April/May 2019: Seven Kinds of Crazy

[momtohms]

I am so jealous that your DH got to enjoy that Hawaii sunshine! It’s been pretty gray and drizzly up here in Seattle lately. You did a great job fixing Minnie’s face on the hoodie and your DD looks adorable in it. I also love the hoodie you got your DH! I would totally want to steal it too

Your post is inspiring me to go check out the closest Disney outlet store - it’s a couple hour drive for me, but it’s at a large outlet mall so I hope to make a fun day trip out of it.

I bet you are counting down the days in excitement, it’s so close! Yay!

 

[Jaina]

Hi!! I'm so excited about your trip! I hope it is wonderful. I hope it makes up for the last family trip. Lol. (I know it was still a good trip, but you know what I mean.) I'll be praying for you and your family to truly enjoy each other, have patience, experience the magic, and make amazing memories!
Also, I love how crafty you've been. I *loved* the Santa ears you did for you and your sister, and how you remade them for this trip! Absolute genius to use clips to be able to change them up! And I'm impressed by all the shirts you've made.
So much fun!

Thanks! I pray for those things too, but mostly so we can all be well! It will make so much difference! We are all off sugar until we go, (yes, even with Easter), I have been giving the kids immunity vitamins, and we are trying to eat healthy foods! I am loving the changeable bows for the ears, too, and we've been stretching them out a little (on the back of the couch) to try to make them more comfortable. The zebra stripe ones we wore last time are so flexible! Disney trips are really the only time I get crafty...

I am so jealous that your DH got to enjoy that Hawaii sunshine! It’s been pretty gray and drizzly up here in Seattle lately. You did a great job fixing Minnie’s face on the hoodie and your DD looks adorable in it. I also love the hoodie you got your DH! I would totally want to steal it too

Your post is inspiring me to go check out the closest Disney outlet store - it’s a couple hour drive for me, but it’s at a large outlet mall so I hope to make a fun day trip out of it.

I bet you are counting down the days in excitement, it’s so close! Yay!

It really is, which is crazy. It's been a little overshadowed this week because we just prequalified to buy a house, (nothing fancy, but ours) and we're trying to keep from feeling pressure to make it happen fast, since we don't necessarily need to be out any particular time. I should be more excited about it, but I'm kind of stressed instead. It's such a huge decision, and you don't want to make the wrong one! Sigh. I'm hoping to push some of that aside and be able to concentrate on getting ready for our trip next week. (Like packing, etc. I've definitely been planning all the packing enough!) I also have some big elementary yearbook deadlines before we leave though, so that's exciting...

 

[momtohms]

It really is, which is crazy. It's been a little overshadowed this week because we just prequalified to buy a house, (nothing fancy, but ours) and we're trying to keep from feeling pressure to make it happen fast, since we don't necessarily need to be out any particular time. I should be more excited about it, but I'm kind of stressed instead. It's such a huge decision, and you don't want to make the wrong one! Sigh. I'm hoping to push some of that aside and be able to concentrate on getting ready for our trip next week. (Like packing, etc. I've definitely been planning all the packing enough!) I also have some big elementary yearbook deadlines before we leave though, so that's exciting...

I totally understand! We moved back down to WA from AK last year, and bought a house and it was seriously the most stressful experience! We owned a condo in AK so we had been through the process before, but buying a house was SO much different. Not to mention the whole buying a house in one state while selling a condo in another. Yikes! Needless to say, we found the right house eventually and everything fell right into place (definitely with some stressful bumps and hiccups in there though!) I hope your house search and purchase experience goes well and I promise it is all worth it when you finally get moved in

 

[Jaina]

I totally understand! We moved back down to WA from AK last year, and bought a house and it was seriously the most stressful experience! We owned a condo in AK so we had been through the process before, but buying a house was SO much different. Not to mention the whole buying a house in one state while selling a condo in another. Yikes! Needless to say, we found the right house eventually and everything fell right into place (definitely with some stressful bumps and hiccups in there though!) I hope your house search and purchase experience goes well and I promise it is all worth it when you finally get moved in

Thanks! It really is a lot of stress, mostly trying to decide if we want to stay in this general area, and settle a little on the type of house, or if we want a different (newer, haha) house and have to move further away from the schools our kids will probably eventually go to. (Arizona is open enrollment, and a lot of the "neighborhood" schools aren't that great in some areas, so we do some different options. There's no way of being able to tell what's going to be best in the long run!

I am trying to make some time to write some last minute plans, but it may not happen! There is so much going on this week, which will basically give me Friday afternoon and Saturday to get laundry done and get everything packed! DH's dad and his fiance did give the kids cute new beach towels from the Disney Store for an Easter gift, which was sweet and actually useful! The weather is looking nice so far, and Disney hasn't snuck anything else onto the refurbishment schedule, so that's all good news!

 

[AJA55]

Biggest purchase of your life time? Right before you leave? Well you know how to pile it on girl! haha Much luck in your hunt.

 

[Jaina]

Biggest purchase of your life time? Right before you leave? Well you know how to pile it on girl! haha Much luck in your hunt.

Hahaha, I don't think we'll be purchasing -anything- this week, but we could possibly put an offer in. :-o Does that even work if we're out of town for a week after??

 

[dr&momto2boys]

Hahaha, I don't think we'll be purchasing -anything- this week, but we could possibly put an offer in. :-o Does that even work if we're out of town for a week after??

Take it from someone who has done it-- DON'T make an offer on a house before you leave for Disney! You'll be distracted from your vacation and occupied with counter offers, or scheduling inspections that need to be done by certain dates if they accept your offer, etc. Wait until you get back!

I was brushing up on Disneyland knowledge, when I saw your signature pictures on your reply on someone's thread. I'd recognize that family anywhere! I cannot even recall whether we've met in person, Sara. But I've known your husband since he was in chiropractic school and I see him once or twice a year at conferences. Of course we mostly talk about your beautiful family. Besides sharing the same profession, I also have five children, and we love traveling especially to Disney (Land, World, Cruise, whatever.)

There's a good chance we'll run into each other at Disneyland next week! It will just be me and my 10 year old daughter Tuesday afternoon through Thursday. Then she gets to go to the conference in Newport Beach with me on Friday.

After reading your awesome PTR, I suddenly feel very unprepared! With just one (older) kid with me, we're pretty much winging it. No matching shirts or anything. Maybe we should start packing. I hope to see you all there!

For future Disney reading and trip reports with a big family, you're welcome to read our travel blog: http://ourfamilymisadventures.blogspot.com/

 

[momtohms]

Thanks! It really is a lot of stress, mostly trying to decide if we want to stay in this general area, and settle a little on the type of house, or if we want a different (newer, haha) house and have to move further away from the schools our kids will probably eventually go to. (Arizona is open enrollment, and a lot of the "neighborhood" schools aren't that great in some areas, so we do some different options. There's no way of being able to tell what's going to be best in the long run!

I am trying to make some time to write some last minute plans, but it may not happen! There is so much going on this week, which will basically give me Friday afternoon and Saturday to get laundry done and get everything packed! DH's dad and his fiance did give the kids cute new beach towels from the Disney Store for an Easter gift, which was sweet and actually useful! The weather is looking nice so far, and Disney hasn't snuck anything else onto the refurbishment schedule, so that's all good news!

I don’t miss all the decision making! Haha!

Good luck with all the last minute details and packing! Beach towels is such a perfect gift idea, how fun! Keeping my fingers crossed for good weather and no more refurbs!

 

[Jaina]

Take it from someone who has done it-- DON'T make an offer on a house before you leave for Disney! You'll be distracted from your vacation and occupied with counter offers, or scheduling inspections that need to be done by certain dates if they accept your offer, etc. Wait until you get back!

I was brushing up on Disneyland knowledge, when I saw your signature pictures on your reply on someone's thread. I'd recognize that family anywhere! I cannot even recall whether we've met in person, Sara. But I've known your husband since he was in chiropractic school and I see him once or twice a year at conferences. Of course we mostly talk about your beautiful family. Besides sharing the same profession, I also have five children, and we love traveling especially to Disney (Land, World, Cruise, whatever.)

There's a good chance we'll run into each other at Disneyland next week! It will just be me and my 10 year old daughter Tuesday afternoon through Thursday. Then she gets to go to the conference in Newport Beach with me on Friday.

After reading your awesome PTR, I suddenly feel very unprepared! With just one (older) kid with me, we're pretty much winging it. No matching shirts or anything. Maybe we should start packing. I hope to see you all there!

For future Disney reading and trip reports with a big family, you're welcome to read our travel blog: http://ourfamilymisadventures.blogspot.com/

That is really funny! No, I don't think we've ever met, but I think I just saw a note from you at his office. (I help out 5-6 hours a week right now) That will be really fun if we see you at Disney! I promise that we're hard to miss... Part of the matching shirts thing is to reduce lost children. We only lost a child twice last time, so hoping to improve that record! Yes, he's very glad that he has a few calmer days of the conference without us to relax a little after all the crazy family time.

 

[FeistyDisneyMom]

I second the advice for not putting in an offer until you get back. Shopping for a new house can be a lot of fun but so stressful too, and definitely would distract from the vacation aspect. If the house is meant to be, it'll be there for you when you get back, otherwise you are sure to find something just right for ya'll after the trip! Plus, nothing like a little house hunting to help avoid those post Disney blues

Awesome that the kids got Disney towels! Looks like the weather will cooperate too! My fingers are crossed that nothing else gets added to refurb.

And holy smokes another family with 5 kids! Who loves Disney! Thanks for posting here @momtohms - I'll be checking out your blog!

 

[Jaina]

We're down to just a couple days folks! Areas of my house are starting to look like this:

Getting super close on the yearbook deadline, yay, and we're looking at another house tonight that I have lots of anticipatory feelings about. We'll see how it turns out... Had a super busy day that involved getting new windshield wipers on our poor Odyssey, taking 3 kids to 2 different schools, attending the 3rd grade field trip, some packing, and starting the "final" laundry. The one you do and then pick out all the good jeans and matching socks for the trip before you let the kids take them into the abyss that is their dresser drawers. We just got Dumbo from the library (one of the few Disney classics we don't own, along with Bambi and Pinnochio, both of which were borrowed and viewed last week) so that's on the docket in the next day or two. Too many things happening tomorrow and Satruday, but hopefully we can get it all done so I can get all the packing done! I have a little anxiety about how my husband is going to feel about my life choices when he sees all the stuff we "need" for a short afternoon at the beach and 3 days at Disney...

 

[RedHotMama]

Oooh! I'm so excited for you!!

 

[Jaina]

It has been a whirlwind couple of days! We are leaving in about an hour, and I hope I sleep some on the drive, because I'm in a sleep deficit! At least we should probably go to bed earlyish tonight. No promises on how long everyone will sleep in tomorrow morning. The plan for today is to drive to Anaheim, visit with my friend a little (and borrow one of her strollers), then spend a couple hours at the beach, check into our hotel, get everyone showered, and go to bed!
Monday is California Adventure.
Tuesday is Disneyland with early entry and the older kids and I will probably stay late.
Wednesday is Disneyland again but we probably won't stay too late, because DH will head over to his other hotel and sleep there before his chiropractic conference Thursday through Saturday in Newport Beach.
Thursday the kids and I will drive home! Good luck to us!

 

[AJA55]

Here's hoping that your first day is going great!

 

[momtohms]

Yay! Your trip has begun! I bet you all are having a wonderful time

 

[Jaina]

We're back safely. Oh my goodness, it was so crazy busy. Like a lot. Both Monday and Tuesday were that way. (With 150 min waits at times for Guardians and RSR on Monday) Wednesday was also busy, but a little more normal-busy and not completely overwhelming. Being very prepared, using MaxPass, and some mostly-beautiful weather made a difference, and we mostly enjoyed ourselves, but the crowds were a little daunting at times. (Not Christmas-crazy, but busier than I've seen it, I think. We usually seek out the slightly-more-off-seasons when possible.) Wednesday seemed more reasonable, and more in what I'd consider the normal-busy range. We had some rain first thing Monday morning (while we were waiting for the park to open and rope drop) that we weren't really prepared for (it said no chance of rain the night before!) that was temporarily miserable, but otherwise the weather was mostly really nice. We had a couple meh interactions with CM's and a couple pretty good ones, and the same with other guests, haha. Our kids had a great time, I think, but it was almost as exhausting for us as last time when we had a baby and a toddler. 5 kids are just not easy to take on trips! I have very mixed feelings about 3 days (to go that long and fit so much in every day) being too much but still wishing we had more time to do more and see more of the little things like character interactions and just letting the kids play and explore in Toontown and stuff. Really, I feel like 5 days, with 2 rest days in between some of them would be more ideal. So if we ever get a little richer.... (The passes aren't that much more, but a hotel for an extra 3-4 nights and my husband not working that whole time is a little more exciting!) Still, I'm super glad we went, and very excited to "unpack" all the pictures and videos. We did good at getting some full family pictures and several Photopass sessions. (Though not on Tuesday, darn it! I'm not sure what happened - we only saw a few photographers that day, and there was always a long line!) My husband, as always, was a trooper trying to make sure everything could work out, and took the little kids home earlier than us every night and got them to bed. Still, we're all a little sleep deprived. I love how our shirts/coordination turned out, and I am excited about all the pictures and video and memories. Hopefully I can get going on the trip report right away! I need to wait to finish getting the pictures all together chronologically until my husband gets home from his conference Saturday night, because we did end up taking the DSLR, and he used it some (mostly Monday) and it's still with him. These are a few of my favorite mostly-Photopass shots from each day:

 

[midnight star]

We're back safely. Oh my goodness, it was so crazy busy. Like a lot. Both Monday and Tuesday were that way. (With 150 min waits at times for Guardians and RSR on Monday) Wednesday was also busy, but a little more normal-busy and not completely overwhelming. Being very prepared, using MaxPass, and some mostly-beautiful weather made a difference, and we mostly enjoyed ourselves, but the crowds were a little daunting at times. (Not Christmas-crazy, but busier than I've seen it, I think. We usually seek out the slightly-more-off-seasons when possible.) Wednesday seemed more reasonable, and more in what I'd consider the normal-busy range. We had some rain first thing Monday morning (while we were waiting for the park to open and rope drop) that we weren't really prepared for (it said no chance of rain the night before!) that was temporarily miserable, but otherwise the weather was mostly really nice. We had a couple meh interactions with CM's and a couple pretty good ones, and the same with other guests, haha. Our kids had a great time, I think, but it was almost as exhausting for us as last time when we had a baby and a toddler. 5 kids are just not easy to take on trips! I have very mixed feelings about 3 days (to go that long and fit so much in every day) being too much but still wishing we had more time to do more and see more of the little things like character interactions and just letting the kids play and explore in Toontown and stuff. Really, I feel like 5 days, with 2 rest days in between some of them would be more ideal. So if we ever get a little richer.... (The passes aren't that much more, but a hotel for an extra 3-4 nights and my husband not working that whole time is a little more exciting!) Still, I'm super glad we went, and very excited to "unpack" all the pictures and videos. We did good at getting some full family pictures and several Photopass sessions. (Though not on Tuesday, darn it! I'm not sure what happened - we only saw a few photographers that day, and there was always a long line!) My husband, as always, was a trooper trying to make sure everything could work out, and took the little kids home earlier than us every night and got them to bed. Still, we're all a little sleep deprived. I love how our shirts/coordination turned out, and I am excited about all the pictures and video and memories. Hopefully I can get going on the trip report right away! I need to wait to finish getting the pictures all together chronologically until my husband gets home from his conference Saturday night, because we did end up taking the DSLR, and he used it some (mostly Monday) and it's still with him. These are a few of my favorite mostly-Photopass shots from each day:

I think the crowds earlier this week were due to a few factors: passes are all open, the Socal tickets are not blocked anymore, and will be expiring soon, CM's will stop getting sign ins I think by the mid May, and the Socal passes will be blocked all of summer, so people are getting in their last trips.

Glad you had fun! I was stalking the app and saw how insane those wait times were.

 

[Jaina]

I think the crowds earlier this week were due to a few factors: passes are all open, the Socal tickets are not blocked anymore, and will be expiring soon, CM's will stop getting sign ins I think by the mid May, and the Socal passes will be blocked all of summer, so people are getting in their last trips.

Glad you had fun! I was stalking the app and saw how insane those wait times were.

Man, I need to remember to try to check out stuff like that next time, because I feel like we wouldn't have had much worse crowds if we had gone during actual spring break, and that way our kids wouldn't have had to miss school. The last two trips we've had better luck with picking good "slower" times. It just goes to show you never know!

 

[theluckyrabbit]

The photos are gorgeous! So glad you survived the crowds -- I remember reading that Monday was crazy. (Oh, those Mondays!) When your Spring Break aligns with AP blockouts, promo ticket blockouts, CM sign in blockouts, Coachella, and maybe a spell of cooler/wet weather, go for it!

 

[Greg Lembrich]

Welcome back! Sorry to hear about the crowds, but glad that you were able to have a great time anyway. From our recent experience, agree with you that crowds were smaller during actual Spring Break. I look forward to hearing/seeing more about your trip.