Hodgepodge Part Deux
Hi all
its been a busy few weeks again! This supervisor position Ive been promoted to is certainly chewing up a good bit of my time and its only going to get worse as the summer kicks into full gear. Were a seasonal company and we pick up a lot in the summertime. Ive been handed a slew of things Im now responsible for but I am starting to master the art of delegation! Oh well, trade off the good for the bad right?
A few hodgepodge items to take care of.
Disney Store
My boys went to a Toronto FC soccer game two weekends ago. They went in on the train and were gone for a good part of the day on Saturday. George was working away in our basement
have I mentioned were digging out our basement? Our house is an early 1800s Victorian and has a dirt basement. We want to turn it into a refuge for Alex but need to dig down a few feet for a decent ceiling clearance. Its going to be a big job but were taking it slow and trying to do most of the work ourselves to cut down on costs. But I digress
..
So with the boys away at the soccer game and George working away in the basement, it was the perfect opportunity for some girl time so Ariana and I grabbed our sandals and flip flops respectively and headed on over to the
Disney Store.
Even if we dont buy anything, its always a treat to go to the Disney Store. As a matter of fact, we occasionally use it as a reward or a goal for Ariana to strive for for good behavior.
Its in a mall that we dont go to on a regular basis so when we do go, we can make an afternoon of it either shopping in other stores, or heading to the food court or grabbing an ice cream treat, that sort of a thing.
This day, my objective at the Disney Store was to scope out the ladies t-shirts to possibly build on the ones Id picked up for Ariana earlier, hopefully on sale. I love jammies too so while they dont usually have them there Ill always look for them just in case and lastly, with Toy Story 3 coming out (three more sleeps!!
) I figured theyd have a selection of fun stuff to play with.
So off we went and sure enough as we were approaching the entrance, there was our own little Toy Story Mania going on. Jessie glitter cowgirl hats, little rainbow face dial telephones, Buzz Lightyear, Woody, Bullseye
. on and on it went, tons of things to look at. Ariana was in heaven!
Arianas style is to shoot thru the store very quickly looking at everything and then she goes back to the items that interest her the most. She always has fun playing with the plushies and always matches them up in pairs. This time she grabbed a Snow White plushie and then went to the corner where all the Dwarfs were set up. She found one of each and held all of them in her arms while walking around looking at other items in the store. She had to peak between Sleepy and Grumpy to see where she was going!
Off to the ladies t-shirt section and sure enough they had a sale on! Found this one!:
And splurged a bit on these too:
Mickey Bling!
Ariana loves balloons!
Minnie Bling!
Lastly, I picked up a vintage Mickey shirt for Alex. Hes declared he only wants shirts that have the original Mickey on it and I thought hed like this one:
He gave it a definite two thumbs up! Woot!
Sadly, no jammies (again!) were to be found and it was time to head out. Ariana had been scoping out the selection of Princes and Id told her she could pick one. She was this|close to picking Prince Philip but once she realized the Dwarfs would have to go back on the shelf she quickly opted to get a Dwarf instead. Heres how our conversation went:
Ariana, you can choose one Dwarf. Which one would you like?
Seven.
No, you can pick one. Which one do you want?
Seven.
Ariana, you can have one. Would you like Dopey?
I want seven.
Eventually she chose Dopey.
We got to the cash register and the CM tells us its one for $25 or two for $30.
So then I sent Ariana back to pick a second Dwarf half expecting her to come back with all six of them
.. but she pleasantly surprised me and came back with Doc.
Southwest Flights
This morning I got up early to book my flights. I wasnt sure what time Southwest was going to open their booking window but I certainly didnt want to miss it so I let my work know I might be late coming in and at 6am clicked the bookmarked site on my computer.
Nope, they were still at November 5th. I snoozed for half an hour and checked again. Still November 5th. One more quick snooze, one more check and I decided to pack up and head for work. Last year it was around 10am they rolled out, so assuming the same for this year, I headed in and kept hitting the refresh button about every 5 minutes while I was working.
Finally, maybe 15 minutes past 10 oclock, I hit the refresh button yet again. I literally jumped in my chair when the date flipped from November 5th to January 7th and dropped any papers I had in my hand. I quickly put my dates in and chose six people and hit search. This was it! I was finally getting these flights booked and could start concentrating on the finer details of my plans!
Then
(paraphrasing here)
Oops!! The site has encountered an error and cannot process your request at this time. If this is the first time you have received this error try your search again. You may also try our customer service reps at blah, blah, blah
.
While going back to the main page and trying again, I hopped on the phone to see if I could go thru a rep. I didnt really want to go this route because then Id miss out on the web only fares, but I held and groaned out loud when they said the projected waiting time was between thirty and forty-five minutes. A few more attempts on the website and I just kept getting that error message but I wasnt giving up! At last, at about 10:30am, after pushing the search button for the umpteenth time, it flipped to the screen listing the available flights.
Yipee! I quickly hung up the phone and concentrated on which flights I wanted while things were still working.
I was quickly disappointed right off the top to see the early morning flights were not available on the Saturday that we were flying out of Buffalo. Id been hoping to arrive early to maximize our first day but the earliest flight wasnt arriving until 1:30pm in the afternoon. It was also $35 per ticket more than Id been expecting
yikes!!
I moved onto the return flights.
Although I got the time I was wanting a later flight to again maximize our last day there it was $50 per ticket more than Id been expecting
.
DOUBLE YIKES!!
This is what Id been waiting for? What happened to my beloved low Southwest rates?
Thats over $400 I wasnt expecting to spend. My hope is the flights will eventually lower in cost and I can have a travel credit to book by this time next year. I was hoping to not have to worry too much about monitoring the SW site for the lower fares but it would certainly be worth having the credit. (F&G 2011 perhaps?
)
I sped thru the rest of the process and paid for the flights. I tried a few times more after that to see if miraculously the rates had changed with the system glitches going on, but I just kept getting the same error message as earlier and gave up.
Im happy to have these booked but slightly disappointed with what I got.
Todays trivia!
Using white font (Jen!
. white font!
) here it is:
B is for.....
1-Bambi
2-Bedknobs and Broomsticks
3-Bug's Life
Which movie has this quote: It's the same year after year, they come, they eat, they leave; that's our lot in life. It's not a lot, but it's our life.
Fake Bonus points: Who said it?
yippeee for the new desktop and widget! I had completely forgot about it! When they first sent the email that it was out it didn't work at first. Then I forgot! I wonder if they have a mac version!? I have to find out!
I'll be reading!
I hadn't seen her before.... she gave us some pixie dust and went on her way. 
Give it a go... it's fun to go thru everything and I love all the links.
to my PTR... thanks for joining in! I'm off to yours too! Congrats to your brother for getting into the program!!
We were kind of thinking that getting a Pin Code of 40% off with a DDP might be cheaper than just the 50% because my family can eat and we 
the DDP. We are the type that research for days and weeks to get the most out of our money and save all the slips and write down the totals to see how much we've saved 
So 40% off is not as great as 50% but when we can eat for $40 a day and get good meals plus dessert, it seems like a no brainer? Free dining would be a consideration but maybe not as good as 40%..who knows though, I don't have either right now as an option lol.
) to see where you're at now!
I hope you get cheaper ones and get your credit
) I really like how they fit her too, they're slightly longer in length. She has such a long torso that anything cropped to her waist just looks funny.
