145 Middle Schoolers: Wicked Awesome or Epic Fail???DeParting-Such Sweet Sorrow p. 76

[DrMomof3]

It all looks great!!!
We have family friends with a house in Maine on Belgrade Lakes. We went a few years ago with the kids. It's lovely but an 8 hour drive and the house wasn't child-proof. At all. I'd love to go back to Maine but maybe someplace further South (shorter drive) and on the coast....

Amanda

 

[JanetMom]

Sounds like you have had an amazing week!

Thanks for sharing the pictures with us - makes me want to plan a vacation to the Boston area.

 

[luvpoohandcompany]

Good to see you're taking it easy Dee

Love all the photos. Seriously, more than a wee bit jealous of all the things you've been able to do in your own area-makes where I live seem dull!

 

[jenseib]

Looks liek this was the good kind of busy!
How fun. I love your pictures and the beach ones look extra fun.

 

[mickeystoontown]

The zoo, water park and beach look like fun times! I so wish we had something "interesting" to do nearby. The closest water park is 100 miles away and the closest theme park is about 4 hours away. So, there are lots of boring Summer days around the McBride household.

 

[Ninja Mom]

Where are the boogie boards at the beach?

AND... those suitcase lockers look like they are good for hiding bodies if we still need to stash one over on the BC/YC thread....

Thanks for sharing your other trips with us!

~NM

 

[natebenma]

It all looks great!!!
We have family friends with a house in Maine on Belgrade Lakes. We went a few years ago with the kids. It's lovely but an 8 hour drive and the house wasn't child-proof. At all. I'd love to go back to Maine but maybe someplace further South (shorter drive) and on the coast....

Amanda

I'm not familiar with Belgrade Lakes. Sounds like a super stressful getaway! Too much time in a car and having to be hyper-alert that the kids didn't get into anything.

There are some nice places in Maine. Never been, but I hear that Acadia is wonderful (probably even further than Belgrade, though) and a bunch of people on the FAQ thread seem to love Ogunquit.

Sounds like you have had an amazing week!

Thanks for sharing the pictures with us - makes me want to plan a vacation to the Boston area.

We had an awesome week. I'm so glad that Ben still enjoys doing all of these things. We don't get that enthusiasm from the teen anymore!

Good to see you're taking it easy Dee

Love all the photos. Seriously, more than a wee bit jealous of all the things you've been able to do in your own area-makes where I live seem dull!

This trip report installment has been brought to you by the New England tourist board...

I love where we live. We are 15-20 minutes from 3 different beaches, about an hour from Boston, a couple of hours from the mountains and we have fun activities like the water park, the York Zoo, another large amusement park (Canobie Lake) all around 30 minutes away.

The winters s*ck, though! (We don't ski)

Looks liek this was the good kind of busy!
How fun. I love your pictures and the beach ones look extra fun.

Totally fun week. I wouldn't have minded doing the boat camp Nate did, either. It was a beautiful week to be out on the water as well as the activities we did.

I adore the beach. I have salt water in my veins. I love the sights, sounds, smells of the seacoast. Ben loves the ocean too.

The zoo, water park and beach look like fun times! I so wish we had something "interesting" to do nearby. The closest water park is 100 miles away and the closest theme park is about 4 hours away. So, there are lots of boring Summer days around the McBride household.

I find it hard to believe that there has ever been a boring day around your household!

They may not be a hop, skip and a jump away, but you have certainly had some amazing road trips down your way!

Where are the boogie boards at the beach?

AND... those suitcase lockers look like they are good for hiding bodies if we still need to stash one over on the BC/YC thread....

Thanks for sharing your other trips with us!

~NM

OK- I totally snorted!



Bad, bad mom. I didn't bring any of our boogie boards. Quite a few people had them though, they just didn't make it into the pictures.

 

[ddluvsdisney]

What a totally FUN week!
We went to the beach a couple of days last week too. One day it was foggy almost the whole time. But like I say there is never a bad day at the beach.
We were suppose to go to N.H.(Attitash and such) this week but with the interviews and potential other one not scheduled yet, we didn't want to committ to any days just in case.
The boys are disappointed
So DH is bringing DS11 to Pats practice tomorrow (DS15 could care less).
I wanted to bring DS15 to do something- he loves kayaking(friends of ours live right on the river-he loves going with them) so I may bring him to do that.
If no interview Thurs., we may go to Water Wizz (closer water park to us than Water Country).
I emailed you back yesterday

 

[Caboosey]

I'm enjoying your trip report - it sounds like the plan to break the huge group into smaller ones worked well (at least so far!) And I love your idea of getting coffee the night before to have iced coffee in the morning - such a good idea!

 

[MHTeacher]

Sounds like a fun and busy week! Glad your boys are enjoying the last weeks of summer vacation!

 

[AnjieNet]

Wow, looks like you all had an amazing week!!

 

[natebenma]

What a totally FUN week!
We went to the beach a couple of days last week too. One day it was foggy almost the whole time. But like I say there is never a bad day at the beach.
We were suppose to go to N.H.(Attitash and such) this week but with the interviews and potential other one not scheduled yet, we didn't want to committ to any days just in case.
The boys are disappointed
So DH is bringing DS11 to Pats practice tomorrow (DS15 could care less).
I wanted to bring DS15 to do something- he loves kayaking(friends of ours live right on the river-he loves going with them) so I may bring him to do that.
If no interview Thurs., we may go to Water Wizz (closer water park to us than Water Country).
I emailed you back yesterday

We had a really fantastic week, and it was great that Ben got to invite different friends to come along. Think we are headed back to the beach with friends of ours today. My best friend, and her 3 sons. Her oldest is Nate's best friend and Ben is friends with her middle son.

Did your husband and son(s) go to the Pats practice? So excited for football season to start on Thursday! We haven't been to Patriot's Place yet, but we hope to take the boys in a week or so.

Have a blast if you make it to the water park.

I'm enjoying your trip report - it sounds like the plan to break the huge group into smaller ones worked well (at least so far!) And I love your idea of getting coffee the night before to have iced coffee in the morning - such a good idea!

The smaller groups were so much easier to handle. The only problem was that my smaller group did not include my son, which was just fine with him.

I swear, I was obsessing for weeks about what I was going to do about the coffee. I'm one of those people who can't make my coffee without coffee. I seriously considered bringing a coffee maker for the room, but I know they are noisy and I didn't want to disturb my roommate. I was pretty happy with my solution, although I prefer hot coffee to iced in the morning.

Sounds like a fun and busy week! Glad your boys are enjoying the last weeks of summer vacation!

It was an awesome week! Great weather. Fun day trips.

We still have several weeks of vacation. We got out of school at the end of June and we start up after labor day (Tues Sept 4). Your school starts up pretty soon, doesn't it?

Wow, looks like you all had an amazing week!!

Totally fun week! My husband joined us for one outing, but I feel a little guilty that I have the opportunity to have fun every day while he is out working. He has already left for work this morning and he asked me if we are doing anything. "Beach" I said sheepishly!

.

 

[EastYorkDisneyFan]

Anyone notice the hidden mickey on the brown and white goat in this picture?

 

[natebenma]

Anyone notice the hidden mickey on the brown and white goat in this picture?

Nope, totally missed that!

Thanks for pointing it out.

And

 

[natebenma]

I love that my camera puts an invisible time stamp on the pictures I take. It really makes it easy to figure out the timeline of when things happened even if I didn't take detailed notes.

It appears that we got back to the resort at 3:20. I went back to my room to change into my swimsuit. This is what the pool looked like at 3:30:

That would be fine, except that there was lightning and thunder, so the pool closed down. Everyone went back to their rooms to chill out.

I may have done some reading, or more likely caught up on my emails and the DIS on my phone.

Here is the view of the weather from my room:

We reconvened with our group at 6 for dinner. Since this was prime time (pun not intended) for dinner, it took a little longer tonight to get our meals, about 15 minutes, still not horrible. The pizza line was having big issues. They couldn’t keep up with the orders and then one of the CMs gave away some pizzas intended for someone who had been waiting quite awhile to someone else. Yikes!

My order was a toasted Italian sandwich with pasta salad and my favorite Disney dessert.

While we ate, we discussed our plans for the evening. What the boys really wanted to do was stay back at the resort and go to the pool since they didn’t get a chance to swim that afternoon. But the administration had told the chaperones that everyone HAD to leave the resort and go somewhere tonight.

Earlier in the day, MK was discussed as a destination. Sounded good to Nate and his friend, especially since we hadn’t had a chance to ride Big Thunder Mountain. But one of the chaperones suggested heading to Downtown Disney for an hour or so, then coming back to the resort to swim.

ICK!

I’m not a big fan of DTD. I don’t enjoy shopping and really don’t love to spend time in stores. I tolerate the Lego store because it has awesome creations and Ben absolutely loves it. But Ben was not there. Those of you who are here from the BC/YC FAQ thread know that I detest the return DTD bus so much that I have devised an elaborate scheme to avoid it at all costs. I couldn’t imagine how difficult it would be to keep track of the 14 boys in that situation. I was seriously nervous.

So around 7:15 we found ourselves at the bus stop in the line for DTD. One boy piped up and said “I wouldn’t mind going to the Magic Kingdom if anyone else wants to go”. Anyone want to go? A couple of boys were wishy-washy.

“I’ll go if you want to go” “I don’t care” “Do you want to go?”

As the DTD bus pulled up, I was able to recruit 4 boys and 1 other chaperone who wanted to break from the group and head to Magic Kingdom. I handed over the other 10 boy ID cards and kept all of the park tickets since they wouldn’t need them.

Good luck and Godspeed to the rest of the group.

Reports from DTD are that the group went to the World of Disney store, the Lego Store and the kids played in the splash fountains and then came back
to swim.

The chaperone who joined me was the other Disney expert. She really didn’t want to go to DTD either, so the two of us were elated on the bus ride over to the MK. 2 Chaperones. 4 boys. I’ll take those odds.

Next up: FP trek and the Least Wildest Ride in Wilderness

 

[ddluvsdisney]

Why was that chaperone able to make the decision on where to go?? Glad you were able to get to MK instead woo hop!! I like DTD but I like to shop. But if I had to choose between the 2 it woul be MK! To bad About the lightning. Kids never change they still wanna swim at the resort rather than go to a park no matter how old they get!! Lol
We ended up driving to NH yesterday morning!! I found out my interview would be Mon. So we packed up and left yay!!!! I was so happy. We were driving down Kancamangus hwy. stopping at the falls and scenic viewing areas along the way (ya know for mom). And all I heard was when are we getting to the hotel so we can go swimming???? They could have swam in the beautiful Swift/Saco river (not sure which it is) but the water was to cold for them. Big babies!! The water was actually the warmest I've ever felt it. You could tell its been a hot summer.

 

[eandesmom]

DTD is a funny place. Typically we skip it or try to do ninja shopping at targeted places around ADRs. This trip for the first time, we took our time with it. And can say we did and I can now skip it the next time or go back to ninja shopping with no guilt! I will say that daytime was vastly better than night to knock it out due to lower crowds.

Yay for MK!

Lightening closures suck and always happen at the wrong time!

 

[MHTeacher]

We still have several weeks of vacation. We got out of school at the end of June and we start up after labor day (Tues Sept 4). Your school starts up pretty soon, doesn't it?
.

I have to go to work for teacher in-service next Monday and Tuesday. I'll have kids on Wednesday the 15th. The first day will be a half day, then Thursday we'll be back at it!

I’m not a big fan of DTD. I don’t enjoy shopping and really don’t love to spend time in stores.

The chaperone who joined me was the other Disney expert. She really didn’t want to go to DTD either, so the two of us were elated on the bus ride over to the MK. 2 Chaperones. 4 boys. I’ll take those odds.

Shopping is ok, if I have a destination in mind and something in particular I"m looking for. I do not like to wander around "just looking."

Glad it all worked out for you in getting to avoid DTD. I'll take MK over DTD any day!

 

[luvpoohandcompany]

I have to admit I like DTD. Mostly I like sitting with my husband at the marguerita bar listening to disney movie soundtracks while we have an adult drink and the kids eat whatever creations they made in Goofy candy shop. I will say though that I love it more when we are staying at Lake Buena Vista and its walking distance-hate that dtd bus service-ugh

I'm with you though that Magic Kingdom would win hands down

 

[bookgirl]

I'm not a huge shopper. By that I mean I usually have an ideal what I want. So I go to that place and buy that thing, then I'll make a run through any other place that catches my eye. I do not browse well. I can do the whole of DTD in less than an hour, and that's with my version of browsing.

MK sounds like a much better plan, expecially since what's a trip to WDW with out Big Thunder.