12/09/06 Cruise Continued ~ Pirating Bananas DIS Geekorama Part 2

[Jhalkias]

Lisa W.

Yes, I am Greek. My mother came from Greece, and both of my father's parents came from Greece. I have yet to go to Greece though . . . My whole family went the year my son was born, and we did not want to take a newborn overseas. Both of my grandparents in Greece died before I ever met them. My DW is not Greek, but both of my children are raised in the Orthodox church.

We have a thriving Greek community here in Canton, OH. DW does LOVE the food, the festivals, and the ethnic "association". My first language was Greek too - and I went to K-Garten speaking it to the teacher. My son is much like you - understands it all, but does not speak it - my parents took care of him while we worked when he was young. DD though has not been exposed to it as my parent's health is not so good now, and DW's mother takes care of Sophia.

Yasou!

John

 

[BuzzBoyMom]

102 pages!!! WOW!!! I just knew you guys were going to do it last night!!!

 

[lbgraves]

Here they are!!! (I still can't find the connector for the scanner so I had to take a picture of the picture. )

LOL! I guess that she wasn't interested in "just pretend that we aren't here with this massive camera hovering over you."

 

[lbgraves]

Well, guys, I am going to try to get some sleep now. Last night was very windy here & it kept tugging at the shutter next to the bed. Around 4 am it was suddenly silent...but the wind kept going. This morning I recovered the shutter from the neighbor's yard. The flagpole holder was also pulled out of the brick. At least the flag is in one piece along with the pole. Now I need to figure out what to use to plug up the hole & hold the bracket in place again. No trees down, the neighbor had one hit his house over the weekend. The gusts are suppose to be up to 35 mph until 4 pm.

 

[dutch_girl_scout]

I missed the 100 page party by about 10 minutes. It was bed time for the kids and pets.

Lisa--no we don't have year-round school, the D.C. trip is scheduled for the last week of classes, which is somewhere around the first of June. They were supposed to get out the last week in May but we had a couple of snow days, so I think DS will still have to go to school a couple days after the trip.

You had mentioned that the principal shot down all the PTO fundraising ideas, what do you currently do for fundraisers? Our elementary school has t-shirt/sweatshirt sales and Sally Foster sales (wrapping paper and gift items). In the past they have done spring flower sales where they teamed up with a local greenhouse and sell hanging baskets and half and whole flats of flowers. When the kids sell to someone the customer gets a voucher, then the customer goes to the greenhouse during a two-week time period and picks out thier own flowers. It's nice because there is no delivery or anything to mess with. This year they stopped doing flowers and are making "baskets" to auction off at our school carnival. Each basket has a theme like car care, movie night, bubble bath, etc. Each classroom picked a theme and the kids all donated items for the baskets. All the funds go to pay for the elementary field trips because our school board cut all the funding for those, so the community is usually pretty good about buying.

 

[BuzzBoyMom]

Thanks for sharing that with us Lisa!

Now you get some sleep...we'll try to keep the chatter on this thread to a minimum ...at least below 150 pages before the afternoon.

 

[BuzzBoyMom]

One of our great fundraisers this year was our annual Secret Santa Shop. We profited $6K! Each year a committee purchases items from a local gift place (reminds me of an oriental trading type place or lillian vernon). anyway, most of the items are <$10....with prices ranging from .50 up to $15. We sort them by category- Women/ Men and Kids. Parents send money and help their child come up with a Christmas list and a budget and the kids can actually Christmas shop for their family members. It is minimum effort and is open for about 2 days to allow each class one visit to the "shop" that we set up in the school library. It is lots of fun and the kids love the idea that they get to pick out the gifts.

 

[dutch_girl_scout]

One of our great fundraisers this year was our annual Secret Santa Shop.

I agree this is a great fund raiser. A service club in town (Kiwanis, Lions, Rotary, something) does this every year. There are no parents allowed and then they help the kids wrap the presents and everything, my DD10 has done most of her Christmas shopping there. It's always fun to see what they buy people, things you wouldn't expect. I think there are actually companies that will come in and set it up if you don't have a lot of local businesses (BOO Wal-mart) and then you only pay for what was sold. Either way, it is a good fundraiser.

 

[lbgraves]

We are actually going to try that next year. I will do the buying, which will take alot of time, for the 75% clearance deals that I get during the year...like for carnival prizes. We would like to keep everything under $5. When they did this thru a company they made money but the stuff was WAY overpriced & junky. This would be better stuff at a lower price. Now I'm logging off.

 

[MrsMork]

Good morning! Lisa, I emailed a photo of our Aaron for the webpage. Let me know if you are not able to retrieve it.

 

[BuzzBoyMom]

I kept scrolling and scrolling...I thought we were bumped to the second page. I normally am not here on evenings, but the boys are at Tae Kwon Do and I'm having dinner - bowl of cereal...so I thought I'd find you guys just chatting away!!

How did that Family Fun thing go? And to think we're cruising with movie stars!!!!

 

[dutch_girl_scout]

That was scary.....Our thread was about at the bottom of the page!!

Today was a great day, the sun came out and it was almost warm here. Snickers and I took a nice long walk, so she's nice and tired.

After all the talk about fundraising this morning, the phone rang around lunch time and it was the president of the local Kiwanis chapter wanting to know if the Girl Scouts could use a financial donation. Of course we can.

I'm so envious of Caroline (pyramid) getting to go on a cruise with her girls. It sounds like they're having a good time.

I think our family is in agreement about staying at Coranado Springs before our cruise. I have a feeling that my local travel agent is going to try to talk me into making everything a package, the stay, the air, the tickets, everything. I'd rather do it seperate so I can change/cancel things if I want. I had booked the cruise on my own and called to see if she could get me a better deal. She asked for my reservation number to see what I had booked and transferred it to her agency. I decided that it's not worth the hassle to try to get it back, but I'd like to do the rest on my own. What do you guys think? Would I be better off doing it on my own or should I let her do her do everything? Her agency certainly doesn't specialize in Disney travel.

Mark--How did the video go? A Family Fun TV show is a great idea, parents can always use good ideas on activities to do together. Is Family Fun owned by Disney?

Jordan--good to see you back on the boards, sorry you missed out on the top spot on page 100. Somehow I thought you'd sneak in there. Guess we were chattier than you thought.

 

[MrsMork]

I asked a TA for a quote also just to see if it would be less than what I had booked on board. The TA also just went ahead and transferred it...the price was the same. I will know better next time. I was going to check with DU also, but it was already a done deal. They better at least send a little sail away gift to us. I book everything separate. We use DVC for lodging prior to the cruise and I have always been able to get decent airfare close to flying time. It is nice to know you can change/cancel just one piece.

 

[BuzzBoyMom]

You mean the TA transferred your original ressie? Did they have your ressie number? Wow! Didn't know they could do that.

 

[dutch_girl_scout]

I'm glad to know my TA isn't the only thief. LOL. I asked DCL how she could take it without my permission and they said as long as she had the ressie number she could. They told me I could ask for it back, but when I did my TA said it couldn't be transferred back, when I insisted, she said that I would have to write/fax DCL a letter and have it released. Not worth the hassle. I assured her though that I was probably going to be a pain in the butt over the next 11 months and she might get tired of me. We'll see.

I guess our return date fares will be out on Friday, is it best to book those early or later? Can you cancel if a better deal comes up? I've never done any of this on my own.

 

[GoofyFD]

Cool! I'll have to look - we get Family Fun. .... hey - I found you - that is so cool! You should have shaved your head with Mickey ears though since you mostly see the tops of your heads. Ha ha ha. I see your DD has her 15 minutes of fame though - she's looking right into the camera!

Thats me! As you can see I have only a little hair and that was four years ago the picture was taken. I won't have to shave that much!!!

 

[GoofyFD]

Here they are!!! (I still can't find the connector for the scanner so I had to take a picture of the picture. )

LOL! I guess that she wasn't interested in "just pretend that we aren't here with this massive camera hovering over you."

Thats us. I'll scan the book and the article for you guys.

 

[GoofyFD]

We did it!!!!!!!! Wow, it was really hard, the kids did not like doing it at all. "Are we done yet"? "I hungry!" on and on ......Well, like I said this was fly by the seat of our pants just to get it done. I'll call the editor tomorrow and let her know that I did it. I will kept you guys updated.

 

[jordanyosh]

Mark, I'm glad you got it done. Hopefully it will make it to TV and then I can say, "I knew you when......"

 

[jordanyosh]

Jordan....Kill that thread....


I just did.