Hello again everyone!!! I apologize for the long time in between posts. I wanted to wait until my brother's divorce went through to plan anything else. It seemed like things were changing constantly, and I wanted to just be sure of what we were doing before I wrote another post.
Here's what has been happening in my life:
*Germs- 'nuff said.
*Sewing lessons/violin lessons: A friend of mine who also homeschools her kids and I decided to trade skills to come together and teach our kids some valuable life skills. She is a phenomenal violinist, as is my husband, but my husband works all day and doesn't have time to teach. So...she teaches two of my kids how to play violin (they both are doing great, but one looks like she is taking after daddy), and I teach her two how to sew. We are currently sewing aprons. It is such great fun teaching the kids these things. It does take time though, so we are much busier. Next week we are adding another special mom into our mix who will teach organic farming, so that will be awesome!
*Reffing competitions: Tomorrow I will referee my first ground fighting/MMA tournament. I had to be trained, and now my hubby and I will ref and two of our kids get to compete for free! Yay!
*Construction: As I mentioned before, we bought a house that was a foreclosure. It has tons of work, which we love. We are currently tearing up all the old layers of flooring down to the slab in the kitchen, dining room, hall, closets, and bathroom. We are almost done installing new ceramic tile that looks fabulous, but was so hard of a project. I painted all those rooms plus my entryway b/c my hubby had accidentally painted it peach. Ick! We still have trim to sand and repaint and then install, but we are getting there! We also started a reno on our laundry room and master closet. My hubby tore out everything in the laundry room and moved the plumbing, gas, etc...all to the opposite wall, moved doorways, closed off old hallways, and is in the process of turning it into a laundry room with a walk-in closet attached. It will be gorgeous, but is currently a massive mess.
*Brother's divorce: Not yet. Unfortunately. It was supposed to go through on February 23rd, but she wouldn't agree to anything and wants to take everything from him even though she was the one who destroyed everything. So...his attorney is changing her tactics and fighting back hard. The good news in all this? My mom asked his soon to be ex wife if she could take the kids to Disney for 7 days, and oddly she said yes!!! The only thing I can think of is that she is showing appreciation for us letting her come to the kids' karate tests.
So here we are. We are finally able to book our trip. I hope to do so on Sunday. Lots of plans have changed though, and I am hoping they are going to be permanent changes.
Here's our changes:
*Our dates: It looks like we are booking for the 7th-13th for my brother and mom. For our family we are booking from the 5th-14th. The crowds are higher and I've had to change our whole plan, but it is going to work out great! We like to stay a little longer than 7 days, and their trip dates weren't going to work that great for us, so we decided to leave early so it works better for my hubby's work schedule.
***EDIT*** Dates are now OFFICIALLY September 27th-October 6th with my brother and his kids leaving the 3rd. This is explained better in the below section. We have free dining now! Yay!
*My dad is coming with us!!!: He had decided he didn't want to go to Disney b/c if you remember, he was "All Disneyed out", I am not sure such a thing exists, but whatever. We were all a little disappointed that he wasn't coming and had decided to try out POFQ b/c we didn't need 5 in one room with him not being there. He was gonna come for one day on the 12th and my mom and him would've gone on the 13th to port canaveral for a cruise then. After researching cruises, he came to my mom and said: "I don't want to go on a cruise. I guess I'm going to Disney!" My 31 year old brother actually jumped up and down when he found out.
*Our resort: So now we can't stay at POFQ, but that's ok! I feel like we are going home to POR!!!
***EDIT***So...I guess I lied. We did in fact have one more change. Well, two actually, but I believe them to be permanent changes...SO THERE!!! We booked our trip on the 4th I believe, and the very next day they announced free dining for September. Then we found out my brother couldn't leave that week anyway b/c of work, so I had to call and change our dates. In doing so, I realized they didn't have what I wanted at POR, so I did some fast thinking and changed over to Caribbean Beach Resort. How was I able to do that you ask? By moving my mom into one of my rooms, and my dad will just get a room to stay in after my brother leaves. It would've cost $1,000 more to stay in Royal rooms at POR and I wasn't interested, so now we are staying at a resort I never considered before!!
*Some of our ADR's: We had to move dates, so now some of the ADR's are moved. I will let you know about that shortly.
*We are surprising the kids!: My kids know we are going. I know that sounds odd since I said we are surprising the kids. We have been talking about this trip since before we left Disney in May, so it was hard to surprise the kids with a trip they already knew about. I've been watching all those "Surprise! We are going to Disney!" utube videos, and they make me cry. I really wanted to be able to do that for my kids, so this is what I came up with: We are doing countdown calendars that say we are leaving the 27th of October. That way if I slip and say we are going on September 27th, then I won't be freaking out that I gave away the surprise b/c I can quickly say "whoops! I mean October 27th, not September 27th!!!". I always pack way early, so it won't be wierd if suitcases are out in August. I will have the kids stay at my mom's on the 26th, and pack everything up in the car. When they come home, we will go do the countdown calendar with camera rolling. In our master closet, I will have the pocket door shut and filled with balloons and such, but they won't see that right away. They will go to put the sticker on the calendar, and it will be a different calendar that says on the 27th "We are going to Disney today!!!" Confusion will ensue, and we will unleash the balloons. Then at about 3 AM we will hop in the car and head to the Columbus airport (that is the plan for now anyway. We aren't 100% sure if we are flying or driving) that is a couple hours away. The same will be done with my niece and nephew.
*Drea and Kira are still going: I thought that our numbers had dwindled down to 11, but Drea informed me today that she is still going.
Our new and hopefully final itinerary:
Thursday 9/27/12: 3 AM drive 2 hours to Columbus airport for a 7:30ish nonstop flight to Orlando, landing at 9:30 AM. Ideally we would leave the 4th and stay overnight in Columbus, but we shall see how much money we make this summer!
Settle in at CBR then head to EPCOT (crowd level 1.6) Lunch and Dinner: CS
Illuminations at 9 PM
Friday 9/28/12:
Open Schedule-AM
O'Hana dinner
MK:
MNSSHP (CL 1.1)
Saturday 9/29/12:
Dreaded Animal Kingdom with possible throwing overboard of momma on Kali (CL 2.2)
DTD-T-REX dinner
Sunday 9/30/12:
HS (CL 6.5)
Fantasmic Dinner Pkg at Mama Melrose
Fantasmic
Monday 10/1/12:
MK (7.7)
Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique
CRT
EMH till 1 AM (my favorite!)
Tuesday 10/2/12:
Open Schedule but will probably end up at HS
Wednesday 10/3/12:
EPCOT (3.5)
Akershus Princess Story Hour Bkfst.
Brother and kids flying back to Ohio
Teppan Edo for dinner
Thursday 10/4/12:
MK (1.1)
then either DTD or MNSSHP again if we love it
All counter service meals
Friday 10/5/12:
HS (6.0)
Sci-Fi lunch
50's Prime Time Diner for dinner
Saturday 10/6/12:
Open Schedule, but probably MK
Flight back to Ohio. boo.
I am not sure anyone is even reading anymore, but I wanted to apologize again. I know I said I was going to come back over a week ago to finish this post, but I ended up having another stinkin' health scare. I woke up with severe pain in my abdomen, and the next day pushed on the pain, and felt something pop and sploosh. It has gotten progressively better since then, but it was a bit harsh for a while there. I have avoided going to the doctor b/c our insurance deductible is not met yet. I know it was a bad idea, but if it had gotten worse I would've gone. Since it is improving, I am staying away. Anyway, in talking to some friends, I think it may have been some kind of cyst. It was causing a blockage which is fine now. I used to get ovarian cysts as a teenager, so I am leaning towards that or some kind of cyst in my intestines. Yippee. I know. Anyway, thanks again for your patience!
