The Disney Grump & Family Take on the World-Our '09 Christmas w/ the Mouse, COMPLETE

OOOO I'm glad you were able to have your Wishes cruise! That would have been sad to miss! Hummm, some foreboding for your DH and the fish.... doesn't sound good. :sad2:
 
Yes, I know what you mean.....But then you could start a PTR for your mother/daughter trip........:rolleyes1

I like that idea!!! ::yes::

I've never done a PTR, not sure I could make it interesting enough to keep it going for the next two months! I'll think about it - you girls promise to come over and help it not flop???

OOOO I'm glad you were able to have your Wishes cruise! That would have been sad to miss! Hummm, some foreboding for your DH and the fish.... doesn't sound good. :sad2:

Yes, I was very glad not to have to miss the cruise!

Bad fish story coming right up.........
 
Sunday, December 27th, Departure Day

So, I'm not sure when it started, but at some point during the night I woke up to some awful noises coming from the bathroom. It wasn't Justin, it wasn't Jared, it was Don. Seems as though his too fishy fish, was actually bad. He spent the rest of the night and into the next morning rushing to the bathroom. :sad2:

In the morning I got up and got myself ready, woke the kids and they got ready as well. Don was still feeling awful and was not capable of being away from a toilet for any length of time. So, I went down to the gift shop and bought him some medicine. When I got back and after he had had about another 30 minutes to rest, I told him I hated to be this way, but he was going to have to get up and get ready. We had to be out of the room by 11:00, and I needed to finish packing up and get the bags to the lobby for airline check in.

I had been looking forward to today because I was supposed to be meeting up with Brook (brookelizabeth) and Anita (wigdoutdismom). The plan was to meet them sometime that morning at Club Cool at Epcot. I wasn't sure what our time table would be at this point, so I sent Brook a text and told her that Don was sick and I wasn't sure what time we would be there. She sent one back that they had had a change of plans that day anyway and were now at DHS. So, I then contacted Anita and told her our DIS meet plan had fallen through. I was sad that it wasn't going to work out. :sad:

I took the boys down to the food court and we all had some cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Then went back to check on Don. He told us that he was doing a bit better, but that he was in no condition to walk around a park that day. He told us to go on without him, he would just spend the day catching up with his work email in the lobby. I felt bad for him, we weren't supposed to catch the ME bus until 5:30, that's a long time to just sit in the lobby. But he had his laptop and a book and said he would be fine.

I contemplated going to DHS to see if maybe we could still meet up with Brook, but the boys had been dying to try Club Cool and they wanted to go there instead. So we caught a bus to Epcot. At this point, I really wanted to contact Anita again to let her know what we were doing, but I didn't want her to change her plans up on account of me not being able to make up my mind so I didn't. Of course, I know now that she and Happydog were just wandering around WS that day - I should have called!!
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When we arrived at Epcot we stopped off to say hi to Stitch, all the other characters out had big long lines, but Stitch was standing over there all by his lonesome.

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We were late getting to the park so we knew that rides were probably out of the question. We had not yet been into Innoventions West, so we headed in there first. The boys found a station with PS3 games, so they were set for awhile.

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I took a load off and just hung out while they played. Next we did the Piggy Bank game.

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And then finally went over to Club Cool to try out the sodas. We looked them over and I said to Justin, 'oh look, they have one from Italy, we should try that since Dad likes Italy so much'.
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Justin's first taste of Beverly.......

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Somehow, Jared was talked into trying it too.....

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He! He! I'm such a mean mom!! :lmao:

Picture by the fountain after we left Club Cool

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It was now time for lunch so we went over to the Electric Umbrella, I don't remember what we had - I want to say I had a salad and the boys had chicken strips, I didn't write it down so I can't say for sure! After that we went into Mouse Gears and I bought a shirt and a couple of antenna toppers. The park was really really crowded today, and we were ready to get the heck out of there, so we decided to exit through the International Gateway and go check out the holiday decorations at the Boardwalk hotels.

I took a couple of pictures on the way out

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Then we made our way over to the Beach Club

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Continued in the next post.....
 
I loved the Gingerbread Carousel, and the boys had a great time trying to find all the hidden Mickey's!

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Tree at the Beach Club

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Next we went over to the Yacht Club

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After that it was the Boardwalk Inn

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The clown slide is even creepier in person - yikes!!

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Once we got our fill of the Boardwalk hotels, we decided to head over to DHS. I had always wondered what the walk was like from the Boardwalk to DHS, so instead of taking the boat, we walked. It really wasn't bad at all! Soon we arrived and we stopped to get something to drink, then said hi to Bo. In our rush to get to TSMM on Wednesday, we had totally passed him by!

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Continued in the next post....
 


We walked down Sunset Blvd. and checked the wait times for ToT & RnRC.

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They weren't terrible, both just over an hour I think, but we weren't in the mood to stand in line. Instead we went over and waited for the next Beauty and Beast show to start. The boys hadn't seen this since their first trip, so they didn't remember much about it. We all really enjoyed it! We were towards the back of the theater - gotta love that zoom lens!

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After Beauty and the Beast we went to the Animation Studio to see if we could get in to draw a character. The holding area for the next session was completely full and the line waiting was long enough that we probably wouldn't get in the next group either, which meant we were probably over an hour away from getting to draw - not gonna happen!

So instead we met Frozone

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Then did the 'what character are you' station. This time Justin was Timon, Jared Buzz and I was Mulan.

We decided to leave the Animation Building and get a snack, we had one snack credit left that we needed to use up. We waited in a line about 10 deep just to get a pretzel. After finishing our pretzel we decided to leave. We still had time before we had to catch ME, but for the first time ever, I was ready to leave WDW. I don't know if it was because the day hadn't gone as planned, or if the dreary weather that day was getting to me or if the crowds had finally done me in, but I was ready to go home.

We got back to the resort and met up with Don. He was feeling better, but still hadn't attempted to eat anything - he wasn't that brave! The rest of us were hungry though, so we went into the food court. I had a burger, Justin the taco salad and Jared had grilled cheese. We sat in the food court and watched the Disney channel until it was time to catch the bus back to the airport.

Our travel back to Dallas was uneventful. Flight was on time, bags all arrived, we called the hotel shuttle once we landed and didn't have to wait long at all for it to get there. We did however, have a crazy lady on the shuttle with us! We had to wait and wait for her to show, when she got there she went on and on about how it was too cold so she had to go back inside where she waited for the hotel people to call her and let her know the shuttle was there and waiting for her. She was staying at the hotel next to ours and the driver dropped us off first. She was on the outside seat next to the door and when we got there she just sat in her seat, didn't move. We finally told her we needed to get out and she huffed and got out of the van. She told the driver it was too much trouble for her to get back into the van and that she would just walk the rest of the way. Seriously, too much trouble to sit back down????? She told him just to drive her bag over the hotel and meet her there. Of course, the van got to the hotel before she did - she was crazy I tell ya!

We spent the night in Dallas, then got up early the next morning and drove home (after stopping at Chick-Fil-A for a breakfast of chicken biscuits - yum! Don got one and it didn't bother him at all, so it looked like his tummy troubles were finally over. We stopped at my mom's to pick up the dog and the boys were thrilled to see that there was still so much snow left from the Christmas Eve storm

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And Abby was thrilled to see us - look at that smile!

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We got home and I couldn't believe the snow drifts around our house. Most of the snow out in the yard had melted, but up close to the house and to the fence it was still very deep. This is the backyard - that's a trampoline buried under all that snow

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And the front

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Good thing we could enter through the garage and didn't have to walk around to the front door!

After we got all of the suitcases into the house and cranked up the heat the boys noticed that Santa had come while we were gone. They were pumped! :woohoo: We had to open gifts quickly though because Justin had to be at basketball practice in an hour - barely through the door from vacation and the running was already beginning!!

Thanks so much everyone for reading along with me - hope everyone enjoyed the report. I'll be back to give some final thoughts on WDW at Christmastime!
 
Wow! What a great trip report Michelle! I thoroughly enjoyed it. Even though I'm a world class lurker, I needed to thank you for the report!:worship: Sorry to see it all come to an end!
 
Poor Don! That really stinks to be SO sick on vacation. I guess better the last day than the first.

I can't believe you suckered the boys into trying Beverly :lmao: When we went I hadn't bothered to warn Greg in advance (he would never remember a detail like that!) and I was distracted by getting the boys and Greg just went ahead and started to guzzle. (I felt bad at first but it WAS funny!!)

Looks like a fun tour of the Epcot resorts (except for the creepy clown slide :scared:)

I think most people hit the wall at some time at Disney. I remember my last day being less than magical. It was also a gray, rainy day and my mood matched it well. Patrick was the grump that day and it was supposed to be his birthday celebration day since it was a few days away. To top it off, I wanted to ride up front of the monorail and Greg was cranky because of wet shoes and didn't want to fold the stroller so we just skipped it. Had I known I wouldn't have that chance again, I would have made him suck it up or sit by himself in the back!

Now...when is that PTR going to start?
 


Poor Don! That's awful that his last day had to be spent feeling so badly.:sick:

Those Beverly pictures were hilarious!! :lmao: I pulled it off on my DS once but didn't get a picture.:sad2:

Loved your tour of the Epcot hotels. I did have to cover my eyes when I scrolled past the clown slide though.:scared1:

I can't believe your trip is over. You've done a great job with your trip report and I've really enjoyed reading along!:goodvibes
 
Oh, Michelle, you should definitely do a PTR! I would so be there helping you have fun while you wait for your next trip!!!

Poor Don! How horrible that he was struck down on your last day at Disney. :(

What fun at Epcot, Beach Club, Yacht Club, and DHS! I do have to say -- you may know that Chelsea has a thing for Bo and always has to have her picture made with him (I can't remember if you know all that backstory or not). Anyway, I had to call her over to show her the pic of Justin and Bo. Well, let's just say, that a little lady was paying more attention to Justin than Bo this time around. :lmao::rotfl::rotfl2: She wanted to know all the particulars about him. :laughing:
 
AWESOME TR!!!!! Your pictures were just amazing, what kind of camera do you use?

I feel so bad for your DH, but at least he got sick on the LAST day of vacation and not the beginning or middle. Poor guy!

Thanks so much for sharing your trip/memories. It was a fun ride! :goodvibes
 
The faces that the boys made were priceless!!:rotfl2: I'm so sorry that the Wave caused so many tummy problems for your family. I can't beleive the snow drifts!
 
It's too bad your DIS meet didn't work out. It always makes me smile to think about possible DIS meets. I know they're kind of rare because plans change as it happened to you guys, but it really just amazes me that when it comes to DIS, it's okay to meet "strangers" from the internet!

Oh dear, if my brother finds those stations with the PS3 games, I don't think we'll be able to leave ...

The Beverly pics are great! I like that you got a bunch in quick succession!

Haha, I love that the pic you got of Belle and the rose shows that the flower is HUGE since it's a theatrical production! I can't wait to see that show.

Aww, I can't believe it's almost over!
 
- you girls promise to come over and help it not flop???

I promise--Girl Scout Honor! :thumbsup2

Poor Don---and did you manage to avoid the tummy troubles that all your boys seemed to have?

You have a beautiful family, Michelle, and I have really enjoyed reading your TR and hearing all the details of your Christmas trip ! :goodvibes
 
I loved traveling along with you and your family on this journey - great TR! :thumbsup2 but sad to see it is over. Thank you for sharing!
 
Ew, tummy troubles on the last day...no fun. I've enjoyed your TR! After your final thoughts are you going to share some more plans for your upcoming trip? Would love to hear them! :goodvibes
 
This has been a fun ride! I know how your poor husband felt, I fell victim on our last day in 06. Was not a good thing as I did not have all day to recover & was worried about my flight back to Ohio. It turned out ok, but I can tell you it was touch & go for awhile.

Glad that all made it home safely & am looking forward to your parting thoughts.
 
Wow! What a great trip report Michelle! I thoroughly enjoyed it. Even though I'm a world class lurker, I needed to thank you for the report!:worship: Sorry to see it all come to an end!

Wow, 32 posts in 10 years and I got one of them! I feel very special, thanks so much!! :goodvibes

Poor Don! That really stinks to be SO sick on vacation. I guess better the last day than the first.

I know! Stupid fish, at least that's what I'm blaming it on - could have had nothing to do with it :confused3

I can't believe you suckered the boys into trying Beverly :lmao: When we went I hadn't bothered to warn Greg in advance (he would never remember a detail like that!) and I was distracted by getting the boys and Greg just went ahead and started to guzzle. (I felt bad at first but it WAS funny!!)

He!He! It was fun tricking them into trying it - of course, I have yet to taste it myself.....

Looks like a fun tour of the Epcot resorts (except for the creepy clown slide :scared:)

Clowns are just creepy :eek:

I think most people hit the wall at some time at Disney. I remember my last day being less than magical. It was also a gray, rainy day and my mood matched it well. Patrick was the grump that day and it was supposed to be his birthday celebration day since it was a few days away. To top it off, I wanted to ride up front of the monorail and Greg was cranky because of wet shoes and didn't want to fold the stroller so we just skipped it. Had I known I wouldn't have that chance again, I would have made him suck it up or sit by himself in the back!

Now...when is that PTR going to start?

Don has sucked the fun right out of me on Disney trips a few times as well, mostly it came from me pushing too hard and not slowing down. We took things a lot slower this time around, spent plenty of time away from the parks, etc. It helped a lot. I really think I just had a bad case of the blahs that day with Don being sick, the weather was yucky, it was crowded - it was a perfect day to get me ready to go home!

I may do a PTR, just worried that I won't have much to share!


:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

What great "Grossed-Out" faces!

Poor Don! :sad2:


Kathy

Aren't they priceless?! Don saw them for the first time when he read this update and he was cracking up!

Poor Don! That's awful that his last day had to be spent feeling so badly.:sick:

Those Beverly pictures were hilarious!! :lmao: I pulled it off on my DS once but didn't get a picture.:sad2:

Loved your tour of the Epcot hotels. I did have to cover my eyes when I scrolled past the clown slide though.:scared1:

I can't believe your trip is over. You've done a great job with your trip report and I've really enjoyed reading along!:goodvibes

I felt bad for him being sick that last day, at least the medicine helped some and he had time to recover before we had to catch our flight.

I'm surprised my boys didn't wonder what I was up to when I had the camera ready as soon as the filled their cups - thankfully that weren't quick enough to pick up on that! :laughing:

The Epcot hotel tour was fun, I really enjoyed seeing all the decorations and the boys had a blast trying to find all the hidden Mickey's in the carousel and the gazebo. That clown slide is creepy! I took a quick picture of it and then looked at the boys and said 'let's get the heck out of here!' :lmao:

Oh, Michelle, you should definitely do a PTR! I would so be there helping you have fun while you wait for your next trip!!!

Poor Don! How horrible that he was struck down on your last day at Disney. :(

What fun at Epcot, Beach Club, Yacht Club, and DHS! I do have to say -- you may know that Chelsea has a thing for Bo and always has to have her picture made with him (I can't remember if you know all that backstory or not). Anyway, I had to call her over to show her the pic of Justin and Bo. Well, let's just say, that a little lady was paying more attention to Justin than Bo this time around. :lmao::rotfl::rotfl2: She wanted to know all the particulars about him. :laughing:

Don being sick that day was awful! I really felt bad for him!

I have read about Chelsea's thing for Bo in quite a few TRs, plus I went back and read your last couple of TRs, so I'm familiar with it. That is too funny that she asked about Justin! She's a cute girl, I'm sure if I showed him a picture of her I'd get some questions as well!

I think you girls may be talking me into this whole PTR thing.......
 
AWESOME TR!!!!! Your pictures were just amazing, what kind of camera do you use?

I feel so bad for your DH, but at least he got sick on the LAST day of vacation and not the beginning or middle. Poor guy!

Thanks so much for sharing your trip/memories. It was a fun ride! :goodvibes

Thanks Deanna!

I have a DSLR, Canon Rebel xsi. Don bought it for me for Christmas in 2008, I love it!

It was good and bad that Don's sickness was the last day - good because he didn't miss much, but bad because he didn't have a room to hang out in!

I see that your ticker says '1 day'!!! Can't wait to hear all the details when you get home.

The faces that the boys made were priceless!!:rotfl2: I'm so sorry that the Wave caused so many tummy problems for your family. I can't beleive the snow drifts!

The boys Beverly faces were great! :laughing:

I don't know for a fact that all the tummy problems can be blamed on The Wave, but since they all occurred at that time I don't have any fond memories of eating there!

The snow was crazy! I couldn't believe how much was still left - I can just imagine what it looked like the day we got it all :eek:

It's too bad your DIS meet didn't work out. It always makes me smile to think about possible DIS meets. I know they're kind of rare because plans change as it happened to you guys, but it really just amazes me that when it comes to DIS, it's okay to meet "strangers" from the internet!

Oh dear, if my brother finds those stations with the PS3 games, I don't think we'll be able to leave ...

The Beverly pics are great! I like that you got a bunch in quick succession!

Haha, I love that the pic you got of Belle and the rose shows that the flower is HUGE since it's a theatrical production! I can't wait to see that show.

Aww, I can't believe it's almost over!

I was bummed about the DIS meets, it just wasn't in the cards this trip. :sad2:

I was afraid we'd be at those PS3 stations all day! Thankfully, I was able to pull them away

The Beverly pics - that is a great thing about having a DSLR, the fact that you can take a rapid succession of pics like that. Works great for the boys sports as well!

I promise--Girl Scout Honor! :thumbsup2

Poor Don---and did you manage to avoid the tummy troubles that all your boys seemed to have?

You have a beautiful family, Michelle, and I have really enjoyed reading your TR and hearing all the details of your Christmas trip ! :goodvibes

No tummy troubles for me! I have a stomach like a cast iron drum - comes from my mom, we can eat anything! :laughing:

Thanks so much for reading along Michelle! I may just start that PTR.

I loved traveling along with you and your family on this journey - great TR! :thumbsup2 but sad to see it is over. Thank you for sharing!

Thanks so much for reading, I had a blast sharing the trip!
 

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