Oh the places We Go, The People We see

[jenseib]

Hi everyone. I have not dropped off the face of the earth. It's been a couple of days since I updated and I hate to go that long, but with the holidays fast approaching, life has gotten in the way. My goal is to get some more written up by the weekend, but Claire's b-day is Monday and we have a few activities this weekend to celebrate it.
I still have not gotten all my decorations out either, which is so unlike me.
I also came up with the brilliant idea of making photobooks from our family trip for family as gifts. Someone warn me not to do that again if I ever say I am going to do that in the future. it's really not THAT bad, but it takes a lot of time looking through the pictures and finding the few out of 6000 I want to use in it.
I have also had some requests for certain resort pictures from some people on facebook, so I have been to try and get those edited and up there lately as well.
I also took some fat Ben pictures (if you follow Dees Amazing adventures of Flat Ben thread you know who he is) and I am slowly but surely working on some of those photos to send to her as well.

So please forgive me and know that I will be back soon.

 

[JKSWonder]

Ack! I cannot believe I missed the start of this. I blame Superstorm Sandy (we had no power for 12 days and I'm still dealing with house issues), Thanksgiving, and then the onset of December/Christmas panic!

I am now going back to read from the beginning.

 

[jenseib]

Ack! I cannot believe I missed the start of this. I blame Superstorm Sandy (we had no power for 12 days and I'm still dealing with house issues), Thanksgiving, and then the onset of December/Christmas panic!

I am now going back to read from the beginning.

Thats OK. I am going really slow anyways

 

[JKSWonder]

Well, I'm all caught up now.

We loved AKL. We stayed there for two days prior to our 2010 Magic cruise. I had booked just a regular old standard room, but we were surprised with an upgrade to a savannah view that had bunk beds for the kids. It was really nice.

 

[brookelizabeth]

For the past 3 Christmas' I have given my MIL a calendar with pictures of us, mostly Henry, so she can see him everyday since we live so far away. She LOVES this, but I know just how you feel - it takes FOREVER. You really have to dedicate several hours to it of sifting through pictures and all that.

Speaking of it all...I should really work on it.

 

[lovethattink]

Your pictures of AKL are great! Looks like you had the whole place to yourselves. I love eating at Mara, but the rest of my family doesn't. Their butternut squash soup is so good and sweet, very unlike any other butternut squash soup I have ever had.

 

[jenseib]

Well, I'm all caught up now.

We loved AKL. We stayed there for two days prior to our 2010 Magic cruise. I had booked just a regular old standard room, but we were surprised with an upgrade to a savannah view that had bunk beds for the kids. It was really nice.

Thats awesome. Claire really wanted a Savanah room once we got there, but I told I just got the cheapest room I could since it was only one day and we could walk around and look at animals. We were pleasantly surprised with our room view though.

For the past 3 Christmas' I have given my MIL a calendar with pictures of us, mostly Henry, so she can see him everyday since we live so far away. She LOVES this, but I know just how you feel - it takes FOREVER. You really have to dedicate several hours to it of sifting through pictures and all that.

Speaking of it all...I should really work on it.

I have done calendars a few times too.
I am happy to say that I am almost done with the book. ....I hope and think. I am having issues with my cover picture and of course photoshop froze when I thought of a way to overcome my issues. LOL

 

[StitchIsOurHero]

Your post reminded me that I've got to work on the calendar for my mom, too! It does take forever--or maybe I'm just slow! loving your report! Happy early birthday to your DD!!

 

[jenseib]

Your post reminded me that I've got to work on the calendar for my mom, too! It does take forever--or maybe I'm just slow! loving your report! Happy early birthday to your DD!!

I am happy to say I got them done this morning and ordered 6. It came to just under $100 for all 6 with shipping, which seems like a lot, but actually I got a discount of buy 1 get 2 free (plus shipping) and when I calculated it out including the shipping it came to $16.50ish for each book. Not bad since they were listed at $29.99 each plus shipping.

 

[Caretames1]

So you are going as slow as me! YAY!!!

And while I managed to get all the darn lights cut off the tree, it's still not up......UGH.

I really wish I would have been home and knew about American Girl sale. I would have gotten the bed and a doll. That's work, getting in my way again!
Claire will be thrilled!


AKL is just overwhelming! In a good way of course. We've never stopped by it either, but maybe someday.

Ah, swimming, I think Kadence asked is she could swim within minutes of us seeing the Big Blue pool.

 

[jenseib]

So you are going as slow as me! YAY!!!

And while I managed to get all the darn lights cut off the tree, it's still not up......UGH.

I really wish I would have been home and knew about American Girl sale. I would have gotten the bed and a doll. That's work, getting in my way again!
Claire will be thrilled!


AKL is just overwhelming! In a good way of course. We've never stopped by it either, but maybe someday.

Ah, swimming, I think Kadence asked is she could swim within minutes of us seeing the Big Blue pool.

yeah, I decided the basement tree is not going up this year. I just don't feel like cleaning the spot to put it and dragging it all out. We have 2 big trees up already in the house and several small ones.
We don't have any parties here this year, so no one will even know the difference.

I have an update ready for tomorrow. I might do a double one if I get enough pictures updated.

We got my first order of the 2 Marie Grace Dolls yesterday. It says the other doll will arrive tomorrow.
You know I was half tempted to buy a few extra and see if anyone wanted them. not for a profit, just the cost of it, plus shipping. I knew some people missed out on it and when I ordered it was a breeze. About an hour later all heck let loose and people couldn't hardly get the site to work.

We had our family party (at a restaurant) tonight for Claire's b-day, which is tomorrow. She got soo much stuff. I told her we might as well skip Christmas, but she didn't agree.

 

[jenseib]

Pool Time!!!!!

Claire really like the zero entry.
I was then given instructions. I am sure if you are a Mom, or even a Dad, you know about these “rules” you have to follow. I was to walk to the other side of the pool and then “wait” and watch her come in from the zero entry side. Of course she made it much more complicated and there was a reason for this, though I am not sure what it was. I did as I was told and then watched (and took pictures) of her coming in.

I settled on a chair and pulled out my kindle, took my shoes off and relaxed a few minutes and shot a few pictures as well.

I then kind of looked out and around for the slide and spotted it. I found it and pointed it out to Claire. I now had new rules. I had to move close to the slide so she could swim over there and go on it. I told her I could see her just fine from where I was, but that was not the correct answer. I NEEDED to be over near the slide. I am sure this had to do with a bit of the jitters about going on the slide for the 1st time by herself.
So I gathered my stuff and moved over a little ways closer to the slide.

I settled in once again. Claire slowly swam over. Like I said, I think she was nervous and excited about going on the slide. I took some pictures while I waited for the “moment”.

That is the pool bar over on the other side.

And now the moment we all have been waiting for. She is going to go on the slide!!!

I was supposed to take a picture of her coming down, but it was hard to see and then time it right. I think this is her head just going under.

That was not good enough for her and I had to keep trying off and on all day long.

I liked this sign, too bad it’s kind of hidden.

 

[jenseib]

So Claire’s goal was to go down the slide as many times as she could, and I was supposed to take a picture of her each and every time.

Ok, after about 50 times down, I told her that I think I could sit down now as I am sure I got at least a couple of pictures with her in it.

I loved that the resort had free wifi, and though it’s not the best and I would lose it every so often, it was great to take my kindle out and try to catch up on facebook. Sadly facebook doesn’t always like me and at times I try to post and it tells me it can’t be done. I had this issue at home and thought maybe it was my connection there, but it did it to me at Disney as well, so it’s just me in general that isn’t liked. LOL

Claire had spent about a half hour of going down the slide and then she wanted to go check out the hot tub.

And we saw a little creepy crawler friend.

We decided it was time to explore a bit.

And we found some Flamingos.

Off in the distance, these guys were resting.

More Flamingos.

A view of the lodge from here.

 

[dizneeat]

Love the slide photos, Jen! No wonder Claire loved it, it really looks fun. Thanks for the reminder of how wonderful the AKL really is!

 

[mickeystoontown]

Good thing you followed Claire's instructions. Otherwise, you could have been deemed a bad parent. Seriously, the pool area looks so pretty! I would love to stay at the AKL someday but I'm not sure I could talk John into staying there 'cause he's not an animal kinda guy.

 

[dolphingirl47]

The pool looks huge in those photos. I know this is supposed to be the biggest pool onsite, but it never looked particularly big to me. I love the look of the hot tub though. I have yet to actually swim at either pool at Animal Kingdom Lodge/ Villas even though we have stayed there twice. DH promised we can stay there again next year if I want so I have to try the pools if we do end up at AKL.

Corinna

 

[Kathy Jetson]

Well I was all caught up on all my tr's but now I'm hopelessly behind again. I was back on 11/27. I'm glad Claire like her AKL surprise. It was so pretty there I took a lot of pictures and I'm sure I missed a lot of stuff too. I agree that the deluxe have a very limited menu you would think they would have even more to choose from than the values.

Oh I almost forgot. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO CLAIRE!

 

[Wicket's Mom]

We were in the hot tub every morning at 7. It was wonderful having the place all to ourselves. The setting is so beautiful.

CMs cleaned the flamingo enclosure every morning around 7. I asked one for one of the pink feathers that were floating. I have it now!

Claire is so cute with her instructions to Mommy.:thumbsup. It's nice to have a later child, you get to have the fun all again!

 

[pooksma]

Beautiful AKL pics. Thanks for continuing to share. I know how busy we all are at this time of year and I appreciate it!

 

[StitchIsOurHero]

Love the AKL pool pics!! That pool feels like such a peaceful place to me!! I always feel like I'm "away from it all" there!

Too funny about trying to get pics of the slide--before DS was born, I tried to get pics of DH going down that slide. Definitely not an easy task!!