Happy Birthday Kaileigh! Want to go to Disney? Pre-trip Report

[kaileighbug]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAILEIGH!
WOULD YOU LIKE TO GO TO DISNEY FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY????

So we are headed back to Disney again. I thought I would try a pre-trip report
to get used to posting, so that I might try to do a trip report. I enjoy reading all the
trip reports on here to get my Disney fix between trips. I thought I would try it. So lets start with introductions
for our cast of characters. First up is the star of our trip.

Miss Kaileigh

Kaileigh will turn 8 two days before we leave. This trip is to celebrate her birthday and to see the Christmas decorations.
She is excited to see the castle in ice again. (me too)


Since Kaileigh is not old enough to travel by herself yet....
I guess Mom will just have to take her.

So next up will be me, JoAnn. Mom to Kaileigh. The planner of our trips and wife to Corey.
I am also Mom to Christopher who will not be able to go on this trip.

I don't know who looks forward to the trip more....Kaileigh or myself...

So next up is Dad, also known as Corey to some of us.

I think he tolerates the trips because it makes us happy. That and he won't let us go to far by ourselves
because he tends to worry about us....

So now you have met the crew going. I will post pictures of Christopher in another post
because I have to find where I have it saved.


You also know the what....A TRIP TO DISNEY WOOO HOOO!


Now to the when. We have decided to go to the world November 22nd thru December 2nd.


The why? Because we love going to Disney....who doesn't....
(don't answer that...I know there are haters out there....)

Onto the how? Let's see...a car, a plane, and a magical bus.

 

[kaileighbug]

The reason we keep going.....

See that smile? That is what it is all about. The magic she believes in. This is my favorite picture from our last trip we took.
It was taken in July of 2010. This was our honeymoon trip. Kaileigh went with us.

This is why she was so excited.

Lotso was happy to see himself in her arms..... The photopass photographer told him "see they do like you".

This was my favorite character interaction due to her excitement. We had just seen the movie before we left for our trip.
Yes she knows he ended up a bad bear, but come on he's PINK!

 

[miceli20]

Like yourself I have decided to try a pre trip report in hopes of doing a trip report lol. Your DD is beautiful. I can't wait to read more

 

[kaileighbug]

Like yourself I have decided to try a pre trip report in hopes of doing a trip report lol. Your DD is beautiful. I can't wait to read more

Thanks. Good luck with the pre-trip report. I figured it was the best way to get used to posting. That and I can ask questions and maybe some answers....

 

[kaileighbug]

So Thursday morning, I picked up a little boy on the way to drop my daughter at school.
I go to church with his family. The subject of Disney came up. They are arriving
the day before we leave. So he proceeds to tell my husband he is going to Disney for 6 days. So my husband looks at me and asks
are we going to Disney for 6 days? I say no. He then asks me are we going for 8 days? Again I say no.
He looks at me and asks just how many days are we going? I replied 10 nights. Then I get what??? To which I replied
we have talked about this. You agreed to it. That is when he told me he tunes me out.
Please keep tuning me out if it will get me to Disney more often……

 

[Alysa]

Adorable family and trip report. My husband doesn't actually listen to me either!

 

[kaileighbug]

Adorable family and trip report. My husband doesn't actually listen to me either!

Thanks. Sometimes like now its not so bad... Other times not so good.

 

[kaileighbug]

So tonight we had a children's program at church called We like Sheep. Kaileigh was Lambsy and had a speaking part.

I blurred out the other kids. If you look at the picture she is missing both front teeth. Wednesday after AWANAS, she decided to pull her tooth out.

Rewind to around 6.5 months ago. We had our Let it Shine program. She had a solo to sing. Notice anything missing?

The Wednesday night before the program, right after AWANAS, she pulled out her front tooth. She has been missing that tooth over six months. The dentist did x-rays to make sure she had a tooth to replace it. Hopefully it will make an appearance soon.....

 

[kaileighbug]

So on the way home today after the program, we stopped at the mailbox to look inside. (We live across the street from the church.)
There was mail inside. Apparently with everything going on yesterday, no one checked the mail. There was a package in the mailbox.

Someone was excited to open it. Inside the package.....

We are going to try trading vinylmations while we are on our trip. I ordered some from ebay to get us started and this one was the first to arrive.

 

[kaileighbug]

So Tuesday April 24th after 3 pm I looked for plane tickets. I know Southwest delayed the release of the flight for our vacation. This has been driving me nuts. So I checked Delta out of Detroit. $420 a piece I had budgeted $1000 for tickets. So Friday I decided to look around just to see. Imagine my suprise when I found the same tickets for $324. I immediately went to talk to DH and we booked the flights. So now it feels more real..... So as it is we will be leaving home on the 21st after work to go up to DTW to spend the night in a hotel using park n fly to cover our parking cost. We will be able to take it easy in the morning since we do not fly out until noon. This means we will get to Orlando around 2:45pm. Not bad.

 

[MelMel11]

Count me in!!

 

[kaileighbug]

Count me in!!

aboard....

 

[kaileighbug]

So yesterday about this time I was dialing the phone to wait on hold. I had booked us at All Star Movies.....well that all changed. DD and I started seeing the new pictures of the Art of Animation Resort and loved them. So now we are staying in a Little Mermaid room. DD doesn't know this yet. I don't know if I want to tell her or not. DH says to tell her. I think she will figure it out when she asked to see herself on the computer again tonight. She knows I am doing this pre-trip report and wants to know everything on it now. (I am raising a future diser.....) Not sure what number this change is since I have moved the trip twice and I had the adrs and everything planned for the first one before I moved it.

 

[kaileighbug]

When we got home last night, Kaileigh checked the mail and found......

She had to wait until I finished getting dinner started. I was shocked she waited without fussing at me to open them.......

Inside the 2 yellow envelopes......

More vinylmations for trading.

And inside the last package......

100 pins for trading.....DH actually wanted to do this....

 

[kaileighbug]

Not able to join us on our upcoming trip is big brother Christopher. He is now 16 years old. He will be a junior in high school at the time of our trip and will not be able to miss that much time. He is staying at his dad's house during the school year now. We are counting down the days until he returns for the summer.

This picture was taken Christmas of 2010.

This picture was taken Christmas of 2011. Also pictured is their cousin Nyla.

And if you can't tell.....He is not a big smiler.....typical teenager


He has not really been bitten by the Disney bug. He went with us for Christmas of 2009 and enjoyed park hopping for the roller coasters. He was not into the characters at all...

 

[kaileighbug]

Okay if anyone is reading and has been to a pirate league make over please speak now.... DD would like to be made into a pirate. I am trying to talk DH into doing this as well. We can be a family of pirates. We have no issue looking the fool in public it seems. Just take a look.....

Example #1

Example #2

So the questions are.....
Is it better to get a costume before you go?
Are there very many choices to choose from there?
Should I just look for some pirate shirts for DH and I? (I have seen some really cute mickey pirate shirts on esty.)
How hard is it to get the make up off at night?

I have read they do not style their hair. This is fine as her hair is not the easiest to comb....

 

[kaileighbug]

So as of right now....Our tentative plans are.....

Thursday Nov 22nd Arrival Day
Dinner at O'hana

Friday Nov 23rd
Still discussing with DH, but I was thinking about dinner at La Hacienda

Saturday Nov 24th
Lunch at 50's Prime Time or Sci Fi

Sunday Nov 25th
Breakfast at O'hana

Monday Nov 26th
I left this day open for DH to go to ESPN and Kaileigh and I to go to afternoon tea. Or we could try the Plaza at MK (might try for BBB this day)

Tuesday Nov 27th
Lunch at Le Cellier and Christmas Party in the evening (might try to schedule BBB for the afternoon this day or pirates league)

Wednesday Nov 28th
Dinner at Narcoossee

Thursday Nov 29th
Lunch at Crystal Palace

Friday Nov 30th
Dinner at Teppan Edo

Saturday Dec 1st
Dinner at O'hana

Sunday Dec 2nd
Take it easy and go home

I can not make our ADR's till the 26th so.....this could change.
DH only requests were O'hana at the beginning and end of our trips as this is our favorite place to eat. I am working on a few new places to eat this trip as well.

As far as parks go....I have the park hours by day in an excel sheet as well as EMH's. I hang this in the room on the back of the door. We are the type to go with the flow and tend to pick the park the day we go....We do like to hit rope drop in the mornings and this is usually not a problem for us. Once DH figured out we get a lot more done he is up for it. The last time we went, we would hit the parks for rope drop and go till we had enough. Then it was time to go back to the room and either swim or go to a water park till we had to go back and get ready for dinner. We don't like to have everything completely planned out, but we try to plan what needs to be planned out.

 

[kaileighbug]

So after painting the pink room light blue....(Christopher refused to sleep in a pink room when he comes home go figure.....) It took two coats of the blue to cover the pink, but I love the color and it lightens up the room. We now have the everything back in the room and still had time today to create something for Kaileigh's room. We just can't hang them until we paint that room light green. So this is what we started with....

and used it to create this........

to be used for this......

and a close up.....

We made two of these to hang on her wall. She went thru the pins we ordered from ebay and kept some already. I am trying to talk her into filling the other one when we get home from our trip and she has traded for ones she wants to keep. I would also like to make one of these for Christopher to keep some pins in his room. I will have to find some fabric and ribbon that will work for him.

 

[kaileighbug]

So today I got an email with a Pin Code for 20% off my room for select dates in Nov. It would cover Nov 24-Nov 30. So I called to have it applied to my reservation. At this moment in time they could not apply the code because it is not valid for AoA. The CM did inform me the pin code was good until Dec? The email stated I had to book by 6/15/12. She did say I could call back to see if they could apply it at a later date.


However it was not a completely wasted call....I was able to set up our magical express portion with our flight info.

 

[drsvanhorn]

Joining in. Your daughter is adorable! We are going in September 4 days after my DD12's 13th birthday. Our trip is a surprise for her until her birthday!