The Good, The Bad, & the Nuts! ...ANYONE GOING MAY 8-15?

[mom3sonstt]

Welcome to my “not really a” trip report. I have tried to to PTRs and TRs in the past but they always fizzle out. So instead I am going to try (no promises) to post pictures of our past trips and with little explanations, let them speak for themselves. If I remember any nice little anecdotes along the way I will throw them in.

This will get off to a fairly slow start because…..well because I don’t actually have the pictures for our most recent trips on my computer. I have photopass pics (not many) and a couple ride pics that I scanned in. But the bulk of our pictures are on DH’s computer. That is downstairs in his “command center”. He has 2 or 3 computers down there plus half a dozen external hard drives so I wouldn’t know where to begin to look for anything. On top of that – he is moving the command center upstairs to middle sons old bedroom (he moved downstairs to oldest sons old bedroom – oldest son in last year of college and says he won’t be moving back home he gave middle son his old bed and old room so now he has nowhere to come back to if he changes his mind ) So with the equipment moving upstairs….soon (that’s another story….) it could be awhile before I have access to our pictures.

Here is a teaser

This is our June 2010 family trip. The four boys in the front row are my son Ryne - hidden in his shirt (middle – 19), Sean (oldest 20 at the time, 21 now), Ethan (a friend of the boys that we brought with us – 18), and Mark (youngest – 16 at the time, 17 now).

And here they are again…..

Yes, they are nuts!

They rode several times trying to do different silly faces for the camera. These were the two they wound up liking the best. I think they are actually in the wrong order because it looks like Mark is hanging on in the 2nd picture....he's not one of those "put your hands in the air on the scary ride" kinda guys, he's the "hold on and hope I don't die" kind. I think the other boys eventually got him to let go of his death grip on the handles a little bit for the camera


Another disclaimer….I am trying to type this in word and add pics and transfer it over…..don’t know if it will work. It may take me a little bit to get the hang of things.


And, good or bad, here is your guide for this trip back through time…..

Me (Tanya 43 at the time, 44 now….can you tell we have a lot of summer birthdays???) and DH (Danny 56). We were at the Wishes Dessert party which had PhotoPass set up for pics of the night time castle .

 

[glennbo123]

Found your "not a" trip report!

 

[mom3sonstt]

Found your "not a" trip report!

I thought I'd hidden it

 

[FauntleroyFAN07]

darn it glenn, you beat me.

so how many times did they end up riding in a row to get those?

 

[mom3sonstt]

Hi Dan

I don't know how many times they rode ToT We were there 8 days. If I ever get to see the trip pics I may find even more redneck pics of their adventures. But these two they wrote down the numbers and asked us to see if we could go view the pics and maybe get one for them. Did you know that in the ride picture packages that you can get the 2 5x7's with 2 different poses in the same package??? I didn't - I stood there looking at the 2 poses trying to decide when the CM finally told me that I could get them both

I have one of them on Splash Mountain too.....but I fugured I better pace myself since I have such limited resources

 

[vamassey1]

I'm here!

Love the ToT pictures. It's my favorite ride. I've never been able to poise for it. I usually have the biggest grin on my face. I love to loose my stomach.

 

[AdamsonAfton]

darn it glenn, you beat me.

so how many times did they end up riding in a row to get those?

 

[glennbo123]

darn it glenn, you beat me.

so how many times did they end up riding in a row to get those?

You sound just like Dan. I hope you're a better speller though!

 

[vamassey1]

You sound just like Dan. I hope you're a better speller though!

I wonder if it's he's spelling ability or his typing? I'm think a combination of both. I'm a terrible speller thank goodness for spell check.

 

[FauntleroyFAN07]

You sound just like Dan. I hope you're a better speller though!

I wonder if it's he's spelling ability or his typing? I'm think a combination of both. I'm a terrible speller thank goodness for spell check.

well i type fast so i sometimes misspell stuff that way.

but alot is me to lazy to use spell checker to see if i got it right.

 

[mom3sonstt]

I'm here!

Love the ToT pictures. It's my favorite ride. I've never been able to poise for it. I usually have the biggest grin on my face. I love to loose my stomach.

darn it glenn, you beat me.

so how many times did they end up riding in a row to get those?

More people!! Thanks for joining. Don't get discouraged if this starts pretty slow. We are going away for the week-end. That may actually work in my favor though. We are going down to where my oldest son goes to college - DH & all the boys are going to a football game, I am going to be barricaded in the hotel room with free wifi . And even better - we are taking one of DH's laptops instead of mine....so maybe I can find some trip pictures on there . He takes a computer with us on vacation to download all the cameras to at night, then when he's home he saves them onto externals hard drives....but hopefully he left them on the laptop too. So maybe when I am left alone for a couple (or more???) hourse I can get some uploaded to PB Just for the record - me not going to the football game is my idea - I have no interest in football (that could cost me readers ), I have even less interest in walking the distances he says it is from where he can park to where the stadium is, and being alone in a nice clean quiet hotel room seemed like a good option. Especially when you add on the free wifi

 

[mom3sonstt]

Here are a couple more shots from our June trip.


Here is Danny & I on Splash Mountain

And my boys - once again playing it up for the cameras

If you look, you will see that Mark is holding on with one hand - still not brave enough to totally let loose. And the guy in the back Maybe he should have joined my boys on the Tower - he would fit right in with them

This trip I don't know if I will find any pics of us all together. I use a scooter down there, my 3 boys have been so many times that they all know what they want to do and don't want to do. This was Ethan's first trip so we were encouraging the boys to take him on as much as possible. We, on the other hand, were going for a more leisurely trip. June is hot I don't particularly like hot. But with the boys schedules the way they are, if we want to take them we have to go when its hot. That doesn't mean we can't let the 16 - 20 year old set go out and conquer the heat while us....uh.....slightly older folks....move a little slower and find a little more air conditioning. We did meet up for some meals together. But for the most part they had their trip and we had ours.

 

[mom3sonstt]

We are leaving today to drive 4 1/2 hours to the town where my son goes to college. There are 4 of us going and we will be gone 2 nights. We have 3 suitcases, 2 boxes, 1 (maybe 2) coolers, and a computer bag....plus any gadget stuff the boys bring. Can you imagine what 6 of us going to Didney for 8 nights can accumulate??

Actually, although it's massive, it's not as bad as it sounds. Two of the suitcases are because DH & I are staying at a hotel and the boys are staying at Seans. The 3rd suitcase is my dialysis machine - and the 2 boxes are my fluid. One cooler for sodas on the way down - and the other for sandwiches - unless we can fit them in with the pop, or fit a bigger cooler that will hold both. Quick little getaways aren't so quick anymore.

 

[vamassey1]

Have a safe trip!

 

[mom3sonstt]

Have a safe trip!

Thanks! We're here. Got the boys dropped off with Sean, came back to the hotel and got settled in, ate supper, and now playing on the computer. Tomorrow we'll go over and see Sean's apartment and go out for lunch, then they will bring me back to the hotel while they go to the football game. Then I won't have someone asking me every 10 minutes what I am doing

 

[mom3sonstt]

Our visit with Sean went well. Southern's football team lost - gave it away from what I understand. Seems like they were up by 21 points at the half and in the 2nd half the other team just walked down the field and scored just about every possession. But while the "menfolks" were watching that, I was back in the hotel room loading pictures onto PB . I sat there watching TV , loading pics , and eating snacks from the "happy hour" from about 4:30 until about 9 - 9:30. So one would think that I would have all my pictures loaded since I had nearly 5 hours......one would be wrong.....very wrong. Those pictures are 3 and a partial days. And the first 2 of those days Sean & Ryne were the only ones at WDW.

Today I spent several hours loading more up....but from a different trip. DH has started moving his command center upstairs, so I went rooting around on the "big computer". I found our Nov pics and loaded them (less than 150 pics). Then I found our Dec pics and started loading them - holy cow - when you get my hubby and his buddy together they live with the camera attached to their faces! For DH for the first day he has 130 pics. I also have Walt's pics on our computer and he has literally hundreds for the first day. DH videoed a parade (twice) and Walt took pictures of it. So for the time that the parade was running DH wasn't even using his camera and he still took almost as many pics in one day as he did in a whole trip just a month earlier.

Hopefully tomorrow DH will have the laptop set up in there so I can finish loading the June trip pics. I didn't see them on the the big computer. If not I will keep trudging through the Dec pics.

Would you believe I am already at 45% capacity on my PB acct?

 

[mom3sonstt]

You've seen the main characters, now let's get this show on the road....

Our trip planning began about a year or more ago. We have taken family trips in August the previous 2 years and decided this year to try for the other end of summer break and go in June. We worked out the dates that the schools would be done, and since DH & DS#3 both coach softball in the summer, we worked with the Director to give them some byes while we were gone so they wouldn't miss too many games. DS#3 (Mark) asked his friend Adam to go with us - he had gone the 2 trips before. He really wanted to, but his grandparents were having an anniversary party during our trip and all the cousins from out of state would be back so he decided he had better stay home for that. So Mark asked another friend - Ethan. He had never been before either and was excited about going.....but the weekend we would be gone the high school baseball team could still be in tournaments. They were 3rd in state the year before, but had lost some key players, so it wasn't likely, but wasn't out of the realm of possibility either. Why did we think June was such a good idea? We finally went ahead and ordered a ticket for Ethan after his mom told us that if they did go all the way to state they would fly him down to join us. He would only miss a day. So that was settled.....the team kept winning - until a week before we were due to leave. They made it further into the tourny than expected, so although nobody likes to lose they were satisfied with their results.

Now that we know we are a party of 6 - how are we going to get there? For several years we had a big full-size van. Or as I called it, my big purple bus . I loved my van - it was like driving a big living room to Florida. Everybody had leg room, nobody was "touching" - there was plenty of room for all our stuff. But DH had the bright idea of trading off my big, wonderful van for a Nissan Murano. I thought I was pretty slick - I did not want the Murano - it is a car - he says its a cross-over (and the paperwork calls it a truck), but it's a car. I have 3 big kids with long legs. I thought that there was no way they would approve this car. So I told DH he could bring it home (on an overnight test-drive) and we would see if we fit. Well, the boys got in and declared plenty of leg room - then DH brought out the suitcases - and there was plenty of room in the back My van was gone - and we now had a Murano.

Even though the Murano had more room in it than I gave it credit for - it was not going to hold 6 people. We decided to send Sean down early. He missed a family trip when he started college before we switched to summer months so I had always told him we would let him go down on his own sometime or with a friend. I had planned on sending him down with my brother - my brother never married and had no kids and was always doing things with my boys. I figured that Sean & Bret could go down sometime and use our points - but before they ever had the chance to go we lost my brother. I still "owed" Sean his "own" trip, so we offered to fly him down a couple days ahead of the rest of us - he could have some time on his own without us having to pay for a whole 2nd trip for him. He was cool with that. Then Ryne asked how come he couldn't fly down too. We asked Sean whether Ryne could join him - he was ok with that - so we booked both of them for a flight out of Bloomington early June 3rd.

The 2 of them would fly out that morning and the other 4 of us would drive. I made reservations for us for the way down and back, made a list of info for Ethan's parents about where we were staying, what all of our cell phone numbers were, what our basic plans were for the trip, and anything else I could think of.

The morning of the 3rd came - we loaded up the car, the boys grabbed their carry-on bags, and got in their car and we were off. To the airport. We had the 2 of them follow us to the airport and dH went in with them to make sure they got off alright. The 2 other boys slept. Once at the airport they woke up and started getting fidgety.....they decided to watch some tv since they were finally awake. That's when it happened...... They were looking by their feet, in bags, got out looked through the back area.....nothing. About that time DH gets back to the car and before the door is barely open "Dad - where are our DVDs????"

 

[mom3sonstt]

Welcome to my Walt Disney World - 1988 ...... hmmm that's more like 1968....how about this guy (think Tom Cruise - Risky Business....)

In honor of our 22nd wedding anniversary - here are the honeymooners.....no, not Ralph & Alice Kramden......

us I was a 22 year old child-bride. (Yikes - my oldest son is 21 - almost that same age!) and DH was a grizzled old groom of 34

Check out the picture Mickey has on the wall in his dressing room - is that Michael Eisner


We are going our for supper tonight - or I would scan and post more pics. If I'd thought about that I would have done it sooner....but.....well I didn't think of it sooner.

So - any requests for the Diamond Horseshoe Revue stage show,
the Walt Disney World Village,
Mickey's Birthdayland,
pictures from the Skyway,
the Earful Tower (before MGM was open),
or how about River Country,
Horizons, World of Motion,
or better yet Imagination - back when Figment and Dreamfinder were running things,
or Food Rocks (veggie, fruit, fruit - veggie veggie fruit fruit)......

anybody???

 

[glennbo123]

How cool Tanya! Love the flashback pic!

 

[vamassey1]

Ohh a clifhanger already!

Love the "way back" photo.

I only saw the show at the Diamond Horseshoe once back in 1999. I loved it.

I would love to see any vintage photos.