Just spent the last few minutes reading the introductions of "the clan". You have a lovely family and it sounds like everyone is going to have a blast together. Oh and you weren't kidding when you said the men have full blown kilts. I saw those wedding pictures.
Oh it's not just the men
Check these out, the boys wore them for my dad's surprise 70th!
I love how Evan has his Germany soccer jersey on with the kilt.
We still have those kilts. My brother Phillip is actually wearing the "everyday" hunting kilt. They all have both, the casual and the formal. Dad's dress kilt here was his 70th birthday present
Of course when they want to be really casual, they show up at my house like this!
wasn't joking about the liederhosen either
And everyone is worried about the teens....
Hi Cynthia,
I'll be following along too. I'm excited to read all about your trip. You have a lovely family and you've done an amazing job planning this trip. Yes, too bad that the nephew can't go just because his parents can't get their act together.
Oh it's complicated. It isn't so much that they can't get it together, it is a choice they are making. They are divorced and their oldest, my godson, is in Italy all year as an exchange student. My brother well...he's not exactly contributing his fair share to things right now financially and as a result, niether of them have extra $$ and what they had, was used to 1) send Conor to Italy and will be 2) used to go visit him at the end of the year.
I'd be more ok with it if they planned to take Issac with them but it doesn't sound like they are. Instead my exSIL will take him to Canada over the Christmas break. Not exactly the same but...what can you do?
The thing is that my parents are already taking Issac on a trip this year, otherwise they'd likely pay for him to go. They do a neat thing where when the kids turn 14 they get to pick a place in the US for a week long trip with Grandma and Grandpa. This year is Issac and Evan's turn. It's just tough. My mom wanted to give the kids all something for the trip for Christmas, but can't now and of course the boys need to not talk about it too much around him which is hard for them, and him. So I don't know, maybe I will just take Conor and Issac both on the next trip if I can swing it. I offered up the park ticket, food and lodging, they just needed to get airfare and the Universal tix but...oh well. And now airfare is nuts. I just worry the poor kid will never forget this and what do you say when the parents don't share that worry? I almost think they think it is ok since his brother can't go. Except he is in Italy so that's not a rough deal.
I have to say that your parents look and sound just like me and my DH! We don't travel as much as them, but as much as we can afford, and have been to many amazing places, checking them off our bucket list. Many great memories with our family, and agree that it is so important to make those memories. Worth every penny!
I don't post much, but know that I'll be watching for posts and reading along. Thanks for letting us join in.
Nora
We often wonder how they pull off as much as they do but they seem to manage quite well and have a lot of fun doing it!
Its lovely that you are so close to your family and take trips together, our family trip for our wedding to WDW was a bit of a disaster so we won't be repeating that. We will however be copying your idea of date trips in the future.
Traveling with family can be hard. We did a big trip with Jeff's side a few years back and that was harder. A good trip but honestly I am not sure that Disney was the right place for them. All they cared about was seeing the grandkids, they spent so little time in the parks it seemed like a waste of tickets. They seemed perfectly content but it bugged Jeff and I! And enabled the older teens to just sleep all day as Grandma was more than happy to just wait for them to wake on their own time.
I'm here! I'm here! Wow already almost 4 pages!
That is a lot of loud boys....... Y'all are Brave people! (haha sorry I didn't mean to pun even with all your Clan talk and kilts. Didn't even catch it myself till I read back for grammatical errors!)
Brave. I love that!
hysterical.
so happy to have you here!!!!!
I love your disney backstory. Everything from how your dad and mom drove you all down to Jeff and the entire clan on that first trip together.
A long Disney history that is for sure.
Great pictures in the intros!!! You do have quite the clan!!! I could only dream about getting this many people together... you have an amazing family!
or a motley crew, depending on how you look at it
I may have gotten carried away with the pictures a tad.
The trip is only a portion of the group, technically we are missing another 12 people! Now THAT would be a clan! I wish!!!!! Of course that many more and poor Jeff and my BIL Eric might go hide. We are definitely a "the more the merrier" bunch and well, they come from very small families. They do their best but we can be a bit much at times.