3 Generations... Two Weeks at Disney... Only the Strong Will Survive!!!! Take 2

[myasma]

It's that time of year again!! It is time for my annual trip to Disney World!! Each year, I take different members of my family and each year they find new and inventive ways to frustrate me but it would not be a trip to Disney without them and we really do love each other so we continue to go. The first couple of years I went to Disney, it was just me, my daughter, and my mom. Then there was a trip with my mom and nephew that was really fun, and finally a trip with my sister and her five kids in April 2011. It has been brewing for a while and finally the whole family is going all together. There will be laughter, tears, and mini meltdown from toddlers but most importantly, there will be lots and lots of magic! (Side note: I always start pre-trip reports and trip reports with good intentions but I never seem to finish all the ones I start. However, every effort will be given to finish this one. Also, I love to change my plans on the whim in my never ending search for the perfect trip so none of the plans I write here will be set in stone.) Now that the legalities are out of the way, allow me to introduce the cast of our pre-trip report.

Staring w/Me!- S

I am a 24 year old nursing student who loves everything to do with Disney. Me and Disney have a long history and I even worked for them last year in the College Program. Usually, I am very serious but when I talk about Disney, there is an automatic light that comes in my eyes and my whole persona changes. I am also the official vacation planner in my family. They are truly spoiled with me planning the Disney trips. They do not have to do anything as far as the trips but show up on travel day fully packed. It doesn't bother me because I honestly love doing it. Planning the trip, to me, is the best part of the trip. I love the anticipation and the look of happiness on my family's faces when it all comes together.

Next up is my partner in crime, aka, Nana.

My Mom has been on every single trip to Disney World with me except for one. My Mom lets me loose and is content to let me plan our trip without any interjections and she trusts my judgement on everything dealing with Disney. My Mom also irritates me greatly and we don't have the best relationship but due to our annual Disney trips are forming a tighter bond.

As you can see in the above picture, next up is my little man L M.- 7
He is as Disney obsessed as I am. He loves all the characters but his absolute favorites are Lightning Mcqueen and Phineas and Ferb, hence his report name. L M has ADHD and is a kid who never stops. When I first took him to Disney, I was a little concerned because he does not handle large crowds well and is a flight risk as he does not have a lot of inhibitions. Once he gets something in his head, he just does it and doesn't stop to think about the repercussions. I found that I had nothing to worry about. He did great with a few adjustments on our part and I can't wait to take him again. Here are a couple of pics from his first trip.

Next we have the two girls, Princess T and Tink.- 5 and 4.

(Princess T)

(Tink: Note the band-aid, she is a very rough and tumble type kid but also has a very sweet and generous personality.)

This will be their second time going and ask every day they ask if today is finally the day they can go to Disney World. Princess T loves all things princess and unsurprisingly is a girly girl. She loves anything that is frilly or makes her feel beautiful and she spends hours in the mirror just looking at herself. Tink on the other hand has a personality just like her favorite character. She loves looking pretty but is not afraid to play in the dirt and get messy. She is adventurous, fun loving, but at the same time very sensitive and her feelings are easily hurt.

Finally for the kids, we have the twins Thing 1 and Thing 2.- 18 months

This is also their second trip, first one at 6 months, and I am excited because this time they will be more aware of the characters and some of the rides. Last time we went, the twins were content to sit and nap in their strollers as long as they were given enough food, drink and changed often. I am hopeful that the trip will go smoothly this time also but am already planning on taking afternoon breaks.

Last but not least is my sister-Grumpy.

Sad to say, she does not get it when it comes to Disney. She goes because her kids enjoy it so much. It is really not her fault though. The first time we went, an aunt took us and she was obviously not on the disboards before we went. Everything that I now know not to do, she did and it was not an enjoyable trip. On our last trip, I made the mistake of doing a commando trip with her when I should have focused on reintroducing her to the magic. I learned my lesson and am planning on taking the touring nice and slow this trip. Here's to making a a believer out of a doubter!!!

Whew!!! That was a lot of writing! Sorry for being so long winded and I promise they will not all be so long. Stay tuned, you don't want to miss the upcoming plans and "What do you mean we can't go to Disney for a week anymore?"

 

[myasma]

Introduction
Plans
Changing Plans
ADR's
What do you mean more changes?
Plans and Budgeting
Seriously!! More Changes!!!
Major Happenings Today!!
The Changes Keep Coming.
Flight Plans Made!!!
24 Days!! (I Think)
The Race Is On!!!
11 Days!!!
Online Check-In

 

[myasma]

Our plans have been getting constantly changed. At first it was only supposed to be my Mom and I going in from June 12-19 at the All Star Music Resort. We had booked it when Disney had offered the 30% discount. When the promo ended I was disappointed by the free dining offer that came out in August but I was unwilling to change my plans for the June Trip. Here is where the problem occurred. I work as a teacher's aide and our trip dates coincided with the last four days of school. I needed to talk to my supervisor about possibly missing the last four days of school and I was hoping that she would agree as i had already paid the flight tickets. Long story short, she said absolutely not , i had to reschedule our trip, and I was out of 375 dollars for the flights. On the bright side, I did want to book for free dining and I did for the first week, August 25-August 31 still at the All Star Music Resort.

Problem #2

Every year my Mom attends the Tupperware convention called Jubilee. She gets special rates for resorts and tickets. She had planned to go from August 18 to August the 25th with my sister and stay off property. Really I was planning the trip for them because they don't know how to. Originally my Mom was planning on going down with my sister, staying with me for a week, and then return with me. Unfortunately my Mom has been really sick lately and she really wanted to do a trip with the whole family and she wanted to stay on property.

So I changed all our original plans again and booked us for the first week at the.......

Contemporary Resort!!!

We will be staying here from August 18 to August 25. The best part is because of my Mom attending the convention, we booked it at half price. This week will not be on the dining plan and we will pay for all of our meals OOP. After our week is finished we will move to..... drum roll please.....

Fort Wilderness Cabins!!

We will stay here from August 25 to August 31. While staying here we will be on the free basic table service dining plan.

Transportation

We will be driving the 17+ hours from our house to Orlando. (or atleast my sister and Mom will as I don't know how to drive.) To help out, I will be occupying the kids during the drive down. I plan to have lots of activities, snacks, and movies to keep them busy.

Tickets

My Mom gets discount tickets for being a conventionear participant but I am thinking about enrolling the three oldest in the YES program so that we can get even more discounted tickets. Either way we will get the 6 day tickets with WPFM since it is mandatory to have at least two day park tickets with the vacation package.

ADR's and Which Park?

I have made all our ADR's and our park schedule for the trip but will share them later.

 

[Tink2Day]

What a beautiful family! The twins are adorable.

Can't wait to read the happenings.

But next year don't forget to take me, I'm your long lost but loving cousin 3 times removed on Nana's side. and I'm a fun girl too (use the term girl very loosely, more like old lady).

Well a girl's gotta do what she can to get to WDW.

 

[myasma]

What a beautiful family! The twins are adorable.

Can't wait to read the happenings.

But next year don't forget to take me, I'm your long lost but loving cousin 3 times removed on Nana's side. and I'm a fun girl too (use the term girl very loosely, more like old lady).

Well a girl's gotta do what she can to get to WDW.

Yay !!! My first reader. It's funny how many new family members I get when I plan a Disney Trip. I always say the more the merrier but we seriously already have a little league team on our hands, if we add any more we may have to look into trying to get a sports sponsorship. Thank you for reading and i hope you enjoy all our plans.

 

[myasma]

Sooo, I spoke to my sister the other day and she told me she really didn't want to go with us for two weeks and she didn't want the kids to go without her. I was very disappointed but I decided not to get too upset about it. I would rather her tell me now then wait until it is too late to safely change the plans. We are officially back to only me and my Mom and we are now staying at the:

All Stars Music Resort

I'm happy to stay here because this was the original plan but I am still a bit disappointed because the previous plans were soooooo awesome. On the up side, paying off the balance will be so much easier and money will be less tight in our budget. The kids are sad though because they really wanted me to go with them. I told my mom that this is absolutely the last time I am changing our plans. I have a mini heart attack each time I have to cancel our dining reservations and make new ones.

Transportation:

Another plus is that now I get to take the amtrak train like I wanted to and experience the beauty of a sleeper car. I hate flying and to me this is an awesome substitute and my epitome of relaxing. I like the idea of a vacation within a vacation. Since my arrival is technically on the 24th, my sister will pick me up and I will spend the last full day with everyone.

Tickets
The tickets will be discounted because my Mom is attending an convention and we both will be paying for the 6 day Magic Your Way base tickets.

ADR's coming up next.

 

[myasma]

Our dining reservations were chosen with great care. Some places had to be kept because they were traditions for us but we also wanted to try some new places. We also have the free dining plan that Disney is offering during our stay and are choosing to pay some OOP.

Dining Plans: TS and QS

Friday, August 24, 2012
D- Sweet Tomatoes (tradition for me,old for everyone else)

Saturday- August 25, 2012
L- Wolfgang Puck Cafe/ Cookes of Dublin
D- Flying Fish (New)

Sunday- August 26, 2012
L- Yak N Yeti (New)
D- Boma (New)

Monday- August 27, 2012
L- World Showcase
D- Via Napoli (New)

Tuesday- August 28, 2012
L- 50's Prime Time Cafe (tradition)
D- Pepper Market

Wednesday- August 29.2012
L- Typhoon Tilly's
D- Cape may Cafe (tradition for me, new for my Mom)

Thursday- August 30, 2012 (All Tradition)
B- Crystal Palace
L- Columbia Harbour House
D- Liberty Tree Tavern

Friday- August 31, 2012
B- Kona Cafe (New)
L- EOS (Tradition)
D- Train

I am most excited about eating at Flying Fish. I have heard great things about the potato encrusted snapper and can't wait to try it. I also wanted to try Le Cellier but it was not meant to be, all booked. I keep telling myself next time, I will try it but I never seem to time the 180 day time out correctly. Oh well, overall I am happy with my dining choices and happy to try all the new restaurants.

For next time, I will write our day to day plans and what days our park days.

 

[myasma]

Even though, no one is posting but me, I am still going to press on. The original plans are back on. I talked to my sister and she hearing that she would have to drive back by herself if we split up our vacation, she reconsidered going for the two weeks. So ignore what I wrote last night, the plans are back to where they were at first.!!!

 

[myasma]

Here is a list of our new ADR's for the two weeks we will be down there and yes I did have a mini heart attack from rearranging them yet again from last night. This list includes TS, QS, and off property dining. The first week will be without the dining plan so we will be eating more cost effectively. Most of our off property dining is during this week. The second week, we will have free dining and we will mostly eat on property. I tried to plan for both the kids and the adults and I hope I did a good job,


Saturday August 18

L-Pizza Hut
D- Joe's Crabshack (sentimental tradition) changed to CiCi's Pizza

Sunday August 19

L- Fairfax Faire
D- Steak N' Shakes

Monday August 20
L- World Showcase QS
D- Garden Grill

Tuesday August 21
B- Tusker House
L- Yak N' Yeti CS
D-Long Horn Steakhouse changed to CS on the Boardwalk

Wednesday August 22
B-Crystal Palace
L-Columbia Harbour House
D- Cosmic Rays

Thursday August 23
L- Earl of Sandwich
D- Movie Dining Maybe changing to Giddy Up N' Go

Friday August 24
L- Lottawotta Lodge
D- Sweet tomatoes

Saturday August 25
L- Wolfgang Puck/Cookes of Dublin
D-Trails End To Go changed to Cap't Cooks

Sunday August 26
L-Rainforest Cafe
D-Boma

Monday August 27
L-Akhersus
D-Via Napoli

Tuesday August 28
L-50's Primetime cafe
D- Pepper Market

Wednsesday August 29
L- Typhoon Tilly's
D- 'Ohana

Thursday August 30
L- Sunshine Terrace/Caseys Corner changed to Sleepy Hollow
D- Liberty Tree Tavern

Friday August 31
L-Sassagoula Floatworks and Food Factory
D- EOS

 

[myasma]

I wanted to share some of our plans and budgeting ideas since planning a trip for eight people have not been in any means cheap. to help us stay focus on the goal of Disney we came up with some ideas. I decided to forego my hair appointments and to downgrade my phone bill to use that money for the trip. i also decided to work during the summer to bring in some extra money. We also got the kids in on the budgeting. I asked them what is the things that they wanted the most from Disney. The two little ones picked fairly simple items and the oldest one picked one simple item and a mid priced item. Each weekend when they come over my house, they each have chores and earn a sum of money towards their trip money. I even made a savings chart for each child to make it more visual.

Zuriel chose ice cream and a Mickey Mouse pretzel

Azurre chose ice cream and a souvenir popcorn bucket.

Lastly, Ishmael chose an ice cream and a pirate's sword.

Plans!!!

We are planning on driving so our first day starts on the 17th. We will be leaving at 7 pm and hopefully arrive at Florida by 11 am on the 18th.
Our goal for the parks is to try to do all the things we normally pass up or overlook. We have two weeks in the parks so we are going to try to experience as much new stuff as we can
August 18- Arrival
The plan for today is mainly checking in, Walmart,and letting the drivers of the group catch up on sleep.

August 19th- Hollywood Studios
Main Goal: Get nephew to experience the Jedi training so me and him will get up early and do rope drop and later meet up with the family

New Rides:
Star Tours
Backlot Tour
New play house Disney ( I do not know the new name.)

August 20th- Epcot

Main Goal- Do Soarin with my Mom. We have been to Disney three times together and each time we get fastpasses for Soarin but end up giving them away or never using them.

New Rides:
Captain EO
Innoventions
Sum of all Thrills
Maelstrom
Three Caballeros

August 21- Animal Kingdom

Main Goal- Keep my eyes open during Dinosaur.

New Rides
Primeval Whirl
Rafiki's Planet Watch

August 22- Magic Kingdom

Main goal- Get nieces and nephew transformed into pirates and explore the new fantasyland.

New Rides:
Tom Sawyers Island

August 23- DTD

Main goal- Buy the coca cola flavored soap in basin.

New:
Nothing

August 24- Blizzard Beach

Main goal- Do not lose any of the children.

August 25- Move to Fort Wilderness

Main goal- Settle into cabin and explore resort.

New- Everything

August 26- Animal Kingdom

Main goal- Ride Expedition Everest 5 times!!!

August 27- Epcot

Main Goal- Shop at every country at World Showcase and get a picture of MyaRose in a crystal.

August 28- Hollywood Studios

Main Goal- Fantasmic!!

August 29- Typhoon Lagoon

Main Goal- Leave with the same amount of kids we came in with. (Water parks always makes me nervous. We first lost my nephew in the one at Sesame Place. They are just too easy to lose kids in.)

August 30- Magic Kingdom
As a tradition we always end with the most magical place in the world.

Main Goal- Track down the Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen from our last trip with Mya, Last time I was at Disney, prince Naveen remembered me.

August 31- Departure

Main Goal- Visit a couple of other resorts and revisit DTD for last minute souvies. Start for home.

Well that's the plans. Please feel free to comment and let me know what you think.

 

[myasma]

Sorry I have not been posting lately. School just let out for the summer so I should have a lot more time to write about the happenings of this trip.

As usual I have made more and more changes to our trip. My job again said I could not take off during orientation week even though the kids won't technically return until the following week. I was disappointed but knew that I would have to change the dates. Here I was 75 days out from leaving and I had to change our dates for the second week to the 12-18th. I called Disney, an hour and two agents later zi changed us to the All Star Music family suite with dining plan. I changed all of our ADR's and told my family that that was it. No more changes!!!

That is until the next day when I found a condo at the Regal Palms Resort for only 549 dollars for the entire first week. I emailed the owner and after discussing it with my family decided to book it. Of course i had to call Disney back and cancel the reservation but that was it for changes.....

Well, then I saw the new Lego Land water park and decided I really wanted to take my nephew so I talked it over with my Mom and she said she would pay for it so we added that to our to do list. My mom also wants to go to universal and the holy land experience.
That's all the changes for now but we will see what will happen.

 

[mnrhannah07]

I'm here.... Hello to you

Now you sound even more like my family with all the plan changes!
Holy Land is the coolest place I've ever been (on a spiritual level)..warning though, bring a box of tissues, it is a real tear-jerker!

 

[myasma]

thank you for reading. Welcome!!! I hate that my family always changes things but I can never be satisfied until I have the cheapest trip possible. My mom really wants to go to the Holy Land Experience this year and has begged me to go for years so I am finally booking it. I am a little worried that it might be a little bit boring for the little ones. Do you think I have anything to worry about?

 

[mnrhannah07]

Well, if the kids enjoy plays, this would be fine...As you most likely read, its an all day event and you walk scene to scene, from his birth to death. each scene is a play and are very interesting..If the kids get bored, you can always bring snacks or other "keep busy" activites lol Plus, there are numerous snack and gift shops all around...Dont know if you like Turkey Legs, but they have THE best turkey legs! lol

 

[myasma]

Well, if the kids enjoy plays, this would be fine...As you most likely read, its an all day event and you walk scene to scene, from his birth to death. each scene is a play and are very interesting..If the kids get bored, you can always bring snacks or other "keep busy" activites lol Plus, there are numerous snack and gift shops all around...Dont know if you like Turkey Legs, but they have THE best turkey legs! lol

Thankfully the three oldest are very interested in learning about Jesus' life and i think they will enjoy it. My sister will probably stay at the hotel with the two youngest since they are too young to really get the concept of the Holy Land Experience. I will have to make a note to try the turkey legs since right now Disney's is my favorite. They must be really good to top Disney's.

 

[myasma]

Today is a great day for our plan changing family. Today I am paying off the first part of our trip!!! Now this trip can finally seem real. In other updating news, my sister is forcing me to get my driver's permit at the end of this week. She told me that in no terms is she going to be stuck driving the whole way with only my Mom's help. I am kinda glad that she is forcing me to get my license. It is about time I stop procrastinating and just do it. Now that we are staying off property for the first half of the trip, we will not be on the dining plan at all. I was able to still arrange our plans so we are able to experience the best of both worlds but I also had to budget for more money going towards food cost.

Coming up Next: Revised plans again, Autograph books, and woah that's a lot of souvenir money.

 

[myasma]

I am starting to become apprehensive about posting to this thread. It seems like every time I post our plans, they automatically change again. So, with both fingers crossed here is the final.. final changes, hopefully....

For reasons that will remain unsaid, my sister backed out of the trip again and will not allow my Mom and I to take the kids without her so the trip is back down to me and my Mom. My Mom decided she did not want to do a two week trip to Disney because she really didn't want to spend all that extra money. I, on the other hand, had been very excited about my two week vacation and did not want to give up on it just yet. I told her to give me a few minutes and I would get back to her with another option. I had been trying to think of a way to get to Universal this trip but had no idea of how it was going to happen. With the news from my Mom, I quickly researched how much it would be to stay at Universal for a couple of days. Jackpot, Universal was running a special for three nights at their partner hotels. We booked the two of us for only 587 dollars which includes hotel stay, tickets, and a city walk pass (which we will not be using.) I told my mom about the price and she told me to book it. So I did and we have already paid this part of the trip off.

Surprises

I like to go all out when I plan Disney trips and sometimes I plan hidden surprises. So far I have planned two.

1. I booked the Cinematic Spectacular package for my Mom at Universal. (It includes dinner and preferred viewing of the show.)
2. I got the Dine all day Card for one of our days so we will not have to worry about paying to eat while we are in the parks.

Disney Plans!!

Our Disney plans mostly stayed the same except for our dining reservations and a couple of things in regards to park touring. My Mom is going to the Tupperware Jubilee convention while we are there so a few of our Disney days I will be traveling solo. There is one major exciting thing that happened recently. Since I started planning this trip, my Mom has told me she wanted to do the Dessert party. I tried to book it for weeks but it was always full and I had to tell my Mom I could not book it. Last week, around 12 am something told me to just check it again. I put in the date, amount of people attending, and held my breath. Right there on the screen popped up an availability for 8:15 and I booked it. We are now able to go and my Mom was so happy and excited.

Travel Plans.

Our travel plans are now very different from the original ones. Since there are only two of us now, we are flying. I will say that the only reason we are flying is for my Mom's sake. I hate flying with a passion and after my last flight, promised that I would never get on a plane again. My Mom, however, is very sick and cannot sit for long periods of time or else she will get swelling in her lower joints so the train is not an option. Plus the prices for sleeper cars are through the roof. I was going to go with southwest but am now thinking about flying out of nearby Atlantic City as it is way cheaper. I won't be purchasing the tickets until the 20th of this month so I still have a little time. If we go through Spirit, we will arrive in Atlantic City the night before our flight and fly in to Orlando a day ahead of our schedule.

All in all our new travel dates will be from August 13 to August 25.

Next will be a new revised schedule and I am really hoping that these plans do not change.

 

[myasma]

Here is a list of our updated plans. I had to change all of our dining plans once again and I had to call special diets on my Mom's behalf. My mom recently found out that she is in renal failure so she has to eat a special renal diet so that she will not overload her body. She cannot eat tomatoes or dairy except once a week. She cannot have any orange food, salt, beans, potatoes, collard greens, or bananas. That makes it a little difficult for us to find her things to eat but the woman I spoke to was very nice and reassuring.

August 13

Amtrak Train to Atlantic City
Cab to Hotel (Best Western)
D- Burger King

August 14

B- Free hotel breakfast
Cab to airport
L- At Airport
Arrive in Orlando
Drive to Hotel for 1 night (Best Western, can you tell who my rewards card is with? )
D- Waffle House

August 15
B- Hotel Bfast
Drive to partner hotel for Universal stay. (Best Western)
Walmart run to pick up some stuff.
L- Steak and Shake's
City Walk to redeem tickets
Go to Movies and shop
D- Bubba Gump's

August 16
B- Hotel
Universal Studios- Ride all the Rides
L- Mel's Diner
Leave Universal for mid day rest and swim
D- Lombardi's
Cinematic Spectacular

August 17
B- Hotel
Islands of Adventures ?(We will plan on doing everything except for HP. We are just not interested.)
L- Mythos
Leave for the day and relax
D- Joe's Crab Shack (This is our tradition restaurant. We first went on my daughter's MAW trip and now we go every year to honor her memory. She loved this place.)

August 18
B-Hotel
Pack and head to our beloved Disney
Check in at the Contemporary
L- Sweet Tomatoes
Drop off rental car
ME back to Contemporary.
Pool/Relax
D- WCC

August 19
B- In Room
Hollywood Studios must Do's
1. Back lot Studio Tour
2. Star Tours
3. RNR ( First for Mom!)
L- 50's Prime Time Cafe
Head out for rest and pool time.
D- Capt. Cooks and Kona sushi bar.

August 20
B-The Wave
EPCOT- Solo morning and afternoon. Evening with Mom. (Note: Mom made me promise not to ride Soarin until she got there so have to hold it until evening.
Solo:
1. Sum of All Thrills
2. Innoventions
3. Three Caballeros
4. Maelstrom
5. Shop around the World
L- Boulange Patissirie (sp?)
Leave to wait For Mom
Together
1. Soarin
2. Living With the Land. ( Another Mya favorite)
D- Via Napoli
4. Spaceship Earth

August 21
B-In room
Magic kingdom- I am the most excited about this park. On my college program I was placed here and I am interested to see how much it has changed or stayed the same. Solo Morning and Mom will join me in the evening
Solo
1. Space Mountain
2. Mickey's Philaharmagic
3. Big Thunder Mountain
4. Splash Mountain
L- Sleepy Hollow (Really want to try the new chicken sandwich.)
Tortuga Tavern (Want to try the new gelato.)
5. POC
6.Ride the Train around the park before leaving. (Another tradition)
Evening With Mom
1. People Mover
2. Dumbo (My mom wants to, I will pretend i do not know her. )
D- Liberty Tree Tavern
Wishes Dessert party.

August 22
B- Kona
DTD day- Solo morning and Together in the evening. This is also the last day of conferences.
Solo
1. Lots of shopping!!!
L- EOS
Back to resort to wait for Mom
Together
D- AMC Dinner and Movie. (I know this is not the right name but I forgot what it is called.)
Ghiradelli's

August 23
B-In room
AK day. (My mom has never been to AK!! I am so excited to take her for the first time.
L- Yak N Yeti
D- Boma

August 24
B- In room
Typhoon Lagoon
D- Cape may Cafe

August 25
B- Grand Floridian Cafe
Undecided plans, maybe back to DTD.
Depart for plane

 

[myasma]

I was not supposed to buy flight tickets until July 20th but southwestern just opened up a special for tickets one way starting at $69 dollars. prices for our dates had gone down from $154 to $114. I was excited because this meant that for a little bit more than our original price with Spirit airlines, we could fly out on the 15th instead of a day early, not have to pay for two checked bags, and not have to pay for a hotel room in Atlantic City. I did not want to wait until the 20th to book the tickets because that was also the last day they were offering the sale and I was nervous that all the seats would be filled, so I brought the tickets yesterday. I only have to purchase the park tickets on August 3, and I am done with what we need before we leave. I am extra excited now. We are only 30 days away from leaving. I am thinking about putting up the countdown calendar even though the kids are unable to go now.

 

[areck]

I like your tenacity. You are all about family and have opened your heart. I know this trip will be your best. Enjoy every minute. You are special person.