Hi, welcome Lady H! Oh, that's right. We can't be late for our mee... ummm... I mean, You... YOU can't be late for YOUR meeting.
Mike scares me a little. Pretty sure he could beat me up.
T-Man wouldn't hurt a fly...
Do we have to have a "Birds & bee's" talk?
Ruby and I had made some pretty major purchases over the last few years. Not the least being a new house.
"No trips for at least the next 3 years." Said I.
"Absolutely. We can't afford any more expenses, right now." Said she.
Famous last words...
So Elle is turning 16 in 2013. Sweet sixteen. Pretty big deal. Ya only turn 16 once ya know.
I don't know how they do it in Canada, but here...unless you show your driver's license to everyone you meet, you can be 16 as many times as you want.
Notice how that tends to get used less and less as you get older.
"You only turn 47 once, ya know!"
Nope. Not that common.
I've turned 21 for the 13th time last month.
"What are we going to do for Elle's sweet 16?"
So we do what any responsible parent would do.
We go to Vegas.
Hey now...I had a sleepover for my sweet 16.
No! Wait! That didn't happen... well it did, but that was a few years ago.
So this isn't the first year she's turning 16?
What we did was, we asked her what she wanted. She already knows she's not getting what she really wants.
Well way to spoil the ending!
Elle watches too much TV I think. (Oh, spare me the perfect parent lament. "You shouldn't let your kids watch so much TV." Yeah, right. Just try and keep 'em from the tube. I dare ya.) When she was 13 or so, she announced she was looking forward to her 16th birthday.
I bit.
"Okay, honey. Why are you looking forward to your 16th birthday?"
She nonchalantly replies. "Well, you know. You turn 16 and you get a car."
Where was this information when i was 16? Again...I got a sleepover!!!
Ok granted, I had a car since i was 12...but still...It was a hand me down anyway, so it didn't count.
I don't know if she was more hurt or puzzled at my laughing.
If it looked anything like this...
...then it was probably a mixture of both.
Anyway, she's 15 now and "Whaddya want for your 16th?"
"I want to go to Disneyworld."
That's my girl.
A kid after my own heart!
So Ruby and I.... well.... I crunched the numbers (Ruby's job is to listen to my dreams and then yea or nay them. Surprisingly she 'yeas' more often then she 'nays'.) and we decided that we could (barely) make it work.
Sounds like our household.
Okay. I don't want to shock anybody, so everyone better sit down.
Ruby is not a big fan of Disneyworld.
Okay! Okay! It's out! Is everyone okay? You! In the back. Close your mouth before a fly gets in there. You, over there. Help that lady back up into her chair, okay? Now, I'll just wait a bit until the administering of CPR is done and the ambulances have taken their collective shocked patients off to wherever shocked patients go.
The last time we were in Disney. I wanted to make sure that the kidlets got to experience as much as possible.
That means rope drop.
That means commando style.
That means go, go, go.
That means that I broke Ruby.
I think you and T-Man really need to get together someday...You can run each other ragged, while me and Ruby just stroll along behind, actually ENJOYING ourselves, instead of whizzing past everything and then coming back and getting the *look* when you don't remember certain things.
But she was willing to go again... not thrilled... but willing. (She's a good mom)
And a good wife, If there was no mention of willing to go again without you planning!
Flights from Canada to MCO are not cheap. The last time we flew, we first drove 8 hours and overnighted in Minneapolis... same coming home.
In this day and age, they are expensive flying out of anywhere. We spent months changing flights to get a cheaper deal and that is just to California from NM.
"Geez." I grumbled. "We could almost fly to Europe for the same pri...."
Don't you love it when ideas come to you out of the blue like that?
"So, Ruby. Just a thought. A whim if you will. Instead of going to WDW again, what would you say to going to Europe instead??"
I had my arguments in order.
1. We've already been to WDW, it'd be nice to go somewhere else.
2. The kids are getting older. Who knows, now that Elle is turning 16, if she'll be able to travel with us much longer. School, job, boyfriend, etc.
3. My parents took me when I was young (10 or so) and I really enjoyed it.
All Ruby said was, "Let's go for it."
So much for preparation...Again, Ruby is just like me. T-Man starts talking about travel ideas and I've gotten to the point where i just say, "OK"...
So after much discussion (London, Paris, Cologne, Hanover (to visit relaticks), Munich, Amsterdam) We settled on London, Paris and points in Germany.
Sounds good to me...I'm living vicariously through you this trip, since i will never have the chance to go out there and see any of it...
Then Ruby says, "I never really wanted to go to London, I'd rather go to Italy."
So our Itinerary is Paris, Cologne, Munich/Bavaria, Venice.
Awww...taking the wife's ideas into account...Nice one!
Anyone want to come along for the ride? I'm warning you all right here, right now.
We did not, repeat,
NOT go to
Disneyland Paris. Yes there was a little Disneyesque bit during the trip... but it wasn't that.
I'll come along. Do I need to sneak into luggage? Hide in a cage and act like a dog? Whatever...
Well, if anyone's still around. I'll tell ya all about it.
k?
K...................I'm waiting...
I'm here, I'm here, I'm here!!! 
Can you tell I"m excited? How am I already on the bottom of page 2 though? I hope its not too hard to keep up this time. I faltered a bit on your Hawaii TR. But it was really because I had the post WDW trip blues and couldn't read anything for awhile. 
:
Last trip to WDW, Nebo and I were able to ride EE 3 times utilizing FP. To my understanding it won't be like that anymore with the new system. 
