a flight school and thought that Julie should be introduced to this smart, young pilot. Neither of us were looking to seriously date but ended up falling for each other. Hard. A few years later Andrew decided to propose. He knew Julie loved Walt Disney World and on a family trip he decided to ask her to marry him next to Cinderella’s castle. Awww.
Andrew had actually never been to Disney as a kid, but something interesting happened on this trip. We found that visiting this magical place together as adults was actually quite romantic and the worries of the world melted away. Celebrating our engagement surrounded by family with awesome cast members and special experiences instantly made Disney a special place for the two of us. Anytime we would see the opening sequence to a Disney movie we would instantly be transported to our happy place. We decided to plan a Disney Fairytale Wedding at the Wedding Pavilion and Grand Floridian, followed up by a Disney Cruise Honeymoon.
Since then we have been lucky to have lots of other Disney adventures such as participating in Run Disney events, visiting Disneyland in California, and Disney’s Aulani resort in Hawaii. We enjoy Disney shows and movies, and like to sprinkle Disney fashion and housewears into our home. So needless to say Disney has became a staple in our story that brings us a lot of happiness, and really has become a defining part of us a couple. While we still venture off to different places, Disney is hands down our favorite that provides us a magical escape from adulting.
Enjoying Serenity Bay on Castaway Cay.
Running the Princess Half Marathon.
To Kid or Not to Kid?
So naturally the next big question after marriage is “When are you having kids?” First off, we just want to say we really wish people would stop asking this question. It seems like an innocent and normal question on the surface, but when you look deeper it is pretty darn personal. While a lot of people just assume everyone will have kids the answer isn’t always that easy. There are many people that just aren’t ready yet and feel pressured by the question, some aren’t sure if they want kids at all, and unfortunately many people today are struggling with infertility (we can only imagine how heart breaking it is to hear that question in that situation.)
When we were first married we both were in the camp of “we don’t want kids for a really, really long time”, it wasn’t even on our radar. But as time went on we did a lot of analyzing over the biggest decision of our lives and realized we both truly didn’t feel the urge to be parents. Kids are so darn cute and we adore many friends and family’s little ones in our lives. But we have never once felt that parental instinct call out. We honestly feel a much stronger pull to baby animals and have found that pet charities have been very important to us. We also have some environmental and overpopulation concerns, and feel if we ever did end up wanting a kid one day it may be best to adopt a child that needed parents.
While many people have dreams of adding kids in to the mix, at the end of the day we are super happy being just the two of us, and building our goals and dreams as a team. Our life feels full of happiness and love, and we don’t feel that we have a hole in our lives that needs to be filled with a baby. We realized that the only reason we were considering having kids was to please grandparents. While we love our parents dearly, is that reason alone good enough to bring another human into the world? Many people can’t wrap their heads around our decision for some reason and keep telling us we will change our minds. We understand our choice may be a less popular one, but we don’t understand why some want to force their views on us. We believe it is best to respect others' personal life decisions, and let everyone do what is right for them. We love being cat parents to Jesse, James, and Ella, and while we are thrilled to be an Aunt and Uncle to some great kids, we really love being just us two.
Our fur babies: Jesse, Ella, and James.
Celebrating our niece’s 1st Birthday.
Sharing the Disney Love & Knowledge
So over the years two things happened for us. We started to have many Disney adventures and it became very clear to people that we were the Disney “pros”. Friends planning their first family trip to the parks would ask us for all the ins and outs to have a successful trip. When they came back completely in awe and ready to go back it felt so good to know that we helped them, vs hearing about many first timers that unfortunately have a miserable experience. We love Disney, and love talking about Disney, and being able to share that with others is such a great feeling.
Another thing that started to happen is eventually everyone in our circle started to have babies at the same time. We were super excited for them and as supportive as possible. But at a certain point we realized that in the midst of everyone raising newborns our social life had completely fizzled out. All of the sudden we felt super alone and like the odd ones out. At this point we were pretty certain that we were in the “no kids” camp, but hadn’t felt comfortable to tell anyone yet. An awkward “not yet, let’s change the subject…” became the answer at parties when bombarded with questions.
We decided it was time to stop being embarrassed to say how we felt and start owning our “DINK-ness”. So we bought thedisneydinks.com and started a blog. This was our first step in owning our status and we initially intended the site to live as a journal as we navigated being childfree in a child-centric world. But fortunately we were able to get to a more comfortable spot fairly quickly, and have since developed the blog into more lifestyle inspiration and plenty of Disney resources for others. While we chat about our life and bringing magic home our main goal to provide a lot of helpful Disney knowledge for people. There were a ton of mommy blogs in existence so we thought the perspective of being for an adult audience would be nice for others while we cover topics like:
Disney Park Tips
Dining & Resort Reviews
Special Events & Experience Reports
Movie & Product Reviews
Non Disney Travel
Disney Themed Recipes
Other helpful articles like home decor and finances
Some of our best friends Rich & Becky, we met on a Disney Cruise!
We met up with Jeff & Sarah from adultsindisney.com on a trip to the world.
We can’t wait to take Brian & EJ to Disneyworld with their girls in 2021!
A Magical Community
One of the great things about Disney fans is there are so many, and you can find them everywhere. In the last year we have really started to connect with other Disney lovers around the world on social media platforms. We connect with parents, singles, and especially love meeting other Disney loving couples. We find that people come from all sorts of backgrounds, but are all seeking to bring more positivity and magic into daily life. If you ever see us at the parks please say hi, we are always happy to connect! In the meantime you can find us on Instagram or Facebook too! We hope you have enjoyed reading a little more of our story and we thank you for your readership. If you are interested in learning about some more Disney focused blogs you can click the arrow below to continue on our “Disney Friends Blog Hop”. Or check out the list of all participating websites below. Happy reading!
2. The Canadian Momsketeer
8. Kingdom Collectors
9. Our Slice of Happiness
You read that right, we bought an airplane! There is a backstory on the plane and who will be flying it so for those who haven’t known us for a long time, you are probably about to learn a few things about the DINKs…