Poppy Ran Me Over With His Scooter - A PHM Trip Report UPDATE!! 7/23 Pg. 21

[Leshaface]

The end state of all this? My transformation is real. And it took work. And effort. And I'm still not done.

I LOVED reading about your story. It is truly inspiring and you look absolutely phenomenal!

Jelly. Belly. Factory. By my house.

Please stop. Super jelly! I could eat buckets of the buttered popcorn jelly beans!

My brother Jason. Runs on Jason time, which tends to be like 45 minutes behind.

It must be a brother thing because my brother is the same way

Oh yeah. Exit row baby!

Now that I have DS, I will never be able to see an exit row ever again. Well, until he's an adult!

Perfect! And love your nails by the way.

I had to sit down and create my Disney inspired makeup look for the day. Followers on IG like to see those, so I try to put thought into them. I also took a picture of my makeup brushes.

Loving the silver and black! I just can't ever seem to get the little bit of color in the corner right how you do. Did you watch tutorials on how to do it? Every time I try to get the dark shadow in the outer corner and blend up, it seems to take over half the eye lid if that makes sense.

What I was concerned with were judgy people. And believe me, I've been one of them in the past. The ones that look at someone in a scooter and you think they're in it for various reasons. I knew that on the outside Pop looks fine, but that he had to be in the scooter the majority of the time. I didn't want people judging him.

Not gonna lie, I was too until I read something on the DIS years ago about unseen disabilities, and I seriously had never thought about it before. I even had to educate DH on that many years ago at Disneyland and he never once considered about the non-physical disabilities before.

My fears about judging were put aside though, because there were some really nice people waiting near us that said that they could help to lift the scooter on the bus if we needed it. I thanked them, but told them it wasn't necessary, that we didn't mind waiting. They said they felt bad. I told them it was a new world for us with the scooter, and explained about his heart surgery. They offered again to lift the scooter into the bus, and I told them not to worry about it.

That was very kind of them for sure.

"Well IT man, what was wrong with his computer."

"Pebkac".

"Pebkac?"

"Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair"

LOVE THIS!

Mom finally makes it inside and I asked her what happened. Apparently, her magic band was listed as stolen! Which the CM at Guest Relations said was really weird. And since it was listed as stolen, they wouldn't allow her to use her pass, which didn't make sense to me. Mom say that the CM's at the entrance were not very nice to her. She said they were shouting at her "put the Mickey to Mickey!" She's like "I AM IT'S TURNING BLUE!" Then the guy with the iPad came over, he scanned it and just goes "you have to go over there!"

Wow! Never heard of this happening before. And crazy that the CM's were totally treating her as if she really did steal it!

Of course the ride was very enjoyable. I mean, would we expect any less? The line took a little longer than normal, and we were cutting it close for our lunch reservation. Actually, that's code for almost running late. So I told Pop to put his motorcycle driving skills on and just drive there as fast as he could.

He said "okay!"

As soon as the word came out of his mouth, he zoomed away. I'm not joking, zoomed. Mom and I walked very fast to stay with him, but he made it to the restaurant well before we did.

Dude, those things can take off!

The food was very good. However, still very expensive to me, and not worth 2 table service credits on the dining plan to me either. However, this is only my opinion, so if you think it's worth it, by all means keep on going!

Yep, agreed. We haven't been back since they changed the credits here. As good as the food looks, we probably won't be returning for a while.

 

[marDgreen88]

So I got super behind on the DIS but I FINALLY got caught up on everything, including both of your TRs! From now on I'll be a good commenter, I swear!

 

[Clarf]

Whoa, your mom a criminal? She sure looks innocent. Sorry she had to deal with that. What a pain.

Your food at LeCellier looks wonderful. I just can't bring myself to use 2 credits to eat there, though. My husband would love it. Maybe someday.

Papadon is so funny. I am cracking up here looking at those pictures!

 

[ElenaJane]

Finally I found your TR! I have really been looking forward to this one. This one has all the cast of characters, a whole week of Disney, and two RunDisney events! Off to a great start! It is so nice to see Popadon with his big smiles and looking well. Such a blessing he was able to make this trip. You all deserved some R&R as a family.

Maybe you could buy your mom a MB for Mother's Day so she would quit stealing other people's.

 

[IheartDDuck]

Hi guys!

So I've been absent for the last month, but with some reason. The day after I posted my last update, we had huge storms come through the Midwest and hit Illinois. There were tornadoes that hit pretty close to us, but thankfully we were okay and it passed us. But some mega rain came through. Well, this mega rain backed up the sump pump in the middle of the night, causing it to basically flood the entire finished lower level.

Pretty much every spare moment since then has been spent restoring the damage that happened. Yes, there is insurance, but the undertaking of being in this situation is just insane! All of the carpet had to be removed because it was destroyed. We lost some doors too, so those had to be replaced. The entire lower level was in disarray, almost like it was before it was finished. So we've been slowly rebuilding it back to normal, repainting, replacing furniture, you name it, we have to do it.

It's been exhausting both mentally and physically. Working my normal job throughout the week, 45+ hours most times, to come home and do some work on the house, to the entire weekends being spent restoring things. Let's just say I truthfully did not have the energy or the motivation to get on the DIS. By the time I would even have a minute to think about it, honestly I just wanted to go to bed.

So I'm not going to make a stupid promise like "I'm going to update every three days!" or anything like that, but I am going to be able to make more of an effort now. The family room is complete and one of the spare bedrooms is done. We have the hallway left and the last back bedroom, and slowly we're moving things back into the house from the shed and garage. I'll respond to prior posts later, but I really felt like I honestly owed all of my readers an update. Thank you so much for sticking in there. I'm telling you truthfully, this 2015 has felt terrible so far, what with my Pop's heart attack and surgery, and now this. I don't know how much more I can take! I'll be getting caught up on other threads too, so no worries there!

So here's an update yay!

"We're At Walmart!"

We left off with us heading out of Epcot and back to the hotel. The rest of our group should have been arriving soon, so we figured it would be best that we were back at the hotel waiting for them.

See, before we left, I had all of the Magic Bands shipped to us.

This is because I don't trust my brother or sister-in-law to bring them with us. I knew they'd forget them. And because Veronica and Jeni are basically the same person.......I didn't trust her to remember them either.

Words cannot describe how much this meme truly describes Jason and Jeni. So on point.



So since I made that clear to everyone, we agreed to meet them at the hotel with the bands. They had figured they'd arrive around 4pm. Perfect! So we headed back to the hotel to relax and I wrote in my trip journal for a while.

I also modeled my drinking crown. For real. This is my drinking crown. I purchased it at Mouse Gear just for that reason.



3pm hit and we got a text from Jason saying they were about 3 hours away. A little later than anticipated, but no big deal. I could take a snooze. So we're chilling.

6:30pm. Still haven't heard from anyone. I had told them to text me when they were an hour away.

7pm rolls around. Nothing.

So Mom texts Jason and asks him how it's going. He responds "good, we're at Walmart about 20 minutes away..."

Oh Walmart. So I say to Mom "I guarantee Veronica and Randy are with them."

Jason then texts "Vee and Randy are with us." Ding ding ding ding! If I could get money every time I was right. I'd be a flipping millionaire!

At 7:15ish we headed down to the lobby and I took more pictures. Out of sheer boredom.





Finally everyone rolled in at 7:30pm. Success! The gang was all here! Mom took everyone in to check in and I hung out with the kiddos.

We have from left to right: Joaquin, Madison, Brigid, and Gavin. I didn't have the baby, he was with Randy at that point. But spoiler alert for everyone, he was the least fussy baby I've ever met! Such a quiet little one!



They were able to get our rooms close to each other. They're rooms were right next door to each other and ours was down the hall. Pop insisted to them that this was by design, so we didn't have wayward littles wandering into our room.

Us being down the hall didn't matter. We still had wayward littles wandering into our room.

Everyone just wanted to get their bags hauled up into the rooms and then we were going to head out to get some dinner. They were all hungry, so were we, so we headed to DTD. The plan was to go to Wolfgang Puck express. I figured it was a good variety of options for everyone to choose from. The bus ride to WPE felt like it took forever! I think it was because we were all hungry and tired at that point.

But we made it and everyone was pretty happy.

I had to take a picture of Pop holding the table for us. All by himself. It's a little grainy because I used my phone. It just made me crack up for some reason.





Yup, we are those people. Leave the four kids at a separate table away from the grown ups. Teaches them good life lessons.



The server at WPE offered to take a picture for us. And the best thing happened. We were photobombed by the other WPE staff. This is why Disney is amazing!



Now of course, the things you guys want to see, right? Food pictures? Again, I am absolutely in love with my new camera for this. It takes amazing food pictures!

Spaghetti Bolognese.



Margherita pizza.



I couldn't get anymore pictures, cause everyone else was hammering their food like there was no tomorrow!



The server was so nice and brought out two creme brûlée on the house for us after dinner! We thanked him. It was nice because I mean, he had to put up with 11 of us. And we're not quiet. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

Ask any other DISer that happened to be with us after the PHM in Epcot. Not.......quiet.

Everyone liked their food, except for Bananas (that's Brigid's nickname by the way), who thought the mac and cheese was icky. But she's a super picky girl and I think she didn't like it mainly because it wasn't atomic orange.

After dinner, we decided to have a little fun for a while in World of Disney, before heading back to the resort.



We have a lot of mega Star Wars fans on our hands.







We were brief in the store, as everyone was getting tired. Bananas insisted on having a picture with Aurora outside the store, so I had to oblige.



And I had to try to get a picture of Lego Maleficent. But it didn't turn out so well.



On the way back to the resort, all of the kids fell asleep on the bus except for Joaquin. He's always wired for sound, so it's not surprising he didn't fall asleep. Once we were all back to the hotel, it was off to bed for us. We had an expo in the morning!

Up Next: I'm looking at you EILEEN!

 

[dawnbu40]

I hope the second half of 2015 makes up for the first! So much to deal with, you deserve a vacation. Thankfully you get one soon!
I love the group picture complete with photobombers! So cute!

 

[ElenaJane]

Sump Pumps! Ugh. Ours kept breaking the first few years in our house but when it flooded, it was just our crawl space at least. It's amazing how damaging water can be though. We finally broke down and bought a super fancy one installed by people that knew what they were doing (we would have to keep "fixing" our old one by shoving a rusty hanger into it).

Poor lonely Pop. Sittin' all by himself with no friends. lol.

Glad your family is reunited and ready to get this vacation started!

 

[Wood Nymph]

I'm sorry to hear about the damage to the house. Did you loose anything that was valuable or irreplaceable? That must have taken tons of work to repair everything. Is it a busy time at work for you, too?

We ate at Wolfgang Puck Express for the first time when we were there in April. I had heard a lot of good things about it and they weren't wrong. Even though we only had sandwiches, my chicken salad sandwich was really good. And they had real lemonade instead of that horrible light lemonade that is in all the other beverage dispensers in WDW.

 

[Pluto0809]

Sorry you had so much trouble with the flooding! I would not want to deal with that!

Isn't waiting on family fun? Kind of like herding cats.

Mmmmmmm! WPE is so yummy. I want some of that pizza right now.

 

[missangelalexis]

Ugh I'm so sorry to hear about what you've been dealing with! You definitely deserve a stellar second half of the year after all this!

Glad everyone finally arrived!

Haha that picture of Pop holding the table is pretty funny! And I love the group picture!

 

[NJlauren]

Just joined in!

So sorry about your lower level so stressful!

Congrats on starting to run you look amazing! Can't wait to hear more about your trip and races!

I totally get you in the scooter judgy thing, my mom had one when she had cancer and while she looked fine should could hardly walk 10 feet. It was a lesson for me to judge less you don't know everyones situation.

 

[amazingact21]

2015 has not been kind to you. I sincerely hope the rest of the year brings better things. I think you've gotten your fill of rotten luck!



Glad the rest of your group finally joined you. I couldn't help but laugh at you holding onto their MagicBands. Sometimes, that's best...

Everyone looks like they enjoyed their WPE dinner, and how awesome of the CMs to photobomb your picture. I love Cast Members.

 

[melduckie]

So sorry to hear of all your troubles Danielle But have faith! Great things happen all at once, so good times are ahead of you

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Ugh, sorry to hear about the sump pump issues/flooding. That is just the opposite of fun. Hope the rest of 2015 - is legitimately great - and not just because the bar has been set so low

Bummer they were late and didn't mention thins like stopping at Wal-Mart - at least they all made it and dinner worked out.

And your are right - your camera does take good food pictures

 

[NancyLuvsMickey]

Sorry you're 2015 isn't going so well... Hope it gets better soon!!!

I had a bad April... While your house was being flooded, those storms came thru earlier in the day and we have hail damage on the roof, siding and gutters... Plus 2 cars... One was so bad they totaled it out... My 59yo cousin died of a massive heart attack... He was last seen at 10am on a Monday and his parents found 48 hours later on Wednesday... And later in the month my DH's 21yo niece was messing around with a handgun and accidentally shot/killed herself... And that same night my 16yo DS and his 16yo buddy went joy riding in a friends car and it ended up in a high speed chase (100+ mph) with county, state and 2 town cops involved... I got the call at 1:50am to come pick him up where they finally got the car stopped... DS got a ticket for curfew violation but his buddy is screwed... He has multiple charges against him... I'm just glad it was a "come pick up your son" call and not a "your son is dead" call...

And then May came and Disney released Free Dining and we're headed to Disney!!! Whoo-hoo!!!

ps. Love your drinking crown!!!

 

[SarahDisney]

Oh man, sounds like it's been a few rough months for you. I hope all the bad stuff has been squeezed into the first few months of the year so that the rest of your 2015 can be AWESOME!

I love your drinking crown!

Yay for everyone finally getting there ... but yeah, Popadon, little ones always wander into your room. It's just kinda how the world works...

I love the WPE photobomb! We had a few photobombs last trip ... it seems to be the new CM trend. But it's an awesome one, and it made the picture extra hysterical!

 

[sunnysideup3]

You're back And a week-ish before you're back. I'm so excited!!!!!

Still need to get to WPE. Guess I'll have to plan another trip

 

[KathyM2]

OMG I'm so sorry about your pump issues and flooding!! It is SO not fun...we have been there...oh about three times. Ugh...the worst. I'm glad to see you are digging out of the mess and feeling a bit better about things though.

Great evening at DTD...That food at WPE looks fantastic. What was that on the top of the spagetti though? Some kind of goat cheese or something? Looked yummy either way...and the pizza looked great too. Sorry about the waiting/boredom part...stinks when people underestimate how long things will take...especially with kiddos...that tends to slow...things....down...at least it does for us lol.

 

[DisneyKid4Life]

I know how difficult all this has been and totally can understand that if something has to take a backseat, it's the DIS. On the bright side, it is so nice to hear that things are getting completed, finally. And especially nice to have you back!


If only you had more Disney trips planned.

I also modeled my drinking crown. For real. This is my drinking crown. I purchased it at Mouse Gear just for that reason.

Oh I fully appprove of this. What's drinking without a drinking crown?

Yup, we are those people. Leave the four kids at a separate table away from the grown ups. Teaches them good life lessons.

YUP!! Although, historically we would ensure they also had the smallest table imaginable.


First... That is super gutsy taking a group that size into World of Disney. But YAY, the gangs all here!!! Unless they're still lost in World of Disney.

 

[kroseycorn]

Ugh! Your sump pump issues made me paranoid about my basement! So much so that I had an alarm installed in case the water gets too high in the pump well. Even then, I still check it like 3 times a day. Theres a lot of good stuff down there!! But glad to hear its getting back together. On the bright side, new basement?

That margherita pizza looks aaahhhmaaaaaayzing!