Our Birthday Bonanza PTR- May 2010~ ACK!

[jenn-]

Welcome to my very first PTR! I hope everyone will bear with me, while I get the feeling for how these things go. Over the next few days, I will be introducing ya'll to my family and our past Disney going experiences. You will be treated to our vacation that I call "The Disney Trip from Hell," and "Our Disney Day from Hell," and surprisingly enough, they are not both from the same trip. You will get to see me fall in love with Disney despite everything not so great happening there. This will be my 5th trip to the World, and the 3rd time I am taking kids with me. With each trip, I have learned so much, but realize I still have so much to learn. You will also get to experience the crafty side of me, as I find a million different Disney related art projects to do on this wonderful site we call The DIS.

As for this upcoming trip, the cast will hopefully consist of myself, DH, DD, DS1, DS2, DS3, MIL, and SFIL. I say hopefully because every time we plan these trips, the cast keeps growing and growing until we leave. We will unofficially celebrating DS3, and DH's birthday for the trip (they fall in April), and officially be celebrating DD, DS1, and DS2 birthday on the last day of the trip. They all share a birthday, so it should be a blast. Well let me go get crafty with my kids, and I will be back in a bit with the start of my "getting to know our Disney experiences" post.

 

[ljcrochet]

I can't wait to hear your plans. I need to get crafty ideas.
Are you going to make the kids autograph books? I think that should be my next craft project.

 

[jenn-]

I can't wait to hear your plans. I need get crafty ideas.
Are you going to make the kids autograph books? I think that should be my next craft project.

Well that all depends upon if I stumble upon a thread that makes me go "I've just gotta do that!" I am not sure how much we are going to focus on getting the characters' signatures this go around. I am a realist Mommy that tells her kids there is a person in there. This was born out of necessity to get the kids over their extreme fear of characters. I will probably ask them if they want signatures this time or not. We have our books from last time (just store bought autograph books) that I don't think anyone has looked at since we got home, including myself who had a million plans as to what we would do with those pieces of paper once we got home.

Although autograph books are not on my current list of crafty things to do, we have completed phase one of spray painted swirly Mickey head shirts. Now we have to wait for the glue to dry completely before we can spray paint them.

 

[jenn-]

Travel back in time with me. No not that far, I'm not that old .The date is January 31st, 2003. It is the day before my wedding and I am miserable. I am sick. Luckily this is not the really bad kind of sick, just a head cold. I barely made it through the rehearsal dinner before I passed out for the night. I woke up the next morning and literally croaked my vows out.

We woke up on Sunday, and I was still feeling miserable. Not only that, so was my brand new husband. Maybe we should have skipped the "you may now kiss the bride" part . There was no way we should be driving to Disney World feeling like that so we figured out which of our local urgent care centers was open on a Sunday. We got in pretty quick, both of us were diagnosed with sinus infections and we got our prescriptions. Then came the hard part, finding a pharmacy open. We did not have any 24 hr pharmacies at the time. We finally found one open about 10 am. Since we had gotten married on the first of the month, my insurance ended on the 31st, and DH's picked me up on the 1st. Unfortunately the paperwork would take a couple of weeks to fully process on his end. The doctor's office didn't seem to mind, but the pharmacy was another story. We had to pay for the perscription out of pocket and then get reimbursed for it. $200 later , we had our meds and could finally head down to Disney World for our Disneymoon.

This trip would mark the first of 2 trips in which we ditched kids to go to Disney World. My little was almost 3 at the time, and she had to stay home with Grandma. Luckily she was young enough to not even care.

Eight hours after leaving the pharmacy, we finally made it to Orlando. The first night we were down there we stayed at a La Quinta. No point in using DVC points if we weren't going to be there until after dark. Bright and early Monday morning, we went and checked into a studio at the Yacht Club. This room had an Epcot view, so very nice location. We got settled, doped ourselves full of meds, and walked to Epcot. With many stops for rest breaks, we got around quite a bit. We decided that we wanted to go to Le Cellier for dinner (yes you can feel free to ), but we didn't know any better. As you can guess, we weren't getting in. We ended up at Teppan Endo (I think). Luckily we managed to eat all week, even with only 1 reservation for the whole time.

We had lunch one day at the Biergarten. I am not overly fond of German food, but the experience was fun. When my SFIL had made the reservation, he had attached our honeymoon celebration to it, so we got a cake and the full room's attention as they announced it during the show.

On our second day DH was at his sickest. His fever spiked and he was miserable. So we headed to Animal Kingdom. Don't worry, we didn't stay long. He lasted about an hour before we had to go back to the room. After a good nap his fever broke and he felt much better. Now let me say, I never got as sick as he did with this cold. I think it had something to do with being a man.

Wednesday arrives and we are finally feeling well. We hit the parks full force and get a ton of things done. Then I start to feel a tingle on my face. I get cold sores regularly (including having one for my wedding), so I know the tingle. This is one isn't where is supposed to be, it's on my cheekbone. This isn't the first time, nor would it be my last. Thursday morning we woke up to the sore showing itself right up next to my eye, looking more like Impetigo than a cold sore (yep had it before). Now Impetigo is a bacterial infection and I was on a $200 antibiotic, so I wasn't too happy to say the least. Unfortunately with the proximity to my eye, we couldn't just ignore it.

We got to find the local urgent care center . It took forever, but we finally got sent in the back. The person next to us (there is only a thin curtain between us), got to be told she had the chicken pox. She was a foreigner, and was very scared because she was also an adult in a strange land. Not a good combo. I heard the chicken pox diagnosis and I . I've never had them, so I panic whenever I get close to them. Last thing I needed from Disney was a case of the chicken pox. When the doctor came around the curtain he confirmed what we already knew, it was Impetigo. We told him that I was already on an antibiotic, but he said it was the wrong one need to treat it, so I had to stop that one and start a new one plus a topical treatment. So another $250 given to a pharmacy, and we were free to go back to our vacation. You guys will be happy to know that I did eventually get all that money back from the insurance company, but for newlyweds it sure hurt having to pay for it upfront.

Even though we were sick as dogs for part of our trip, and spent way more time in urgent care centers than you should have to on your honeymoon, we look back on that trip with fond memories. We couldn't wait to get back to Disney when we were feeling better.

Coming out of the past and into the present, my glue is still drying on our spiral spray paint Mickey shirts, and my kids are looking at me wondering why I feel like I need to type on the computer instead of feed them. The last 30 minutes before a meal are always the hardest for them. Next up, our first trip to Disney World with kids.

 

[jenn-]

Many hours ago we put some glue on 5 shirts, we are still waiting for it to dry . Maybe it is the humidity in the air, but I have a feeling we just used more than we needed. I don't know maybe it is supposed to take over 8 hours for glue to dry . I guess we will have to spray paint them tomorrow.

During the time while waiting for the glue to dry, I managed to trace 2 Mickey heads and stitch them around with dental floss. What may you ask am I up to now? Why of course I am going to try and make us some Spiral Tie Dye shirts as well. As DD and I have the most spare shirts to work with, these are the guinea pigs. Right now they look like step 3. Tomorrow I am going to soak them, rubberband them, and hopefully get their dye going. I have a feeling I will end up a very colorful mom tomorrow.

So it wasn't but a few hours ago that I said I wasn't sure I was going to do anything for signatures when I stumbled upon this autograph bag idea and , this looks like a practical idea. I am pretty sure I saw some grocery style bags at Michael's the other day. As I use my reusable grocery bags all the time, maybe this will work for me. As I don't leave for another 10 months, I think I will hold off for now (well unless I run out of things to do before then).

Maybe between spray painting and tie dying tomorrow I will have a chance to fill you in on "The Disney Trip from Hell" . Until then, I get to go out with a group of moms tonight and try not to look like a Mousejunkie (which I am currently reading BTW and finding it absolutely wonderful!). My friends IRL just don't get it.

 

[ljcrochet]

Well that all depends upon if I stumble upon a thread that makes me go "I've just gotta do that!" I am not sure how much we are going to focus on getting the characters' signatures this go around. I am a realist Mommy that tells her kids there is a person in there. This was born out of necessity to get the kids over their extreme fear of characters. I will probably ask them if they want signatures this time or not. We have our books from last time (just store bought autograph books) that I don't think anyone has looked at since we got home, including myself who had a million plans as to what we would do with those pieces of paper once we got home.

Although autograph books are not on my current list of crafty things to do, we have completed phase one of spray painted swirly Mickey head shirts. Now we have to wait for the glue to dry completely before we can spray paint them.

You can always scan then an use them on a scrapbooking page. That is what I did with one autograph.
We bought my girls disney autograph books once. Last trip we got them what I call homework notebooks at the dollar spot in target.

Maybe between spray painting and tie dying tomorrow I will have a chance to fill you in on "The Disney Trip from Hell" . Until then, I get to go out with a group of moms tonight and try not to look like a Mousejunkie (which I am currently reading BTW and finding it absolutely wonderful!). My friends IRL just don't get it.

I wonder how much stuff you are going to wind up making before you go (as well as talking me into making)
I'm also reading Mousejunkie.

 

[amandelba]

I woke up the next morning and literally croaked my vows out.

You could be in the new Disney movie with the frog princess.

 

[jenn-]

I don't have time before lunch to fill you in on "The Disney Trip from Hell" but will hopefully be back this afternoon with that story. Until then I thought I would update on crafts.

It took 12 hours, but finally the glue dried on our spray painted Mickey shirts. First thing after breakfast this morning we took them outside and sprayed them. The little pumps were too hard for the boys to do them, but they got to tell me which colors to use. All of their shirts are really for DS3 since he had a few extras to spare in case we messed them up. DD and I also did some shirts. Here are some pictures of the process (not sure how many pics I can have in a post so this might be in 2 groups).

First thing I did was used the template I found in thread about this and sized it as needed for the different sized shirts. Then I located cardboard for all of the shirts (which ended up being difficult), and place the templates in place with a piece of tape. Most people complained about the glue sticking to the board so I placed plastic wrap over it. This worked for me. Any who's here's the set up and kids posing. Only DD did her own gluing, I held the hands of the others as we did it together.

DS3

DS1

DS2

DD

My shirt wet glue

DS1's shirt dry glue this morning

 

[jenn-]

After painting pictures.
Mine

DS1's

DS3's

DS2's

DD working on her's

DD's

Now we just have to wait for 72 hours and with a bit of , hopefully the glue will wash out like it is supposed to and the paint will stay. Next update on this particular project will be a few days away. Until later grab some , surf the boards, find new things to create, pay attention to your family , then check back for my next installation.

 

[jenn-]

Time to travel back in time again. It is now December 2005. A lot has happened since our Disneymoon in 2003. Later that year we bought a larger house and painted one of the rooms a nice pale green and jokingly called in our "family expansion room". We stopped preventing baby making soon after that thinking it would be months before we would get pregnant. Well 2 months later we were expecting. 6 weeks after that we found out it would be twins . May of 2004 DS1 and DS2 joined our cast of characters. They were full term and healthy. Our family was complete.

Time marched on and my boys were 14 months old and we went on a family vacation to Atlanta. A month later we found out we were expecting . Totally and utterly not expecting this one to come along (I mean an IUD is supposed to be as effective as the big V). After a rough start to the pregnancy, we got excited. I was 5 months pregnant in December of 2005 when we took our first family trip.

The cast for this trip is broken into 2 categories, the major players, and the minor players (people that were there but really seperate).
Major players: Myself (duh!), DH, DD (5.5yo), DS1 & DS2 (19months), MIL, SFIL, SBIL and his wife and their 2 kids we will call Cousin1 (6.5yo) and Cousin2 (4.5yo)
Minor players: BIL and his wife (aka SIL), DH aunt, one of her daughters (or it might have been the wife to one of her sons), and 3 of his aunt's grandkids (aged between 12-15) other than issues with meeting up times, these guys really didn't effect us all that much
Residence: 2 OKW 2 bedroom suites and a studio

Unlike most trips we actually traveled down on Sunday and checked straight into OKW. My DD was excited to be with her cousins so she stayed in their room that night along with MIL, SFIL, SBIL, his wife and obviously the cousins. We woke up Monday morning and got moving. This isn't an easy task with 19mo twins mind you. We fed them breakfast, made up lunches to take to the park and finally headed over to the room next door to get the rest of the family moving. They were already gone ! My SFIL had taken my DD along with the rest of that room (sans MIL) to Magic Kingdom already. I missed my baby girls first look down Main Street at Cinderella's Castle . That is a moment that will never be recreated. By the time we finally caught up with them they had already done It's A Small World, Dumbo, and the Teacups. I was . Remember I was 5 months pregnant at the time and the hormones probably didn't help.

I must back up a minute here. I failed to mention the days we were at Disney. We chose to go down December 18th-23rd as per my SFIL, the week before Christmas usually isn't too bad. Well the way Christmas happened to fall that year, most of the schools were out the whole week and Disney was way busier than he had anticipated. With so many school aged children in our group, it didn't really matter it was the time we would have had to go anyways. So now you know the crowds were pretty crazy for the whole trip. Not impossible, but definitely worse than I had thought it would be.

So amongst what seemed like thousands of people, I learned something about DS2, he doesn't do loud stuff. DS2 screamed at Disney World. Loudly. Constantly. He HATED it from the moment he was rolled into MK, until the moment he was rolled out. That first day we tried all sorts of things to get him to calm down, but by lunch time we admitted defeat. MIL took the boys back to the room. Luckily MIL and SFIL are DVC members so they are Disney frequent fliers, so she didn't mind too much.

SFIL was the leader for our group of people. He was in charge of telling us when and where we were going. SFIL travels commando style. He isn't used to traveling with young kids and pregnant women. We spent the entire trip running back and forth across the various parks grabbing fastpasses here, hopping in lines there, and staring at each other wondering when and where we were going to eat.

SFIL wings it for most meals when he is at Disney. They don't mind packing their own food in and eating CS for the most part. This wouldn't have been a big deal for me either. As a matter of fact it was what we planned. My DD wasn't too happy to be eating a PB&J sandwich while her cousins were snacking down on McDonalds. We did have 1 dining reservation while we were there. We went to Crystal Palace for lunch. Having pretty much given up on bringing the boys to the parks (we had tried several times at this point and each time resulted in DS2 screaming until he left), we left them at the resort with MIL. The remaining major characters all headed out to eat lunch with Pooh Bear and friends. We got to MK really early and decided instead of going into the park we would hop on the monorail and go over to GF and check out their Christmas decorations. This was a good in theory, but turned into a really bad idea. We got the the GF without a problem. Looked around and got back in line to get the monorail back to MK with plenty of time to spare. The monorail didn't come. Our time was slipping away quickly. No one could tell us what was going on, or how soon the monorail would be running again. We gave up and went downstairs to wait for a bus. We waited and waited and all the other buses came but not the one for MK. News flash, unless the monorail is down for a really long time, they don't run buses to MK from GF. We found that out the hard way. Back up to the monorail line. At this point it was nearly time for our reservation. One thing you will learn about me is that I HATE to be late for anything. By now the kids are bored and hungry, and I am tired and cranky. SFIL got on the phone to Disney Dining explained the situation and got the reservation held. The monorail FINALLY came. Turns out we should have hopped on the boat. We finally got to our reservation and had a good time there. I just don't think I can write well enough to explain the emotional turmoil all this was taking out on me.

I did manage to stop the taking of my DD to Disney without me by making her stay with us in our room. Her cousins came over and spent the night most of the time so we were all able to start the days about the same time. During all this we were trying to meet up with some of the minor characters and each meeting turned into a bigger and bigger headache. Some had phones that didn't work, some had phones that forgot chargers therefore died during the week, other "couldn't hear them". The older kids would inevitably be late stuck in a line somewhere or trying to figure out which bench on which bridge SFIL was referring to. Again with every missed time my stress level shot up.

There was one positive experience on this trip for me. DS2 liked Animal Kingdom. He really liked The Boneyard. He actually had a fun old time in there and would have gone up and down that little slide endlessly. That's all he liked of Disney though.

The last night we were there we went to Epcot to watch the fireworks. MIL had taken the boys to the resort earlier after DS2 screamed his bloody head off during our entire meal at the Biergarten (not a restaurant for babies that don't like noise) and just drove back in our van and parked at Boardwalk for afterwards. Guess what DS2 doesn't like fireworks either. Epcot had EMH's that night and DH decided to stay and try to ride Test Track as he hadn't made it on the ride this trip and he loves the ride. We took my boys and DD home while the poor cousins were kept out to really late night even though they were dragging. Leaving DH at the park, I hopped into the car and noticed it had a check engine light on. MIL mentioned that it had popped on a couple of days ago, she had just forgot to mention it . I managed to get back to the resort an got DH on his walkie talkie. Now these walkie talkies wouldn't work around the stinkin' corner from each other, but I got him standing in the OKW parking lot to the entrance to Test Track (SFIL estimates that to be about 5 or 6 miles). He didn't seem too concerned about the car and said he would check it out the next morning.

We got the van all loaded up and headed out. He noticed right away the van wasn't shifting like it should. It had put itself into its safe mode and would only travel in second gear which was only good to about 40 MPH. There was no way we could make it home going this speed. Realize this was Friday, December 23rd, 2 days before Christmas and our only guess was that the transmission was shot. This was my breaking point, I started to bawl. We stopped at some souvenir shop there on the strip and went to look for transmission shops in the phone book. A customer overheard us and told us that he runs a Dodge fleet of vans for his company and the only people they let touch their vans was the major Dodge dealership across town from where we were. We called them and they told us they would hook up the van to the machine to see what was wrong with it, but they probably wouldn't get to fixing it until the following week . The whole caravan of cars traveled across town going 35-40 MPH the whole way and we were trying to figure out what we were going to do. We figured if we unloaded some stuff from some vehicles we could probably get enough seats open to get me and the kids home, but DH would be stranded until the car got fix. He would miss Christmas, and we couldn't really afford this major repair or to keep DH in Orlando indefinitely. We finally made it to the dealership to be told they wouldn't be looking at the car at all until Monday. I proceeded to and we found the guy that we had talked to on the phone. He got the car in as promised. I wonder if that had something to do with the fact that there were about 20 people standing around at this point with us and I was obviously pregnant and bawling. They hooked it up and found out it wasn't the transmission, but the transmission's computer and they actually had the part in stock and would only take a couple of hours to repair . We ended up only spending $800 instead of the $3,000 I had envisioned. I nearly kissed the guy. They went ahead and fixed our car in front of the cars that had been dropped off. They figured those people weren't expecting their cars back before the next week anyways and we obviously weren't going anywhere without ours. Once we found out that the car would be fixed, most of our caravan headed home. Just the major characters hung out until it was fixed (just in case). We finally got on the road about 4pm. It was a very long day (did I mention we live 8hours away). To me this has and hopefully always will be my worst Disney vacation. I know most are probably thinking "that wasn't too bad," but to me the whole week was just bad, bad, bad.

Up next, either tie dying results, or our "Worst Disney day EVER!" (can you believe it wasn't in the trip from hell?)

 

[jenn-]

Happy Independence Day!

No real time to share another trips story right now, but maybe later tonight or sometime tomorrow. I do have time to show you how our first 2 tie dye experiments came out. I am very happy with the results as this was my first time tie dying EVER!

DD dying hers

Close up

My accidental hidden Mickey

Mine in the bag

DD's before rolling in plastic wrap

Our backs

My front

DD's front

I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday!

 

[Tinker_]

Awww, looks like you guys had fun today!! Loving your PTR!!!!

 

[ljcrochet]

Shirts look great!

 

[meeko_33785]

Hi. Nice pre=trip so far. I read through your flashback reports. Here's hoping that this upcoming one doesn't have as much sickness or problems as thos had.

 

[jenn-]

Hi. Nice pre=trip so far. I read through your flashback reports. Here's hoping that this upcoming one doesn't have as much sickness or problems as thos had.

Other than the really bad day, the rest are much more uplifting . I hope to get one up tomorrow between tie dye batch number 2. I spent today recovering from the late night last night and stitching Mickey heads to t-shirts.

 

[jenn-]

I decided that once I start the tie dying process today that the day would go by too fast to get the next trip out so here I am trying to type as quietly as I can hoping the kids don't find me .

Well right after the 2005 fiasco, I swore upside down and backwards I WOULD NOT be going back to Disney World until my baby was 5, and considering he wasn't born yet, that meant something. I swore I would NEVER go back with that size of a group again. Although looking back the minor characters really were minor, at the time they caused quite a bit of my stress.

April '06 came around and my surprise baby arrived big and healthy. Nov '06 arrived and MIL mentioned the desire to take us to Disney the following November, and my immediate response was NO! My baby would be 19 months old at the time and I had BTDT before and I wasn't doing it again. Then she told me that it would just be MIL, SFIL, us 6, and maybe cousin 1 & 2. DH really wanted to go so I relented and said I would give Disney one more try (ya gotta admit I hadn't had much luck up to this point with Disney).

Fast forward a couple of months and our quaint little group grew to rival the size of the 2005 trip . I nearly backed out. As a matter of fact I told DH we weren't going. Then I started asking questions about Disney on a twin site and they pointed me to my greatest Disney discovery ever, the DISboards! So in June of 2007 I started to really learn about Disney World.

Here I learned that I could survive another large group. I learned it was acceptable to go with people and then not actually hang out all day with them. I learned that unlike my SFIL, some people actually scheduled their Disney trips in detail (oh how I love those people). I learned all about ADRs and the DDP. I learned which books to read, and then I read them.

As I quickly jumped into my planning phase, I told DH what was going to happen. I was going to plan a vacation for the 6 of us and any one that to tour or eat with us needed to speak up before I made the ADRs. I asked MIL if she wanted me to make any large seating meals and she said SFIL would handle the ressies for them and the cousins, so I said okay and went about my planning. I got most of the ADRs I wanted, including a date night at Le Cellier (third trips a charm). Then I spent the next 6 months starring at food porn.

Before our vacation DH and I decided it was time to do something about our weight and started on Atkins. We were losing weight nicely when our trip in November hit. This diet definitely hampered any dreams of Dole Whips and customized pretzel sticks covered with chocolate and caramel with peanut butter candy sprinkled top (no I haven't dreamed about those at all). But we still managed to eat fairly well that trip and didn't gain all that much weight.

We traveled down as a large group on Saturday and stayed the night off property. Sunday morning we migrated together to OKW. They didn't have our rooms ready at that hour, but they told us to call in about 3 to find them out. After 2 failed trips with walkie talkies for communication, DH and I invested in some prepaid cell phones (our carrier didn't work at Disney). We decided that since we only had a short day left and it was already mid day, we would head over to AK.

When we got there we were shocked at how busy it was. We knew later in the week it would get bad, but we really thought the first few days would be lighter, we were wrong. As soon as we made it in the gate I explained to my then 3.5yo twins they had 2 choices, wear a harness or ride in the stroller, neither which they had done since they had just turned 2. This started the first meltdown of DS2 for the day. He finally relented and got in the stroller. SFIL proceeded to run us around like last time dashing to EE to get fastpasses using even the non riders tickets to get a second set. DH decided he would just go ahead and ride in the single rider line instead of waiting for the FP return time so I took the kids over to the Boneyard to play. All 6 kids (yep I had the cousins too) really enjoyed playing there until DH showed up. He was quite and swore he was happy he had ridden EE once, but would not be riding it again (he suffers from motion sickness). After his tummy settled down and the rest of the major players showed up we went to lunch at the Flame Tree Grill, where I knew what I wanted already since I had memorized the menu online. We fought the crowds there and finally got our food and found spot to eat. The food was good and we passed the first hurdle of giving up that dessert to someone else . After lunch we went over to the safari ride and the wait wasn't really all that bad. By the time we got to the ride DS3 had fallen asleep and slept through the whole ride. The kids really enjoyed the animals. When we got off the ride it was about time for SFIL to go redeem his FP over at EE, but we weren't journeying back there with him so he took off on his own. This left MIL, the 2 cousins, and us 6 as our group. We were walking in and out of the stores just looking around having a decent enough time, when IT (it being the reason why this is noted as "The Disney day from Hell") happened .

Remember how I said the boys had to either be on a harness or in a stroller. I had a reason. We had lost DS1 in Walmart not long before and I had an unrational fear of losing a kid at Disney. So we are stopped in some little L shaped shop right along the parade route and DH had the little kids over looking at the Christmas ornaments (MIL gets us one every year and they were helping pick them out). They were strapped in so I took DD to look around the rest of the shop. At some point DH let the big boys out of their stroller without me knowing it. I walked back around the corner and did the head count. DS1 was MISSING! Did the whole "where's DS1?" "uh, isn't he with you?" routine. I proceed to freak out as some gentleman comes running in asking if someone has lost a kid. Of course I say yes, and he says that he saw him running across the bridge outside the store crying but he couldn't get him to stop. *Newsflash* if you see a very young kid looking lost and confused, don't just let the kid keep running, catch the kid and turn them into a CM. So I dart out of the store and see a throng of people coming from the direction the guy pointed and I knew it was hopeless. There was no way I was going to find him. *Newsflash #2* should you be the person with a lost child, stop and report it to a CM before you totally freak so they can close down the park and have everyone on the look out for the kid. Luckily we never got to that point (although that should be step #1 when you realize your kid is missing). As I ran across the bridge frantically looking from my son here come SFIL with him in his arms. As to how they spotted each other in that crowd I don't know, but he was safe, albeit shaken up, as was I.

After much crying on his and my part we bribed the kids with a snack while we waited for the parade to start. DS1 passed out in his stroller while we were waiting and missed the whole parade. As the parade ended, my family had to take off to make it to Whispering Canyon Cafe for our dinner ressies. I was so excited for this meal. I thought the kids would love it. They would love the antics of it. Well we got there no problem, took the kids to potty, got seated and food ordered. Remember DS2's issue with noise, well let's say he hadn't outgrown it yet. He was fine for about 5 minutes before he overstimulated and went into meltdown. Between him not eating (and he is my eater) and the 3 oldest dragging me back and forth to the bathroom I kid you not 6 times in a 45 minute period (not including the time before the ressie) and the meltdown that DS2 had, dinner did not go as planned. DH and I scarfed down as much food as we could while DS2 cried and fussed and our poor waitress trying to figure out what to do we finally got out of there. DS2 still crying loudly the whole time we were waiting for the bus. Everyone else in the bus area just kept moving farther away probably hoping we weren't getting on their bus. We were to get on the bus to go to DTD to then transfer to OKW. When we finally got on the bus we were the only ones on it. It was pretty obvious we were just going to DTD to make the transfer and not to shop. The driver asked us where our final destination was and we told him. With a quick call to the transportation people, he got cleared to take us straight to OKW . After all that had gone on that day, that little bit of Disney magic was all that it took to endear my love to Disney. It is the little things that can make life all better.

As the kids found me a long time ago, I will have to type up the rest of the trip in a bit. It is quite anticlimactic after the first day of our trip, but we had a great time so I want to show you that Disney World can get better.

 

[jenn-]

Well all that happened on the first day we were officially at Disney World. What a way to start the trip . We did learn a few things though. First off, forget the arm bands, the boys just weren't getting out of their strollers period! Secondly, even though my older boys were 3.5 yo and cruising in a stroller, they still needed naptime back at the resort. We made sure that those two things occurred every day. After the first night at Disney, we learned that the closet in a 2 bedroom suite at OKW fits the pack n play nicely and you can shut the 19 mo toddler off from the rest of the room. He wasn't used to having company in his room and insisted on talking half the night. No clothes were in the closet and he would wake up in the morning and push the sliding door open (yes it was left cracked the whole time). We all slept better after that. We learned that the marker that came with our temporary emergency tattoo kit came off too easily and we needed to use permanent marker instead. We hadn't had a chance to unpack those tats the first day so DS1 was not wearing one when he went AWOL. With all of our lessons learned in the first 24 hours, we went on to have a great vacation.

We managed to eat at CP where we took cousin 1 and 2 with us while MIL and SFIL went somewhere else. We ate at the Princess StoryBook place in Epcot where the kids all enjoyed seeing the princesses. We took in Hollywood & Vine, which turned out to not be very carb friendly BTW. DH and I enjoyed our Le Cellier very much. This is the one place that we said "screw it" to our diet and got the dessert. He ate the creme brule and I got the chocolate moose. Let me tell you, we hadn't had real sugar in a couple of months. You would have thought someone had laced our food with speed. We were moving a mile a minute and talking just as fast. We managed to leave Epcot and go to MK which had the EHM that night. We stayed until close before we finally went to the room and crashed and my DH pretty routinely crashes at 10pm. We had a great time that night. We ate at Wolfgang Puck Express and the regular dining in as well as Earl of Sandwich in DTD, all great food. My greatest eating accomplishment was when I had all 6 kids by myself and I managed to get them fed at Sunshine Seasons. It took a bit of juggling, but I got them all seated and eating without a crisis.

About that 6 kids by myself thing. I don't remember what in the world MIL and SFIL were up to that night (I'm thinking they met up with some friends at the expensive seafood place in DTD), but my DH was diving in the Living Seas. He had begged to do the diving both previous trips but I had said no. He hadn't been diving in 10 yrs by the time I finally said yes to let him do that dive. I awoke his inner dolphin and now I lose him to diving trips regularly . Even though I was alone with all these kids, it worked out well. I had an "older" kid to go with each of the younger ones. We spent a lot of our time waiting for the character spot to meet Mickey and friends. I figured keeping them confined to a line would be good and none of them fussed. After that I went to the Coke place and introduced them to "Beverly" . I really should find the photo of that one. It wasn't much longer than that and eating that DH was done. I survived my few hours with 6 kids 8 and under.

We got to ride plenty of rides that trip. We got spent tons of time in the parks and at DTD, even with our breaks. We just had a good ol' time. Now I will admit the crowds were absolutely unbearable by Wednesday, and we completely avoided the parks on Thursday (aka Thanksgiving). But we knew we would be back again and not getting everything done wasn't a big deal. Having my meals and park itinerary planned really made a big difference in how I viewed my trip. I felt well informed and ready to go with the punches as much as I needed to. Other than the first day of this trip, I considered it a massive success.

 

[ljcrochet]

I love the shirts! I think you inspired me to make my gang shirts. Trying to decide which one's we should do. The spray paint one looks easier so I'm leaning towards that one. But might change my mind when I see your finished pictures again.

Sounds like your trips with the boys have been exciting!

 

[glassslipper2004]

Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed reading your trip report - sounds like by the time you go on your next trip (soon, right? I didn't notice when it is) you should be supremely informed and ready to have a fantastic time. Hopefully the crowds won't be as bad.

 

[jenn-]

I love the shirts! I think you inspired me to make my gang shirts. Trying to decide which one's we should do. The spray paint one looks easier so I'm leaning towards that one. But might change my mind when I see your finished pictures again.

Sounds like your trips with the boys have been exciting!

Come back in a few minutes and you will get to see them, and the tie dye as well.

Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed reading your trip report - sounds like by the time you go on your next trip (soon, right? I didn't notice when it is) you should be supremely informed and ready to have a fantastic time. Hopefully the crowds won't be as bad.

I actually have one more trip from the past which was about as picture perfect Disney as it gets. Make sure you check back in the next day or two for that report to pop up, it should have some food porn to go along with it.