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Now I'm on pins and needles to hear how the illness worked out.

And of course I want to hear about date night, always exciting when you are a mom:)
 
Oh my goodness, I totally forgot about the lost McQueen. I lose a kid every time I'm at Disney. Last year it was Ariel at All Star Sports. Poor McQueen.

We did hop on that ride really quickly.

That also is the issue with a parent missing in our group. The kid/adult ratio was just plain off.

We got all our photos printed tonight. I printed almost 375 total. Suzy had about 250. But I think she's gonna need more...
 
Sorry to hear you got sick. I like the picture of you & Suzy in the photopass line! Everyone gets that look at least in WDW! The photopass of both families at HS is very nice.

Wouldn't it be nice to just ONCE have a trip to WDW and not ever have to have that look? Yeah, right. :lmao:

I just printed out that DHS photo and it is so good. McQueen is very cute in it.

Now I'm on pins and needles to hear how the illness worked out.

And of course I want to hear about date night, always exciting when you are a mom:)

I'm looking forward to hearing about date night too. Every detail, Suzy, ya hear? :love2:
 
Let me just say Milo and I don't do much together without our kids. So we had been excited to have the chance to trade date nights with Donald and Perla. We talked and talked about what to do. I debated about having a nice dinner at Flying Fish or doing something in Orlando not Disney. But when it comes down to it Milo and I are very frugal when it comes to ourselves. We were at Disney, we had tickets that were already paid for and Milo LOVES Epcot World Showcase. So I had the idea that we could "eat around the world" and he wanted to peruse the shops around the world without little fingers touching all the breakables.:thumbsup2

So that's what we decided to do. I got home from my day at MK to find Milo ready to go. Believe it or not even though he had been vomiting less than 24 hours before he still was ready to eat. So I left Jack Jack and Buzz with Perla(McQueen and Charming were at Epcot with Donald) and we took off.

We just walked straight to Mexico and got started. We went into the Pyramid and explored. I discovered that there is a fancier store in an actual room in there aside from the market carts. They sell silver, leather, and other nice stuff from Mexico. I have been into Mexico many times and had never noticed this place so that was a good start to our "grown up trip around the world."

Then we stopped and got a Fiesta Margarita from Joe at the margarita stand.
This was disappointing. It is a layered margarita with green apple, mango, strawberry, and traditional. I had two problems with this, one was I didn't really like all the flavors, the strawberry was good but I would have passed on the other three. Secondly, it was freezing this night. It got to a record low late that night of 39 degrees to give you an idea. A frozen drink may not have been the best choice.

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On the top right is the margarita (obviously) then we stopped at the Norway bakery and got school bread (bottom) and Lefse Bread (top left). This was my first school bread experience and I fell in love. It was so good and I'm not a pastry or donut person normally but this was delicious. The lefse bread did not get finished as it was pretty bland and I had no interest in it.

We then walked through the shops in Norway, past the perfume lady and into the back where for a moment I imagined how fun it would be to wear all those cool clothes and go skiing and dog sledding and snow shoeing across Norway until I stepped back outside where it was 40 degrees and I quickly decided a tropical island would be more my speed.

Next we went to China and had Pot Stickers and Plum Wine. Our CM was Yuet Sheung. (I took note of all our servers' names because it made me feel more authentic in our trek.)

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I like pot stickers so I was happy with this. Then we walked through all the fancy chinese furniture and oohed and awed.

On to Germany. Here we went to the counter service (which I didn't even know existed) and ordered a Bratwurst with Sauerkraut from Markus.

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Oh, and two little Mozart chocolates from the store. This was a decent brat but we're from Ohio and we eat brats a lot in the summer so it was no big deal.

Off to Italy where there is no counter service but there is La Bottega Italiana where we ordered a glass of Spumante from Eleanor.

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Then we walked around the square and watched the players for a while. But it was too cold to stay for long. ( I want to add that I was wearing a long sleeve shirt, a courderoy jacket and my wool winter coat :eek: )

Then we went to Yakatori House in Japan and had Hot Sake and California rolls. We were served by Nga.

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This was one of my favorites. I'm not an expert of Sushi but for me it was really good. And we were able to sit inside the restaurant where it was warm and just took our time.

Morrocco was next. We love Morrocco. The theming is so nice. You really feel like you're in another world. We walked around and then ordered the Combo Chicken and Lamb platter with a glass of red wine. Our CM was Hajiba EL AKFI

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This came with bread, chicken and lamb in some yogurt sauce, hummus, and tabbouleh. We both enjoyed this tremendously.

Then we stopped and watched the American Adventure. We had never seen this before and I've always wanted to. I really enjoyed it. (and it was warm;) )

Then off to finish up in the France Bakery. We were served by Ornella and ordered a lemon tart and Chocolate eclair.

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Out of the two I liked the lemon tart better even though I am a huge chocolate person. The eclair just wasn't as fresh as I would prefer.

We then got our picture taken in front of the fountain.

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Can you tell it's been a long day for me? I was tired. I had been up early that morning listening to Milo being sick, took the boys solo to MK, and then took my DH on a walk around the world:scared1: . And did I mention it was COLD!?!

Anyway, we had ADR for the Rose and Crown later in the week and Milo wanted to buy a bottle of Norwegian whiskey that he had spotted earlier, so we went back the way we came and headed to the exit.

As we were leaving, there was no line for Spaceship Earth and I wanted to see the new version so we ran in there. I loved it. We emailed ourselves our crazy pictures (if you've ridden you know what I'm talking about) and headed home.

When we got back into the van the thermometer read 44 degress. In Orlando. In early December. Bummer!:sad2:

All in all we had a good time. We spent less then $80 on our dinner and were kidless. So that was a success. Unfortunately, it was not the casual stroll hand in hand stopping and looking over the lagoon on a bench that I had hoped for simply because it was too cold for that. I would like to go back and do something similar on a date night and get another chance, maybe next time.

We were home by 10:00pm where I found everyone in bed except Charming who was on the couch dozing with a sleeping Jack Jack. Sweet, mothering Charming.....Perla was sick and Jack Jack had woken up around 9:00 crying so Charming had taken care of him.:love: I took Jack Jack and sent Charming to bed and that was the end of another monster day.

Whew, will we ever take it easy?
 

Wow! A post while I was still reading.

Did you literally make a note of the names or you made a mental note? Cause if it was mental notes you are a truly amazing person. I don't even remember losing McQueen without a note. You remember Yuet.

Stay tuned because in two days I have a note about ordering that same chocolate eclair and my great disappointment. So funny!
 
I don't read a lot of trip reports but I have to say it is cool reading the two of you trading off. Are you writing here or writing in Word and then copying? I can't figure out how you are remembering to use Buzz, Ariel, McQueen, Charming, Perla, Milo, etc. rather than real names. It is totally impressive. Never having had daughters it is interesting to read the daily adventures for girls. I read some of Suzy's reports and it could've been written about my experiences with my three boys. While I miss the girlie stuff and princess stuff, my heart so belongs to little boys. I don't have any sisters and I'm really jealous of your adventures together. It sounds like you all get along so well.

Totally OT comment to Perla (I think). I have a herniated disc in my neck and occasionally it flares up big time. ONE motrin/advil wouldn't even touch the pain. My doc has advised me that I can take up to 6 at once as that is the prescription dose. I'm not recommending you take that many for your throat pain, but 1 pill is the same dose you could give your little one. You could easily take 3 or 4 without any adverse side effects. Sorry to hear you were so ill. I had my tonsils removed at 19 and I clearly remember how awful it was. I can't begin to imagine them growing back.

Incidentally, every family vacation we've EVER taken, some one has had to be seen at a medical clinic. It never fails.
 
Did you literally make a note of the names or you made a mental note? Cause if it was mental notes you are a truly amazing person.

As much as I want to say, yes, I remembered all that, I noticed that the names are actually printed on the receipts so I decided to save them for my scrapbook, of course.:thumbsup2
 
/
i've enjoyed reading this TR so far, thanks for all the work you have put into it, I've been taking lots of notes!

A date night to World showcase is a great idea! Keep up the good work!
 
Are you writing here or writing in Word and then copying? I can't figure out how you are remembering to use Buzz, Ariel, McQueen, Charming, Perla, Milo, etc. rather than real names. It is totally impressive.


I can't speak for Perla, but I'm writing directly on disboards. The funny thing about the names is that I'm so immersed in this TR that I find myself calling the kids their code names. I was with Perla the other day and she called her little one, "Boo" so I know she is having the same problem.:lmao:

I don't have any sisters and I'm really jealous of your adventures together. It sounds like you all get along so well.

We are very lucky to have each other.:hug: We're the couple that you're not sure where one's ideas or sentences starts and the other's ends, if you know what I mean. The only downside is we can be a lot to handle in real life. Which is why when we travel together we have to be extra careful not to overwhelm our DHs with our "oneness of mind." They don't like that very much;) .
 
I don't read a lot of trip reports but I have to say it is cool reading the two of you trading off. Are you writing here or writing in Word and then copying? I can't figure out how you are remembering to use Buzz, Ariel, McQueen, Charming, Perla, Milo, etc. rather than real names. It is totally impressive. Never having had daughters it is interesting to read the daily adventures for girls. I read some of Suzy's reports and it could've been written about my experiences with my three boys. While I miss the girlie stuff and princess stuff, my heart so belongs to little boys. I don't have any sisters and I'm really jealous of your adventures together. It sounds like you all get along so well.

Totally OT comment to Perla (I think). I have a herniated disc in my neck and occasionally it flares up big time. ONE motrin/advil wouldn't even touch the pain. My doc has advised me that I can take up to 6 at once as that is the prescription dose. I'm not recommending you take that many for your throat pain, but 1 pill is the same dose you could give your little one. You could easily take 3 or 4 without any adverse side effects. Sorry to hear you were so ill. I had my tonsils removed at 19 and I clearly remember how awful it was. I can't begin to imagine them growing back.

Incidentally, every family vacation we've EVER taken, some one has had to be seen at a medical clinic. It never fails.

I probably should have had boys as I'm not a naturally princessy type person. At first I wouldn't buy any stuff and tried to not do the pink thing. But it was just impossible once I had 2! and then 3! So now we are immersed. There is even a pink bedroom in our house. princess: It's been fun but I think both Suzy and I would have loved at least one of the other sex, ya know? So we just live vicariously through each other.

And we do get along great. All four of us. Milo and I have run together before (like for training) and it has really bonded us as we had time to get to know each other on a one on one basis. And Suzy and Donald are big time family people, just immersed in their families so that gives them a common bond too. And we have the same interests.

We didn't naturally all get along when Suzy & I chose our mates, but after 15+ years we've all grown on each other and I would say there is true love & affection for the other family from and for all.

As for the names, some of them are so good it's easy. Boo sincerely looks like Boo from Monsters. I think I'm going to make it her nickname cause I love it. Charming is perfect. Buzz is perfect. Suzy is really good too. Donald I struggle with as I do with Perla. Why is it we can't name ourselves good things? :rotfl: I type mostly in Word and copy but I also just type on here for the smaller reports. I'll have to go through at the end and copy those & Suzy's into Word so I'll have the whole thing permanently on my hard drive.

As for the pain thing, thanks for the note. I'm not a painkiller person. I try to just suffer through the pain, so the fact I was taking any at all shows it was getting bad. Suzy was also in pain and didn't take painkiller on this trip. She had something wrong with her foot and limped along. But it does make me feel a little better about not destroying my liver as at the end of this tale I have a little painkiller incident. :lmao:

We also visit the clinic on vacation often. Sad, but true. Oh well, you get to see more of the town you're visiting.

Thanks for reading! Suzy and I are really enjoy ourselves.
 
I didn’t know about the Jack-Jack and Charming thing. Charming is such a little mother I doubt it would even have occurred to him to wake me and have me put Jack-Jack’s jammies on him. He and Jack-Jack have such a special little bond.

I awoke at 4:00 a.m. to a sick baby who was hacking up a lung and had a fever. I had mentioned to Donald that I was getting sick and might not go to Epcot the next day. I just kept going back and forth. But when Boo woke up sick, the deal was sealed. I would stay home.

Our plan for this day was to do Epcot’s future world in the morning and then head over to MK for Wishes and Spectro. I love Wishes so I knew if I could only do half the day, I would choose the second half. And future world is hard with a baby. There is a lot of baby swapping there so it was a good morning to skip.

In retrospect, I should have offered to keep Jack-Jack. For the life of me, I can’t think of why I didn’t. It just never occurred to me. I wasn’t that sick and a good night of rest had rejuvenated me so I wasn’t stressed and emotional. So I don’t know. And Suzy is way too nice to have asked. It’s probably the same reason we hadn’t given Donald the van the night before and had me go with Suzy. And then I had to go pick him up. In retrospect, that was a goofy choice too.

But the bottom line is I stayed home alone with Boo. The rest left just after 8:00 a.m. and Suzy will have to tell you how that went.

Here is a sick baby Boo:
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My day was as such: I took my Motrin/Tylenol combo & gave Boo some Tylenol too (infant stuff, of course.) My plan was to read a book I had gotten at the library before I left home and relax. So I put Boo under a blankie watching Nick Jr. and climbed back into bed to read my book. But after two chapters I realized it was a stupid book that I hated. And I didn’t really feel like hanging out in bed all day.

So I got up and collected the laundry from all the bedrooms. Normally, I wouldn’t have braved doing their laundry as it’s not my strong suit and I didn’t want to ruin anything. But we mostly had jeans and t-shirts and I figured I couldn’t ruin that. I probably did ruin things even still. But I took it all & sorted it and got started. It was about 6-7 loads. Then I went to clean the kitchen which I had totally neglected. It was gross. The trouble was, I didn’t have a mop or a vacuum. And my only cleaning supplies were a tub of Scrubbing Bubbles wipes and dishsoap.

And the floors in the entire house were tile. So I went and got a bath towel and dampened it and spread it out on the floor. Then I put one foot on one side and one foot on the other side and “walked” around the house. It worked OK. Not amazing but it did stop some of the stickiness. And there was a lot of stickiness as Jack-Jack and Caprisun do not go well together. And Boo loves Caprisun so she was constantly carrying one around and then Jack-Jack would grab it and she wouldn’t let go and Caprisun would go EVERYWHERE. So the video game room and kitchen floor got a good scrubbing.

Then I took a break and read to Boo and played with her a bit. We ate some breakfast. And then… she fell asleep at 11:00 a.m. And slept till 3:00!!! So I had 4 hours all alone. I put on my MP3 player and tackled the rest of the house. I mention the vacuum again as I REALLY needed a vaccum. But I got all the bathrooms clean and things picked up. And the laundry done. But mostly I was bored. I watched 3 episodes of Top Chef which shows how bored I was as I’d already seen these episodes. I just watched them over.

By 2:00 p.m. I was pretty much just waiting for everyone to come home. I felt really good and felt I was on the upswing of health. Come on family. Where are you?
 
I have thoroughly enjoyed reading your TR. SOunds like you all had a wonderful time together.

We went this past July w/ 2 other families (my twin and her family and cousin and her family). The babies stayed with the grandparents at home so there were 8 kids and 6 adults. It definitely was a challenge but a fun filled time.

We are going again for Thanksgiving (and DS 11th bday) so your TR gives me some great insight.

BTW, what did you think about the infor from TGM? We went 4th of July and never stood in more than a 10 min line. I always wonder if it's because of the advice from TGM or that I pretty much memorized every Disney fact out there!

Looking forward to the rest of your days
 
Poor little Boo.
Glad you were feeling better after a good nights rest and a half day at home.
Can't wait to hear what the others did in their morning.
 
In retrospect, I should have offered to keep Jack-Jack. For the life of me, I can’t think of why I didn’t. It just never occurred to me. I wasn’t that sick and a good night of rest had rejuvenated me so I wasn’t stressed and emotional. So I don’t know. And Suzy is way too nice to have asked.

It never occurred to me to leave Jack Jack. That would have been nice but Boo and Jack Jack were so difficult to handle together that your day would have been much different I'm sure.:)

And there was a lot of stickiness as Jack-Jack and Caprisun do not go well together. And Boo loves Caprisun so she was constantly carrying one around and then Jack-Jack would grab it and she wouldn’t let go and Caprisun would go EVERYWHERE. So the video game room and kitchen floor got a good scrubbing.

I hated, hated these Capri-Suns.:mad: After the first night and Jack Jack had squirted about 5 half empty packages all over the floors I banned Perla from buying any more of these. Note to self - a 12 mo old must have sippy cups with no spill valves!:rotfl:
 
So I had tagged along the day before and now Donald and his two girls were tagging along. For the drive in. See Donald is not really a tag along person either. He is more of a "catch me if you can" kind of person. So once we were through the gate he was gone. :rotfl2:

We headed to Test Track first thing. Milo, Charming, Buzz, and McQueen went to ride first while I went to get FPs for Soarin'. I hate this trek, it's just a hard walk. I was wearing Jack Jack on my back in preparation for this journey. So I got my metabolism charged early this morning while I walked from Test Track over to the Land, into the Land, down the stairs, over to Soarin' and back to the FP area. Then back to Test Track where the guys were still riding.

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Then when they came out, I got to ride with the big boys. There still wasn't any line, so we just walked on. Since no one was there we got to ride in a car all to ourselves. The boys and I pretended we were asleep for our Photopass shot.

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After Test Track we walked over to Mission Space and I sat out with the baby. McQueen had done this the night before with his uncle Donald and was excited to be in the "know" and take his dad on this ride. I just skipped this ride.

Next we headed over to use our FP for Soarin' but on the way stopped at Character Connection. I was a little disappointed in the set up because last time we were there you had to know what you were looking for to find this place. The windows were all blacked out and the place was empty. We had the characters to ourselves. But, of course, this is Disney, they can't let that happen. This year, they've opened the windows, made it very colorful, so it catches your attention from outside that Mickey is in there and the lines have come. But we had waited and this was the only character greet we were going to do (aside from Tusker House) so we went and got in line. All said, this probably took a good 45 minutes but I think it is worth it because you to see the "Fab 5"

waiting in line:
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Mickey:
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I wouldn't get my picture taken with Minnie because she was the tiniest Minnie I had ever seen I didn't want to look huge!:lmao:
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Pluto:
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Donald:
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And unlike Boo, Jack Jack loved these big guys.
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So on to Soarin'. Milo had a phone interview this day at noon so the plan was he would ride with the kids while I had Jack Jack and then take off to the van to have his interview. Then Charming would watch the baby while I got to ride. So Milo and the boys got in the FP line (with Donald and his girls whom we had run into) and I went to the exit/FP area and waited for what seemed an eternity. While I waited I decided there was no way Charming could babysit Jack Jack out here while I rode. It was just too chaotic with too many people around. So I skipped it too.:sad1: When they all came out, Milo ran off and the boys and I went to hop in line and ride The Land. Jack Jack loved all the boat rides so this was enjoyed by all and something safe for me to do by myself with them.

After this we decided to eat lunch there at the Sunshine Grill. This did not go as smoothly as I had hoped. It was a little before noon so not too crowded but I still had an 11yo, 8yo, 5yo, and 1yo all by myself trying to get everyone's food and juggling trays and baby. I had never eaten at this food court before so I didn't do it very well. We picked 2 kids chicken meals for Buzz and McQueen right off the bat. It included a drumstick, mashed potatoes, drink, and grapes. Well, we walked a little further, and found a Smuckers uncrustable meal that Buzz would really prefer so I let him get that and decided that I would eat the chicken and share with Jack Jack. Charming spotted a kids' sweet and sour chicken lunch that sounded good to him, so I sent him to the Asian counter. When we had regrouped at the checkout Charming had actually ordered an adult platter with 2 entrees and 2 sides none of which was sweet and sour chicken.:confused3 When asked what happened he said that the children's platter was only for kids 10 and under.:lmao: I explained to him that we're not on the dining plan and he was 11 and he could have ordered the kids meal if he wanted. Oh Well. We checked out and went to a table where I had to set everyone up with straws, napkins, tableware, you get the idea, it was complicated. And Charming really wanted that Sweet and Sour chicken. So I sent him back for it and Jack Jack and I now had a lot of food to choose from.:rotfl: I spent more for lunch here than I would have liked due to the confusion but it was the best I could do given the situation. On our way out I picked up a tuna sandwich for Milo and some of the leftovers that we had.

Milo was done with his interview and we had to pick him up at the gate because in his hurry to not be late he had forgotten his ticket with me. So once he was cleared we headed to Spaceship Earth. Milo quickly ate his lunch and we took a potty break and diaper change and hopped in line. We let the kids spend some time playing in the interactive area at the exit of this ride and they all loved it.

Then we headed over to Nemo and the Living Seas. We were determined to get McQueen picked for Turtle Talk with Crush. So we practiced what question he would ask, how he would raise his hand and the older two boys wouldn't, etc. (Now both of my other boys have always gotten called on here. Buzz has talked to Crush twice, so I didn't think it should be hard) While we waited we watched these.
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And then we were in. McQueen sat right up front ready and armed with his question. And didn't get called on.:sad2: "No one ever picks me" Oh well, a lesson in life learned. You just don't always get picked.

By this time, it was about 2:00 and we were ready to go. We wanted a chance to rest before we headed back to MK for a couple of rides and Spectro and Wishes that night.

When we got back to the house, I found Perla had been a busy beaver. My room and bathroom had been cleaned and laundry done.:woohoo: Thank you, Perla!! I had been so busy the previous days I had let it go a bit so I was very happy.:cloud9:

Stay tuned for our evening report.....
 
After this we decided to eat lunch there at the Sunshine Grill. This did not go as smoothly as I had hoped. It was a little before noon so not too crowded but I still had an 11yo, 8yo, 5yo, and 1yo all by myself trying to get everyone's food and juggling trays and baby
Don't worry, my experience was just the same @ SS. I don't remember where on earth my DH got off to, but I had the 4 of them by myself and the 4yr old was running around like a lunatic!!

Love the tie dye shirts
 
Don't worry, my experience was just the same @ SS. I don't remember where on earth my DH got off to, but I had the 4 of them by myself and the 4yr old was running around like a lunatic!!

Love the tie dye shirts

Thanks!

I think the problem with SS is this - typically if I was by myself with the boys I would park them at a table under the supervision of Charming and then go get food. But this place is so big, I wasn't really comfortable doing that. So we all went through the line together. Which needless to say was not ideal.;)
 
Here is the step by step instructions for Tye Dye. I think it's post 7.

http://disboards.com/showthread.php?t=928135

And for those who are gluttons for punishment, there is a pre-trippie to this crazy trip. It got cluttered with a girl's only trip and some random photos of our trip report to Yellowstone this summer (there is TR on that over in the Disneyland/out west board) and I abandoned it as it was a difficult read. However on page 5 is a photo tutorial on how NOT to tye dye:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1719510

I've since learned that our mistake was in not using the floss. But I searched all the drugstores and Wal-Mart for non-waxed dental floss and could not find it and therefore we used a sturdy thread. The thread didn't work right. Plus, we didn't saturate our shirts with water first so the dye didn't go all the way through.

All in all, we are bad at it. We tried it twice, once all together and once with just my family and both times we had the same lame result.

But ya'll are more than welcome to follow our terrible directions.
 













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