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

[kittylady1972]

Once again I am so in awe of your energy and stamina lol. There is no way my kids would wait two hours in line for anything lol We had a hard time with anything over about 30 minutes lol.

I'm so in it for the snacks too!! With you there. Have never gotten the refillable popcorn bucket though...must try that next time! Looking forward to hearing about Vero Beach.

Sadly I think technology makes that wait easier these days...they have phones to keep them occupied during the wait and no need to interact with anybody, especially parents, other than to complain...then go back to the phone! Honestly we probably would not have waited if we knew for sure how long it would have been. I was thinking about an hour...and then once we reached the hour...well I felt like we were already committed to it so might as well finish it out!

Oh the popcorn is SOOO addicting...but I'm a popcorn and ice cream addict!

I'll try to do my Vero update soon. There won't be as much to talk about, and maybe not a lot of photos, but it was a good change of pace.

 

[kittylady1972]

WELCOME TO OCTOBER!

Fall temps are definitely back today, came back over the weekend. We had a GREAT day Saturday at Hershey Park with some friends, despite it being in the 60s and a bit on the chilly side. I think we have our friend well prepped for any of the Disney rides. Some of the coasters he rode at Hershey Park are way more intense than anything he'd ride at Disney for sure!

I can't believe we have 16 days to go. Wow.

Over the weekend we had people over on Sunday for football, which is our tradition, only to watch our RAVENS fall to their bitter rival. At least our friends who were there decked out in their Steelers attire weren't nasty about it. After the game, we went about planning out our trip a little more. The girls decided to take it upon themselves to work on designing t-shirts for all of us, well at least for the girls. They realized it's probably too late to order anything, so they designed something on the computer and then went out to a craft store and bought shirts and iron-on transfers. We plan to finish them up probably the weekend before we leave.

We also started planning out a New Year's Eve trip, but that won't be Walt Disney World. This year has just been one for the record books in our family, so we want to send it out and not look back. We'll see how that works out.

 

[kittylady1972]

DECEMBER UPDATE

I found some old photos recently...and it reminded me of the last time we were able to enjoy the Holidays around the World at EPCOT:

This was December 2009, the same year we also enjoyed the Candlelight Processional.

We really enjoyed this particular trip, so I'm looking forward to our December trip to revisit some of this stuff at EPCOT.

The other thing I'd LOVE to do, and have been trying to do for a while, is recreate this photo with my kids:

However we have had no luck locating this Goofy statue on any of our recent trips. It's definitely not in this location at MK any longer. One time we even stopped into Town Hall and asked...but they didn't know and thought maybe it was off for maintenance.

So if anybody has seen this Goofy statue recently, PLEASE let me know!!!

I'll definitely continue to miss this at Hollywood Studios:

So glad we saw it as many times as we did.

I know, how crazy is it that I'm already looking to the December trip, but that's because I've realized that by this WEEKEND I'll need to book our FPs for that trip. So I need a plan...and haven't really solidified that one yet.

 

[kittylady1972]

AUGUST FAREWELL TO SUMMER - DAY 4 continued

So we arrived at Vero Beach and I checked in only to learn our room wasn't ready yet but they would text me. We were told we could park underground at the building where we would be staying, so we headed over there.




We had a room on the first floor, we parked and already I had a message that the room was ready, but they couldn't text me...I needed to come back to the front desk. It was really raining but we headed over there and just checked out the main building while I got our room number. Then we headed back to our building to unload.

The room was quite spacious:









We decided to head over to the main building area again, and to check out the beach:





Yay...beach.
ill
We then decided we should make some plans for dinner, so we did a bunch of research on local places before deciding on the Chill and Grill. It was perfect...and the service there was so friendly. While the meal wasn't the best one ever, we did enjoy our food and the service.

After a nice meal, we headed back to the resort and the kids wanted to check out the pool. It was warm enough for them...and it was close to closing...so we headed over.





I sat in a nearby chair and was hanging out, but I was finding myself getting attacked but what I assume had to be noseeums. UGH! I finally had to leave, and the kids went with me, so we weren't there too long.

Back at the room we just showered and chilled. The kids were determined to get up early the next morning to see if they could see turtle nests on the beach.

 

[kittylady1972]

A little birdie returned home yesterday....and gosh I wish I knew where it has been!

So we opened the mail yesterday and I had a package there waiting for me...inside was my SUNPASS!

I don't know if I shared this story, but in August, just as we were about to walk out the door to the airport, I realized that one of the items on my TO DO list before we left was to grab our Florida Sunpass, because I knew we'd be doing some extra driving around Florida on toll roads. I always keep it in the same place at home and it wasn't there so I assumed DH had it...he didn't. I quickly scoured several places where I thought it *COULD* be with no luck...and eventually had to give up. I KNEW we had it with us on the May trip, and I SWEAR I recalled us grabbing it as we got out of the rental car. That is possible. However where has it been since May? Nobody knows!

Apparently it was turned in to the Sunpass people and they in turn mailed it back to me. I have no idea if it still works. I did check my online account and the only charges on it are from our May trip, so I assume it has NOT been in a vehicle. I really don't know. I just thought it was great that it was returned to me...just in time for our next trip!

It's possible we had it in a bag and it fell out in airport security and perhaps it's been there ever since? Honestly I have no idea.

At least now when we are driving around our 12 passenger VAN in two weeks we won't have to stop for tolls! Yay!

 

[kittylady1972]

And now, for your convenience, I have links to the major updates for each of our 2017 trips located here now:

Healing at our Happy Place THE LINKS!

 

[kittylady1972]

And now for some MORE good news...well mostly good I guess. Our dog spent the day at the vet yesterday and the end results of the tests they ran all day is that she does NOT test positive for Cushings.

So on the bright side...this saves us in trying to think about all of those possible treatments. Of course the vet's message said a SMALL percentage of dogs sometimes can have it and they CAN run another test to check OR they can try another CAT scan to see if they can see anything new from the last one the dog had which showed some slight issues but nothing definitive. Anyway, those of you with pets...you know how tough this can be to wonder what to do for them. On the one hand, 8 years old is pretty young for a dog but yet at the same time it's a bit beyond the point where we are willing to spend lots of money on extensive tests that may or may not provide us answers and/or a way forward. Our main concern is making sure she is happy and not in pain and to try to work through the new issue she is having with losing control of her bladder.

Anyway...I think for now we are going to continue on the current path which is use some drops I found online at a pet health store that people said made a difference in their pet overall. Honestly since we started giving them to her just a day or two ago, we've seen some slight improvements, and while they are not exactly cheap, they aren't quite as expensive as tests/dog specialists and other drugs. It's so hard to know when you are making the right decision when it comes to a pet, and with 5 of them in our house, they are members of our family.

************

This news was received by us yesterday while DH and I headed out to dinner for a very quick dinner celebration for our 19 year wedding anniversary. Sadly we only had time for a very quick dinner, as I had obligations to my daughter's dance studio that evening and then we came home and it was business as normal, getting stuff done around the house and then bedtime. DH is asking what we will plan to do next year for our 20 year anniversary, and I've informed him that we have plans to go to Hawaii in the summer with some other friends and our family and I'm considering THAT an early 20-year anniversary celebration. I don't even want to think about what we'll pay in airfare for that, but we'll deal with that after the New Year.

And speaking of the New Year, we are also trying to come up with some way to have a fun New Year's Eve celebration this year with friends and family. We are exploring some options, seeing who might be interested, but haven't narrowed it down yet. Right now we are leaning towards a ski resort somewhere.

So that's our current planning, but nothing new on the Disney front. We are now TWO WEEKS AWAY as of today...and can't wait!

 

[kittylady1972]

DECEMBER TRIP UPDATE

Ok so over the weekend was Fastpass+ time for our early December trip. Since we already have 5 days of FPs booked for October (next WEEK!) we could only do two days for our December trip. Priority was FOP of course, and I managed to get that for Saturday afternoon which worked out perfectly because I currently have a Tusker House reservation for lunch that same day.

I asked DH what other FPs he wanted, knowing that the big ones we would have to do would be Frozen or 7DMT, and he decided he'd be okay with skipping either one of those this trip. Instead I booked Test Track, because he mentioned Soarin' but I realize that lately the waits for that haven't been horrible so doing that one standby is probably okay these days.

So of our current 3 full days of parks, we have FPs for two of those days. Since we arrive late on a Wednesday, we may try to hit MK that evening and do stuff that night, just like our trip next week. We have yet to book our flight home on Sunday, though I've pretty much told DH I won't leave any earlier than 7pm or 8pm to allow us as much of Sunday as possible. I hate that he wants to do the 8pm flight, because that will be more expensive in cost. I can use more of my miles to make the trip less expensive, but I hate to do that. I probably won't have a choice though.

*********************

In other news, we leave for our October trip in 8 DAYS!

 

[kittylady1972]

OCTOBER TRIP UPDATE

So we had friend over this weekend to watch RAVENS football once again. This time our team won, which is always nice. While there, some of the girls for the upcoming trip were over and they decided to finish making t-shirts. I don't think I mentioned that last weekend the girls gave up on their idea of ordering us tshirts for the trip, but they went out and purchased some tshirts for all of the girls/women and decided to design and make tshirts instead. Here is the finished product:



The colors don't come through very well with this lighting, but the shirts are a nice blue color.

They are very excited and the plan is for all of us (the girls/women) to wear these shirts on the one day that most of us plan to be together, which is Thursday at EPCOT.

The boys have no desire to wear matching shirts and that's okay.

I bought a tshirt for DH to wear that should arrive today.

Pretty nice that the girls (ages 17, 15, 14 and 12) all worked together to get these planned out and done.

We also bought a few shirts from Target for some of us to wear. I bought one for my daughter which she and two of the other girls will wear which is a Halloween themed Mickey shirt. We also bought sweatshirts that should be ready today for pickup that will allow 5 of us to match.

Oh and I also ordered gift cards for each of the kids. Since they won't be able to charge using their Magicbands this trip, I decided to get each kid a $50 Disney Gift Card that they can use in the parks when they aren't with us to order things like snacks and drinks. Hopefully that will be enough to get them through the times they are not with us and want/need something to eat/drink. I liked ordering them through the Disney store because they had a better variety of designs to choose so each card is different.

I think that's about it for our October update!

 

[piglet1979]

The shirt looks awesome.

 

[KathyM2]

Great update! You have so much Disney to keep track of, love it!! The shirts look great! Also your room at Vero looked amazing!

You said your kids won't be able to charge on the MB's? Is that for some reason other than you don't want them going crazy? Just curious!

 

[Jenny Sanders]

The tee is super cute!!!!! Have a tron of fun at Disney next week and I can't wait to hear all about it!!!

 

[kittylady1972]

The shirt looks awesome.

Thanks! I can't take credit at all since the girls did all of the work. We'll be wearing them on our first full Disney day!

Great update! You have so much Disney to keep track of, love it!! The shirts look great! Also your room at Vero looked amazing!

You said your kids won't be able to charge on the MB's? Is that for some reason other than you don't want them going crazy? Just curious!

Yes that house at Vero was pretty nice. I could see us going again and staying longer.

As for the MBs, the reason the kids can't charge on them for THIS trip in October is because we are staying at Shades of Green, which isn't a true "Disney" resort. They can still use the MBs they have, since we have tons from past trips and the park tickets are linked to those. However charging to a Shades of Green room isn't possible as the MBs aren't linked to the rooms at SOG. I would trust them with charging, they've done it before.

The tee is super cute!!!!! Have a tron of fun at Disney next week and I can't wait to hear all about it!!!

Thanks! Yes we are so excited...can't believe it's almost time!

 

[kittylady1972]

DECEMBER TRIP UPDATE

So I finally bit the bullet the other night, after a few weeks of price watching, and bought our return flight tickets for December. They really weren't dropping in price, even with the current big SWA sale, so I figured it was best to get them now while they were somewhat reasonable. If they drop, I can always get a credit on SWA but for now we have a late night return flight on Sunday booked. Two kids booked with my SWA points, and 3 paid in cash. Our flight down to Orlando is actually on JetBlue.

It does feel good to have that done, still wish I could talk my FIL into going, but I just don't see that happening. It's a shame because the flight prices really are pretty good right now. I wish I had the time off to take another quick trip myself!

 

[kittylady1972]

Planning ahead for 2018

So I know it's only 2017, but it can't hurt to do some early planning right?

Last year as part of my oldest son's 17 birthday gift, I told him he could choose ANY Disney tour he wanted and we would do it. There were so many to choose, some we've done and some we haven't and he just couldn't decide on one and still hasn't.

Honestly what I think would appeal to him even better, and I mentioned it recently, is the Dine with an Imagineer. The kid LOVES to draw and he's very good at it. I think he gets a lot of that talent from my mom who was also very good and loved to paint. I knew that booking that would be very very difficult though.

Today I started going through the calendar for it...and snagged a reservation for April 2018.

Since his 18th birthday is the end of March, I'm thinking of surprising him with a short trip, just the two of us, to do this lunch and a little bit of park time.

That means...we at least need to renew OUR annual passes for that trip. We've already talked about renewing since we plan a return trip for next Thanksgiving...and this should solidify that plan.

So looks like another PTR is on the horizon for our 2018 trips before we've finished our 2017 trips!

 

[Jenny Sanders]

LOVE IT!!!!

 

[Elizabeth Smith]

I just got caught up with all 17 pages of this PTR/TR. Whew. I have really enjoyed it. Seems like you've had a tough year to say the least. I'm happy for you and your family that you can have several trips to Disney throughout the year to help you cope/look forward.

 

[kittylady1972]

I just got caught up with all 17 pages of this PTR/TR. Whew. I have really enjoyed it. Seems like you've had a tough year to say the least. I'm happy for you and your family that you can have several trips to Disney throughout the year to help you cope/look forward.

Thanks for joining in and reading. Yes it's been an interesting 2017 for sure but we continue to make the best of it when possible!

 

[kittylady1972]

I know it's not just me, but this sounds GREAT to me right now:



We all know it's always subject to change. I've told everybody to PACK RAINGEAR because it WILL RAIN! It won't deter us though.

Fall has finally hit here in Maryland...for now. I think we are in the 60s during the day. Sunny and 80s would be nice but I'll take partly cloudy if I have to do so.

FIVE MORE DAYS!

 

[Jenny Sanders]

Sounds beautiful!