EARLY CHECK IN: December 15th, 2007 - Seven night Western - 12/15/07

[Pinkprincessmom]

We've been lucky. We also booked the cruise based on DD's previous school schedule. Thankfully it's the same for next year. I hope it's not too much trouble for those of you who have had a change in school scheduling.

What do you guys think of the cruise ship that sank? I'm glad it sank slowly enough for all of the passengers to get off. I imagine they were quite frightened though.

 

[dutch_girl_scout]

Susan--I added John to the website today, I stole the picture you posted of Rachel and John.

We didn't have a major change in the break schedule this year, I guess I was just sort of hoping that they would have off the Thursday or Friday so the kids wouldn't have to miss so much.

The cruise ship that sank freaked me out. I caught an interview with the mother of a 14yo that was on it with a school trip, that would be scary. I had heard about it when it was first evacuated but they said it was in no danger. I never thought that it would sink, and like totally sink.

 

[Pinkprincessmom]

Thanks for adding the picture Stacie. I hope to send you a family picture soon, from Easter. Could you send me the website link again? My dh updated the computer and lost all of my bookmarks. Thank you.

There were some local kids on the cruise. They've interviewed some of them on the news. They showed a very emotional homecoming. I think if this December cruise were to be our first, I'd want to cancel. Luckily, we had one under our belts before this happened.

 

[dutch_girl_scout]

What happened to global warming? It is 35 and snowing like crazy here (up to an inch a hour). Two weeks ago it was 85 and really hot! I'm going to have to pull out my cruise pics!

We had our next to last Girl Scout Service Unit meeting of the year last night. We're trying to put together our service team for next year, so far it's the same people doing different jobs.

 

[Pinkprincessmom]

It's cold here too. No snow though. We are getting some rain. It's supposed to warm up tomorrow.

I think DD's fish died. She went with Daddy to get it a few days after John was born. I think she's going to be sad.

 

[dutch_girl_scout]

We bought DS a fish when DD was born (he was 2 1/2) the stupid thing died so we secretly replaced it, the new one died too, so we replaced it. It happened like three more times. We finally took the little aquarium down and DS never noticed then 6 months later he asked where his fish was. We said it died and were prepared for him to be sad. All he said was "Oh" and went on playing. I guess we're just not fit fish parents.

Somehow I think your DD will notice. Good luck.

 

[Pinkprincessmom]

Well, we're going to have a funeral for the fish today. I left it in the tank for DD to discover when she got home from school. I thought that at age 7, she was too old for me to just have it disappear. She was a little upset, but not as much as I thought. It rained all day yesterday. At bedtime, she informed us that she wanted to bury it in the back yard. So, I found a little box that a necklace came in and DH put the fish in it.

DD is looking forward to getting another fish this weekend. We'll see if this one will last more than one month.

 

[yearbook50]

Woah, what happened with the cruise ship? Which one was it? (We get very little news here)

Etosha was fun, although camping really isn't for me. Our bus got charged by an elephant and that was a fun adventure. (or scary more so)

 

[dutch_girl_scout]

Melissa--A cruise ship called the Sea Diamond ran aground by Santorini Greece and started taking on water. There were 1,500 passengers (mostly American) and 300 crew on board. Everyone got off via lifeboat and the ship sank hours later. There is still a French man and his 16-year old daughter missing. Five members of the crew have been arrested for negligence or something like it. Reportedly the rocks the ship hit were very well marked and the most damage was done when the captain tried to "back up" of the shore or something like it. There is also controversy whether they should have pulled the ship via tug closer to shore so it couldn't sink, instead they pulled it farther out to sea where it sunk in a volcano-made crater. The whole thing sounded very scary. On the main board someone had posted pictures that someone who was on board took. They were incredible, the swimming pool and everything was just tilted so far and it sounded like the staff really didin't have very good communication with the guests, they just kind of showed up with their lifejackets on.

 

[dutch_girl_scout]

It's the 15th today!!!! Only 8 more months until were sailing west on the Magic!!!​

 

[cristit14]

It's the 15th today!!!! Only 8 more months until were sailing west on the Magic!!!​

Wow, Melissa, that sounds pretty scary being charged by an elephant!!

Susan, how did the fish funeral go? Have you gotten her a new fish yet?

 

[Pinkprincessmom]

It's hard to believe the cruise is 8 months away. WOO HOO!!

We haven't had the funeral yet. It rained all weekend. DD wants to put a fence up around where we bury the fish so no one will step on it. She did get a new fish yesterday. The first one was a female beta. This one is a male. She wants to see if the male lives longer.

Cristi...any news on your DH's job?

 

[dutch_girl_scout]

Just bumping us back up. I hope everyone is doing well.

Not much new here. Andy rolled from his back to his tummy last week. He did it all day last Wednesday but hasn't done it since. We bought him a FP Jumperoo and he is a wild man in it. He screams and shrieks and bounces like crazy. We started feeding him cereal too, he hasn't decided if he likes it or not.

I've been looking at airfare and nothing is cheap. There is only one airline (Allegiant Air) that flies direct to Orlando but it lands at Sanford airport. There flights are cheap, $99 each way, but then they charge $2 for each piece of luggage and $10 for choosing your seat. Their rates and schedule for December won't come out until May or June and they only fly three days a week. I think we're going to go with them though because I don't want to have to switch flights in December (it just doubles the risk that weather will delay or cancel a flight, especially since we'd have to go through Detroit, Cinncinnati, Madison, or Chicago).

 

[cristit14]

Hi all! We were almost halfway down page three. We can't have that!

Yeah to Andy for rolling over

I am sure we will do Frontier once we book our flight. I love the non stop service and Brad refuses to fly United. I am not going to even start looking at flights though until we know for sure we are still going.

Rachel and I went to the mall today to try to find her some shorts. We finally found some at Penney's that fit her. We had to walk right by The Disney Store though and they were having a sale. They had a bunch of t-shirts marked down to 6.99 and then you got 40% OFF of that. Rachel got two, Jake one, Brad one and I got one. Then we also got a couple of small stuffed animals 40% off too.

 

[cristit14]

okay, I have already started having cruise dreams

I had one a week or two ago that was really strange. We had just gotten on the ship and were going to our cabins. For some reason my parents were going on the cruise and my uncle was also going on the cruise. We were all on the same hallway. We went into our room and instead of having a full wall next to the hallway, there was a halfwall and people could see in. I was really concerned about the fact that I would hear people walking down the hall in the early morning with the wall like that and was debating whether or not I should go to GS and get our room changed.

Then last night I had a dream about the cruise too. I don't remember anything about it other than some problem with our snorkeling excursion.

 

[dutch_girl_scout]

A Disney store anywhere close to me would be a really bad thing!!! The closest is at the Mall of America and it's about 5 hours away.

DD has a terrible time finding clothes that fit, kids are too small, Jrs. are too small and if we get into the bigger sizes of Jrs. the necks are too low and the shorts still too short. Now she is wearing women's petites. We bought from Land's End for a long time because they have all elastic waist jeans and shorts, and adjustable waists.

I dream about cruising all the time. The weirdest one lately was that we had missed our flight home and went to the mall to a TA to make a new reservation but the bus ended up taking us back to the port instead of the airport. We were getting ready to get back on the ship when I woke up.

 

[yearbook50]

Wow thats crazy about the ship that sank.

2 more weeks until I'm home. I really can't wait until that. Africa's fun and all but I'm ready to go back to normalcy and back to planning fun things for the cruise or my wedding or my October planning trip. (I'm a wicked planner and the whole not being able to call 6 months out for reservations is kinda killing me, I know I'm a dork but its ok but its ok because I know I'm going to end up changing everything anyway once the Food & Wine Festival events get posted)

 

[yearbook50]

Something I just thought about, who has the current list of people going to the Palo Brunch together.

I need to change from 1 person to 3 since I have two friends joining me on the cruise.

 

[dutch_girl_scout]

Melissa--I'm sure you'll be glad to be back home. I have the brunch list, I'll get it updated. I need to re-fax DCL and make sure they have us down. I haven't contacted them since ULittleTinker left us.

We are getting ready for our town's big tulip festival that is Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I had Andy's costume made. I've been working on my costume. As part of the afternoon parades there is a "baby parade" where all of us crazy mothers dress our little darlings in costumes and wooden shoes. I think I posted the link last year but here it is again.http://www.pellatuliptime.com/

I counted our change yesterday (we only spend dollars) and we have $84.00 already. I hope it keeps adding up.

I can't beleive that we've been talking about and planning this cruise for so long, when I think about all the things that have happened (like two babies being born) it makes me all the more excited.

 

[feinfam]

Hi everyone!

We’ll be joining you on the 12/15 cruise! It’ll be me , DH and DD (age 11, 6th grade at the time of cruise). I’m delighted to see so many kids her age will be on board – I was wondering if the ship would be kid-free because it’s not a typical vacation week for schools. At the time of booking, our district’s school calendars hadn’t been published, but we recently discovered our DD will be missing school to take the cruise. She’s a good student, so we’re not concerned (yet) – just hope she won’t be missing mid-terms or something major.

This will be our first Disney cruise. I enjoy WDW so much that I couldn’t bear to think about missing the parks to go on the ships. My husband’s been trying to convince me to cruise since the Big Red Boat, but I always say no. Now I’m excited, though. Given the way we tend to blaze through the parks, I think the cruise will be relaxing by comparison.

Stacie, thanks for putting together the website. I can’t wait to see our info up there with everyone else – somehow it’ll make it more real. If you could add me and DH to brunch list too, that would be great.

We are really looking forward to this!