Coffee on the Verandah -The Last Slide, Recap & Souvies 5/29 - Link to Aulani TR 5/31

[eandesmom]

Congrats to K on her win, and to Evan for making the wind ensemble!!

Eric!!

I bet they're excited to get back to school soon! My girls started yesterday and it's going to be good to get back into a routine. I think it will take Sarah a bit to get adjusted to the middle school routine though!

Overall, they are excited. Evan's got mixed reactions about his schedule/teacher but I think it's all good. The routine will be hard for a week or 2 for sure.

 

[winkers]

Yay for making the band!

Hunter auditioned this morning for Jazz band. He's in 9th grade so he is already in the lower Jazz band, but he's hoping to make it in the big league.

I'm the mom to 3 band geeks

 

[eandesmom]

Yay for making the band!

Hunter auditioned this morning for Jazz band. He's in 9th grade so he is already in the lower Jazz band, but he's hoping to make it in the big league.

I'm the mom to 3 band geeks

Yah, Evan should be in the top jazz band for middle school this year but that will all change next. He was in the lower one last year and was frustrated with it. Making wind ensemble should put him on a different band track for hs I think but am not sure. There are 2 or 3 jazz bands at the HS I think.

Mom/stepmom to 4 band geeks. If you count choir. Lol!

Fingers crossed for Hunter!

 

[vamassey1]

I know I'm late but I'm here. It has taken me days to get caught up but I've really enjoyed it!

I have to say I'm in a band geek family too. Oldest's degree is music education and even marched in his college band. I also have an 8th grader. She plays flute and just got into talented music.


I'm loving your report but the start wore me out. I don't know how you got all that into one day!

We spent all most a whole day in DTD in 2010. We went into almost every store. This past trip we did the short version due to it being at night and only a few hours. I have to say I enjoyed the 2010 tour and seeing in during the daylight. I say more and it wasn't as crowded. I finally tried EOS in Feb and loved it! But Cookes does sound good too.

Congrats to everyone in your family! I hope the celebration was fun.

 

[Charleston Princess]

Happy Birthday to Evan! Judging by the FB pics, he had a delicious birthday dinner!

Congrats to K for her team's win and yeay for Eric making wind ensemble!!! Awesome!

 

[natebenma]

Happy Birthday, Eric

Congrats, Evan

K for the soccer win.

Wow! I can't believe how late the boys' schools start.


I'm so glad I read this today- I think Ben has band for the first time and he mentioned he should bring his trombone. Which is still here at the house!

 

[eandesmom]

I know I'm late but I'm here. It has taken me days to get caught up but I've really enjoyed it!

Not late at all! We're only halfway through day 2!



I'm so glad you are here!!!

I have to say I'm in a band geek family too. Oldest's degree is music education and even marched in his college band. I also have an 8th grader. She plays flute and just got into talented music.

Ah, marching band. I did that for 2 years in HS (Clarinet and then Bells) but then migrated to cheer and flags so still was fairly involved with the band all the way through. Did vocal jazz till the end though. It cracks me up to watch Glee, there was none of that at my school, and it's SO hard to imagine it being looked down on like that but I've heard from friends that it was at their school. We are lucky though, our district has always been strong in music, which makes it "cool" and so is Kendall's though theirs is a bit more vocal focuses and ours on the band side.

Eric just hit the motherlode last night at his birthday dinner. My mom brought a HUGE box of piano music for him. All my grandmothers old music.



So cool.

Band geeks rule! Flute is so lovely.

I'm loving your report but the start wore me out. I don't know how you got all that into one day!

Well it made it go by fast that's for sure!

We spent all most a whole day in DTD in 2010. We went into almost every store. This past trip we did the short version due to it being at night and only a few hours. I have to say I enjoyed the 2010 tour and seeing in during the daylight. I say more and it wasn't as crowded. I finally tried EOS in Feb and loved it! But Cookes does sound good too.

Daylight was better, definitely! I still want to try EOS, don't see it happening in Oct so hopefully on the next family trip it's possibly more likely I'll visit the DLR one first. LOL!

Congrats to everyone in your family! I hope the celebration was fun.

It was a very fun dinner

Happy Birthday to Evan! Judging by the FB pics, he had a delicious birthday dinner!

Congrats to K for her team's win and yeay for Eric making wind ensemble!!! Awesome!

Thanks! It was actually Eric's bday and Evan in wind ensemble but either way, both celebrated! Eric had a great night and day.

Happy Birthday, Eric

Congrats, Evan

K for the soccer win.

Wow! I can't believe how late the boys' schools start.

I know, drives me nuts! Evan actually starts cross country practice today but actual school not till Monday and that's only a 1/2 day. I wish we started earlier. Used to but they cut some of the in service days and now it is a later start, with the same really late end. I'd rather start earlier and end earlier and get rid of the full week break for President's week but...it's not like they ask me!

I'm so glad I read this today- I think Ben has band for the first time and he mentioned he should bring his trombone. Which is still here at the house!

Evan doesn't need his the first day but will the 2nd for jazz band. Rest of the bands don't start needing instruments til the 3rd day. Nice thing about daily jazz band is he never forgets it. Which reminds me that I need to check, I think we almost own that thing!

 

[princess_momma]

Cooke's looks so good! I have been wanting to try there or Raglan Road very badly!! YUM. Although...I don't know how he passed up EoS! I LOVE that place soooo much.

When I find a TR writer that I really like, I always go back and read their previous tr's and I've been doing that with yours. It's fun watching all your kids grow! Can't believe it, really! (Maybe because it's happening even faster for me since I'm fastforwarding it all at whatever rate I read! )

So much exciting stuff going on for the kids! Way to go, K! Always great to break in the new season with a W! Happy birthday, Eric! And congrats, Evan, for making Wind Ensemble! I hope the celebrations were so great! The transition back into school sounds brutal for Evan though! Oh my goodness, if I had ever started off the day with any math class, sleeping in would be THAT much more tempting! I had chemistry 1st period one year and that was rough!

 

[eandesmom]

Cooke's looks so good! I have been wanting to try there or Raglan Road very badly!! YUM. Although...I don't know how he passed up EoS! I LOVE that place soooo much.

He didn't want a sandwich. I think it was as simple, and odd, as that. The reaction was a bit over the top and actually kind of funny but he does love a good pie and I think just had his heart set on it. Someday we will make it there!

When I find a TR writer that I really like, I always go back and read their previous tr's and I've been doing that with yours. It's fun watching all your kids grow! Can't believe it, really! (Maybe because it's happening even faster for me since I'm fastforwarding it all at whatever rate I read! )

Oh thank you, that is so sweet! We've definitely had some adventures along the ways and it is amazing to see the changes in the 3.5 years I'v been on the DIS and doing TR's.

So much exciting stuff going on for the kids! Way to go, K! Always great to break in the new season with a W! Happy birthday, Eric! And congrats, Evan, for making Wind Ensemble! I hope the celebrations were so great! The transition back into school sounds brutal for Evan though! Oh my goodness, if I had ever started off the day with any math class, sleeping in would be THAT much more tempting! I had chemistry 1st period one year and that was rough!

Yes, that would be brutal. 3rd and 4th periods are probably best for alertness I'd imagine. He has an opposite schedule from last year, last year the hard stuff was at the end of the day and this year it's the fun stuff. Pro's and cons to both I imagine.

Thanks for the congrats, it's been a fun week for all of them I think. Well, partially for Kendall, she started school yesterday and was one tired girl last night!

 

[danielle79]

All caught up and ready for more! Your villa is gorgeous! We stayed at the cabins at FW last time we were there and found this to be ideal for our fam, everyone gets a bed and they rotate who gets the top bunk. Murphy bed wasn't bad at all to share with hubby either!

 

[KatMark]

It seems I've missed a few things the last couple of days (sorry...trying to get six million things done before we leave next week).

So a very Happy Belated Birthday to Eric; congrats to Evan on his music and congrats to your daughter on her soccer win.

 

[vamassey1]

It cracks me up to watch Glee, there was none of that at my school, and it's SO hard to imagine it being looked down on like that but I've heard from friends that it was at their school.
Band geeks rule! Flute is so lovely.

We love Glee!

 

[eandesmom]

All caught up and ready for more! Your villa is gorgeous! We stayed at the cabins at FW last time we were there and found this to be ideal for our fam, everyone gets a bed and they rotate who gets the top bunk. Murphy bed wasn't bad at all to share with hubby either!

We stayed at the cabins in 2009. It was tight for 6 as the older 2 were adult sized so one got the Murphy, one took the couch and then Kendall and I shared the double bed which was really small for the 2 of us!

I'd do it with just the boys, or maybe even 5 though. We loved the cabins, I wished we could have cooked a full dinner there and enjoyed it on that deck but we did eat breakfast outside most days and loved it!!

It seems I've missed a few things the last couple of days (sorry...trying to get six million things done before we leave next week).

A million things and so much going on between Mark's mom, Alisha and your mom! And an engagement party to boot! Impressed you are on here at all.

So a very Happy Belated Birthday to Eric; congrats to Evan on his music and congrats to your daughter on her soccer win.

Thanks! They've had a good week to be sure.

We love Glee!

We are total arts show junkies. Idol, the Sing Off, the Voice, So you think you can dance...LOL! Love Glee.

 

[eandesmom]

It was almost 5 when we arrived from DTD. We were shopped out and hot. What to do? Jump in the pool of course!! Having learned our lesson the previous day, when we walked all the way around the pool looking for the perfect spot, heading left as we walked towards the pool, today we headed right. Back to our exact same spot and found enough chairs for everyone. We didn't bother to do much beyond staking our ground before we hopped in the water.

AAAAHHHH so refreshing!

You'll notice Eric often has a hat while in the pool. He burns so easily it has become second nature to him to wear it in the pool and while I might let him go without, if he asked, he doesn't. A good habit (for him) started early that has stuck. Now if I could only get the “reapply” to stick as well. Or for that matter, “apply” if mom isn’t there to nag. After about 15 minutes in the pool Jeff and I were cooled off, and snagged a fresh beverage from the gurgling suitcase. We then went back and forth between lounging, the pool and after about 45 minutes I decided to play with the photosynth app again, this time from the bridge while the gang hit the slide. I blew it and didn’t get a close up of them up in the sandcastle as they peeked out, wah! Jeff agreed, good slide. Kendall and I, again, took a pass. Lame but you gotta be in the mood you know?

It's a little funky, but fun

I decided to do a partial instead

By now it was 6:15 and I had one seriously ansty kid on my hand. A kid who’d been put off the day before due to a dinner reservation. We didn’t have a reservation tonight. Tonight I would be cooking our first ever dinner in a villa. Which meant no time constraints and with that...a wish was granted. To be fair, a wish the kid paid for out of his own money! What wish?

Why to be the captain of his own ship of course! Master of his domain...you get the idea.

Ok, boat. Paddle Boat. Pedal Boat. Take your pick, I've seen it both ways. The pedallers (?) were discussed. Evan wanted me to pedal with him. Eric really really wanted to do it. Evan didn't want Eric to feel bad. I figured it was Evan's call and I'd stay out of it but support him either way.

Little brother whining...worked.

Which meant K and I would be in back and Jeff would hang out and chill.

Cool thing about being in the back? I could take pictures to my hearts content with my regular camera, and my phone!

We started to back out

And eventually generated some wake

Saw a little wildlife

And slowly made it to the lighthouse, where Jeff awaited to watch our progress and document from his end

His view

Continued in next post

 

[eandesmom]

Very peaceful on the water

They give you a map

Our goal? Ok, Evan's goal?

Treehouse villas of course! This is a boy who is OBSESSED with staying in a treehouse.

We forged on

Past the firepit (yes, OKW does have one)

And being chased down by strange men

As you can see (or Jeff could see), there were a few boats in front of us

We were in no danger of passing them

See ya Jeff!

The boys got a little close to the DVC Ferry

But it managed to get past us

Canal Patrol checked in on us too

And kept going

Finally...our villa!

And a long road ahead

We kept going, couldn't be that much further, right?

At this point, we had been going for about 25 minutes

Despite the peaceful landscape, my zen moments had been interrupted occasionally by Evan.

ERIC! Start Pedaling!

I AM!

NO YOU'RE NOT!

YES I AM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And on and on and on.

Poor Eric. He has the muscle strength of...a flea. Just not his gig. He can keep up on a hike but this, this was work and how much work at that point I didn’t really realize. I figured, as is typical, Evan was overreacting and being a little bit bullyish as he can be when he gets frustrated with his brother. Eric was being whiney, as he can be when he gets tired or defensive. Neither are pretty or attractive. And caused some cringing by both Kendall and I.

Did I mention you are UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES to switch places while on the water? Our plan had been to get to the THV dock, pull up, and switch Eric into the back.

He was working up a sweat. Mentally and physically

It doesn't help that he doesn't weigh much either

Continued in next post

 

[eandesmom]

Continued from previous page

Hey, the bridge!

In looking at our map, it looked just past the bridge

Who hoo! We're here!

Where do we go now?

Hmmn…that doesn't look right

A sighting!

But where's the dock?

Not helpful

At this point our friendly boat patrol showed back up.

You can't go that way.

Why not?

You can’t go past the bridge

Why not?

Only bigger boats can, it is out of the no wake zone and heads to Downtown Disney.

Oh.

They didn't tell us that.

The map doesn't reflect that either

The map is probably for the bigger motor boats

You also can’t be out past 7:30

It's 7:00

Oh.

They didn't tell us that.

The sun is going down and you don't have lights.

I can’t believe you made it this far

No one ever makes it this far in a paddle boat

Oops

Yay us.

I guess?

Crap.

We'd been out for 35 minutes but it felt like longer.

Evan had planned on an hour rental on his dime and I had 2 boys on the verge of total mental meltdown. No way could we make it back on time and keep it an hour, with both E's at the pedal. Or at least make it, and survive to tell about it. Or make it and not be past the deadline we hadn't known existed.

I did what anyone would do.

Waited for the patrol to be completely out of sight and…
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Switched spots with Eric. (shhhhh...don't tell!)

Time to turn around

Bye bye bridge!

Hey look, fire pit activities! Is that smores?

Sure Eric, you can go check it out once we get back. I figured he had earned it.

Heck, the CM made it look like an engraved invitation!

The sun was starting to go down a little

And the landscape got even prettier

Finally, our destination awaited

Ok..can I tell you? That boat is WORK! I am in decent shape. Evan is in decent shape. We pedaled our patooties off to make it back in time. By the time we got back I figured I could totally count that as a workout for the day.

This is what Evan had to say about it

I have to say though, it was fun. Really fun. I’m glad we did it, drama and all. It was a neat, totally different adventure and we felt so away from Disney...yet in it, in a Tom Sawyer Island kind of way that was really magical. So beautiful out there. And, even better, it’s cheap! Our boat docked, by the very apologetic CM who didn’t know about the 7:30 pm rule either, she’d never rented one out before. She also didn't seem to notice that we'd switched pedallers. I think the 4 of us RAN to the pool as quickly as we could strip those life jackets off, to cool off. Ok, maybe 3 out of 4. Kendall wasn't as hot as the rest of us but still, it was plenty warm out. Eric then took off in search of the fire pit. Jeff was ready to go back to the villa for dinner, I however figured I had earned a drink and stopped by the gurgling suitcase as I didn't have anything for myself at the villa, unlike Jeff who did. I also realized I hadn't actually checked the boat back in and figured I'd better as to not get overcharged. We'd been out just over an hour if you counted from when I rented it...but not from when we left the dock and she let it go at an hour, even though I'd not checked out on time. Eric finally came back after inhaling 2 marshmallows at the fire pit. Apparently it wasn't smores…just marshmallows. Which worked for him. Kendall and Evan refilled on soda and we headed to the bus.

Except there was one small problem.

I couldn’t take my drink on the bus!

Why that didn't occur to me is beyond me. DOH! I could have put it into one of the mugs and didn't even think of it. Not exactly the drink savoring while I cooked dinner I'd had in mind. I tried to convince folks to walk but no one was up for it. As we waited for the next bus we discussed post dinner plans. We had some options and ideas and different folks in favor of different things. What would we actually end up doing?

 

[winkers]

ahhhhhh, paddle boats.

They always seem like a good idea ......

Kinda like those surrey bikes at the coast....it looked so fun, plus with 4 people peddling how hard could it be?

sitting in the back of the boat looks like it would have been a nice scenic ride.

 

[LegoMom3]

...

The sun was starting to go down a little

....

I am loving all your photos but THIS one is just stunning!!

.

 

[Chilly]

paddle boats are a killer, esp if your short, they are fun though. The wave runner boats or whatever they are called are really fun, we did that at the Poly.

 

[FauntleroyFAN07]

love the paddle boat story, reminds me of a state park by us that we rent them but it is an open lake, so you hit a breeze going across it, you go good one way but coming back is a bear....you will be spent just trying to make momentum to get back tot he dock.


i can feeel your pain.