Come over - A Perfectly Pompous TR (Updated: Boarding pass from the pool please!)

[manntra]

Hi Lisa
Read through your TR this afternoon....thanks for keeping me company on this rainy afternoon at work!
Love all of your pictures and your writing style has me cracking up!!

Tracy

 

[bumbershoot]

..is he the same guy who did the Bellagio flowers?

Yep! If you're ever in Tacoma, there's a Glass Museum that he was part of starting, and there's some semi-permanent on-loan pieces at a local pub!



Love your TR, lisaviolet! Though I am so Anaheim-centric, your current thread title sucked me in b/c I thought you suddenly went out to DisneyLand for part of your trip! Hey, people have done crazier things.

 

[adsrtw]

Lovely pics and commentary Lisa. I love the pics that you find. Or maybe I should say, oh how I love thee.

OMG, posting from my kids jurassic computer. Slow. Going back a few days to Kat's post. Tonga Toast. I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. Yum! Totally counter service. I think it was around $7 with a drink and a pork product. My monkeys will go nuts over it. I learned several tricks that I plan on using in other vacations from Kat and Amy.

I must admit that I am jealous of the weather. I would have been thrilled with 70's during our trip. Did I share that I'm planning a trip with the kids in December? Staying on property this time. I'm spoiled.

 

[3DisneyKids]

I agree--Lisa, your photos always amaze me! It just goes to show you that it's not about the camera! (Just like Lance Armstrong's book, It's not about the bike!)

I love that others take pictures of random things like light fixtures! Ha! I do weird things like that as well. Not necessarily light fixtures, but other equally random things.

Ok, carry on Lisa.

 

[cj9200]

Been away for a few days and had a lot of catching up to do. Great pics although it would have been nice to have someone take a pic of you taking a pic while balancing your tray. Plan ahead next time. POR is my second favorite moderate. Beautiful resort and probably the best food court. My favorite is just across the river. French Quarter has the same type of landscaping but is a smaller more intimate resort. Great pool. Both will do in a pinch.

I appreciate you waiting until I caught up on your TR before posting another segment. Since I am now current, feel free to post another installment. (Insert smiley thing)

 

[mecllap]

..is he the same guy who did the Bellagio flowers?

Yes, the lobby ceiling at Bellagio is a Chihuly installation. They also have (had a few years ago) some of his work in the atrium and in a shop. Absolutely gorgeous work.

 

[AKASnowWhite]

Tonga Toast. I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. Yum! Totally counter service. I think it was around $7 with a drink and a pork product.

Pork product I love me some pork products oh no. I think I'm getting stomach cramps again.

Great pics although it would have been nice to have someone take a pic of you taking a pic while balancing your tray. Plan ahead next time.

YES! A picture of Lisa taking that picture. I would have loved to have seen that as well!

 

[lisaviolet]

OMG!!!!

YES! THAT'S RIGHT! I just lost another long post because the DIS said I wasn't logged in and then when I did my usual saving trick they said I was double logged in or something like that. And I had it copied - cause they're not getting me AGAIN! And the copy came without my answers to you all!

Oh Lord - there's no alcohol where I am.

But thank God there are walls!

 

[lisaviolet]

Pork product I love me some pork products oh no. I think I'm getting stomach cramps again.

OMG. Holy cramp I mean crap Nancy.

YES! A picture of Lisa taking that picture. I would have loved to have seen that as well!

Hello, I'm right here.

Completing my head banging round.

No that would not have been lovely.

I'm about to nominate you for the Villains parade at MNSSHP. And don't think I don't have a few other candidates.

 

[toniosmom]

OMG!!!!

YES! THAT'S RIGHT! I just lost another long post because the DIS said I wasn't logged in and then when I did my usual saving trick they said I was double logged in or something like that. And I had it copied - cause they're not getting me AGAIN! And the copy came without my answers to you all!

Oh Lord - there's no alcohol where I am.

But thank God there are walls!

I always type long posts in Word and then copy/paste into a thread/reply. I lost a long post ONCE and never plan to do that again.

 

[lisaviolet]

David, I love that tea cup pic. My assignment for next visit!

Great lighting pics!

I know eh Muushka. So lovely.

Great pics. You have the depth-of-field nailed!

Thank you.

Shhh. I'm just going to let her assume I know what that means.

Just kidding. I'm sure I can figure it out without googling.

Hi Lisa
Read through your TR this afternoon....thanks for keeping me company on this rainy afternoon at work!
Love all of your pictures and your writing style has me cracking up!!

Tracy

Thanks Tracy. So sweet.

Love your TR, lisaviolet! Though I am so Anaheim-centric, your current thread title sucked me in b/c I thought you suddenly went out to DisneyLand for part of your trip! Hey, people have done crazier things.

Thanks and WHOOPs.

Lovely pics and commentary Lisa. I love the pics that you find. Or maybe I should say, oh how I love thee.

OMG, posting from my kids jurassic computer. Slow. Going back a few days to Kat's post. Tonga Toast. I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. Yum! Totally counter service. I think it was around $7 with a drink and a pork product. My monkeys will go nuts over it. I learned several tricks that I plan on using in other vacations from Kat and Amy.

I must admit that I am jealous of the weather. I would have been thrilled with 70's during our trip. Did I share that I'm planning a trip with the kids in December? Staying on property this time. I'm spoiled.

Yes how I love thee.

That's my DVC mantra I use excessively.

TT - um yum.

Monkeys. Love that Amiee.

Weather - don't be. Those last two days were the stars. The rest was fine for me too but not so wow.

December. Yeah! Nice.

I do weird things

Just thought it would be fun to see that in quotes attached to your name.

Been away for a few days

Glad you survived it. Catching up here.

Me, I barely made it out alive.

Plan ahead next time.

Will do.

I appreciate you waiting until I caught up on your TR before posting another segment. Since I am now current, feel free to post another installment.

Now look who's getting all pompous and cocky?


Nice.

..is he the same guy who did the Bellagio flowers?

Yes, the lobby ceiling at Bellagio is a Chihuly installation. They also have (had a few years ago) some of his work in the atrium and in a shop. Absolutely gorgeous work.

Would love a trip there.

 

[lisaviolet]

Whatever Nancy said. I can't retrieve it.

Of course I knew why you put it Nancy. (Nancy and I compete for lack of brains with technology. She usually wins. Just sayin' ) But I wanted to tease you instead.

And as for the camera. CHEATER. It's called cheating Nancy.

Thanks for the compliments. I'll try to give you some at some point.

OM ________. How beautiful is that. The OM and no words - The picture almost made me swear on the disboards it's so beautiful. Stop trying to get me thrown off the DISboards with your gorgeous shots buddy.

It looks like you lifted it from Disney's own promotional material.

Did you?

Mr. Photography is a good friend to me on here. I regularly harass him. Like blah blah blah harass about how I don't know how to do this or that with my camera.

Here's how he unfortunately found me and couldn't get rid of me. In 2005, I started this thread about buying DVC . Jean and I had waited ten years to buy. We knew we wanted it but although we could have financed we didn't. In fact, our first guide (we've had three - they keep getting major promotions - poor tings) said over and over "what are you two doing back here without buying?".

But we couldn't see doing it financing. For our situation ONLY- I have nothing against financing. So year after year we sat at OKW, BWV and VWL and dreamt and watched the people and imagined.

And finally summer of 2005 we had the money. Yeah. And I had a meltdown.

HUH?

I was on my thread going "should I wait for CR" (how long and fun that wait would have been?)- "should I even do it?". Strange. So Welcome Home comes on and totally patronizes me. I don't know him and he says something to the effect of "take a deep breath - good girl - quiet your noisy brain - you've waited - NOW is the time for the dream to come true.".

OMG, it was one of those strange times in life when the brain is saying one thing (who do you think you are talking to me like that?) but something is pulling at you regardless and I listened and we bought.

The timing of his words were critical - 2005/2006 brought unforseen stresses/hard moments and DVC was just an absolute godsend for us. And in turn for our family.

Life is funny, eh? YOu just never know who is going to affect your life so wonderfully. I honestly never might have bought as weird as that sounds - without that wake up call from a pompous stranger. And now he gets repaid by me annoying him every once in awhile.

 

[lisaviolet]

Next time we want to save on points for a Sat night, we want to stay there! Beautiful pics!

One more confusing point...did you really not have any park passes for this vacation? Will this be a park-free TR?

One more confusing point! I'll give you that on the family dynamics before I explained but not on this!

Okay now I get to use this -

Here I thought I had annoyed the heck out of all of you by saying one too many times that I don't have park passes.

So no - no park passes = no park pics or words. Unless I had karate chopped the entire security table - did a back flip over the entrance gate and snapped away.

Don't think that in my envy I didn't think about it.

Thanks BigEeyore. I SO hope you can stay at POR for at least a day.

True 'dat, Sista!

DH and I only have one kiddo so it makes it super easy to just bring her along when we want to go out instead of paying a sitter a small fortune so we can do date nights - - they are definitely a lost art in the Crystal_27 household. I think it's been about a year since DH and I went out solo (unless you count our DCL excursions and Palo meals...?).

And, for what it's worth, I'm sure that your Mr. Right is out there searching for you. Until then, at least you have a super awesome friend to share your wonderful Disney trips with.

Ah Crystal - just let me say - the words lovely but your knowing that I was really struggling - through your use of icons - well it helped a lot and meant the world to me.

See CJ - smilie's cousins can save humanity.

Also, quick story. My parents. They annoyed the heck out of their children by weekends away, HUGE social life (still is in their seventies), vacations without us, "make yourself scarce" when friends were over. You know - not fair! Laughing. All this while giving us attention and love and family outtings/vacations (mostly camping).

Honestly, lost art. You have no idea what I want to scream when I see posts like my husband and I want to go away but I feel so bad for the kids.

OMG. How I refrain myself. Or the child centric - "I so badly want to stay at the Poly but my children won't like it". Okay, I digress. Back to my parents.

Their choices - I'm sure - probably the reason why they will reach 54 years. They were far from perfect parents - who is? Their marriage was/is far from perfect - whose is? But I'm sure those moments together helped to hold onto when marriage gets really tough.

Once again what do I know - no marriage and unfortunately no children.

So here is to some more you and DH time whenever you can.

And they were fortunate to have it easier than you do right now - four children - built in babysitting at one point. My poor sibliings.

 

[lisaviolet]

Thanks for the Dixie Landings pics!

We just checked the AP rates for values and mods for our July trip. Dh and I were thrilled that we could get POR or POFQ for approx. $150/nt. for July 3rd, before our stay at BCV.

I told sis and bil...They want to stay at a value resort because its $110 instead. I know, I know...we're getting there late...I know, I know...its just one night...I know, I know...$40 is $40.

Venting now...we are going to BC because THEY like to swim...Why can't we go to Port Orleans?

Yeah why can't you?

$150. In prime summer. That's great.

Oh I guess that's not helping. Sorry.

But like I said BCV/SAB in the summer. Heaven. Hope you get that canal view. Regardless, nice vacation.

I see your relationship as no different than my parents traveling together (dad with stepmom and often mom with her partner). They were married 20+ years and things just didn't work but with all that history - and family shared - sometimes it is easier to be friends...

Although I have done a map to help others with our situation!!

I told you my goal is to do a TR as fun as yours....with a family like mine - in 12 days we will see if I can pull it off...if you are lucky I will fine some light fixture crack to get you off of the chocolate....as an addict myself....it is not so easy....chocolate covered cherries are my fav!!!

Dopeygirl76.

Thank you for doing that. Appreciate it so much.

The map -

And I can't wait to hear all about it in a TR. Have fun. Of course - it's family - fantastic stories will come so easily.

 

[lisaviolet]

Technical weird stuff going on. So tiring and strange. I had to separate them all. All of my posts. I know to do that but not into four! And the fourth was two quotes and still over. It was saying some normal looking quote had too many __________ in it. But it didn't. Holy crap.

I'm so sorry guys. I thought I would be ending with the pics of the last day but this TR will end when I get myself a good strong drink and not a minute earlier.

OMG. Is there a full moon? What a day.

 

[lisaviolet]

Double post. Sighing.

 

[lisaviolet]

I always type long posts in Word and then copy/paste into a thread/reply. I lost a long post ONCE and never plan to do that again.

Thanks toniosmom. Good advice.

You have no idea how many times I've thought of doing that.

However, and Lord am I going to pay for this moment of honesty , it's my smilies. It would be no fun.

Yes, I'm not that slow. Yes I could put them in later. But what fun would that be?

 

[AKASnowWhite]

I'm about to nominate you for the Villains parade at MNSSHP. And don't think I don't have a few other candidates.

Can I please be Cruella DeVille? Please??? God, how I would love to be paid to be nasty and snarky at people. Now THERE'S a job I'd excel at!

So no - no park passes = no park pics or words. Unless I had karate chopped the entire security table - did a back flip over the entrance gate and snapped away.

There goes Lisa - park touring "ninja style" again

Of course I knew why you put it Nancy. (Nancy and I compete for lack of brains with technology. She usually wins. Just sayin' ) But I wanted to tease you instead.

I'm totally and completely impaired. I admit it.

And as for the camera. CHEATER. It's called cheating Nancy.

CHEATING? Oh, I don't think so I think it was more like....eavesdropping

 

[HockeyKat]

Also, quick story. My parents. They annoyed the heck out of their children by weekends away, HUGE social life (still is in their seventies), vacations without us, "make yourself scarce" when friends were over. You know - not fair! Laughing. All this while giving us attention and love and family outtings/vacations (mostly camping).

Honestly, lost art. You have no idea what I want to scream when I see posts like my husband and I want to go away but I feel so bad for the kids.

OMG. How I refrain myself. Or the child centric - "I so badly want to stay at the Poly but my children won't like it". Okay, I digress. Back to my parents.

Their choices - I'm sure - probably the reason why they will reach 54 years. They were far from perfect parents - who is? Their marriage was/is far from perfect - who's is? But I'm sure those moments together helped to hold onto when marriage gets really tough.

Once again what do I know - no marriage and unfortunately no children.

So here is to some more you and DH time whenever you can.

And they were fortunate to have it easier than you do right now - four children - built in babysitting at one point. My poor sibliings.

I have a marriage but no children, so also probably not qualified to comment, but...

You are describing my parents in this post. They are also in their 70s and also still have a swinging social life. I also used to catch them necking on the couch when I was in high school (eww, then... aww, now).

They didn't have four children, but had an elderly aunt nearby who loved us dearly, and four children next door that were stacked in an order that made their oldest about 8-10 yrs older then my older brother, and youngest about a year older than me, so the built-in babysitter thing was pretty much there as well.

So I guess I am trying to say, I couldn't agree more.

 

[lisaviolet]

Okay - two more.

All a sudden I'm at a loss for words.

Friday.

We're all at DD - met them at POR - took the boat - and had a lovely afternoon at DD.

Wait before I start. I'm still bitter about losing pictures. Yes, I know.

One especially. So I have work for some of you. Here's the flower. it's not the pink one you've been seeing. It's a pink and white one. Yes, it would be nice if I knew the names of flowers. At the front of the mansions.

It was an extreme close up and it and I was in love. That kind of picture that you take it and then you turn around and exhale - or sigh I simply can't remember - and smile cause it's such a turn on. Just igmore me if you think I'm the strangest girl you've ever sort of met.

So do me a favour - one day my fingers will keep typing when I hit British/American spellings - one day - I think I'll ask for that for my birthday.

Let's try this again - So do me a favour and SOMEONE take a picture of a close up of that flower for me. It's SO lovely and so delicate. You know I think a teacher actually wrote on a grade three report card that I used "so" too many times. So what I say. I need sleep. Again.

Okay, I'm finsihed.

So we're back at DD.

Yes I've recycled pictures. What do you want from me? I only took two at DD - three if you count the bus stop.

We had a fantastic afternoon. Ate at WPE (hey Kathy - I know it now. TOTWL. It's the Top of the World Lounge not Tower of Terror with Love) and it was warm and not crowded. And so incredibly relaxing on the patio.

Oh wait! Jean and I didn't eat - just them. We sat with them.

How could I forget? We ate lunch with those lovely POR birds.

We of course ALL got a free chocolate. I don't think it would be a stretch to say that Ghirakelli has given me one AT LEAST every other day of every vacation. May that store live a properous existence for the rest of my vacationing days and beyond.

See the drink Marc Robert (his father named him - just sayin' ) is drinking. How could that have been sitting there across from one of my favourite stores - Team Mickey - vacation after vacation without me noticing.

And it was a snack credit. And whoops Jean is drinking it! Yes I said I'm not into drink drinks but it was good. Yum. Some kind of strawberry smoothie.

And they have great snack choices at that little kiosk as well. Some kind of tasty almonds as well.

Yes they we were sitting in Margaritaville. And get this - I've come to the conclusion over the years that they are not photogenic. Why? They are so good looking that the eldest son - nephew Brandon thanks his Mom and Dad for genetically pairing up to produce him. OMG.

Here's a picture from January. Brandon is on the right.He wasn't with us this time which was so strange. But for good reason - first year of college. Too cute . But pictures still don't give them justice.

And Snowbowl that I took New Year's day.

And I love this picture. 2006? This is Brandon again. Niece Elysha (if you can even see her! my side of course - laughing - she is married now! OMG, how does this happen?) waving to us from our unit balcony as we come up on the DD boat! They were decorating for the glorious day called, "MY birthday". I LOVE this pic.

And once every so many years we do a couch picture. Same nephews and niece.

1995?

2003?

2010

I have five nieces and six nephews - including my side. Blessed. They have brought such joy to my life.


Okay back to WDW and DD and Margaritaville. And Lord knows why they're not smiling in this picture. We were having so much fun. I must talk to them.

Jean's brother Jon, wife Cheryl and our nephew Isaac. The kind of child who says very few words but when he speaks is hilarious. Dry humour. ONe day eating Chinese food at their place - parents not around - Isaac suddenly mumbles "not in this house - maybe at Auntie Jean's and Auntie Lisa's". Literally just mumbles. Jean picks up his fortune from his cookie. It said, "you live in a home of such peace, love and beauty". Teenagers man - something.

Well that doesn't sound funny but you get the idea. Every one of us has someone in our lives that say little but when they speak - so funny.

Lovely day!

______________________________________________________________________________


Following day - last one - Saturday.


So Jean and I have a Magical Express at 1:35 pm. They are driving to the airport. But the weather for that next day - 76 degrees. Airport smairport - we have PLANS.

Up next - boarding pass from the pool?