and we're back. [Walt, Wizards, and....Woolungasaurus?]

[Brady's Mom]

We used RideMax for our first trip to DLR. It was a life saver. We ended up at DLR over fall break for Utah and Arizona schools without realizing it. I hadn't found the DIS yet, but had found Ridemax. It was a real time saver and it came with some really helpful tips about DLR. The best tip, by far, was disregarding the return window on FP. So, without knowing it, we used them in the best possible way - it also included info on child swap, too.

It wasn't very much money, but I felt like it was really worth the $20. Other people use Tour Guide Mike, have you looked into that?

 

[bumbershoot]

When will Robert's frequent flyer miles credit? He's taken codeshare flights on KLM/Delta, and used his Alaska Air info (as is allowed), and they still haven't credited. The system says to wait upwards of 3 months, but it's never taken that long, and I'm going crazy.

I'd like to get at least one of us on a flight for the trip!


Also waiting for his first hotel-of-this-trip to credit on Sunshine (Rewards). I book the hotels through hotels.com clicking from sunshine, and get lovely credit, which later gets turned into disney giftcards. The first giftcard received that is earmarked for this trip will be paying the deposit for the CBR room as soon as I get the guts up to call, LOL.

 

[kaoden39]

You know I have found that with computer use I am becoming more introverted, I am more reluctant to make calls. It's silly I know. I wasn't exactly the most extroverted person in the first place. As wonderful as it is I am finding that maybe I need to stop using the computer as much as I do.

 

[bumbershoot]

Put some of the CD-selling cash into the checking account today. I'm picturing some Universal and WDW reservations being made soon!

 

[kaoden39]

 

[Brady's Mom]

I love living vicariously through you!

I really want to go to WDW but don't know when to even consider going. DH's job is easy - he can pretty much take time off when he wants to - BUT, DS 21 and DS 13 are in University and High School this next year and taking time off during the "regular" school year is tough.

I know WDW does their free dining in the summer, but do they do it in late May and early June??? That way we could maybe miss a LOT of the humidity. Or....maybe I'm just up in the night and will have to wait 4 years to go - after everyone has graduated.

Good luck with the ressies. I am super excited to hear how USF is. Harry Potter looks COOL!

 

[bumbershoot]

OMG. R is being sent back to Asia. I'm so tired.

He's gotten to see two movies out at a theater during this trip, movies I wouldn't go see, and I've gotten to deal with sick kid, kid getting his second adult molar (he's relatively demonic when he's teething and always has been), taken walks with E, helped him ride his bike even better, done all the dishes, done all the laundry (Ok that's not different), am having to clean up the house today of all the crazy lego messes (my fault, I don't enforce lego cleanup at night like R does), etc etc etc etc etc.

I was really looking forward to just being...not all alone with E...and now he'll be back for a day or so then gone again.

I'm so tired. Obviously I wouldn't do well as a single parent, and it's good that I didn't marry anyone who might go into the military...'cuz this is hard enough.



On the positive side...more frequent flier miles for WDW!


Sigh.


And where the heck did my giftcard go? I brought it out in preparation to call WDW to see if it can be used for the deposit...where is it?

 

[kaoden39]

Asia again? Oh my gosh that is rough. I don't think I would even want to try being a single parent either. It's is kind of funny how much we grow accustomed to little things our loved ones do. Things we might not notice when they are around all the time but we really notice them while they are gone. It makes me appreciate my butthead a little more.

 

[bumbershoot]

Your butthead, LOL.....


Found the giftcard, got the CBR booked! Even got to have an online chat with Thorpe, a CM, when the chat window popped up and I figured "hey, I'll find out about the giftcard before I get to that page". Easy peasy, he let me know that the GC would be acceptable, and wished me a magical evening.

So I got that AND Universal booked. Which means...everything but the air travel is booked-o-rama! Oh, and the pesky part about getting to the airport.


I can't even believe it!


The news of yet another work trip was blasted away by an email from my brother. Their cat, their beloved Buffy, who adopted them when they were still in Texas and they were newlyweds, has some sort of awful cancer inside her ear, and treatment is only meant to slow the progress.

She is just the most precious darling of a kitty, she listens to what they say and does what they tell her to do (he confessed that it's more along the lines of he knows what she's going to do, and says it before she does it, but I don't totally believe him)...she's the amazing and mystical non-allergenic cat (NO ONE has ever been allergic to her, not even our mom), she's the sweet queen of the household...and she's going to "become late", as they say in the #1 Ladies Detective Agency books, sooner rather than later.


Booking the hotel and package will always be linked with this news...which means that Buffy will be linked with Universal and WDW, and that's not a bad thing... But it's still a pall on a day, to get that news.


I'm crying all over again, sharing this news with you guys. I love animals, even if I have my own varied issues with actually owning them... And she's just a peach of a cat.

 

[kaoden39]

Yes, he is a butthead because he signed up for a bicycle race the day before we leave to go to Disneyland.

I am sorry to hear about Buffy, our pets are like treasured members of our families. I have a houseful of pets, just because you don't doesn't mean that you love them any less. It just means you know your limitations. We have feral cats that we feed, and recently the male brought home a "girlfriend" with a litter of kittens.

 

[kaoden39]

I forgot to mention, congratulation on the bookings!!

 

[bumbershoot]

Yes, he is a butthead because he signed up for a bicycle race the day before we leave to go to Disneyland.


We have feral cats that we feed, and recently the male brought home a "girlfriend" with a litter of kittens.

Seriously butthead! My sis in law did the elliptical for her workout the day before we went to DCA last June. She'd never done that machine before. She was a hurtin' unit at DCA. Butthead!

Feral male cats with pregnant females following him around...that's how we got our first cats growing up. I claimed the grey/white, who turned out to be the male...my brother claimed the black/white, who turned out to be his "girlfriend". MY cat, Tiger (original!), took off fairly quickly, despite our most tempting pot pies that we would leave out for them. Brother's cat, Cindy, stuck around. Had her cute little babies, one of them looked exactly like Tiger, so that kitten was MINE and became Tiger II. The rest went to awesome homes filled with mice (one "home" was a barn at a winery, one home was a home that just happened to have mice, and I actually can't recall the third home), because their mama was an awesome hunter who caught a *squirrel* for her kittens, and later on caught a gopher that she stalked ALL day.

Sigh. Cindy was just as special a cat as Buffy is; Cindy died, of grief, it seems, the year after Tiger II was run over in my mom and stepdad's front yard. They could never be indoor cats b/c of my mom's asthma, and no one ever got on our case about having outdoor cats then, not like people do now. I got the news of Tiger II's demise just as I got to my workstudy job one evening my frosh year of college...I was so distraught. Then again, not a surprise...I hyperventilated in my grief over my first hampster...

I've sent an email to my brother with all sorts of holistic links for pets in his area. Maybe they'll try that route, too.


I don't know what their other kitty will do if Buff's not around...bet ya can't guess what the other cat (a girl) is named...

 

[kaoden39]

It sounds like that mama kitty was quite a good huntress. I am amazed at what wonderful hunters cats are. Mitchell the male cat is a hunter, he catches birds all the time and he will eat his fill and leave the rest on the doorstep as an offering. I cannot tell you how many wings I have found. Yuck.

 

[bumbershoot]

A male hunter, wow! After Tiger I left (he was only there a short time), we had two other stray males come to us. Neither was a hunter, not even of bugs.

The lovely thing about Cindy and Tiger (Cindy taught her well) is that they never left anything behind. Though they weren't big on birds...we lived somewhat rurally, though with developments constantly going on around us (construction makes the rodents homeless), and there were always mice around.



Gotta get going on the day. Robert gets in today, and we have the Y before that... Wanted to do the dining stuff for our first little bit, but that will have to be later!

 

[kaoden39]

Yay for R coming home today!! Have a good day!!

 

[bumbershoot]

Made the decision that we wouldn't do anything fancy for food for the first partial day we are there, and since we'll probably still be sleeping for quite a bit of breakfast (and our stomachs will be sleeping even after we wake up) and there's nothing really amazing for lunches.....

Our first nice meal will be had the first FULL day will be a later dinner at....Kouzzina! And we have the ADR to prove it.

 

[QueenDoOver]

I don't know what their other kitty will do if Buff's not around...bet ya can't guess what the other cat (a girl) is named...

I'm guessing Jodi, to go with Buffy. Either that or Cindy in memory of...Cindy My son's first hamster died in the hamster habit, but he refused to believe it(age 4). But we watched a movie that very day about a dog that got reincarnated into a squirrel and so on. (it looked like a normal disney animal movie, really!) So when he went to sleep that night, I removed "twister" from the cage. The next day, Andrew came and told me that he just saw Twister jump by in the tree and that now he was a squirrel because he wasn't in his habit anymore. I just went with that...

Anyhow, I'm sorry for your news. It is always sad to lose a pet. We have the most darling pup (she's two) and I think all the time about how precious she is and how I will be heart broken when she is gone.

Exciting news to be booking ADR's I don't know any of the restaurants there, so will look forward to your reviews.

Saw you note on my trip report. I better get onto finishing that thing, huh?

 

[bumbershoot]

Ooh, you went a different way than they did with naming....the other cat's name is Willow. They swear that Buffy was NOT named after The Vampire Slayer, but then they got the second cat, and felt that they had to name her after Buffy's friend in the show.

I love the name Twister for a hamster. Was that his name b/c he was particularly squirmy?


There are sooooo many restaurants. Kouzzina is the new restaurant in the Boardwalk area, and it was created/opened/whatever by Cat Cora, one of the American Iron Chefs. I'm trying to be clear with Eamon that we will NOT see Cat, so that there's no last minute disappointment. I hope it works.


Looks like we're planning on a flight that leaves in the morning and gets in around 5pm Eastern. I was thinking about the red-eye, but Robert talked me down from that. He knows very well that I do not sleep on planes. He sometimes sleeps on planes. And Eamon, well, who knows what he'll do! So "why risk it" was the opinion of Roberto, and that's a good idea. So we'll arrive later, and since it'll be so late our room will be ready. If it's swimming weather, we'll do that, we'll wander... There are some STRONG thoughts about heading over to the beach at Poly to see Illuminations, depending on what time that will be showing. Oh hey, that was simple, the calendar says it will be at 9:30 so that's plenty of time!

Wait, do I have that wrong? What can you watch from the Poly's beach?

Sleep in, get up, probably have something that counts more as lunch vs breakfast, swim, wander... Ooh maybe a round of mini golf at...what's it called?...something like Winter Summerland? And then a later (not quite 8 eastern time, but not quite 5 by our stomach-time) dinner at Kouzzina.

On the 2nd, pack it up! If we have a rental car already, just toss the stuff in there and head over to OKW. If we don't, have the Bell people move. Hopefully the family will be there early early and we can head to a park!

I feel that I need more input from my cousin on food for the 2nd, but on the other hand, I could just make some ADRs and then cancel them when things change (not likely to make coveted reservations).

As I was typing the above, I was saying, with Robert in the room, "OK, good, Illuminations is at 9:30." He interrupted me with a question that confused me, which started a few minutes of confusing talk, and culminated in...

"Disneyland, Disneyworld...I don't know, sometimes I just think they're the same park." -Robert

sometimes I swear I don't even know him...

 

[kaoden39]

I was thinking Jody too. I loved Family Affair.

Hahaha Robert sounds like Scotty.

 

[bumbershoot]

So it seems the Poly idea is not going to work for two reasons.

1. it's not Epcot's Illuminations (which makes so much more sense when looking at the maps!), but the MK fireworks, that you can see from the beach at Poly.

2. MK is closing at 7pm that night, and there are no fireworks on the schedule. Thanks to MVMCP. Though...they have fireworks too, so I bet we could watch *those* from the beach.


But I did find out that you can have a bit of a view of Illuminations from next to the Dance Hall on the Boardwalk. Options are good!


picture an hour or so going by with just the above written.....




Went through the calendar and highlighted the days that R has been gone on trips. It's a bit overwhelming when you look at it like that. Was getting a bit depressed there earlier. So I threw myself into researching, got some calendars printed so I can have, you know, options on how to see the days... Found out about the various miniature golf places at WDW (4 of them...2 are Fantasia themed near Boardwalk, the other is a Santa-themed "if Santa had a summer house" type set of courses, one "snowy" and the other "sandy" (am suddenly seeing a whole Nightmare Before Christmas thing there with Sandy Claws, LOL))... That sort of thing.