A Fall Family of Five Trip

[Dominason]

Hi! What better way to fight the post-Disney blues than by writing a TR? I’m sharing my family’s fall break trip. This was our third trip as a family (my fourth; I went as a teen), and we had an incredible time!

We’re a family of 5: me, my husband, our 9- and 6-year-old sons and our 15-month-old daughter. I had some hesitation taking a one-year-old, but she’s one of those unicorn babies and is super easy-going, sleeps well, eats well, etc. I don’t think she had a single meltdown on our trip.

A little backstory on how this trip came to be: on my first day back from maternity leave last October, I got laid off (a larger company had bought my company, restructuring, blah blah). THAT was a stressful time. Fortunately, they did pay me a decent severance. I got a new job in March, and when my husband asked what we should do with the leftover severance, I said I wanted to go to Disney World (as any financially responsible adult would do ). Our school district has a 2 week fall break, so we planned it for the first week of the break.

Our trip was September 27-October 2, and we stayed in a cabin at Fort Wilderness. We’ve previously stayed at Pop Century, but I wanted more space since we have a third kid now, and FW was cheaper than 2 rooms at Pop or a suite at AOA. We had 4-day park hoppers, and we hit the parks pretty hard considering we had a one year old in tow.

Note: I don’t feel comfortable sharing our faces, so you’ll have to assume we’re all really, really attractive. Also, we are not foodies at all, so don’t expect food pics or food reviews.



Hope you enjoy reading about our trip

 

[Dominason]

Day 0

Let’s back up to Friday, the day before we left. 2 weeks prior DS9 had broken his arm. Impressively, this is the SECOND time this year he has broken the same arm. DH took him to the doctor to get a smaller cast. He’d had a cast up past his elbow, and they were taking that one off and putting on a shorter one, which would be so much more comfortable (especially in Florida!).

After they took the cast off, DH texted me and said DS9’s arm looked bad, like the broken bone was still very prominent. 10 minutes later, I got a phone call from the doctor’s office, and they said something along the lines of they were about to call an ambulance, but they wanted to see if I could come up there instead.. I was so confused. What was wrong with DS9’s arm that he needed an ambulance when they were walking distance from the hospital?? Then they told me that it wasn’t DS9 that needed help, it was DH. He had passed out.

I quickly left work and went to the doctor’s office. DH looked rough. He was pale as a ghost. He didn’t really know why he passed out. And it had really scared DS9 because it was just him and DH in the room when it happened. I took DS9 to school, though he was still shaken up (thankfully, DH works at his school and had coworkers checking on him) then took DH to the ER.

They ran a gamut of tests, including an EKG, and determined that nothing was wrong, and that it was just a random incident of passing out. We told the ER doctor our plans to travel the next day, and he assured us DH would be fine, saying he’d probably feel rough the rest of the day but would likely perk up by evening and feel better tomorrow.

I took DH home, stopping by my office to grab my laptop since I still had some tasks to finish up before I was going to be out. I don’t think my boss was super keen on me going home, but DH was very weak, and I knew he wouldn’t rest unless I made him. He rested most of the day and did start feeling better in the evening. The trip was still on!

We think he passed out from seeing DS9’s arm. He’s gotten lightheaded in a couple of other situations when our kids got injured, but this is the first time he’s passed out. Regardless, I took DS9 to all of his other ortho appointments.

DH was fine during our trip, and he got a clean bill of health when he visited a doctor after we got home.

SO, that was an eventful day! Next up, an earrrly wake time and arrival day.