Disney pin codes + Bill = TROUBLE *11/01 Almost time for our Happy Place*

We are back from the Nashville Trip, here is the mini TR about it:

Day 1: Thursday June 11th, 2009:

We went to go pick up Josh, Abbey, and Hannah so we could drop her off at her Granny’s house. There was one part of the interstate where it took 25 minutes to go two miles.

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The sky was looking pretty ominous:

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We got there and Abbey had some last minute things to do so Josh showed me so of the dogs etc. I thought this was too cute:

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Hannah’s strap was a little too long and Josh was helping her so purse wouldn’t drag the ground.

She had to show me her princess bike:

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I thought Hannah had the perfect little bag:

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Josh was loading stuff in the back of the van and Abbey and Hannah thought they would come talk to Bill. We gave her a Crayola Tinkerbell marker coloring set, I think she liked it, she wouldn’t let go of it:

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The drive went quickly to Tennessee with all of us talking. I had mentioned that we talked to Bill’s parents about possibly taking someone to the cabin sometime. I had also mentioned I had been working on a scrapbooking project late the night before but was frustrated because it wasn’t for Disney but I didn’t seem to have anything but Disney stuff.

We checked in to the LaQuinta’s:

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We headed off to the Rainforest Café, Abbey was really looking forward to it:

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We got seated and ordered drinks, soda for Josh and Abbey and I got these Rainbow Colada:

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Bill got the Chocolate Banana Blast:

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We ordered cheese sticks:

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Abbey is the one that reminded me to take a pic of them. I explained about “food porn” after I took the drink pictures.

At this point Bill and I decided to tell them about the trip. I had made a mini book to let them in on the surprise. The only thing is I didn’t take a pic of it until we were leaving after dropping them off and didn’t get a picture of the pages that said Pop Century and DISNEY (DUH, IP DIP):

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Notice I blocked the dates out, yes I am still mean and not telling you the dates yet.

They looked at it and thought that the next page would say the mountains, but it said Pop Century and DISNEY! (even though you can’t see that because I skipped that page when I took the pictures.)

Tears sprang to Abbey’s eyes, she and Josh kept looking at each other like they couldn’t believe it. She kept saying “really? really?” Then I started tearing up too.

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Yes the Magical Express, we decided Josh and I would kill each other being in the van that long if we had to drive.

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She saw that page and said “oh my goodness, really? I can’t believe it!”

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They said they both had been fooled with all my talk about the mountains and that while that would be fun, this was wonderful. Bill and I were so happy.

Then we got our food:

Mine – Volcanic Cobb Salad (dressing on the side):

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Abbey – Mojo Bones:

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Josh – BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger:

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Bill – Primal Steak, Shrimp Scampi, and Coconut Shrimp (he gave me the Coconut Shrimp):

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Then it was time for Happy Birthday Bill – the VOLCANOOOOOOOOO –

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It was Bill’s idea to take that picture, I thought it was hilarious. After dinner I got Josh and Abbey to stand still for this picture:

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Then they took this pic of Bill and I:

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We headed back to the hotel for bed.
 
Day 2: June 12th, 2009:

We slept in until 10am. Bill has a hard time travelling sometimes and I thought why not sleep in a bit because I knew we would be out in the heat and he needed to rest before we went. We used the GPS Navigator on my BlackBerry to get around Nashville, it was really good. After paying $10 to park, we walked up to where the ABC Block Party was across from the Sommet Center.

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We saw the Wipeout stuff set up:

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The soap stars were already signing, there was a long line, but then there was a line to just walk up and take pictures so Abbey and I went there:

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From left to right: Bradford Anderson (Spinelli, General Hospital) Kimberly Mcollough (Robin, General Hospital) and Laura Wright (Carly, General Hospital)

They had a lane where you could take a peek at them. Bill went up there and one of the security people said “do you want an autograph?” Bill looked at me and I said “yes, but we aren’t in line and we don’t want to cut”. The lady in line said she didn’t mind at all and then this happened:

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That is Greg Vaughn (Lucky, General Hospital) on the right of Laura. Then they asked if they wanted autographs, I had the picture of Laura and Bill from last Super Soap and she thought it was great that we brought it to sign. We couldn’t believe the soap mojo we received. The security lady told me if we wanted more autographs to just go over “by the ramp”. I had no idea where that was but I thanked everyone about 20 times and we went looking around the fun zone and found the entrance to the ramp, we also saw this stuff:

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We went back up to the soap area and there was a question and answer session going on:

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Rebecca Herbst (Elizabeth, General Hospital), Cameron Mathison (Ryan, All My Children), and Bree Williamson (Jessica, One Live to Live).

We found out where Bill should be and waited around just people watching. Then Bree and Elizabeth came out to sign autographs:

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Abbey was thrilled with all of this. It is so true, watching someone else have such a great time is wonderful. I told her to get in the picture instead of me, I was just happy she was having fun:

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The guy with them is Brandon Barash (Johnny, General Hospital). He was so nice, he asked Bill if he should put the autographs in Bill’s backpack and just kept talking to him. They were all so nice. I told Bree that she had made me weepy for two weeks with her storyline and hoped she wins the Emmy in August. She thanked me and they all just kept talking to us.

Cameron Mathison came back out for another round of interviews:

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He is even more gorgeous in person.

We decided to leave and I let Josh have the camera:

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Time to go to the hotel we would be at for the next two nights. We had a king suite room:

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Here is Bill’s haul of autographs for the day, not including the personal pic of Laura Wright:

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We hadn’t gotten Bradford Anderson’s and didn’t care to get Kimberly’s. We would go back the next day to see if we could get Bradford’s. We stayed in that night talking and ordered in.
 
Day 3: June 13th, 2009:

Today was the day to meet the “Diva’s of Daytime” aka Kassie DePaiva (Blair, One Life to Live), Bobbie Eakes (All My Children), and Kathy Brier (Marcie, One Life to Life). The GPS decided to tell me that there was an error, but I actually knew we were not going to be far from where we were the day before and we found BB King’s easy enough, there was a line already at 7:15am:

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The fan club president came out to introduce herself to everyone, we met her last year. She hugged Bill and I. She said she was happy to see us again and she had a table reserved for us. Abbey looked at us like “what?” I had emailed Tonya just to make sure everything was accessible, she remembered us from the previous year and Kassie singing happy birthday to Bill.

We went in and Tonya showed us the table. We were the 3rd table back from the stage. The first table had Bobbie Eake’s family, the second had her former manager and a guy from ABC, then our table. It was awesome.

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We hadn’t been there five minutes when Kassie showed up. Saying “there is my Wild Bill”:

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She hugged Bill, shook hands with us and thanked us for coming. We talked about her storylines and the Diva’s. She is really a sweet person.

Bobbie and Kathy were talking to people at tables before the event started. That is Kathy standing up in the purple print dress:

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This is Bobbie on the right in the white print dress:

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They had a continental breakfast, but Bill said he wasn’t hungry. Abbey and I got a couple of things and juice.

The Diva’s of Daytime are what they call their singing group. Bobbie has had a duet on the country music charts with Colin Raye, Kathy has been in many Broadway shows, including the lead in Hairspray, and Kassie has done 3 CD’s.

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Abbey had no idea how well they could sing. There were some ballad’s that had her all teary eyed just like me, she kept saying over and over again how much she was enjoying it and thanking us.

After the concert they had a meet and greet. They were lining people up down a couple of stairs, Bill couldn’t get over that way. Tonya came and told us to follow her. She had us be first, then the two other people in wheelchairs right behind us.

We talked to all of them, got autographs from the pictures I had printed out. Bobbie and Kathy liked the pics we had of them from Super Soap. Then we got a pic with all 3 of them:

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Kassie asked us if we were going to be at the block party again today and we told her we would, she said she would see us there.

We went back to the hotel, picked up Josh and headed back down town. I made sure to have plenty of water with us as it was supposed to be close to 90 degrees that afternoon. We went back to where the wheelchairs should be and Bradford Anderson and Brandon Barash came out to do some stuff for SoapNet:

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Now here is where a little misunderstanding happened. The security people knew that Bill and some others were there for autographs off to the side. A woman had even asked me who we were there to see. We told them Bradford Anderson and she said ok. Somehow they thought we wanted to meet Sarah Buxton an upcoming Country singer that was out signing autographs. We told them no we were waiting for Bradford. Well Sarah got done signing for everyone and her people walked her over to Bill. He looked at me like “who is this?” We talked to her, Bill was smiling because it was cracking him up and she posed for a picture:

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A lady on an ECV talked to us both days, she had been there many times and was telling us about how things worked. Many soap stars seemed to know her. Just about then Cameron Mathison came out to do a SoapNet promo. He saw the lady we had been talking to:

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He said hi to her and said he would be over in a little bit. He did the promo, came and talked to the lady then came right to us:

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This man is FINE, he is gorgeous, seriously handsome.

About this time Brandon Barash, Rebecca Herbst, and Bradford Anderson came out to do their signing session. Rebecca is teeny tiny. Bill said she reminded him of Belle in her yellow dress:

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At the end of their session, the security guy walked Bradford over to Bill (I have no idea why they didn’t just let us go up there) and Bradford said “hello again”, we looked at him funny and he said he remembered Bill from Super Soap.

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After he left the Diva’s came out to sing, Josh actually liked them too and took a couple of pictures:

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Kassie saw Abbey and waved to her. She saw us after they got off the stage and waved again. Abbey hadn’t gotten any autographs from them earlier in the day so we waited until they came out and just got pictures that they signed. We didn’t want to bother them. We were getting ready to leave and Kassie saw Bill and said “here take a picture and fan yourself with it, it’s hot” and told us goodbye.

We went to the mall that night, we were all hot and tired. We went into the Disney store, the Gibson guitar store about many others. Josh was hot and tired and took something I said completely wrong. He went off on me right in the middle of the food court walking off. Abbey said she would go “calm him down”. It was a mess, I was looking to spike his drink with Cherie’s ambien at that point.

We went to leave the mall and he wasn’t even going to get in the van. He said “I can find my own way home”. I had bet Bill that I would hear that comment at least once during the trip. He told he didn’t want to go anywhere with me including Disney and his “family” would not go either. I drove up to him and told him to get in the van. We got back to the room no one was talking. We went into the bedroom, they stayed in the living area.

I thought about it and I can’t believe this but something Dr. Phil had said popped in my brain. “Do you want to be a right fighter and keep arguing about who is right because the other person is never going to back down and admit they are wrong”. I went in there and told Josh I was sorry that I hurt his feelings. His whole demeanor changed, he said he was sorry too jumped up and gave me a huge hug. His dad would never acknowledge his feelings or say sorry so I didn’t want to be like that and have tension between us. I asked if he still didn’t want to go to Disney. He said he was an idiot for saying that and he was sorry. We all talked for long time and went to bed.
 

Day 4: June 14th, 2009:

We got up, packed up the van and headed for home. Josh plugged in his MP3 player and we played name that tune for most of the trip home. We stopped by Metropolis, Illinois for gas and they had these Wonder Woman and Superman cutouts that Abbey wanted pics with:

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We got home and Christian had the “where have you been” stance and Hannah came running for Abbey:

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We had gotten these little fans from ABC at the Block Party, the kids loved them and then I gave them the tee shirts I had gotten from the Disney Store:

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Hannah said “ooohhh I can watch Tinkerbell and wear that when I am watching it”. It was too cute.

I got this for Christian:

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He thought it was great, he loves Walle. Abbey thanked us again, so did Josh. Bill thanked Josh for coming and it really touched Josh. Josh really isn’t used to having a man show appreciation to him. Josh hugged me again and we went home.

We picked up Ace the next day, he was so excited to see us. Now I just have to start planning our WDW trip.

Next installment… we finally tell you when we are going
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awesome Mini TR! I can't believe I am going to be there this weekend! And I can't believe you guys got to meet all of those stars. It seems like all of those famouse know you guys. How cool is that?!

Awesome update! Can't wait to see your dates! :)
 
Looks like a good time. You look great!
I love Bill with his volcano. <brief threadjack. Once, when the boys were small, we took them to RFC for dinner. As they, my father, and I wanted dessert, it made sense to get the volcano, $ wise. I mentioned this to the boys-Mordie, who was no more then 8 at the time responded indignantly "BUT IT'S NOTANYONE'S BIRTHDAY!" :rotfl:
 
Thanks for so many updates all at once!! Looks like you guys had a great weekend - aside from the little incident with Josh... But I'm glad you guys worked it out! I love that Cassie remembers you guys every time you see her! :goodvibes

My guess is is that you'll be at Disney for Christmas! :confused3
 
awesome Mini TR! I can't believe I am going to be there this weekend! And I can't believe you guys got to meet all of those stars. It seems like all of those famouse know you guys. How cool is that?!

Awesome update! Can't wait to see your dates! :)

Hello and thank you. We love Nashville a lot. We had a great time, it was wonderful when they recognized Bill.

Looks like a good time. You look great!
I love Bill with his volcano. <brief threadjack. Once, when the boys were small, we took them to RFC for dinner. As they, my father, and I wanted dessert, it made sense to get the volcano, $ wise. I mentioned this to the boys-Mordie, who was no more then 8 at the time responded indignantly "BUT IT'S NOTANYONE'S BIRTHDAY!" :rotfl:

Bill cracked me up when he said he wanted to take a picture to make it look like he was going to eat it all. I love your story!! They sang Happy Birthday to Bill after they did the VOLCANOOOOOOO announcement.

Thanks for so many updates all at once!! Looks like you guys had a great weekend - aside from the little incident with Josh... But I'm glad you guys worked it out! I love that Cassie remembers you guys every time you see her! :goodvibes

My guess is is that you'll be at Disney for Christmas! :confused3

Things went better with Josh than I expected, I think I might have a better understand of how his brain works in these situations now. Kassie is an angel. Her fan club president ran into us later that day at the block party and said that they made sure BB Kings was accessible because Kassie and the fan club president would not book it unless Bill could get in there. That blew my mind that the fan club president said that.

Awesome road trip, sounds like you had a lot of fun!

Thanks we really did have a fun time!
 
Sounds like a great trip Tracy! That pic of Bill with the Volcano at RFC is HILARIOUS! :rotfl:

Can't wait for the date reveal! popcorn::
 
What a great weekend! It looks like you all had a wonderful time. :goodvibes

Now....when to the kids find out about the trip? popcorn:: And how are you going to tell them?
 
Sounds like a great trip Tracy! That pic of Bill with the Volcano at RFC is HILARIOUS! :rotfl:

Can't wait for the date reveal! popcorn::
He really is starting to come up with things for the trip reports, he makes me laugh every day!

What a great weekend! It looks like you all had a wonderful time. :goodvibes

Now....when to the kids find out about the trip? popcorn:: And how are you going to tell them?

We are going to tell them we are taking them to Bill's parents vacation home in the mountains but we have to stay all night in St. Louis or Nashville depending on where we fly out of. We have to stop and spend the night because of Bill ;). Not sure of the exact time of reveal yet, I have too many ideas floating in my head right now :rotfl:.
 
I loved the mini TR, Tracy!

I was crying when I read about you revealing the trip to Josh and Abbey! You and Bill are so sweet.

I loved the part where the up and coming country singer came and chatted with Bill! :rotfl:

Good for you, taking the high road with Josh! That was probably hard to do, but it made for a good ending to a rough evening!

Um, when are you going to adopt me?!?
 
I loved the mini TR, Tracy!

I was crying when I read about you revealing the trip to Josh and Abbey! You and Bill are so sweet.

I loved the part where the up and coming country singer came and chatted with Bill! :rotfl:

Good for you, taking the high road with Josh! That was probably hard to do, but it made for a good ending to a rough evening!

Um, when are you going to adopt me?!?

Hi!! Thanks for reading. Bill says we will happily adopt you then you can show me all sorts of stretches for him :rotfl:.
 
ATTN all my readers that will be going to Nashville and Rainforest Cafe this upcoming weekend.

I don't know if you already know this or not so I will pass it along. We used a $10.00 off for a $25.00 purchase when we were there last weekend. The printable coupon is on their website:

http://www.rainforestcafe.com/

Click on "Maya" which is promotions and go from there.

Have a great trip!
 
Aww, shoot! I had it all mixed up in my head and thought you'd be able to hook up with the other DISers at the RFC!! :sad2:


Your pictures are fabulous... so many stars... and you look mahvelous, BTW!! Your hard work is paying off!! :goodvibes

I loved your mini-TR and the way you surprised Abbey and Josh with the Disney trip!! :lovestruc How awesome that Kassie and the club president were so commited to making the event acessible for Bill, er, I mean "Wild Bill!" :rotfl:

Abbey seems like a real doll.... you should call her "The Josh Whisperer!" ;)



Kathy
 
Kassie....so hot and so nice........

They all seem pretty down to earth which is so cool...

My roommate is a huge ABC soap fan and she watches her TiVo'ed shows every night. Both her BF and I pretty much know everyone on the shows. So I know everyone in your pix...and i kinda know their storylines too.

Families...you love them...you hate them...they bring out the best and the worst in you.
 
Yay! What a great mini-TR from Nashville! What celebrities you guys are! How fabulous!!!

I love all the pics and all the detail Tracy!!! I can't wait to hear about your dates (for a minute there I was wondering how you got stickers to sparkle on your scrapbook page....:lmao:)

You look amazing, by the way!!! :thumbsup2

Sara
 











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