Healing at our Happy Place: making GOOD 2017 memories: Mar, May, Aug, Oct, Dec TRs (3/24 UPDATE)

[kittylady1972]

What a beautiful tribute to a beautiful dog. So sorry for your loss.

Thank you.

It's always so hard...Very sorry for your loss.

It is very difficult. We took some small comfort when the emergency vet doctor told us she was bleeding internally and even said it was time.

Sorry for your loss

Thank you.

Sorry for your loss xx

Thank you.

Sorry about your pup. She looks like she had a life full of love with your family!

We sure hope so thanks.

So sorry about your loss!!!!

Thank you.

 

[ToffPrincess]

Im so sorry for your loss.. losses actually. You have had such a tough time but I love how you have a plan of action to find some happiness and bring some joy for your family even though I know your heart is breaking. Its something a lot of people could learn from. I said to myself.. God forbid we face certain struggles in the future, I will do something similar for DS no matter what the usual protocol is. Happiness needs to come first. Life is too short.

 

[kittylady1972]

Im so sorry for your loss.. losses actually. You have had such a tough time but I love how you have a plan of action to find some happiness and bring some joy for your family even though I know your heart is breaking. Its something a lot of people could learn from. I said to myself.. God forbid we face certain struggles in the future, I will do something similar for DS no matter what the usual protocol is. Happiness needs to come first. Life is too short.

Thank you. I think we just have to do our best to move on and enjoy life while we can...totally agreed. Life it just too short.

 

[kittylady1972]

NEVER SAY NEVER.

Right?

I think when times are tough I just immediately think of my happy place. I'm sure some members of my family would prefer to do other things. And yet they go along with whatever because they love me.

And so it looks like we are heading to Walt Disney World for Easter break.

Sadly it's a very short break. Plus no way we an afford plane tickets. We've talked before about dropping everything and just driving to Disney and have never pulled the trigger on that. So why should this be such a big deal?

We've never had annual passes before that did NOT have block out dates...and now we do. Plus they include water parks so here's hoping for water park worthy weather for us because I can't see us spending a ton of time in the parks if the crowds are crazy.

The planning is still in the works. Resorts aren't quite narrowed down yet now that my father-in-law will also be joining us. We'll be spending Easter Day on the road but that's okay. We will have Monday after Easter at home to recover.

So now I continue to stalk the websites. My 30-day cancellation for Shades of Green is coming up fast so I do need to decided if that is where we will stay. My FIL just doesn't have 3 nights in one room there yet.

We have Fastpasses and ADRs booked already. It's nuts. I always said I would NEVER go during Easter break. Now it looks like I am.

 

[kittylady1972]

EASTER 2018

Yes it's true...we are going to attempt our first EVER Easter break trip, a time of the year I've sworn to many, many people I would NEVER attempt to go to Walt Disney World. And yet...here we are going.

Details: This will be a short trip, basically leaving either VERY early on Thursday morning before Easter (3am) OR leaving late the night before. The night before is my oldest son's 18th birthday (how the HECK do I have an 18-year-old?) so we'll see if he's up for being in a car for his birthday. We will drive home on Easter Sunday. I'm not sure if I can convince the family to visit a park for a few hours that morning or not but we'll see.

We've booked Shades of Green for the 3 nights, which was no easy feat because we decided last minute to invite my FIL and by then I couldn't get a room for him. I'm shocked I got the room for us initially...that's what made me pull the trigger. SOG is so affordable...and we aren't flying...and we have Platinum Plus APs so this trip will be really done on the cheap.

I have FPs already for the 5 of us, and once we get a ticket for my FIL I'll hopefully add him to all of ours. We've decided the one park we will SKIP is going to be Animal Kingdom this time. We've done FOP many times now, and that park always seems extra crowded anyway...so our focus will be MK and EPCOT and probably a little bit of time at HS just to ride our faves (TOT and TSM).

Hoping for water park weather so we can visit there, but we'll see how that goes.

I have a few ADRs booked...not sure if we'll keep them but you never know.

Oh and last but not least, I've booked the Marceline to MK tour for myself and my oldest son, so he can finally cash in on the birthday gift of a Disney tour that I gave him LAST year. I think he'll love it, especially since I've read there is a chance to go behind the scenes at HM, which is his favorite!

So call me crazy...but as a veteran I *THINK* we can handle this. Some of the family has indicated they would rather go on a ski trip, which was my thought a while ago too, but honestly our weather has been so warm here this year I just don't see the ski resorts having a good time this year or being able to stay open through the end of March, at least the East Coast ones.

Anyway hoping to get my December 2017 TR done here BEFORE we take our first 2018 trip!

 

[Jenny Sanders]

So excited for you!!!! YAY!

 

[kittylady1972]

So excited for you!!!! YAY!

Thanks! Yes I'm pretty excited about it also, not sure the family is totally thrilled but I think we'll have a good time and if not...they can head back to the room to avoid the crowds and I'll do the parks because it won't bother me at all. I'll just enjoy being there!

 

[kittylady1972]

This is the trip report that never ENDS, it just goes on and on my friends.....

Just so you know, at least I have completed the March, May, Aug and October TRs and the first or second post on this thread has easy links to those.

As for December 2017...I hope to get to it one day soon.

I should do a new PTR for 2018 I guess...instead of continuing this never ending thread. So I'll do that!

 

[kittylady1972]

DECEMBER 2017: Needing Some Candlelight - DAY ONE

So it's true...I'm going to finish up the final TR of this long, long PTR/TR hopefully at least before we make our first 2018 trip. Let's hope!

Our flight as scheduled for a Wednesday at 6pm, and of course living just 20 minutes from the airport my husband (and his dad) wanted to be there by 4pm.

I'm not sure when we arrived, I know the kids got home from school around 3:30pm so we were probably pretty close to that 4pm arrival. Security was no issue and soon we were at the gate, but we were already getting texts about the flight behind delayed. At one point I think it was a departure around 8pm, or about two hours late. However the airline (JetBlue) was clearly working the issue and then the times started moving backwards again as we sat and had some food at the gate. In the end, I think we were boarding close to the 6pm departure time and off the ground close to 6:30pm.

So we landed close to the 8:30pm timeframe because I was taking the photo of this tree at MCO at 9pm:


After our rental car fiasco of October, and because I wasn't sure how the whole handling of the damaged rental car from that trip would play out, we chose a different rental company this time (Alamo) and I pre-printed all my documents so all we had to do was walk out to the garage, find the correct lane for our car type, get in the vehicle and go. We ended up selecting a practically brand new Toyota Highlander which was really nice. That may have to be my next car.

I actually think on the drive to the resort I took a wrong turn (how? I've done this a million times by now!) and we had to turn around at some point because I was at least aware that something didn't look right. Soon we were on the way to our resort. We had room assignments so upon driving into the Port Orleans Resort we headed to the building we needed. Unfortunately when we got there, we discovered my FILs bands were not working for his room, which was right next to ours. We dropped our stuff off in our room, his as well (rooms were connecting) and headed to the front desk via car to try to get that fixed.

It didn't take long at all to get things straight, and we added my oldest son to the room with my FIL while the rest of us had our bands keyed for our room. Now what? DD and I were ready to hit a park...we don't like to waste any time but the boys wanted to stay behind and have food. Isn't that why we had dinner AT the airport? Well while they had DINNER2 we headed to the MK via the car!

So we knew we would most likely not make any of our FPs, even the one for 7DMT which ended at 10:40pm. One of my daughter's BFFs was in Disney with her family this week and in the MK that night, so we figured we'd at least try to see them. I had this grand plan to park at the Contemporary and walk over to make it faster. This is where I failed to realize they had changed up the front entrance to MK and how to get to the MK Resorts. What??

I missed the new "exit" to get to those resorts, so we ended up just driving to the MK and parking instead. We parked pretty close to the front of the TTC parking lot, I think it may have been a handicapped area but the park was closing to regular guests for the night and we had no way to really get out of where we were.

(To be continued...off to take the kid to dance)

 

[kittylady1972]

DECEMBER 2017: Needing Some Candlelight - DAY ONE (continued)

We last left off at the TTC...and we hopped the first monorail over to the Magic Kingdom! There's just something magical about being back there. My daughter's friends were waiting just in front of the Christmas Tree on Main Street, so we headed there. The girls hugged and screamed and took some photos. They were on their way out after a long day and we were just beginning ours.

After they left, we decided to head straight for Space Mountain but first...SNACKS! We hit the popcorn stand in front of SM and I got my refillable popcorn bucket full of my favorite Disney snack. Plus we had to get ice cream also...my second favorite Disney snack:



Mickey Bar in hand, we scarfed down our DINNER2 and then hit Space Mountain which I think had about a 20 minute wait if that. I feel like we walked all the way near the top of the ramp before being stopped. It wasn't bad at all.

I know we headed to New Fantasyland next but I can't recall if we took the super secret walkway behind SM which my kids HATE because of the smokers...or if we just walked by the teacups instead. In any case, the next ride up was one of my favorites:



This was taken at 11:22pm and I think park hours were 1am. So we finished our flying elephant ride...and then next up was Winnie The Pooh since it had no wait either. So now it was after 11:30pm and the Fantasyland area was so lovely and very stroller-free. Oh wait there were a few:


What else could we do with little to no wait? Something most of my family would have rebelled against of course:





We were actually FB LIVE-ing the ride...at just before midnight...and I'm sure nobody was actually watching except my SIL who lives on the West Coast. She was traumatized.

Now it was after midnight, and we needed a BIG ride...so we headed right to BTMRR! No wait of course, we pretty much walked onto this one.

I think around this time we were close to done. I'm trying to recall if we did one more ride...maybe Pirates? I'm not sure.

I do know we needed some photos in front of the beautiful castle:


Oh yes...and I almost forgot about the ears. My daughter was determined to get a pair of the "elusive" Rose Gold Ears. When we arrived at MK, her BFF who we met had a pair. We hit one of the stores on Main Street and there were TONS of them. So I ended up wearing her other pair of ears while she wore the new ones.

A few more photos around not as good as those were taken:


We left the MK around 12:30am and made the drive back to our resort. We arrived at the room and everybody was sound asleep of course. Our first full park day would be here soon enough!

 

[kittylady1972]

DECEMBER 2017: Needing Some Candlelight - DAY TWO

It was day two, the first full park day for all of us. My girl and I were a little slow getting up but we were hoping to make the 9am opening at the Magic Kingdom. I think the rest of the family headed over to the food court and eventually we drove over there to meet them. Before long we were headed over to the Magic Kingdom...on the tram:



And then monorail:



The boys wanted a Cheshire Cat Tail and while they did that we did this:


I'm never fond of the spinning rides but I got through this one.

Then we decided to do something we haven't done in a long time...here:


Soon we were making our way up and up and up:


And while we were still in Tomorrowland, this was another kid favorite with a short wait:


I think this put us close to our first Fastpass which was Space Mountain:



Now we made our way over to Frontierland via Fantasyland, but first a stop here:



So after visiting our favorite ghosts, we still had a little bit of time before our 11:20am lunch reservation. We decided to catch one more ride....

 

[kittylady1972]

DECEMBER 2017: Needing Some Candlelight - DAY TWO (continued)

So it was time for the wildest ride next:


So we got quite a bit done for our morning so far, and it was time for lunch! I had chosen Liberty Tree Tavern mostly because...DESSERT! However the food was good too and we had a great meal here.

Aftewards we had to take a quick photo here:


Our next Fastpass was Peter Pan, so I'm pretty sure we headed there next. A bit disappointed as the music/sound on the ride wasn't very loud at all...it was like you could barely hear it which I know isn't normal.

I'm not sure what we rode next. We had an afternoon FP for BTMRR but since we rode it already I would imagine we skipped it. I think we might have decided to head to Pirates next to say a final goodbye to the Redhead:


Having had a full morning, I think we decided to go ahead and get out of the park and take a rest. We headed back to our resort for some rest.

I don't think we had any particular evening dining plans, but I did know that I wanted to be able to watch the new holiday show on the Hollywood Tower Hotel. I don't recall if we got on any rides other than this one:





I can only imagine I must have managed to book our Fastpasses for this one.


This was such a fantastic show and totally worth hanging out on the street to wait for it. The video clips before each show on the Tower were so fun.

After this, the rest of the family was ready to call it a night and none of the rides had short waits. My daughter wanted to try to meet up with her friend who was at the park again for the night. However it was close to closing time at Animal Kingdom park and we knew it would be the best chance for my FIL to be able to experience FOP with minimal waits. So the guys decided to catch a bus over to Animal Kingdom park. We were going to join them but my daughter was so conflicted so we stayed behind.

We decided to check out more of the holiday decorations while waiting for her friends. I loved this area:

 

[kittylady1972]

And the "hits" just keep on coming....



This was my son's car this morning. He was on his way to school with my other two kids in the car (15yo daughter in front, 13yo son in the back) and a car in front of them stopped suddenly...well even more suddenly when she HIT the car in front of her. This is an interstate with 65MPH limit, but my son was merging into the travel lane from a turn-only/entrance ramp lane so he squeezed into a space during rush hour traffic with not a lot of space in front of him I'm sure. The good news is that he was able to stop even if he couldn't avoid it completely. However as you can see both front airbags deployed on them.

We won't be getting this car back for sure. I've had it just over two years. We'll have to see what we are going to do next but we are lucky in that we actually have 3 cars at home (my DH has a convertible and an SUV) so we can still manage without needing another vehicle RIGHT away. Thankfully winter here in MD seems to be done and DH can probably make it with the convertible for now while I drive his SUV and the kids drive my SUV to/from school for now.

Getting that call with my daughter crying this morning at work was quite scary. I'm just glad they are all physically okay, though they might be sore tonight. I'm sure the mental scars may take a little longer.

So 2018 so far...not a fan.

 

[Jenny Sanders]

Thank goodness everyone was safe! I’m so sorry about the accident!

 

[kittylady1972]

Thank goodness everyone was safe! I’m so sorry about the accident!

Thank you. Yes that is the most important thing. We can replace the vehicle (eventually) but I've always been a bit nervous knowing Mon thru Friday most weeks all 3 of my kids are in one car together. My son (who will be 18 this month) is a good driver though and we really don't fault him for this even if the insurance company probably will give him some of the blame. The kids have decided they will go back to taking back roads to school (which is slower...but no major highways) now.

 

[NancyLuvsMickey]

I've been lurking and enjoying your TR without posting, but I gotta post now...

Holey smokes!!! Glad your kids are ok!!!

 

[piglet1979]

I am so glad they are ok.

 

[kittylady1972]

I've been lurking and enjoying your TR without posting, but I gotta post now...

Holey smokes!!! Glad your kids are ok!!!

Sorry to bring you out of the woodwork like that...and yes I'm glad also. If you saw the car that stopped in front of them (she hit the back of another vehicle MUCH harder for sure than my vehicle hit hers) you wouldn't be surprised they didn't have much time to react. Just glad my kids are good and they certainly had stories to tell at school that morning as a LOT of their classmates and teachers were already aware of the accident before they got to school. A few of their school classmates saw them on the side of the highway and were texting them as they waited for things to get cleared up.

I am so glad they are ok.

Yep...me too! It could definitely have been much worse.

 

[kittylady1972]

The scene as I approached it from the opposite side of the interstate:



The car in front of them and how fast she hit the car in front of her do you think?

 

[NancyLuvsMickey]

Holey crap on a cracker!!! I'm guessing she was doing something besides paying attention to driving!!!

Here's my son's truck... He was in the passenger seat and let a friend (now ex-friend) drive it last summer... She blew thru the stop sign and went from pavement to gravel and lost control and rolled it 4 times... The airbags never went off because she rolled it side to side, the front end of the truck was never touched and the engine still runs... He didn't have his seat belt on and they're guessing he was ejected on the 2nd roll... Looking at the truck, not having his seat belt on probably saved his life (that and all his guardian angles were working overtime )... Broken nose... Broken ribs... Bruised lungs... 2 broken hands... And a broken hip... But he's all healed and still here today and that's all that matters... Vehicles can be replaced... Kids can't...

And he now longer lets anyone drive his truck... Lesson learned!!!

She had her seat belt on and walked away without a scratch...

Hugs your kids daily!!! And take them to Disney as often as possible!!!