Bailey's Special Wish Trip To GKTW

[moe10378]

Wow I didn't know that an ear infection could keep someone from flying!!!

So glad to read that your ears are better and that didn't happen to you!!

I agree prayers are amazing!!! We especially feel the power of prayer when we are in the hospital at surgery time!!

Happy almost WISH TRIP!!!

Madeline

Yes, dr had told me it would be to painful, and could cause permanent damage. Thank God they were clear the next day. I just knew we would be driving or postponing lol. Prayers have brought me through alot

 

[moe10378]

Congrats on the wish!! I'm an 18 year old with autism.

Ty!!! My children are non verbal, and really struggle to communicate. Do u find the airports and amusement parks over stimulating? I would just love I know what goes through there mind sometimes, to understand better. I feel like I shouldn't be trying to change them, I need to adapt and change me

 

[moe10378]

Packing done. Spent the evening out target shooting. Now just gotta do some last min things around the house. Cook out tomorrow, so the day should go fast!! 1 more day!! Or as some of u like to put it, 2 more sleeps lol

 

[moe10378]

I can't believe we leave in less than 8 hrs!!!! It's 12:47 and I'm still up. I'm packed, just can't sleep lol. Limo is scheduled for 8:30 pickup! Rather they are ready for us or not, look out Disney World, the Carpenter's are headin that way!!!!

 

[Monie3]

You leave in less than a half hour! Have a fantastic time!

 

[moe10378]

We are here!! Does anyone know how I can pos pics from my phone?

The limo arrived a few min early, and we were off w/out a hitch! She the limo pulled up, Bailey went running, jumped in, jumped out, and back in again!! He was so excited!! Bradley went and got in mamaws car!! The Plane ride was smooth, delayed by about 15 min. I'm not a huge fan of flying. Don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid to fly, it's actually beautiful! The pressure from take off and landing gives me. Headache and hurts my ears. We met our greeter, and got our rental car pretty fast! It didn't take much time, and we were at Gktw!! Let me tel u, everything u have been told about this place is true, and then some!!! We go sandwiches from Katie's Kitchen, then walked around the village a bit! We saw old Elmer, still snoring lol!!! We played w/ the train, rode the train in Amberville, rode the carousel a couple times, and got ice cream of course!!! Mmm!!! I had t beat orientation at 7:45, so dh ordered pizza while I went. Afterward we went to walmart to pick up snack, juice, and water!!! Boys also played in the jacuzzi for a while. Bailey has actually been laughing out loud, and just having a bal!!! Tomorrow's Sea World, but first we are getting pics w/ Mickey and friends!!!! Woohoo!!!!!

 

[Redwavess]

We are here!! Does anyone know how I can pos pics from my phone?

The limo arrived a few min early, and we were off w/out a hitch! She the limo pulled up, Bailey went running, jumped in, jumped out, and back in again!! He was so excited!! Bradley went and got in mamaws car!! The Plane ride was smooth, delayed by about 15 min. I'm not a huge fan of flying. Don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid to fly, it's actually beautiful! The pressure from take off and landing gives me. Headache and hurts my ears. We met our greeter, and got our rental car pretty fast! It didn't take much time, and we were at Gktw!! Let me tel u, everything u have been told about this place is true, and then some!!! We go sandwiches from Katie's Kitchen, then walked around the village a bit! We saw old Elmer, still snoring lol!!! We played w/ the train, rode the train in Amberville, rode the carousel a couple times, and got ice cream of course!!! Mmm!!! I had t beat orientation at 7:45, so dh ordered pizza while I went. Afterward we went to walmart to pick up snack, juice, and water!!! Boys also played in the jacuzzi for a while. Bailey has actually been laughing out loud, and just having a bal!!! Tomorrow's Sea World, but first we are getting pics w/ Mickey and friends!!!! Woohoo!!!!!

Hooray you have arrived!!! And hooray for laughing out loud!!!

I love the way you put that, I can see the happiness in the air!!! I hope you had tons of fun at Sea World and more fabulous days coming right up!!!

Thanks for posting a live up date for us!!!

Happy Wish Tripping!!!

Madeline

 

[moe10378]

I'm sorry, I couldn't figure pictures out, and just fell of the radar.... With two kids with autism and epilepsy, life gets crazy sometimes I'm going to try my hand at posting pics and finishing this trip report.

 

[moe10378]

Giving pic posting a shot.....Let's see how this turns
I have satellite internet, so takes FORVER!!!

 

[moe10378]

Slowly getting it!! This is Meemaw and Shawn Michael in front of the Limo. Didn't really get a good one of the boys because they didn't wanna get back out lol.

 

[moe10378]

This is Bay in the Limo!! He had a blast!! He's flapping his hands here! And Here's Bradley at the airport waiting to load!!

 

[Brandonc2014]

As a providers standpoint and a former wish child my goal is to give back when I refers bay for his wish it was the best thing ever to see these boys so happy! To me I'm 21 and that was the best thing ever anyone could see. I have been there for him on his bad days in hospital and no person deserves that. To see bay and brads face on wish trip ( remember non verbal) the smiles when they got to meet Barney was the best thing ever! That was the best thing ever. We got to ride journey to atlantas and they loved it. This family has shown me so much in life god put me here with them for so many reason. Our wish trip 2013 was the best one ever.

 

[moe10378]

A little story about the plane ride. My aunt came and flew with us, she has a house in Daytona Beach. Anyways, she wanted to fly with Meemaw for her first time. Of course our seats weren't together, but the lady beside Brandon switched places with Bead, and Meemaw switched places with Brandon so Meemaw and Bead could sit beside each other. Meemaw LOVED flying! She took a ton of pics and videoed lol. The boys seem to like flying also! Shawn Michael on the other hand, didn't really care for it much. He was kinda scared in the limo, and was about to have an anxiety attack. He calmed down once we got going though. When we were landing, he says, "Hey, that wasn't so bad!!" Before we got a chance to say we hadn't landed yet, BAM, we landed!! His face was priceless!! When we got in the airport I almost cried when I saw the GKTW greeter! She had to meet another family, so we had to wait for that family. We had actually flown with this family from Dayton! We ran into them all week long!

We had to wait on them. We had brought all carry on luggage, so we had to wait for them to get checked luggage.

Bailey with the greeter



This is at check in! It's really hard to get everyone looking. Bay and Brad is hard enough, can barely get them to stand still lol







Bailey taking it all in


I LOVE this pic....

Brandon and Shawn in the Jacuzzi!! LOL. Paybacks Brandon!! Yes, they have swimming trunks on lol


Our first turn around the carousel!! Poor Brad didn't wanna go up and down. He has some depth perception issues at times

 

[moe10378]

Sorry pics are soooo big, I edited them down to 600*800 as it recommends on the faq page...

 

[moe10378]

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3165264

Trying to do trip report link

 

[moe10378]

Old Elmer








Meemaw and Bay on The Train at GKTW




Yes Meemaw has BLUE hair!! LOL

 

[moe10378]

Our original plans had us getting up early, getting pics at GKTW with Disney characters, and heading for breakfast. Sounds great, doesn't it? Yeah, I thought so to. Did it happen? Nope, bed sounded better lol. No seriously, we learned a valuable lesson, coordinate our showers, 7 people sharing, means some need to shower at night. I can't. I have curly hair, and its a frizzy mess in this humidity anyways!! Anyhow, we also learned it takes more time than we realized to get everyone moving, meds given, etc. Shawn Michael and Brandon doesn't miss an opportunity to eat at a buffet, so they headed to the Gingerbread house, and we ate off the breakfast cart. We aren't huge breakfast people. I'm pretty sure they snuck in an ice cream also, lol.

Today we are wearing our Charlie shirts.
We love you miss you Charlie! Thank you for helping us get here!


Finally, we are off. Now, I'm gonna be completely honest here. I didn't do my homework on Sea World as well as I should have. At least not like I did the other parks. I will suffer for this today.... Lesson learned. Yes!! Today is full of lessons. When we got to Sea World, they weren't very packed. We had GREAT parking! First thing we did?? Take pics of course!!


This is a pic of the pic I bought! I loved the photographer, but didn't realize how far poor Brad had been set off. Wish she had pointed this out, or had us move around a bit.

We then went through the aquarium, looking sharks above us, etc.






There was a ton of people in here, and was very hard to get decent pics. They just kept cutting in front of us....


Meemaw LOVED this!!!


Wake up Shawn!!

We went to ride rides, and just explore. Shawn Michael and Brandon rode Kracken (Brandon is not a thrill seeker, and really moved out of his comfort zone this wk doing a lot of firsts)!! Bay and Brad have depth perception issues, and I didn't want to scare them plumb to death, but I had decided from the get go, I was taking them on a log ride. That's as big of a drop as I was willing to go. So, we headed to Journey of Atlantis! Again, I didn't do my homework, and didn't realize this "log ride" turned into a roller coaster at the end lol. The boys LOVED it though! The let us just stay on and keep riding!! We never waited in any lines here, except the Penguin ride. Anways, the boys kept signing for more, so more we did!! It was so cute! Bay grabbed my harm with one hand holding on for dear life, and was just a flapping the other lol. This set the tone for the rest of the wk. From this day on, every time we went up a little hill, he'd grab me and was ready!! The boys also rode the train with MeeMaw!!


We headed to Antarctica to ride the penguin ride. While this ride def cools you off (you wait in a very cold room), it wasn't worth the wait for us. We waited about an hr. I'd hate to see it on a busy day!

We walked around, and Shawn and Brandon went and rode the peddle boats, which they let them ride free. They also let them play the amusement games where you win prizes for free!! We headed over to the Dolphin nursery and watched the Dolphins. By this time, the boys were getting red. Not from sunburn, I am very careful with sunblock. They are on clonidine at night, and the seizure meds they both take, they can't be in direct sunlight for prolonged periods. It was very very HOT!! We decided to head back to the Village. We did check on show times, but we had missed the early ones, and was to long of a wait for the later ones. This also taught me a lesson that would really help me the rest of the wk lol.











Next up?? GKTW, The Castle of Miracles, and Bailey's Star

 

[moe10378]

I spent 3 hrs editing these photos, and photobucket didn't save any of the sizes ugh

 

[moe10378]

We got back and decided to swim awhile. It started to rain (the first and only time during our trip), so we got out and went to eat. Then we headed over to the Castle of Miracles for Bay to do his Star and his pillow. But first, we ran into these loveable characters...






The Castle is what probably effected me the most emotionally. Makes me sad to think how many of these stars belong to a child that didn't survive.





Time to do Bay's star. He was actually very interested. It was very touching seeing Daddy helping him. Shawn has worked some crazy hours in the past, and has just slowed down right b4 our trip.











Next it's pillow making time!! Bailey really enjoyed this 2!!! He LOVED this pillow, and still does to this day!!














What's in here???




Brad wasn't interested in much at this point


We all LOVED the wishing well!!




Not letting go of his pillow!! LOL


Even the big kids enjoyed the Castle!!


He's gonna kill me!!

 

[moe10378]

Next up, they really do treat you like ROYALTY!!






They had the horse hay ride out tonight to!!






Last up? A stop at the ice cream palace of course!!


We then headed back to the villa. I gave the boys a bath this evening! We also ordered pizza again!! Then time to throw a load of laundry in, and bed!!

Where are we going tomorrow?? All I'm gonna say is our BEST DAY the ENTIRE trip!!! Stay tuned......