Ouch! I hadn't realized how crummy and painful your surgery was or for how long...but look...viola! Buy DVC and all your pain magically disappears!
Vero looks stunning. That beach is going to be amazing and one of the great things about beach time is that it is truly relaxing in a way that time at Disney just isn't.
I'm not sure painful is really the right word. It was..odd. Yes there was pain, and in some ways more as the swelling went down as the splints didn't adjust "down" (so you could really feel they were in there) but it was incredibly annoying, frustrating, embarrassing and loud! LOL! It's 10 days until the splints come out and honestly for those 10 days I wanted to hide most of the time. The splints drove me a bit crazy. Tuesday, which was what 6 days post surgery, it got to me for sure. I never thought I'd be obsessed with wanting to blow my nose but seriously, it was all I could think about until the darn splints came out!
Beach time is truly relaxing. Even though Jeff and I went to Hawaii last year, due to being on the big island it wasn't 100% beach time, probably only about 30% at best. I really am looking forward to just stroll out and hit the beach immediately! How relaxing it will be with the 3 kids remains to be seen. 2010 at the pool was never very relaxing, I felt like I was always looking for someone, doing something for someone or needing to leave to do something for someone. I think on that 12 night trip I didn't have more than 30 minutes in a lounger. Ever. I really hope this trip is different and hope thunderstorms are at a minimum.
Now, just hoping things go well with Kendall's mom.
I'll be honest, Jeff worries about that a lot more than I do. Granted, he's the one that has to fight for and demand his time and sometimes chooses his battles in a way I wouldn't but in this case I knew he was ready to go to the mat to make sure we got our weeks. The challenge really is that it's never a done deal until we are on a plane. We might get agreement, or silence for months and then a last minute attempted derailment. I figure I can't worry about what I can't change or control. To me it's a known situation, one we can anticipate to a degree and respond accordingly as needed. To work myself up over it before it happens doesn't change the situation. To try to anticipate how she will react isn't worth the energy as sometimes she does surprise us. It is what it is. I have enough to be stressed about so try to jsut treat this as a constraint I have to work with but not something worth stressing over. For the most part, it works. At least for me. Jeff's a different story.
How did I miss this??? Congrats on DVC so happy for you!!!! Vero is amazing you are so going to love staying there!!!!!!!
Thanks Jen!
You are here now, that's all that matters!
I am VERY excited for Vero!
Yay, you made your first reservation!
I know I said it before, but I sooo wish that we'd be there at the same time....the E's and James would hit it off, playing in the surf.
Me too, we'd have 3 peas in a pod I think! You guys get out earlier than us plus we have the darn soccer constraint. The 4th is a possibility for 2013 but you'll be taking that year off, right?
I agree with you that the rooms look a little dated. Maybe with low expectations we'll really be wow'd when we walk in?
How funny that you didn't need any more pain killers after buying into DC.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks that. I find the short, but high, windows interesting in the living room, I wonder why they did that? I suppose if there is no view it makes sense. I'd love to be in one of those beach cottages someday.
Are you guys planning to cook most nights? Right now I think we'll be cooking 4 and dining out only 1 (if I get my way). I figure we will have enough dining "out" on the cruise and I don't need 9 nights of eating out if I can avoid it. I was meal planning in my mind yesterday lol!
I was behind and missed the contest. I would have got a few right
I totally agree with you on buying direct. We bought resale BEFORE all the restrictions. Hurray for your first call to MS. A tip-if the first person you talk to does not give you the answer you want call back!!!
I have heard that about MS. Fortunately all my calls have been very quick and painless, better than ones to CRO or dining in the past for sure. But it's a limited set of data so far.
For us the advantages of direct make sense. I honestly don't know what I want to do for the next contract, it will obviously depend on incentives, what I'm seeing on the resale market and all of that. I can see where, especially if you already have a contract, resale makes a ton of sense for adding on as you can "afford" to wait through ROFR and all of that. I figure though that I'd want to allow at least 4 months for a resale contract and maybe more if it has a closing date limitation. If you have to start over due to ROFR then it's that much longer so it can't be something you need or want to use quickly. To me, the $$ we'd have spent on ressies now to do resale, versus buying direct actually made it a wash if I looked at that money as a sunk cost so direct made more sense .
I'll have more contests between now and then, you'll have a chance at a slushie credit for sure!
I remember reading about AKV Club level a few pages back. I was able to snag it for 4 nights in Oct by calling in Jan so 9mo in advance. I guess it just depends on time of year etc. We are doing the Sunrise Safari-I wanted to do the special one with dinner at Jiko for Hubby's bday but my younger DD is not old enough. I said-leave em at Simba's Club House but hubby wants to wait until we can all go-nice Daddy
You still had home resort advantage though but nice to know it didn't go right at 11 months. I really want to do the sunrise safari someday as well. The nighttime one sounds very cool but if memory serves it's quite a bit more and I'm not sure I'd spend that on the kids. They'd love Jiko but still! VERY nice daddy!
There is nothing better than walking from the room to the pool to the beach to the pool and repeat!
Works for me though we may have to throw in "refill" as part of the cycle.
but can you direct me to where I can learn more about resale DVC?
Long time no see- 
If it's a weekend, maybe Jim and I can pop over and say hi! Sounds great for you two - are you celebrating a special anniversary? We will be checking Aulani out NEXT WEEK!!!!
Great news on booking the cruise and VB!!! I am really wanting to do VB the next time we have points avail. Since you are so good with numbers it makes my head spin, did you look at purchasing one time use points Vs, member cash? I was wondering about that.
