A Double Dose of Disney Fun-2 Pre-Trip Reports in 1!

Great update!! Love the stuff you got....our store is closing in April and I'm very sad about it!!!

I can't wait to hear about the Pirate and Pals cruise...sounds like a blast!!!

Love the reusable bag!!!

That is so sad that your store is closing. I was so upset when they closed the one closest to me. I was worried they would close this one too but we lucked out...so far!

That bag is hanging on my dining room chair. A little piece of happiness for me to look at every morning and night as I pass through!
 
We have Odyssey of the mind here too, I can never figure out what the heck they are doing, that's why I stick to 2nd grade......:rolleyes1

Let me tell you, I am the coach and there are LOTS of times that I can't figure out what they are doing!!:lmao:

Looks like some fun at the Disney store and congratulations on booking that cruise, you are going to have so much fun!

Thanks! I think we'll have a blast on the cruise!

Yay for Disney Store purchases!

The kids will love the cruise. What a nice surprise! :)

Sound like a very busy week at school. We have a teacher work day today, so I am taking my time getting going. I don't have to get in to prepare anything, so I'm just throwing on some sweats and going in a bit later than normal.

Good luck with your competition!

Thanks MeMom! It has been a monster of a week. Just got home from PTA meeting. Tomorrow is Friday and then competition Saturday.:banana: Sunday I'll be vegging in my sweats!

I love the Tigger plush and the mug :love: Tigger is one of my favorites :)

Good luck with your busy week! :hug: It'll be busy for me too, but in a good way :upsidedow We leave for Disney TOMORROW! :banana:

Sorry I didn't get on here before you left!! I bet you are having a fantabulous time!:goodvibes
 
Okay! Oficialy jealous of all the major scores you got from the Disney store! They close the one by us about a year ago :( I am planning on making t-shirts for me and my mom's spring break trip in april. I think when I get home I will start printing some disigns to try! Love the Disney Dinner thing--totally something I would do with my family! You should come over and check out my ptr! I have some yummy shopping pics also! Oh! And where did you get your camera bag? I have been looking for one for this trip that would fit my camera, tripod, and a few other essentials and that's looking like the perfect one! Thanks!

Man, it bites that they have closed so many stores. :sad2: Hopefully some of these new ones will open up near you!

I made bunches of shirts for me and the kids for last summer. Just don't have the time to do it this year. I'm having fun buying them though!:rolleyes1
I got the camera bag from Amazon. Search for Mimi Oasis. I love it!!
I'll get over to your PTR this weekend!


Love the print on the reusable shopping bag---that will make a cute shirt, too!

That bag makes me smile.:goodvibes
Unfortunately, I can't find the shirt I saw at the store online at The Disney store. Haven't had time to do a more extensive search so I hope to do that Saturday night/Sunday.


The cruise sounds fun--Your kids will be so excited! :goodvibes

Love those books!!

I bet your kiddos will be so excited to take that cruise pirate:

The books are great! I need to take them to school to read to my class.
I am so excited for the cruise. It's killing me to not tell the kids!
 

Hey! How was your OM competition?

Also, I have the same reusable bag. I also have a smaller red one with Mickey's face on it. Love them.

I have not been doing very well with WW the last two weeks....time to get back on track. I only lost .2 last week. I skipped this week.:rolleyes1
 
Hey! How was your OM competition?

Hi Maggie! Competition was good, just a VERY loooooong day. I have the results in my update that I am getting ready to post. Thanks for asking.:goodvibes

Also, I have the same reusable bag. I also have a smaller red one with Mickey's face on it. Love them.

I have that one too!! A little girl in my class now was in Ellie's class in Kindergarten. Her mom worked at The Disney Store here at our mall. When they closed, she bought the whole class one of those bags!

I have not been doing very well with WW the last two weeks....time to get back on track. I only lost .2 last week. I skipped this week.:rolleyes1

Sorry you haven't been doing well. It is sooo hard!! You'll get back on track, I just know it!:thumbsup2 And hey, a loss is a loss!:goodvibes
 
Hi everyone! I haven't been a very good PTR updater here lately and I am sorry! Last weekend was Odyssey of the Mind competition. The kids did great but we were there for over 12 hours.:scared1: Sunday I rested and went shopping with Ellie. I felt like I needed to spend some time with her since I had been concentrating on OoTM so much. We just shopped at Target and got supplies for her school project at Micheal's.
I won't bore you with scoring details but my kids came in 4th!!:woohoo: There were 16 teams in our group so that's pretty dang good. I wish we would've gotten 3rd so they could have gone up and gotten a medal but I am proud of 4th place. Some of these teams practice every single day, including Saturday, so for us to even come that close is awesome. One other school in our district (13 elementary schools) placed 2nd so we placed 2nd highest in our district. Here's a picture of my kids. They are all foods as their costume.
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I thought that life would slow down after that but work has been downright crazy. Virginia, if you don't know, is in a major budget crisis-I think quite a many states are too. Our district is set to lose between 11-14 million dollars in funding. This means there will most definitely be personnel cuts.:sad2: Thankfully, my district's RIF doesn't punish me for the years I was off-they count all my years of service. So, while no one is "safe", being a classroom teacher with great performance reviews is about all I can do. We have a school board meeting this week coming up that our principal has asked us to attend as a show of force. I will definitely go because I hate that people are going to lose their job. We as teachers already do so much, it's hard to imagine doing even more with fewer people.:sad2:

Ok, enough of that junk!! We did have a Disney dinner last Sunday. Ben's name got picked out of the Jessie hat. He opted for the oh-so-delicious Hamburger Helper.:rolleyes: You can see his plate choice as well. Ellie insisted that Star Wars was NOT Disney but I relented since they have such a huge Star Wars presence at DHS.:) My boy loves his Star Wars.
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This means that this Sunday is my pick:goodvibes I don't know how it's going to work though because we are going tubing on Sunday! Well, John, Ben, and John's sister are. Ellie and I are hanging at the kids area and the lodge.;) John's parent's own a cabin in the mountains of VA. We are going there tomorrow and then over to Wintergreen on Sunday morning. We had hoped to go tomorrow afternoon but the tickets sold out in a matter of hours. Crazy!:sad2: We'll see if we get home in time or if we eat on the road. I'll be fine waiting until the next week for my pick because that means I'll be one week closer to the trip!:thumbsup2

I also managed to squeeze in some more online shopping.:rolleyes1 Since I started my diet I have been trying to avoid the kitchen at night. I think I need to avoid my computer as well! I hope to get those pictures up Sunday evening or next week. I'll also be working on my trip planner thingy while we are gone as there is no internet at the cabin.:scared1:

Hope everyone has a great weekend!! Thanks for reading:goodvibes
 
Hi everyone from snowy Suffolk, VA! I could've sworn that my calendar said MARCH but the weather doesn't seem to agree. :confused: We are home today with a snow day. Normally I would be happy but this means school on Saturday for me.:sad2: I will be a bad momma and let my kids stay home but I will drag myself to school. It's such a waste though because not enough kids will come to do anything. Hopefully they will make it a half-day though I have heard rumors that it will be a whole day. Redonkulous!!

We had a great weekend away. I don't have many pictures to share but I will post what I have. John, Ben, and John's sister had a great time tubing. Ellie and I stayed in the kid section and she greatly enjoyed the kid version of the tubing. Then we got a smores kit and roasted marshmallows at the open pit fire. After that we hit the road to come home. Made the weekend go super fast!

I also worked some on my trip planner over the weekend. Here are my final plans...please let me know what you think. I have no concept of the crowds really. Not sure how it will compare to summer. But, we are up early, rope drop folks so I think we will be fine. Also, this is just a bonus trip so I don't have grand expectations about getting much done. I just want to be there and have some Disney fun!!
Sunday, April 4th (Easter) : We will be at Laura's (DH's sister) house. As of right now, I am planning on hiding eggs for the kids. In each egg will be a scrabble letter tile. I'm going to make a "hangman" type paper for them to put the letters on after they have found all the eggs. The letters will spell out "We're going to Disney World today!" I get goosebumps just thinking about how surprised they will be.:goodvibes Our flight doesn't leave until that evening so we'll spend the afternoon with SIL, BIL, and my niece. They just went to WDW in January and had a blast. We'll head to the airport and grab some dinner. We land late, 8:20, so we'll catch ME and head to Wilderness Lodge Villas for our first trip HOME!:cloud9: Now, MK is open this night until 2 am...John thinks I am :banana: but I am thinking seriously about heading over there. Not sure I could escape without the kids though and I don't want them tired starting out. So, we'll see!

Monday, April 5th: Magic Kingdom! Maybe someday I'll be willing to start at another park but right now it's tradition to go here first. Our only scheduled meal is CP at 10. At some point in the afternoon/evening we are heading to AK for EMH 7-10. I know that it is likely to be super crowded but I want to see this park in the dark. Hopefully Ben and I will be able to at least get a ride on EE! We'll just play it all by ear!

Tuesday, April 6th: DHS at rope drop. We'll spend morning/early afternoon here. Trying to talk Ellie into ToT..we'll see.;) I'm thinking we'll head to VWL to hopefully sneak in a swim. We have HDDR tonight. Then heading to MK to see Wishes and Spectro. I'm hoping I can deal with the crowds as I want to see Spectro one last time. I am thrilled about MSEP for the summer but want to see Spectro. If it's too much tho we will head to the Poly and watch Wishes from the beach.:goodvibes

Wednesday, April 7th: Time to get our Flower and Garden on! Epcot all day til whenever we are done. No meals scheduled. I was thinking about booking something and John said go for it but I couldn't pick a place. I think we may end up walking over to The Beach Club and eating at Beaches and Cream. Or go back to VWL and swim/eat there. Or head to DTD... I'm trying to be more relaxed here....it's hard tho!

Thursday, April 8th: Departure day.:sad1: We have an ADR at Chef Mickey's for 8:05. Then I don't know where we'll go. MK? DTD? Epcot? We'll just see what we want to do. We'll need to be back at VWL probably around 1 to catch ME.

Again, please let me know if you see any major glitches in my plan. My goal this trip is really to be more flexible. I hope I can properly prepare the kids that this isn't going to be a "get a lot done" kind of trip. I'm hoping they'll just be so blown away happy that they'll be thrilled with whatever we do!

Ok, I'm going to go fight with photobucket and try to get my pictures uploaded. I'll post what I have later. Also, tomorrow is my 30 day mark!!!:dance3::yay::woohoo::dance3:
 
I love the way you plan to tell the kids! That should be so much fun - make sure you have the video camera rolling!

I think your plans look good, this is a bonus trip and there is no telling how crowded it will be that week, so having a lot of 'go with the flow' time is good. :thumbsup2

As far as park touring goes, the one thing I can tell you from being there at a busy time is, get there early - I'm a firm believer in rope drop!
 
I love the way you plan to tell your kids with the scrabble tiles. That's great!

We've never been there at Easter, but I would imagine that they're pretty comparable to New Years Eve crowds, which we experienced first hand a few months ago. :scared1: It's probably best not to have great expectations--flexibility is a plus during a crowded holiday time. ~ We just soaked up the atmosphere, enjoyed some things we normally skip over, and of course, just had fun being at Disney! :thumbsup2
 
I love the way you plan to tell the kids! That should be so much fun - make sure you have the video camera rolling!

Thanks Michelle! I got the Scrabble idea from HappyDog and just modified it a bit to fit the holiday and that my kids are a bit older. The camera will definitely be rolling!!!

I think your plans look good, this is a bonus trip and there is no telling how crowded it will be that week, so having a lot of 'go with the flow' time is good. :thumbsup2

Yep, you're right, go with the flow will have to be my motto. It's funny, I'm not a huge "planner" in real life but I like my Disney trips to be maximized so it's hard for me not to uber plan.

As far as park touring goes, the one thing I can tell you from being there at a busy time is, get there early - I'm a firm believer in rope drop!

We're firm believers in rope drop. Did it even in January with low crowds. In June it was a necessity!!

I love the way you plan to tell your kids with the scrabble tiles. That's great!

Thanks Michelle! Can't take credit for the the tile idea totally but I changed it up a bit and think it will be gads of fun!

We've never been there at Easter, but I would imagine that they're pretty comparable to New Years Eve crowds, which we experienced first hand a few months ago. :scared1: It's probably best not to have great expectations--flexibility is a plus during a crowded holiday time. ~ We just soaked up the atmosphere, enjoyed some things we normally skip over, and of course, just had fun being at Disney! :thumbsup2

I think the crowds will be comparable too. I think since we know we're going again in June with much more time it will be easier to just enjoy and maybe do some other things. Plus, it's great practice for our after Christmas trip!:rolleyes:
 
Picture time!
Some random Blue Ridge Parkway pictures.
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Wintergreen photos
This is the big tubing track.
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All bundled up.
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Perfect snowball
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Ellie tubing on the kiddie slope.
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A happy wet and tired boy.
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Here's why we are home today??:confused3
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Lastly, MORE things I have purchased. ;) Last year, I wanted a 2009 hoodie but couldn't find my size at any park store. This year, when I saw it was online I decided to just buy it now. Then, I just HAD to get enough to get the $5 shipping, right?:rolleyes1
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A hoodie for Ellie
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Shirts
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Ok, we're off to enjoy our snow day!!
 
Hey there! Can you believe this weather? When I went to bed last night they said it was over-and then that 6 a.m. call came saying that school was canceled! I can't believe there is snow on the ground in March! At least the forecast is calling for warmer temperatures by the weekend and into next week. It's supposed to be in the upper 50s. (Of course when I checked this morning it had 60s next week. I wish that would happen!)

Your pictures from tubing look great! I bet my kids would really enjoy that.

Your trip is getting so close! I can't wait to read all the details. We are traveling to Massachusetts over Spring Break. That is where all of my in-laws live. I wish I was going to Florida instead.

I saw that your Saturday make-up day is THIS Saturday. They sure don't mess around do they? It says it's a full day, too. :headache:

I wonder what Newport News will do. I hope it's not just the elementary school kids who have to make it up again. If so, I may keep my girls home, too.

Did you see that Hampton is cutting salaries? Yikes:scared1:
 
Normally I would be happy but this means school on Saturday for me.:sad2: I will be a bad momma and let my kids stay home but I will drag myself to school. It's such a waste though because not enough kids will come to do anything. Hopefully they will make it a half-day though I have heard rumors that it will be a whole day. Redonkulous!!

Sunday, April 4th (Easter) : We will be at Laura's (DH's sister) house. As of right now, I am planning on hiding eggs for the kids. In each egg will be a scrabble letter tile. I'm going to make a "hangman" type paper for them to put the letters on after they have found all the eggs. The letters will spell out "We're going to Disney World today!" I get goosebumps just thinking about how surprised they will be.:goodvibes Our flight doesn't leave until that evening so we'll spend the afternoon with SIL, BIL, and my niece.


Also, tomorrow is my 30 day mark!!!:dance3::yay::woohoo::dance3:

We're doing make-up days half hour a day for a month. Not fun.

Your reveal sounds good. I like that you are not taking straight off to the airport. Having some time to let it sink in and be excited about it for the afternoon sounds like a good idea to me. I want to see the video of it all! :)

When we reach the 30 day mark, it always seems to just speed by. :woohoo:
 
Hey there! Can you believe this weather? When I went to bed last night they said it was over-and then that 6 a.m. call came saying that school was canceled! I can't believe there is snow on the ground in March! At least the forecast is calling for warmer temperatures by the weekend and into next week. It's supposed to be in the upper 50s. (Of course when I checked this morning it had 60s next week. I wish that would happen!)

This weather is crazy!! I hope this is the end of it. I saw the 60's for next week. THAT I hope they got right!:lmao:

Your pictures from tubing look great! I bet my kids would really enjoy that.

If they like to go fast, then they will have a blast. Even the kiddie one went fast! The big one went over 30 mph!

Your trip is getting so close! I can't wait to read all the details. We are traveling to Massachusetts over Spring Break. That is where all of my in-laws live. I wish I was going to Florida instead.

Right now my trip seems a world away and yet I know it will come up fast. Especially with a busy month ahead.

I saw that your Saturday make-up day is THIS Saturday. They sure don't mess around do they? It says it's a full day, too. :headache:

Yep. Crazy is all I have to say. Seems like they could give everyone some time to plan. I know lots of folks who already had things scheduled. What subs are going to come in for a Sat.? Gonna be interesting for sure...:confused: And a whole day.:headache::headache:

I wonder what Newport News will do. I hope it's not just the elementary school kids who have to make it up again. If so, I may keep my girls home, too.

I just don't see how that is fair. I don't blame you for keeping them home if that happens.

Did you see that Hampton is cutting salaries? Yikes:scared1:

No, I didn't see that. I am not surprised. I think it's likely here too. Honestly, I would be fine with a cut if it means people can keep their jobs.
 
We're doing make-up days half hour a day for a month. Not fun.

You're right MeMom, that's not fun. One full day Saturday will be done and over with but I feel for you to have to add that to so many days.

Your reveal sounds good. I like that you are not taking straight off to the airport. Having some time to let it sink in and be excited about it for the afternoon sounds like a good idea to me. I want to see the video of it all! :)

Thanks! We talked about just putting them in the car thinking we were going to dinner or something but decided against it. I was thinking like you that it would be good for them to have time to digest it and really get excited. Plus, I want to have time to pack their plane bags and make sure I have what they really want in there!

When we reach the 30 day mark, it always seems to just speed by. :woohoo:

Oh, I hope you're right! Right now it seems a lifetime away!
 
Looks like ya'll had fun tubing on the mountain!

Love all your Disney goodies---especially the Disney hoodie-very cute! :thumbsup2
 
Looks like ya'll had fun tubing on the mountain!

Love all your Disney goodies---especially the Disney hoodie-very cute! :thumbsup2

Tubing was a blast!

I :love: my hoodie!:goodvibes Now if it would just get warm enough for me to wear it out!:rolleyes:
 
SUPER long day here...lots of testing followed by running around followed by sitting in a school board budget meeting listening to everyone trying to save their jobs...:sad2:

Everytime it started to wear on me I remembered one thing:
30 DAYS:dance3::banana::woohoo::yay::dance3:

30 Days until we're here!!
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I just can't wait!!
 
Saturday school done!
Whew!! What a long day. I had 22 show up (4 missing) and lost some more as the day went on (17 left at bus call). The teacher across the hall-Ellie's class-only had 15. Needless to say we did lots of centers, watched one Magic School Bus, cleaned our desks, and enjoyed donuts and juice that I brought in (shhh, don't tell:rolleyes1). I know tomorrow will go quickly but I plan on enjoying every minute of it:goodvibes Now- NO MORE SNOW!!:rotfl:

I wanted to share these pictures. Ellie is so proud of herself. To help pass the long winter months, I got some puzzles. Ellie loves them, as does John. I do some and my sister enjoys working on them when she's here too. So, here are some pictures of the ones we've done. They are all spread out on my dining room table and I got a new one the other day so somethings gonna have to get taken apart.
This is the first one we did and my favorite.
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Victory over the puzzle and a close-up. I see now that they took this one apart today while I was at school and started the new one. You can see a bit of another one in the background-purple with all the animals. I can't find the picture of that one...
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Here's Ellie working on one that we got at Dollar Tree. We have the big one too--it has all the animals/people in love.:lovestruc
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I'll close with a picture. This is a view I plan to have in 28 (:banana:) days-the castle while riding Dumbo with my girl!:goodvibes
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