Finding My Own Happily Ever After - November 2021 (UPDATED 10/26)

[lcc2]

Cute picture!

 

[RollTideinMD]

A life update.



I'm not even sure how to begin writing this update, so I will just put it out there. On June 8, 2021, I lost my dad to an aortic aneurysm and my life has not felt the same since. Words continue to be profoundly hard to put together and I'm sure that this will come out as a jumbled mess.

I've really been struggling with general every day life, but especially finding the motivation to keep planning for this trip. Nothing is bringing me happiness, not even the most magical place on earth. Even as recently as last night, I was asking Mitch if we should just cancel the trip. I just don't see how I can put one foot in front of the other anymore - I miss my dad so much that it hurts. Every single day.

With that said, I see now (more than ever) how important it is to make memories because life is too short.

So.

Book the trip. Meet the mouse. Make the memories.

As I've previously written in this PTR, we were planning a vacation together with my parents. My son had a baseball tournament in Myrtle Beach at the beginning of July and it was supposed to be a family vacation with the six of us (us + my parents). We still went on the trip and my mom joined us for a few days. Goodness knows that the world doesn't stop moving because mine feels like it has crashed.

As I've previously written in this PTR, Mitch and I were moving in together this summer and I am pleased to share that the move is finally behind us. We're a couple weeks into living as a family unit and despite getting off to a rocky start with bringing my grieving mother from Georgia to Maryland for several days while grieving myself, we're settling into every day life together and it's beautiful. Even when life isn't beautiful.

I know I'll be back here soon. We're finally in double digits and that's something to be excited about, I know I'll get there. I just need more time.


​

 

[BobaFettFan]

15 years ago I lost my dad suddenly to a heart attack. I still feel the void left in my heart. He sold off his retirement so my brother and I could attend college and get out debt free. Our plan was to get jobs and support him but died before my senior year. He never got to meet my son or wife. It is a daily pain.


I'm sorry you are feeling this same pain. Originally I was enraged that the world kept spinning and everyone kept living like we hadn't just felt an earth shattering loss. It took me 3 years to finally feel like I was walking back on the ground.


I see my dad in my son and I can't wait to make memories with him. He turns four Friday and we're going to Disneyworld in November.


Nothing we say or do can bring him back. We just have to live in a world with less magic in it while trying to make more to take it's place. It never will, but it's the only option we got.


I hope you keep your trip. I wish you guys the best in your recovery.

 

[LifeTheDisneyWay14]

Finding My Own Happily Ever After
I sure tell y'all what - our love story is a long time coming.

View attachment 558924

I often joke that I am dead on the inside (actually I touched on it in my first PTR), but experiencing the magic of Disney has sparked something inside of me and I became obsessed before even getting on the plane to Orlando in 2019.

I can say the same for Mitch. He put some sparkle back into my soul that I had been missing for a very long time and I want to shout it from the roof tops. I think that I'll have to settle for this PTR for now.

Mitch and I met five years ago on an online dating site. We initially dated for a couple of months. I was convinced that we were looking for different things and I broke things off with him, but we remained close friends and would continue to see each other every so often over the next 4 years.

We always had a spark and we've always had chemistry - - I wish that I could tell you what I was so afraid of all this time.

About a year ago, we went on what could've only been our 15876th first date together, little did we know that it would be our last first date. We haven't looked back since then. We have the kind of love that is written about or conveyed in a Disney movie. It's magical all of the time and I am wildly happy that we are where we are today.

Through a series of unfortunate events and a lot of ups and downs, I have found my happily ever after. It's so cheesy that I am rolling my own eyes at myself, but yeah..he's it.

This is a really big year for us - we're combining households this summer and taking on Disney in the fall. We recently adopted two cats, Floki and Freya, and are adjusting to life with two furbabies.

View attachment 558925

All of my fears about not having the same priorities (dating a single mom is not for the faint of heart!) were completely unfounded because my children love him so much and he loves them so much.

So..that's the four - err six - of us!

PS - I'm lowkey dreaming of a Haunted Mansion Disney proposal. We shall see..​

Congratulations on finding love! Have you discussed the proposal already/getting married? Disney would be such a romantic place for it!!

*eta I just read your update. I’m so sorry for your loss.

 

[RollTideinMD]

Making ADRs is making my head hurt

Hey friends! I wanted to let you know that I appreciate the kind messages and comments that I've gotten since I shared the loss of my dad. I love the Disney community so much.

We're less than two weeks from our ADR window opening and this Type-A planner is feeling overwhelmed.

I'm a Disney TA and I'm seeing the lack of availability across the board and I'm just sitting at my keyboard like.."this is fine. everything is fine."

I've always gone into dining reservations with Plan A and Plan B because I know that I am at the mercy of the mouse. Lately, I'm feeling like I also need plans B and C.

Here's what I am thinking:
11/3 - Arrival and Disney Springs: Homecomin' for an early dinner, Rainforest Cafe as a backup
11/4 - Magic Kingdom: early lunch at LTT and late dinner at Ohana
11/5 - Epcot: Via Napoli dinner + F&W festival snacking
11/6 - Hollywood Studios: Undecided
11/7 - Animal Kingdom: Sanaa for dinner
11/8 - Epcot: I assume we'll continue to eat everything in sight at F&W
11/9 - Departure Day: Topolinos Terrace


^^ accurate depiction of me.

Despite trying to get into Homecomin' during each trip, I can never make it work when my ADR window opens. I'm feeling cautiously optimistic that I'll snag a reservation sometime between now and then if I am adamant about checking every day, knowing that we can also be flexible with the meal time. We've selected Rainforest Cafe as our back-up option, I think the kids would really enjoy a meal there.

On our Magic Kingdom day, we are going to opt for two table service meals. It's our only MK day and I'm obsessed with LTT and we're so excited to dine at Ohana for dinner - the Lapu Lapu is calling me. We recently watched a couple of Ohana dinner reviews on YouTube and Mitch is pretty excited about this one. If we can't score Ohana dinner, then we'll stick with LTT for dinner and enjoy a QS lunch at Columbia Harbor House - it's my favorite spot for fish and chips.

For Epcot, knowing good and well that almost everything being offered at F&W sounds scrumptious, we're going to have dinner at Via Napoli on one of two Epcot days - Mitch loves pizza and he's excited about this one. Aside from that, I imagine that we'll make the F&W offerings our meals.

On our Hollywood Studios day, I am torn between an in-park meal and venturing to a resort or the Springs. If we stayed in the park, I do like Mama Melrose, but am considering trying something new-to-us, like Hollywood Brown Derby. I've also looked into Ale and Compass. This one is still very much up in the air. I really don't feel like DHS has a lot of good TS dining options. We've tried 50's Prime Time and didn't love it. I rarely hear good things about HW&V. Maybe we'll try the Sci-Fi drive in? I'd love to hear your DHS dining opinions!

I absolutely love Sanaa and while I always want to try new-to-me restaurants on our vacations, I can not stop thinking about Sanaa's bread service. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Lastly, I'm hoping to snag Topolino's for breakfast on our departure day. We have a late flight that day, so I'd love to spend time by the pool, weather permitting, and a scrumptious breakfast eaten at a mildly leisurely pace.

That's all for this post! I think that I'll talk about our anticipated F&W eats in the next post.
​

 

[BobaFettFan]

My plans for food: copy your plans but with my dates two weeks later lol


The 50s diner was super lack luster, but I'm thinking my 4 year old will love it. Not sure I even want to go twice when we've never been to the Derby.

 

[RollTideinMD]

Where oh where have my ears gone!?

69 days and I can't find my ears, y'all. Before the big move, I used to have my ears on display inside of my closet on command hooks (it was spectacular) - I'm talking 20+ pairs of ears. Collected over the course of a couple of years.

I. can. not. find. them.

They were packed along with the rest of my closet, specifically with my hats and purses. I found my hats. I found my purses. I can not find the ears. We tore up the house yesterday searching, even in the most unlikely of places, hoping that my ear collection would turn up and we haven't had any luck so far.

The move was a chaotic one. I lost my dad in the beginning stages of moving, went to Georgia for a while, brought my mother back up to Maryland, tried to finish moving, and then we went on vacation. I'm fearful that I threw them away because I had reached the point of just throwing stuff away, but I really don't feel like I did.

Anyway. First world problems, right?

If they turn up, I'll be so happy. If not, well, I just bought probably 20 new pairs of ears on Etsy.



School & sports are starting back up soon, so that means I need to get to making our shirts..now! While I still have the time and energy. I have a Cricut and a heat press, so I always make our Disney shirts for our family. For this trip, Delaney has 14 designs selected, Dillon has 7, I have 14 selected, and Mitch has maybe 5-6.

I've been wanting to drop 50 pounds before going to Disney (40 more pounds to go lol), so I've held off on buying shirts for myself, but did go ahead and order shirts for Dillon and Delaney. Mitch is picky, so he's on his own.

I've been chasing dopamine, so I made a big Target run this week and picked up some trip things: sunscreen, blister bandaids, moleskin, large ziplock bags, a journal for writing trip notes down, travel toiletries (the shampoo in the resorts dries out my hair), loads of antibacterial wipes/gel, disposable masks, and a few random things that I'll detail out in a separate post.

That's it for this post! Stay tuned for more!

I want to bring my DSLR into the parks throughout our trip, does anyone have any great park bag recommendations that could protect a DSLR camera?

​

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

A life update.

View attachment 592718 View attachment 592720

I'm not even sure how to begin writing this update, so I will just put it out there. On June 8, 2021, I lost my dad to an aortic aneurysm and my life has not felt the same since. Words continue to be profoundly hard to put together and I'm sure that this will come out as a jumbled mess.

I've really been struggling with general every day life, but especially finding the motivation to keep planning for this trip. Nothing is bringing me happiness, not even the most magical place on earth. Even as recently as last night, I was asking Mitch if we should just cancel the trip. I just don't see how I can put one foot in front of the other anymore - I miss my dad so much that it hurts. Every single day.

With that said, I see now (more than ever) how important it is to make memories because life is too short.

So.

Book the trip. Meet the mouse. Make the memories.

As I've previously written in this PTR, we were planning a vacation together with my parents. My son had a baseball tournament in Myrtle Beach at the beginning of July and it was supposed to be a family vacation with the six of us (us + my parents). We still went on the trip and my mom joined us for a few days. Goodness knows that the world doesn't stop moving because mine feels like it has crashed.

As I've previously written in this PTR, Mitch and I were moving in together this summer and I am pleased to share that the move is finally behind us. We're a couple weeks into living as a family unit and despite getting off to a rocky start with bringing my grieving mother from Georgia to Maryland for several days while grieving myself, we're settling into every day life together and it's beautiful. Even when life isn't beautiful.

I know I'll be back here soon. We're finally in double digits and that's something to be excited about, I know I'll get there. I just need more time.


​

I just came across this PTR, and I want to offer my condolences on the loss of your father. May he rest peacefully.

 

[RollTideinMD]

My plans for food: copy your plans but with my dates two weeks later lol


The 50s diner was super lack luster, but I'm thinking my 4 year old will love it. Not sure I even want to go twice when we've never been to the Derby.

I think we're going to try for SciFi or Sebastian's Bistro on our DHS day!

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

Making ADRs is making my head hurt

Hey friends! I wanted to let you know that I appreciate the kind messages and comments that I've gotten since I shared the loss of my dad. I love the Disney community so much.

We're less than two weeks from our ADR window opening and this Type-A planner is feeling overwhelmed.

I'm a Disney TA and I'm seeing the lack of availability across the board and I'm just sitting at my keyboard like.."this is fine. everything is fine."

I've always gone into dining reservations with Plan A and Plan B because I know that I am at the mercy of the mouse. Lately, I'm feeling like I also need plans B and C.

Here's what I am thinking:
11/3 - Arrival and Disney Springs: Homecomin' for an early dinner, Rainforest Cafe as a backup
11/4 - Magic Kingdom: early lunch at LTT and late dinner at Ohana
11/5 - Epcot: Via Napoli dinner + F&W festival snacking
11/6 - Hollywood Studios: Undecided
11/7 - Animal Kingdom: Sanaa for dinner
11/8 - Epcot: I assume we'll continue to eat everything in sight at F&W
11/9 - Departure Day: Topolinos Terrace


^^ accurate depiction of me.

Despite trying to get into Homecomin' during each trip, I can never make it work when my ADR window opens. I'm feeling cautiously optimistic that I'll snag a reservation sometime between now and then if I am adamant about checking every day, knowing that we can also be flexible with the meal time. We've selected Rainforest Cafe as our back-up option, I think the kids would really enjoy a meal there.

On our Magic Kingdom day, we are going to opt for two table service meals. It's our only MK day and I'm obsessed with LTT and we're so excited to dine at Ohana for dinner - the Lapu Lapu is calling me. We recently watched a couple of Ohana dinner reviews on YouTube and Mitch is pretty excited about this one. If we can't score Ohana dinner, then we'll stick with LTT for dinner and enjoy a QS lunch at Columbia Harbor House - it's my favorite spot for fish and chips.

For Epcot, knowing good and well that almost everything being offered at F&W sounds scrumptious, we're going to have dinner at Via Napoli on one of two Epcot days - Mitch loves pizza and he's excited about this one. Aside from that, I imagine that we'll make the F&W offerings our meals.

On our Hollywood Studios day, I am torn between an in-park meal and venturing to a resort or the Springs. If we stayed in the park, I do like Mama Melrose, but am considering trying something new-to-us, like Hollywood Brown Derby. I've also looked into Ale and Compass. This one is still very much up in the air. I really don't feel like DHS has a lot of good TS dining options. We've tried 50's Prime Time and didn't love it. I rarely hear good things about HW&V. Maybe we'll try the Sci-Fi drive in? I'd love to hear your DHS dining opinions!

I absolutely love Sanaa and while I always want to try new-to-me restaurants on our vacations, I can not stop thinking about Sanaa's bread service. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Lastly, I'm hoping to snag Topolino's for breakfast on our departure day. We have a late flight that day, so I'd love to spend time by the pool, weather permitting, and a scrumptious breakfast eaten at a mildly leisurely pace.

That's all for this post! I think that I'll talk about our anticipated F&W eats in the next post.
​

I would recommend Sci Fi perhaps for a later lunch/early dinner situation

 

[RollTideinMD]

I just came across this PTR, and I want to offer my condolences on the loss of your father. May he rest peacefully.

Thank you so much for the kind words, my friend.

 

[RollTideinMD]

I would recommend Sci Fi perhaps for a later lunch/early dinner situation

Yes! Thank you! We've been considering this and I am so happy to see it recommended.

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

Thank you so much for the kind words, my friend.

You're welcome-I hope everyone is staying safe and getting excited!

 

[KT0191]

Joining in on this!

First off, ROLL TIDE! My brother will be a freshman next year and accepted a full ride football scholarship to Bama. Keep a look out for Dayne Shor
Second- Sci Fi is a really fun option for DHS. Although, I do really love HBD. You just can’t beat the atmosphere in there! The food is good..nothing spectacular but definitely not bad by any means. Their donut dessert is sooo good.
Third- eek to AOA! I’ve stayed there twice in a Lion King suite and an Ariel standard room. Pop has always been our go-to, as well, but AOA is seriously awesome. You will love the Big Blue Pool!

 

[AJA55]

I just read all this and wanted to say, I'm sorry for your loss. It will get easier. But I have to say that at eleven months out from losing my mother, it still hurts. She went into the hospital a week or two before we were to go to WDW. 6 weeks later she was gone. I did go to WDW three weeks later but the trip was all a fog.

I love Brown Derby. Last trip is the only trip that I have made in 20 years that I didn't eat there.

 

[Mousemom234]

{{{ ♥ hug! ♥ }}} I won't say that I know how you feel, but I know how I felt when my dad passed a couple years ago. And I lost my DH last year.

But...
HBD has been hit or miss lately for me. It's never been bad - just not always as special as it could be.
We always liked 50's PTC - but again, the food quality has varied, but it's hard to really mess up meatloaf and pot roast. DH wanted to go there mainly for the interaction; he loved to "play" with Cousin ___

Out of Park, you might want to look at Big River Grille, at the Boardwalk. We ate there several times, and it's been good for us,. (If your waiter drops a glass of beer on your foot, you might get comped for your meal, too... )
Ale & Compass is on my 'to-do' list. I believe it's dinner only, though.

 

[RollTideinMD]

Our ADR day has come and gone

Saturday was our 60 day mark and I was up early making our advanced dining reservations - 6:00am on the dot!

Honestly, everything that I had hoped for, I managed to get..perhaps just not in the ideal order.

On our arrival day, we'll enjoy linner (lunch/dinner) at Homecomin' in Disney Springs. Ideally, we'll grab some cookies from Gideon's Bakehouse before headed back to AoA for an afternoon/evening of swimming and having adult drinks from the Drop Off pool bar. The Big Blue Ocean and Captain's Pineapple are calling to us like the ocean calls to Moana.

On our Magic Kingdom day, we're having dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern and I'd love to have Columbia Harbor House for a QS lunch. It's one of my favorite places for fish and chips.

We didn't do much for Epcot, with the exception of Via Napoli, because we plan on eating a lot of the Food & Wine Festival offerings over the course of two Epcot days.

We're looking forward to dinner at Sebastian's Bistro after a day spent at Hollywood Studios.

Our Animal Kingdom day will include breakfast at Tusker House and a late dinner at Ohana! I wanted Ohana on our MK day, but could not find an available reservation for the specific day that I wanted. I'm going to keep trying for Ohana on our MK day, though!

Our final meal on Disney property will be Topolino's Terrace for breakfast on our departure day. I can't wait!
​

 

[RollTideinMD]

Prepping for packing perfection & life stuff!

57 days to go!

As I've mentioned before, I've been doing some shopping in an effort to buy all of the bits and pieces that make me feel prepared for Disney. I've been collecting things like lightweight, foldable backpacks, first aid kits, new bottles of sunscreen, moleskin, mini toiletries, and all of the antibacterial products that money can buy.

I've created a packing list on my phone, along with a few reminders like emailing the kids' teachers about their time out of school and checking in for our flight 24 hours before departure.



Oh! I need to add neck fans and ponchos to my list!

At this time, I am planning on two park bags: the largest will carry my DSLR camera and we'll take it into the parks for morning touring plans. Mitch and I will have to share the burden of carrying it around, but I think we can manage. In the evenings, I don't want to bring my camera, so I have a small cross-body bag that I'll take into the parks. I also purchased two lightweight backpacks for the kids for them to carry their purchases and such + carabiners to clip reusable water bottles onto our backpacks.

Sadly, I think the kids have grown out of their small Star Wars and Frozen luggage from our 2019 trip. I need to make an assessment of our suitcase inventory, I think I'll have the kids share a big suitcase and we'll bring the small ones to save room for souvenirs. We've got Droid Depot reservations, so we're bringing back at least two Droids. On my Fall 2019 momcation Disney trip, I had to buy another suitcase from Everything Pop because I had done too much shopping! It has been tough to NOT buy new suitcases, I see so many precious Disney designs, but in the end, it's just a suitcase that the airline will throw around.

On the life front, apparently today is our 1-year anniversary (I thought it was back in July, which is when we went on our last 'first date' but who is counting when you've been tangled up in each other for a few years off and on) but Mitch knew and he surprised me with this gorgeous necklace:



He knows that I love pearls (it's the southern belle in me) - it's so gorgeous. Some of my favorite Disney souvenirs have come from Pick-a-Pearl in Epcot (earrings and a ring) and now I have a beautiful necklace to complete the look.

Life has felt exceptionally harder than usual lately. I know I'm still grieving the loss of my dad and this weekend was a tough one with college football kicking off - we're all passionate Alabama fans. I spent the weekend wearing one of his hats and a hoodie. It faintly smells like my dad and I wish that I could bottle it up. In addition to that, I was offered and declined a new role for our company, but in Texas. While it is a pretty cool opportunity, I can't imagine uprooting everyone and moving to Texas right now. Single, childless me would've jumped at a new adventure, but for now I'm perfectly happy with the life we've got here.

My son's baseball season is in full swing, they just won their first tournament of the season this past weekend. This fall, baseball will be taking us to New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. He also recently tried out for a national showcase team, so we're waiting to hear back on that. My daughter's first soccer practice is tonight and we're going to soak in one more season of rec league soccer before shifting to travel. They both have practice tonight - so let the juggling commence!

Speaking of juggling all of the things, I've started working on our Disney shirts! Between the four of us, I have 42 shirts to make. This will absolutely make the next 57 days go by.

I've been really hesitant to get down and dirty with an itinerary or detailed touring plans because I know that we'll take advantage of the Genie and Genie+. I am one of the weirdos who enjoys planning far out (surprised?) and I'm just twiddling my thumbs wondering what to do at this point.

Have a magical day!
​

 

[SEAGULL59]

What designs are you thinking for shirts?

 

[RollTideinMD]

Only 7 days until we have 30 days to go!

How's that for a title? Hah!




I can not believe how close we are getting to our trip! It feels like forever and a day ago that I booked this trip. We paid off the remaining balance late last week!

I did put together a simple itinerary for our travel binder, which I'll share later this week:


At this time, I've felt like I've hit a stopping point in the actual planning process. With the implementation of Disney Genie+, I can't see how there's much more to do right now, though I will be tracking attraction wait times in the app once the 50th anniversary celebrations kick off - I'll track that throughout October.

Preparation can continue and be my main focus while, perhaps, fine tuning the details along the way. On our itinerary, I'll include weather information when it gets closer to our trip and you'll notice that 'Touring Plans' is blank too..I'm just waiting to see what navigating Disney will look like with Disney Genie+ before I commit to anything - which includes spending the extra $300 for our family to use it.

With all of that said, here's how I'm planning on spending my time prepping for Disney this week:

1. Getting back into my morning walk routine with the goal of at least 20 minutes of cardio each day (paired with some light strength training at home)
2. Continuing to work through making our family's Disney shirts
3. Organizing our travel binder
4. Setting prep + packing goals for each week in October

I think that's it for this update! I'll be back with all things F&W soon!




​