You just lost 80 pounds! What are you Going to do next? Ending TR

Get a Rick Steves guidebook and use his website for Italy. He has some great ideas for budget travel! I swear by all his books. He has free audio walking tours available that are awesome! Don't be afraid of riding the trains in Italy too. Very easy to get around. I did a 10 day trip in 2007 where I flew into Venice and then took the train to Florence and then finally Rome where I flew out of. I went in March...far less crowded, the weather was better, and I caught Carnivale in Venice which was amazing!

Jill in CO

All brilliant ideas, Jill! :thumbsup2

My friend who I'm traveling with said the same thing about the Rick Steves guy, she said we need to find his shows and get good ideas. :goodvibes You just confirmed that we need to do that.

Time of year I hear is crucial, I just wanted it to be warm enough to swim if we wanted to and wear our summer outfits and yet miss the high crowd times. :goodvibes

What was the weather like in March? I'm glad to hear about the train, this was something we both were thinking about. :) Also, out of curiosity....what made you travel the cities the way you did? I was thinking the exact opposite but haven't decided on anything yet since I'm still researching. Maybe it was the carnival that made you go that route? That would make sense. :)

Thank you, Jill! :goodvibes
 
I think many of us keep losing and gaining the same 5 lbs. I know you can count me in!

Hard to believe it's almost August! I didn't take any vacation this summer except for 3 days at the end of August. I won't let that happen again.

I hope Mackie has a great time in Callie with the grandparents. That sounds wonderful! :goodvibes
 
All brilliant ideas, Jill! :thumbsup2

My friend who I'm traveling with said the same thing about the Rick Steves guy, she said we need to find his shows and get good ideas. :goodvibes You just confirmed that we need to do that.

Time of year I hear is crucial, I just wanted it to be warm enough to swim if we wanted to and wear our summer outfits and yet miss the high crowd times. :goodvibes

What was the weather like in March? I'm glad to hear about the train, this was something we both were thinking about. :) Also, out of curiosity....what made you travel the cities the way you did? I was thinking the exact opposite but haven't decided on anything yet since I'm still researching. Maybe it was the carnival that made you go that route? That would make sense. :)

Thank you, Jill! :goodvibes

I started in Venice and flew out of Rome because that's the flights I could get using my FF miles. :) It worked out really well.

March was cooler and rainy but not bad at all...Rome was gorgeous. Rome is nasty when the weather gets warmer. Canivale was just a plus...I didn't plan around it.

When you research Rome, make sure you look into the Scavi tour at the Vatican. It's a tour that takes you down to tour the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd century necropolis that St Peter's is built on. You will get to see the bones of St Peter. It's an amazing experience and its very limited as the artifacts are fragile.

Also, look into hiring local guides for things like the Coliseum and the Forum. I joined in a walking tour with a local teacher and she was really able to bring the area alive plus it was really inexpensive! I think I found the name via Rick Steves or from a posting on something like Fodor's travel forums.

Have fun planning!

Jill in CO
 
Glad to hear everything is going well. (besides the weight loss) I usually lose weight in the summer by being more active. I also started doing 30 sit-ups a day with the kids for the last few weeks. We have a good laugh doing it and Gabby always finds her way onto my stomach while doing it so it gets to be a decent workout. :rotfl:

I know 30 sit ups isn't a lot but when you go from 0 to 30 it is a bit challenging. I think after this week we will move up to 40.

We've been in a weird weather pattern this summer and have only had 3 days over 90 degrees. Today the high was 73 and tonight it is going to be in the low 50s. Unbelievable! I wouldn't mind a few 95 degree days.

I know you'll get back on track soon. You aren't gaining so that's a good thing. :thumbsup2

Thanks for the update! :goodvibes
 


What an idiot flipping the bird on the ride. I do like the ride but it does scare me. I always think “what if the seatbelt breaks and I go flying up while the ride goes down”. I think the same things on planes. It is sad to be in my head. LOL
Caught up again.
 
May 9th, 5th day-part 3



As I left off we had some fun riding on a 3D ride with a pull gun that featured A cowboy, a spaceman, a potato head, a funny looking pig and a bunch of little green aliens.
After that we became reacquainted with A certain man's dream and then found our way to some faceless, purposing green army men AND THEN we went to a run down a some what haunted and very cursed hotel from the late 1930's, where we were directed onto a really bad elevator. :rolleyes2
That sucker kept throwing us up and down, up and down, :crazy2: we thought we'd never get off of that thing! Whew! Someone really should speak to the staff, they were a bit on the creepy side and rude as all get out!

I tell ya, it's all in a days play my friends, all in a days play.

Once we were off that darn elevator and out of Hollywood Tower Hotel we decided it was time to tour Hollywood in style.....



I don't know, you think it's sophisticated enough? :confused3 :laughing:

We decided to find our way over to a theater...



We then took some pictures of the Hollywood walk of fame, we captured some true Hollywood royalty here ...



It doesn't get any more Hollywood than this, folks. :thumbsup2

Then we decided to find our way to some streets of America to do a little exploring, picture taking and Kung Fu Fighting, a la Sweaty Asian (know to me as Jordy-to some of you as Jordan) Style....









I don't think we ever laughed so hard trying to get those last two images. :rotfl:

I look ridiculous, but at least Jordy knows we love him and we were thinking of him. Miss you Jordy. :hug:

We finally found a way to Sing in the Rain. I tell ya, it's not easy trying to live out the life we invision (what a vision that must be-huh? :rotfl: )....






If I'm not mistaken, before we went to the Streets of American Maroo had enough and needed to go and ice her ankle, she would meet up with us later for our ADR.

Since Mackie envisioned Mermaids (she's my mermaid girl-looove the shirt she found the night before in MK-worn in this next picture) and Pirates, I thought we should find our way to them...... :goodvibes



As for the scurvy pirates (this was the best I could get).....



continued in the next post....

 
We decided we needed a break since it was heating up to be a fairly hot day that day, but we ended up finding ourselves having our picture taken all sweaty first.



Our place of refuge awaited us, but not before I had to say hello and goodbye to hunk-a-hunk-a burnin love....BO.

Behold Bo.....






We made our way out of the park and to a bus that would take us away to a tropical oasis with beautiful waterfalls and yummy drinks.

Where Mackie would do.....



:rotfl:


But not before I got her in some pictures. We had no idea this would be the last time we'd be able to do this. I'm so bummed the main water feature is gone now. But! So as not to be a negative Nelly.....I'm excited to see the new refurb. I'm hoping they have outdone themselves in true Disney fashion. :thumbsup2


Can you tell she's really not in the mood for picture taking? :laughing:


And one of me, not the greatest picture but what can I do?



Some things were in focus and some weren't. :laughing:

We enjoyed the cool air and walked around a bit, we went into some of the different stores and just basically wasted time until we were to meet back up with Maroo and check in for our ADR at KONA.

And that's just what we did. Since WDW is on a remodeling kick, I will from now on take tons of pictures regardless of where I am. I'm really kicking myself for not getting more pictures of the resort, especially the lobby. :rolleyes:
We had fun looking at all the tropical clothing, and what nots. I had actually been looking at dresses at every store since we had been on property and I still couldn't decide if I wanted to get one or not. I'll save you the drama of wondering and tell you no, I did not. :sad2: They had some really cute dresses with designs that had Mickey in them but none of them every really struck my fancy the way I had hoped they would and the one's that did, I tried on and they didn't work for me.

So up the stairs we would go to wait for Maroo and have a drink, I wish I could remember what I had, but alas the memory isn't kicking in. :sad2:

Maroo came in on the Monorail right after I got us checked in, we then waited to be buzzed and went straight to our table to partake in some seriously yummy bread. I tried not to have too much because I was looking forward to something yummy later. What, I have to stinkin clue. :rolleyes: Hopefully it will come back to me as I'm writing. :rotfl:

No food pics, sorry folks, we just wanted to sit and take in the atmosphere and try to ignore a couple who's three year old son didn't understand that no meant no or anything else that resembled verbal discipline. :scared:
Come to find out they were doctors and the little boy was use to being raised by his nanny. They made comment also about how they weren't pleased that the nanny didn't come along and they were left alone to handle their son.

::biting my lip, biting my lip::

Sorry folks, it's really hard not to have an opinion about situations I'm not familiar with like that. I don't live their lives, I don't, but I also don't understand having a child of my own flesh and blood and then not raising it myself.
I can understand having someone there to help, if that's what works better for you, but not raising your own child seems.....odd to me. But what do I know, I'm not a doctor while married to one.

We ordered, I believe we all ordered steaks that evening to make up for the fact that the steaks stunk the night before at BOG. We were excited about these steaks since we had all had dinner here before and knew they were really good.
We were very happy with our steaks, no issues this time. I do wish I had said something to the waiter about leaving off the teriyaki sauce, it was a bit too sweet to me and I know that I wasn't alone since Mackie made mention of it too. Bless her heart, well into our trip she said if she had another main/savory dish item with a syrupy sweet taste she was going to scream.
Honestly, this does a mothers heart good since she thinks anything with a processed carb in it is a food group. :rolleyes: Not really, but she sure eats like it is if you don't watch her.

We finished up dinner and all thought it was a pretty good meal. The girls said they were as full as ticks and we all thought it would be a good idea to walk it off at another park, so off on the monorail we went!

We decided to head over to MK for the evening. That was fine by me! The more time we spent in MK the better as far as we were concerned. :goodvibes

We wanted to see Story Time with Bell again and experience some more night life in MK. I love being in MK, night or day, but there is something truly special about being there at night. Not to mention a lot of the little kiddos and their families were having dinner and probably returning to their little beds, so this was an opportunity to get in some rides without the lines being really long.






Aren't they cute?




We loved it, and we had a lot of fun as always. We decided it was time to head to Dumbo since it was dark enough to enjoy the lights, and I don't think we had been on them that trip just yet.



Caught this on the way.





The only one's I got, folks. :rolleyes: Don't ask me why.
I think once we were done here Maroo said it was curtains for her, she went back to the room and Mackie and I made it to some other rides on our own, we had a couple of Mountains to conquer again and then I'm pretty sure we high tailed it out of there so we didn't run into the parade and Wishes crowds.

We made our way back to the room well before 11 and quietly made it into bed so as not to wake Maroo. We had another early day and that blasted alarm would be sounding off in no time.
Tomorrow was another MK day, not AK day. LOL! I guess when it's been over a year you just start to lose all the details.

 


I'll have to come back and edit more a bit later. You'll have to excuse the messes until then. :)

I have to get my phone to the store to get my power button un-stuck. It keeps making my phone to turn off and on. :rotfl:

Silly thing.

Be blessed, y'all. :goodvibes
 
Nice updates! I hope Mackie is having a great time out West! We're headed to Oregon to hug our babies out there on the 16th! :woohoo:

At least you got a couple of nice shots in front of the waterfall - I can't imagine it gone, but I'm guessing it will be more like Aulani when they are done, which isn't bad at all. :goodvibes I love how Mackie is "have book will travel" I was like that also at her age. Now days, you mostly see "have phone will travel" so good for her! :thumbsup2

I'm glad you weren't disappointed with your steaks. MK at night is so magical! I love the pic of Mackie and Maroo - very cute!!!

Thanks for the encouragement. Our 4 day focus last week went well, had a little cheat time this weekend, but back on track today. I lost 4 lbs, but I was able to wear a skort that I couldn't wear two weeks ago, so I'm on the right track again.
 
Maybe you've done this and I missed it - sometimes I'm guilty of skimming the comments - but I see what helped this past week in our 4 day focus was team accountability. I won't be part of that group anymore because I didn't purchase the "plan" but I was thinking there are several of us here who want to lose or keep off various amounts - what if we started a private Facebook group and checked in with each other daily - how much water did you drink? What did you eat? Did you do your workout? and celebrate the victories together or encourage each other to be on track. What do you think? :confused3
 
Great updates Camille and well worth waiting for! Mackie's wearing her Little Mermaid shirt and you're wearing your Little Mermaid shirt....it looks just like shiny little mermaid scales. :thumbsup2

Awww, it's too bad that you didn't get more pictures in the lobby at the Polynesian. When we were there, the whole middle section was boarded up. Like you, I'm going to miss the old lobby but am excited to see the new one.

I'm glad that you enjoyed your meals at Kona. Sounds like the steaks did make up for the lackluster ones you ordered at BOG. I agree with you on the raising your own kids issue. In my opinion (for what it's worth to anybody but me:rolleyes1), when you decide to have children, you are also deciding on raising your own children. Yes, most of us working folk need someone/or a daycare, to keep them when we are working. But, gosh dang it RAISE YOUR OWN CHILDREN! There are times when parents need some time alone but mostly out motto was "If our kids can't go to XYZ place with us, then we probably don't need to go." Sorry, I was ranting.

I agree that the Magic Kingdom at night is simply beautiful! (Not like it's not in the daytime.)
 
Nice pics around DHS.
I like when Jordan pops in all of the sudden. LOL. I am sure he will appreciate the shout out.
No opinion on the nanny thing as I don’t have a kid. I say to each their own.
 





You are free now Genie.

"No matter what anybody says, you'll always be a prince to me." :sad1:

RIP now Robin Williams, you'll be with us forever in our hearts as Genie.
 
I'm IN on this. I have always thought this would be a great accountability and motivational factor! I'm a reader and sometimes a poster on here. Let me know please.

but I was thinking there are several of us here who want to lose or keep off various amounts - what if we started a private Facebook group and checked in with each other daily - how much water did you drink? What did you eat? Did you do your workout? and celebrate the victories together or encourage each other to be on track. What do you think? :confused3
 
Hey there Camille! I prefer the no/low pressure approach to getting TRs done....I employ the same logic. For those of us that pass the year mark and still have not added the final period to our reports, it's all good.

That 5 pound yo-yo thing I'm very familiar with. Breaking down your bigger goal into smaller goals such as the 5 lbs it makes it so much more attainable. You're holding yourself accountable and putting yourself out there - you are BOLD my friend!! I love that! :goodvibes Keep at it and I know you will be successful! You already have a positive winning attitude. :thumbsup2

Take care my friend!
 
Hey, just catching up around here...looks like you guys were having a great time. I'm glad you enjoyed Kona--I love that place. I even love the teriyaki steak! If you guys don't want any more, I'll be happy to take it off your hands...:rolleyes1

Why couldn't the nanny take care of this? Seriously? :headache:
 
I know I need to answer some of my posts, I haven't forgotten you. :)

Tammie, I think your idea is a great idea.
If there are people wanting to do this I think we can put a page up on FB. Once I get enough requests for people wanting to participate we should do just that! :thumbsup2
Even if we have a handful of people that's all we need.
I'll let y'all think on it and you can PM me or post here if you want to be apart of it. :)

Hoping to get an update done within the week. :)
 
Day 6 May 10th Turned out to be another Magic Kingdom day!

I wish I could tell y'all this will be a day of lots of pictures and details but sadly I won't be able to do that.

You see, I took so few pictures that I honestly thought this day was our Animal Kingdom day (which happened to be the following day), for which I have plenty of pictures of. But this day, I remember the day to some extent but beyond that I'm at a loss as to why I didn't take many pictures. :rotfl:

I thought for sure I'd be able to recount the day through at least our Photopass pictures. :woohoo: Right?!? :sad2: I have one, people! Just one! :rotfl2:
No joke. That's it!

So, I'll do my best to recount the day, but I have a feeling we'll get through day 6 fairly quickly. :laughing:
Which I guess since this blasted TR is going on for well over a year now, it's probably a good thing.
I want to apologize every time I think of how long this report is taking, but then I look back at past posts and realize the timeline of things that have been going on in my life since starting it and well,.......this is just how it's turning out to be.
Helping a loved one deal with a life altering disease, a disease that turned out to be terminal has certainly taken it's toll on this here Diser.

Mix that all in with the death of that said loved one and all the crazy family drama that has came with it, well, makes me realize that I have nothing to apologize for, even though I'm still compelled to.

I do wish I was more entertaining and more lively through this report, but this is what you get folks. :laughing:
I'm nothing if I'm not honest and I do strive to be as honest as a person can possibly be.

I do however appreciate your support, all your kind, wonderful and very loving words over the last year or two. They have gotten me through some really tough times, and some really tumultuous times. I haven't shared everything here, but suffice it to say, it has not been an easy road, but one I'm prevailing through and will come out the other side a stronger woman for it.
I already feel like I'm starting to come out the other side, I feel like I'm able to come up for air without feeling like I'm being sucked back down once again. I realize that's how grief can be, but doesn't mean I like it.
I realize the holidays will be tough, but I'm anxious to take them on and keep moving forward, no matter what.
I honestly don't know if there is any other way than that. Well, yes I do, but I don't want to even entertain it, there are only options to move forward for me.......let the past be in the past, I only have eyes for the future and what it holds for me.
Isaiah 43:18-19 “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. 19Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
<heavy sigh> Comforting.

As for the TR.......

So as you may remember we came in late from MK and tried not to wake Maroo, I think we did a pretty good job, she seemed to sleep soundly through the whole thing.

The next day we were up and at'em and donned our themed outfits for our Ohana ADR that evneing.
We figured it would be an all day affair in the MK, being that it's our favorite park and I can never get enough of it, I didn't plan to come back to the room to change, so outfits for the evening it was.
Cute clothes, wish I could give you a front lit picture to show you how really cute they were, but alas I can not. Just a back lit picture. (coming up)

Mackie, Maroo and I made our way out the door to make it to the bus stop on time, we wanted to be sure to make rope drop and by golly we weren't missing it.
I think the getting up and getting into the showers were a bit easier than they usually are this morning so things went pretty smoothly for all of us. I'm pretty sure we ate breakfast in the room but I wouldn't swear to it since we were going into MK. Something about MK and breakfast calls to me, of course nothing about it will be healthy so I may have eaten something in the room after all and then I probably shared off of what ever Mackie got. :goodvibes

I know we made it to rope drop and made our way up to here....



Where we took the only pictures of the day, people.....:rotfl:













We heard the train coming down the tracks and decided it was best to jump in line to make it to the Mts. we had some Splashing to do and catch another train. ::yes::

Alllllllll aboard!



We made it over to Splash, got in line and road our favorite ride in the park....



The only other picture I have of our day in the park. :rotfl:

I know we had a full and wonderful day, we made our way around the Mts. and then the train again to the NF, road LM and visited the shop there, so many cute Beauty and the Beast things, but pricey. :scared: We noticed a couple of food carts we hadn't seen before, and then skipped Story time with Belle since that was done the night before.

I know we ventured over to Adventure land where we did some rides an then some shopping. I don't know what it is about that shop over there next to Aloha Isle, but I always love to get lost in that shop. I had forgotten my necklace for the evening so I shopped for one there and found one that I really liked. It was so cute. Let me see if I can upload it with my phone, give me a sec......



continue in next post......


 

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