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

[Pinkprincessmom]

OK...now I want to go to Africa. Those are amazing pictures.

John has slept through the night 3 different times. He always makes up for his missed feedings during the day though.

Hope everyone has a great week.

 

[lunsusie]

Great pictures, Melissa! Thanks for sharing them with us.

 

[kcwildcat]

We booked our cruise back in Jan/Feb 06 but am just now getting around to checking out the boards. This will be our second Disney Cruise, the first one being a 3 day (way to short) cruise Dec 1 -4 2005.

It's great to see that several of my fellow G.S. Leaders are going to be on board. I am the leader of my DD's troop, now Brownies as we bridged last week.

Patty

 

[cristit14]

Welcome Patty!!!! We do seem to have a lot of GS leaders on board.

 

[dutch_girl_scout]

Welcome Patty!!! I got your info and will get it added to the website soon. Our land/sea was Dec 9-15 2005 or something like that, so we just missed each other. Have you found any good prices for flights out of KC to MCO for this trip? I'm holding out for Allegiant air, they are the only ones that fly direct between Des Moines and Orlando and they are only $99 each way (plus luggage fee, plus seat assignment fee, plus booking fee, etc, etc) but they don't publish their schedules on a very timely basis and they fly into Sanford airport. The other airlines are up around $400 plus they stop in places like Milwaukee or Chicago, in December I rather not take my chances stopping in a snow-prone state, getting out of Iowa can be hard enough. We are going to be in KC towards the end of June meeting up with friends we met on our last cruise and that we're cruising with again in '08. We'll see what our schedule is like, maybe we can squeeze in a place to meet you guys too.

 

[kcwildcat]

Stacie,

We are on Midwest on a direct flight to Orlando. Last time we flew Air Tran through Atlanta and was delayed there. ( I don't recommend Air Tran they are always late, unfortunately they are trying to buy Midwest, we love Midwest - 2 across leather seating and warm chocolate chip cookies. )Southwest flies direct into Orlando from Kansas City but you can't book with them till aprox. 90 days out and with traveling close to the holidays we thought it was better to go ahead and book. Prices was around $200/person. How far are you from Des Moines? My BIL and family live there but we don't get up to visit since we see them here a couple of times each year at the outlaws house for holidays.

You have my info so let us know when you will be in the KC area in June.

Patty

 

[dutch_girl_scout]

Patty--
We are only about 45 minutes southwest from Des Moines. We flew through Atlanta last time, their airport is yucky, they are remodeling and it needed it, bad.

 

[Pinkprincessmom]

Welcome Patty and family. I'm excited to see more families join as we get closer to our cruise date.

 

[kcwildcat]

Pink Princess Mom

We are excited to be going on another Disney Cruise, on our three day cruise our daughter was 4 1/2 and though she didn't spend much time in the Oceaneer's club she enjoyed it. I understand your daughter will be 7 at the time of the cruise. Will she be in second grade or first? Laura will be 6 1/2 and in the first grade. She is looking forward to making new friends on the curise.

Patty

 

[Pinkprincessmom]

Hi Patty...DD will be in second grade for the cruise. We went on a 4 day cruise when she was 5. She only spent 3 hours in the Oceaneer's Club while we were in the Bahamas. It was the day they made cookies and she had a great time. I think she'll spend more time there on the 7 day cruise.

Perhaps we could let them email each other. DD does not yet have her own email address, but she uses mine. I'm sure the 2 of them will have a good time playing together on the cruise.

 

[dutch_girl_scout]

Bumping us off the 3rd page.

Well, I guess we're really going on this cruise. After my last post, Allegiant came out with their fares. We will be flying down the evening of Thursday, the 13th (I think the kids can still go to school that day) and arriving around 10:00. We have ressies at POFQ Thurs and Fri night. We hope to catch MVMCP on Friday night. Our return flight is Sunday afternoon, the 23rd. They are both direct flights and were only $99 each way per person (plus $8 per person per way for luggage).

Hope everyone had a good holiday weekend. We did a lot of nothing. DH got the lawn mowed. We got a patio set and gas grill and the boys assembled them. Only 6 more days of school for the kids!

 

[feinfam]

Hi everyone -
Just found some unexpected free time, so I decided to spend it on the web! DD (18 - not going on cruise) and DD (just turned 11) are both graduating this year, so it's been really hectic around here as they finish up all kinds of activities and prepare for their transitions.

It's great to see more new families since I looked at the boards last time - welcome! I'm still trying to figure out the connection between Girl Scout families and interest in Disney cruises. My DD's troop, sadly, is losing nearly half of their members next year as the girls transition from elementary to junior high. It'll go from 17 girls to 8 or 9. It will be a more manageable size, though, which will make trips easier to plan. Their troop walked across the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco earlier this month for part of their bridging ceremony, and they just went to Junior Camporee (their last one) over Memorial Day weekend. Christi, your photos from your DD's trip were spectacular! We don't get much snow around here...

Well, I'm booted from the computer for now -
Cheers!
Kathryn

 

[yearbook50]

I've been really busy lately. I ended up getting a better summer job - I'm now a Reliability Engineering Intern for BMS which I work 40 hours a week doing ontop of the promotion I got at Best Buy to Counter Ops (another 20 - 30 hours a week) BMS is only for the summer though so its keeping me busy (and hopefully a job for after graduation)

The two girls going with me are getting excited for the cruise too - already working on keeping up our base tans (although I already have a nice deep one from Africa. Got to start looking at airfare soon though - but one of the girls is in Costa Rica working on her IQP (the same type of project I was in Africa for) so we just have to wait until she comes back July 1st.

I'm glad to see so many more people joining in on our cruise

 

[Pinkprincessmom]

My oldest DD has the chicken pox. I'm praying DS doesn't get it. He should be protected by my immunity. I can't imagine how miserable a 3 month old would be with chicken pox. DD is doing pretty well. She's sad that she might miss all of the fun end of school events...like the picnic today.

 

[kcwildcat]

PinkPrincessMom

Hope all is well with the chicken pox. Was your DD vacinated? If she was she shouldn't get to bad of a case. My DD was but still came down with the chicken pox the middle of December last year. She was disappointet that she missed going caroling with her GS troop but was back in school in time for the Christmas progam. At her small Catholic school they had 13 cases of the Chickenpox between Thanksgiving and Christmas and all but 1 had been vacinated. They are finding that a booster shot is needed and starting this fall Kansas is requiring all Kindergartners and First Graders to have the booster shot if they haven't had the chicken pox.

 

[yearbook50]

They give shots for the chicken pox now?

I didn't even realize that...

My mother made me play with the kid that got it when I was 5 so I could get it and be done with it...

hope your daughter feels better. Oatmeal baths made me so happy when I had the pox.

 

[dutch_girl_scout]

Susan--Hope your DD gets to feeling better soon. I would think that DS would be immune to them also. When do kids get the vaccine? I know my other two had it but it's been awhile. The pediatrician hasn't mentioned it to us yet so it must not be time for Andy yet.

Kathryn--It seems like a natural progression in GS that a lot drop out when they hit Jr. High. We had 30 girls in our troop in 4th grade, then 5th grade it decreased to 20 then we lost 5 to moving. Last summer we took 16 of them to Minnesota for a three-night trip. This year we've had 10 dedicated Girl Scouts (4 of whcih have been together since Daisies). They are worried about being able to stay in next year (7th grade) when sports and everything starts but we told them that we would work with them and meet on Saturday mornings or Sunday afternoons. They are planning another trip for next summer. A lot of them want to stay in through high school because it will be Girl Scouts 100th birthday. Evidently there is going to be a big bash in Washington DC and they want to be there for it.

Patty--We're coming down to KC the last weekend of June to meet up with a family from our last cruise. Don't know what our schedule is like, just know that we are staying at the Great Wolf.

Cristi--Any news on the job front? We've been thinking about you guys. I bet your kids are glad to be out of school for the year. Do they have big summer plans? DD is going to GS camp in mid-June. With our GS councils merging, DD could pick from 5 different camps to go to this summer. She picked one up in Northern Iowa that she's never been to but is now freaking out because her friend that she always went to camp with moved out of state in February. She has a tendency to get homesick even when she has someone there, I'm hoping I don't get a phone call to come and get her (she'll be 4 hours away!).

 

[lunsusie]

Bumping us back to page 1.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

 

[cristit14]

Hi everyone! It has been so busy and a little stressful around here lately. School is out! I think I am as happy as the kids are. DS's bday was last Monday so basically all of last weekend was about him. He had his party on Saturday, then we went to my folks on Sunday for another celebration, then Monday was his birthday (all we did that day was go out to dinner).

Between my job and DH's lack of job it has been a little stressful. I can't remember if I told you guys or not, but my immediate manager has been making everyone crazy. So much so that I said I was going to step down as assistant manager because I was hoping she would stop riding me so much. Well, the middle of May she totally went off on someone for no reason whatsoever and there were witnesses. The person she went off on filed a formal complaint against her and then basically everyone in the lab was called into the office managers office individually. Everyone had complaints about her for a variety of reasons. We had all been walking on eggshells around there never knowing what kind of mood she was going to be in. So, she got fired this week. I feel like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. Now, another lady and myself are going to co-manage until we find a new manager.

DH had his last day at work on Friday. He doesn't officially have a new job yet, but he had an interview at the VA hospital about a week and a half ago and they want him to come back this week to meet with the guy that is doing the job right now. I think that is a pretty good sign right? Send some pixie dust this way that he gets it because he has been VERY stressed out about it.

Stacie, we don't really have any plans for the summer. Either DH will have just started a new job and won't be able to have time off or he won't have one right away and we won't have the money. Rachel is going to GS camp on June 10th for 6 days though. We had already signed her up for that. She has never been to resident camp before and she doesn't know anyone else that is going. She makes friends very easily though so I am sure that she will be fine an hour after she gets there.

 

[dutch_girl_scout]

Cristi-- for your DH that the second visit will go good. I would think that it is a VERY good sign. I'm glad your work situation has improved too. It's no fun to work with people like that.