Early Jan 2011, first trip to the World!!

[DIS_Indoctrination]

One of the souvenir activities we’ve decided to do is pressed pennies. I have a little collection from when I was a kid & I loved them. DD likes doing the pressed penny machine at our local zoo, so I think she’ll love hunting down the machines & starting her own penny collection. Plus it’s a very inexpensive way to collect souvenirs, just 51 cents per penny.

I got some great start up tips from allears.net. The thing that caught my eye, is that you should use pre-1982 pennies. If you use post-1982 pennies they are mostly zinc & the zinc (silver) might show through. Well I dug up a few from my old pressed penny stash & yep the post-1982 pennies were obvious. Almost all of the copper finish had worn off & the zinc corrodes differently than the copper, I couldn’t get the corrosion off.

Finding pre-1982 pennies sounded difficult, so I dug into my wallet & found that out of 16 pennies, 3 were pre-1982. Well, that wasn’t going to cut it. So I dug through a change dish DH keeps in the kitchen, score 10 more, but not enough. I raided DD monkey bank (yes monkey, not piggy), another 7. Of course I replaced hers with other pennies, since she has to earn her change.

Are you keeping count? We’ve got 20 pre-1982 pennies. Well how many are we going to really need? I’ll get to that below.

I thought, to myself, I like the look of clean pennies better than the old muddy color so I got out some lemon juice & salt & shined them up a bit. Here’s where it got interesting. Some of the pennies still had a little bit of black in the designs, like in the monument columns or around Abe’s face. Now I thought surely that would turn into a black streak on a pressed penny, so why not let those pennies soak overnight. Bad decision. Lemon juice is really powerful. Some of the pennies with salt on them actually came out pocked from the salt. They also looked way too light, kinda fake. So don’t soak the pennies overnight.

Ok, I’ve ruined some of my stash, and now I’m thinking, how big of a stash do I need. I guess that depends on what characters we’d like to get & how many machines there are. So, I googled & found this.

http://www.presscoins.com/ (Look under current coins to find location & designs of current machines.)

Allears.net also has a list of where to find the machines.
http://allears.net/

I browsed the designs & looked for ones with characters DD & DH like. She’s a fan of Pinnochio, Buzz, Cars, Snow White (mostly the dwarfs), Belle/Beast, Ariel, Nemo, Dumbo, Remy, the Dad on the Incredibles & Wall-E.

Some of the Penny machines I’ll be on the lookout for are at the bottom. So you don’t have to count them up, I estimate that if we hit everyone we’ll need 34 pennies. If we hit all the quarter targets we’ll need 12 quarters plus 116 more quarters to pay for the smashing. Overall a $32.34 collection that we can hunt for everywhere we go.

Back to the stash of pennies - I looked through an old box of change my DH had & found 50 more pre-1982 pennies. Then my DD daycare started a fundraiser collecting pennies. I bought $5 in pennies off of my co-workers intending to donate to the penny fundraiser & ended up keeping about 75 pre-1982 pennies. Grandma says she set aside about 100 pennies, so we have enough pre-1982 pennies to last us for a dozen more trips.

AND for ideas on how to make your pressed pennies into wearable jewelry…
http://www.epbot.com/2010/07/simply-smashing-penny-jewelry.html#more

Adding to my to-do list:
Figure out how to clean the pennies without ruining them.
Find/make a cute little change purse for DD to carry in the parks for her collection

Magic Kingdom – Tinkerbell’s Treasures
Bashful
Doc
Happy
Sneezy
Sleepy

Magic Kingdom – Sir Mickey’s
Dopey
Grumpy
Snow White

Magic Kingdom – Main Street USA Emporium #1
Cinderella’s Castle

Magic Kingdom – Main Street USA Emporium #1
Disney Princes #1 of 7 Beast

Magic Kingdom – Tomorrowland Buzz Lightyear Merchandise Cart
Buzz
Woody
Aliens

Hollywood Studios – Streets of America Prop Shop
Belle & Beast
Luminere & Cogsworth
Ms. Potts & Chip

Hollywood Studios – Animation Courtyard
Snow White
Ariel

Animal Kingdom – Discovery Island Disney Outfitters #2
WallE 1 of 7 Wall E
WallE 3 of 7 Eve

Downtown Disney – Once Upon a Toy
Cars 2 of 9 Mater
Incredibles 4 of 7 Dash
Incredibles 6 of 7 Frozone
Cars 5 of 9 Ramone

Downtown Disney – World of Disney #3
Ariel the Little Mermaid
Snow White carried by Prince
Sleeping Beauty & Prince Phillip

Pop Century – Between Food Court & Store
Pop Century Logo

Wilderness Lodge – Lobby
Princess Series #5 of 6 Snow White

Polynesian – Ceremonial House
Seven Dwarfs #4 of 7 Sneezy
Buzz Lightyear

Polynesian – Ceremonial House #2
Finding Nemo Bruce

Fort Wilderness – Settlement Trading Post
Seven Dwarfs #3 of 7 Happy

Fort Wilderness – Meadow Trading Post
Chip & Dale

Epcot – Future World Living Seas (Quarter)
Nemo
Dory
Crush

Boardwalk Resort Lobby #2 (Quarter)
Friends Series 3 of 8 Pinocchio & Jiminy Cricket

Contemporary 4th floor concourse #2
Buzz

Contemporary 4th floor concourse #3
Nemo

Contemporary 4th floor concourse #4 (Quarter)
Dumbo
Snow White
Remy

Contemporary 4th floor concourse #4 (Quarter)
Ariel
Sebastian
Flounder

 

[lexmas]

Yeah, I refuse to try and clean up pennies again. I did not know about the pre 1982 thing though, and we JUST made pressed penny tubes today. I will have to check when I go downstairs and see what we put in those tubes, and see how many good pennies we have! You are just a wealth of information. Thank you!

 

[jerseygirl16]

Wow! You've certainly put a lot of effort into this. I'm sure your DD is going to love hunting down the machines. My sister's and I used to love collecting these. Even now at 22 I'll still stop for one every now and then.

Not that these chemicals are commercially available or anything but in chemistry class we turned pennies gold. That would have been really cool for these machines.

 

[hollybearsmom]

Wow that's a lot of pennies collected! One of our favorite souvies is the pennies, we all love to see how they turn out.

 

[2princesses2princes]

I was never really into pressed pennies as a kid, maybe cuz my parents wouldn't let me do it. So now when my kids ask at the zoo and stuff I say no, it's not worth it. But you know, after reading your post, I think I may have change my mind, how fun. I do remember one time out in SanDiego when we went out there for my brother's Marine Corp Boot camp graduation we all went to the SanDiego zoo, and my 2 brothers (19 and 15) and my husband all went hog wild all over trying to get every single penny there. It was hilarious watching them run like little kids to get them before our shuttle bus would leave us.

Thanks for the inspiration to try something new. Granted with 4 kids it'll cost us a bit more, but still not much compared to other things. Time to hunt for pre 82 pennies

 

[20thingamabobs]

Wow, you got a lot of info on pressed pennies. Certainly has me interested now!

Oh, and I'm a little behind but I will say this, I would go with Option 2 or 3. It would be a shame to miss out on AK and I think I would avoid Epcot during the marathon weekend. I'm registered to run the 1/2 and a lot of the special events are in Epcot so it'll be packed. Plus, I think the majority of runners will head to Epcot or MK just in general because they're slightly more popular parks than DHS or AK.

 

[DIS_Indoctrination]

Sorry the thread went dead there for a little while. DH's parents had their 50th wedding anniversary party this weekend. We made the 6 hour drive to their neighborhood on Friday, the party was on Saturday afternoon & we drove the 6 hours home on Sunday. Whew, I'm tired.

It was a pretty good turn-out, about 100 people. Most were a direct relation, they have 7 children & no one knows how many grandkids and great grandkids - over 30 at least. DH and I have been married for 9 years & dated for 5 years before that - so 14 years with the family & I didn't know about 75% of the people there.

It was nice to see the ones we knew all in one place. Usually when we go up for a visit, we have to run around to different places to catch everyone that wants to see us.

DD's favorite cousin who lives part time in Lima, Peru was there. He's just 18 months old. Her second favorite cousin, who is 20 years old, spent a lot of time with her too, actually he's the 18 month old's big brother, but he's never been to Peru.

It was a really nice party.

It was also nice to get a little driving practice in before our big Disney World Trip in January. Hopefully, that was our last trip before Disney. DD, as always, was great in the car. The tough part is, she needs a lot of help reaching things. DH really doesn't like to drive. I don't mind driving, but DH can't get DD things in the car because he gets sick when he turns around. I couldn't talk him into trying dramamine

I wonder if I can make him a deal. He can get a DVD player for the car, if he agrees to take Dramamine...

Our car toys worked pretty good. DD prefers books to most toys, so we had a large assortment of those. Her travel toys also include a bead kit, magnetic dress up dolls, a colorform scene, melissa & doug wooden travel puzzles, a book that lets you put magnetic facial features on a bunch of characters, coloring supplies, stickers, and decks of kids card games (she likes to sort the cards). We also have some great kids music. For the big Disney trip we'll probably rent some books on tape from the library, and we may try to buy some Disney movie sound tracks (if we don't have a car DVD player by then). She'd only do an activity for a little bit before she'd give up saying her tummy hurt & then look out the window. I felt so bad for her. If she'd actually thrown up, DH would have let me give her Dramamine, but since she held everything down she suffered. Oh well, she's a tough cookie & DH is right about not over medicating.

 

[999ghostslover]

One of the souvenir activities we’ve decided to do is pressed pennies. I have a little collection from when I was a kid & I loved them. DD likes doing the pressed penny machine at our local zoo, so I think she’ll love hunting down the machines & starting her own penny collection. Plus it’s a very inexpensive way to collect souvenirs, just 51 cents per penny.
opper, I couldn’t get the corrosion off.

Are you keeping count? We’ve got 20 pre-1982 pennies. Well how many are we going to really need? I’ll get to that below.

I thought, to myself, I like the look of clean pennies better than the old muddy color so I got out some lemon juice & salt & shined them up a bit. Here’s where it got interesting. Some of the pennies still had a little bit of black in the designs, like in the monument columns or around Abe’s face. Now I thought surely that would turn into a black streak on a pressed penny, so why not let those pennies soak overnight. Bad decision. Lemon juice is really powerful. Some of the pennies with salt on them actually came out pocked from the salt. They also looked way too light, kinda fake. So don’t soak the pennies overnight.

Ok, I’ve ruined some of my stash, and now I’m thinking, how big of a stash do I need. I guess that depends on what characters we’d like to get & how many machines there are. So, I googled & found this.

http://www.presscoins.com/ (Look under current coins to find location & designs of current machines.)

Allears.net also has a list of where to find the machines.
http://allears.net/

I browsed the designs & looked for ones with characters DD & DH like. She’s a fan of Pinnochio, Buzz, Cars, Snow White (mostly the dwarfs), Belle/Beast, Ariel, Nemo, Dumbo, Remy, the Dad on the Incredibles & Wall-E.

Some of the Penny machines I’ll be on the lookout for are at the bottom. So you don’t have to count them up, I estimate that if we hit everyone we’ll need 34 pennies. If we hit all the quarter targets we’ll need 12 quarters plus 116 more quarters to pay for the smashing. Overall a $32.34 collection that we can hunt for everywhere we go.

Back to the stash of pennies - I looked through an old box of change my DH had & found 50 more pre-1982 pennies. Then my DD daycare started a fundraiser collecting pennies. I bought $5 in pennies off of my co-workers intending to donate to the penny fundraiser & ended up keeping about 75 pre-1982 pennies. Grandma says she set aside about 100 pennies, so we have enough pre-1982 pennies to last us for a dozen more trips.

AND for ideas on how to make your pressed pennies into wearable jewelry…
http://www.epbot.com/2010/07/simply-smashing-penny-jewelry.html#more

Great update! We love pressed pennies. We plan to let my DD do the ones with a cranks and let DS do the ones with a button. I believe you can get a map at HS of all of the pressed penny machines there.

 

[DIS_Indoctrination]

Yeah, I refuse to try and clean up pennies again. I did not know about the pre 1982 thing though, and we JUST made pressed penny tubes today. I will have to check when I go downstairs and see what we put in those tubes, and see how many good pennies we have! You are just a wealth of information. Thank you!

I read a tip somewhere that you can use ketchup to clean pennies. However, I think I'll leave the pennies as is. Since they are mostly copper, I should be able to clean them after pressing without messing them up. Besides the one pre-1982 penny I have pressed from 12 years ago is of the Beast & he looks pretty cool on a dark penny.

Wow! You've certainly put a lot of effort into this. I'm sure your DD is going to love hunting down the machines. My sister's and I used to love collecting these. Even now at 22 I'll still stop for one every now and then.

Not that these chemicals are commercially available or anything but in chemistry class we turned pennies gold. That would have been really cool for these machines.

That is so cool!! I looked it up. I think your right about the chemicals not being commercially available. I did see something saying you could do it with drano & nails, but that sounds like a terrible & dangerous idea to me. Maybe DD will make some gold pennies in her chemistry class in 10 years & we can press those.

Wow that's a lot of pennies collected! One of our favorite souvies is the pennies, we all love to see how they turn out.

There is no way we'll be able to get them all. I just wanted to have an idea of where a few of her favorite characters so DD will leave each park with a few good pennies everyday.

I was never really into pressed pennies as a kid, maybe cuz my parents wouldn't let me do it. So now when my kids ask at the zoo and stuff I say no, it's not worth it. But you know, after reading your post, I think I may have change my mind, how fun. I do remember one time out in SanDiego when we went out there for my brother's Marine Corp Boot camp graduation we all went to the SanDiego zoo, and my 2 brothers (19 and 15) and my husband all went hog wild all over trying to get every single penny there. It was hilarious watching them run like little kids to get them before our shuttle bus would leave us.

Thanks for the inspiration to try something new. Granted with 4 kids it'll cost us a bit more, but still not much compared to other things. Time to hunt for pre 82 pennies

Between our forgotten stashes of pennies at home & grandma's house, we've gotten over 200 pre-1982 pennies. I estimate 1 out of 5 pennies in circulation is pre-1982 - so not too difficult to find them.

I read that another poster keeps pennies in the tubes mini M&Ms come in. That way they have different colored tubes for different kids. It's also a good souvenir for kids to buy themselves.

Wow, you got a lot of info on pressed pennies. Certainly has me interested now!

Oh, and I'm a little behind but I will say this, I would go with Option 2 or 3. It would be a shame to miss out on AK and I think I would avoid Epcot during the marathon weekend. I'm registered to run the 1/2 and a lot of the special events are in Epcot so it'll be packed. Plus, I think the majority of runners will head to Epcot or MK just in general because they're slightly more popular parks than DHS or AK.

Thanks for the input. I'm glad I put the question out there because we were going to go with option 1 & fight the crowds, but everyone has had such good insight into why that's a bad idea, we're definitely doing 2 or 3 now.

Great update! We love pressed pennies. We plan to let my DD do the ones with a cranks and let DS do the ones with a button. I believe you can get a map at HS of all of the pressed penny machines there.

Thanks for the tip!! A map will be so much easier than a list.

 

[lexmas]

Sounds like a fun reunion! With 7 kids, I'm sure there are just so many people. On my mom's side, my grandma was one of 6 and my grandpa was one of 5, and there are just SO many of them in my mom's generation. I mean, that's 11 people having kids, and some of them had a lot of kids themselves!

I'm glad your DD did well on the drive. It sounds like you had plenty of toys to keep her busy. DS does fine in the car now that he's older, but when he was under probably 2.5 he hated the car, and DD still does. Lots of screaming on our cartrips. Driving 2 hours is a real commitment these days.

Carsickness just sounds like no fun. If you don't think you would get lonely, maybe your DH could sit in the back with your DD so he can get everything for her. I always sit in the back with the kids, mostly a hangover from when DS was little and I didn't want him to be lonely, but DD freaks out when I'm not around, so it helps her. Very very rarely I drive and then DH sits in the back. I know it's not for everyone, but it might solve your "turning around" issues. We don't mind it, we can carry on a conversation just fine from the back seat, and then the kids are happy, which makes everyone happier!

 

[DIS_Indoctrination]

Sounds like a fun reunion! With 7 kids, I'm sure there are just so many people. On my mom's side, my grandma was one of 6 and my grandpa was one of 5, and there are just SO many of them in my mom's generation. I mean, that's 11 people having kids, and some of them had a lot of kids themselves!

I'm glad your DD did well on the drive. It sounds like you had plenty of toys to keep her busy. DS does fine in the car now that he's older, but when he was under probably 2.5 he hated the car, and DD still does. Lots of screaming on our cartrips. Driving 2 hours is a real commitment these days.

Carsickness just sounds like no fun. If you don't think you would get lonely, maybe your DH could sit in the back with your DD so he can get everything for her. I always sit in the back with the kids, mostly a hangover from when DS was little and I didn't want him to be lonely, but DD freaks out when I'm not around, so it helps her. Very very rarely I drive and then DH sits in the back. I know it's not for everyone, but it might solve your "turning around" issues. We don't mind it, we can carry on a conversation just fine from the back seat, and then the kids are happy, which makes everyone happier!

I used to spend time in the backseat with DD when she was little. DH tried a few times, but if he's not in the front seat, he's puking. DD got to the point where I'd read a 5 minute story, then she'd stare out the window for 45 minutes. I'd read another story, she'd stare out the window. At the time, I didn't understand what was going on, but now I realize it's the carsickness. She knew how to make herself better before we even realized she had a problem.

I think the car trips are easier for her because we do them frequently, she goes someplace she really loves & we take a ton of breaks. We stopped 5 times on the way there & 4 times on the way back. We make a game out of the stops. Can she & I go potty & get back to the car before Daddy? No, but he lets us win enough that she keeps trying.

It does get easier as they get older. Just a year ago the same trip would take us 9 hours because we'd take long breaks at places like Walmart. We'd walk around, buy a cheap toy, get a new snack. Once I banned all stops at major retail stores, our travel time went down dramatically.

 

[999ghostslover]

Poor dears. Carsickness is the worst. We need the boys to hurry up and get bigger because I know DD really should be in the middle row in the van. She has a very hard time with sitting in the third row and getting sick. She has yet to puke but I know she looks like she is going to sometimes. Luckily the drive to Orlando is long, flat and boring. That helps. Driving to my parents is all back roads through the North Georgia mountains and that gets her feeling lousy every time.

The only motion sickness thing I truly believe in are sea bands. I love them. They were a godsend during my honeymoon cruise and a godsend during two of my pregnancies. You can get them at Walgreens by the Dramamine. Have your DH try them.

 

[DIS_Indoctrination]

I want to practice some of the picture stuff, so here goes...

DD trying on her Buzz Dress. She's getting ready to watch Toy Story with the Buzz Dress on...

DD at Grandma's house. They have extra tall cabinets, and look how much taller she is than the top of the counter.

Just some of the grandkids at the Anniversary party

Some pennies I cleaned this morning, before -

They were soaked in Apple Cider Vinegar, I swear it wasn't pee

Some pennies I cleaned this morning, after -

 

[DIS_Indoctrination]

Poor dears. Carsickness is the worst. We need the boys to hurry up and get bigger because I know DD really should be in the middle row in the van. She has a very hard time with sitting in the third row and getting sick. She has yet to puke but I know she looks like she is going to sometimes. Luckily the drive to Orlando is long, flat and boring. That helps. Driving to my parents is all back roads through the North Georgia mountains and that gets her feeling lousy every time.

The only motion sickness thing I truly believe in are sea bands. I love them. They were a godsend during my honeymoon cruise and a godsend during two of my pregnancies. You can get them at Walgreens by the Dramamine. Have your DH try them.

Ha, ha, getting DH to wear a bracelet. That'll be the day. It's tough to get him to take medicine, but I think anything that could pass for jewelry would be a over his dead body with his ghost fighting you situation.

However, that's a great idea for DD. She loves jewelry & since DH won't consent to allowing her Dramamine unless she's actually throwing up, that's a great alternative.

You are so right about the mountains, or even just hills. Flat & boring does keep the sickness down.

 

[999ghostslover]

She is very tall! She will be able to ride so much. Yeah!
The pennies look fantastic. I'm going to work on some as well. Normally they get grabbed a few days before the trip and stuffed in a bag but since we pay for so much in cash now I know I can find tons of pre 1982 ones and get them looking good. You inspired me!

 

[jerseygirl16]

Those pennies look great! I'm sure you're going to have a great souvenir to remember the trip by.

And I feel so bad about the car sickness and an totally relate. When I was younger we drove down to Disney and always left really early in the morning (like 2 or 3 AM). Unfortunately I suffer from a nervous stomach which is only made worse by early mornings. Needless to say our first few trips my parents were making numerous stops so I didn't throw up in the car. Luckily I've outgrown the car sickness, though my stomach still bothers me when I get up really early or am really excited or nervous about something. My mom used to give us dramamine to combat this, but we were 7 and older at the time and I can understand your DH's reluctance to over medicate. Good luck finding something that works.

 

[DIS_Indoctrination]

She is very tall! She will be able to ride so much. Yeah!
The pennies look fantastic. I'm going to work on some as well. Normally they get grabbed a few days before the trip and stuffed in a bag but since we pay for so much in cash now I know I can find tons of pre 1982 ones and get them looking good. You inspired me!

Just don't soak them overnight in vinegar, I did that - it's not pretty. That's why the pictures use apple cider vinegar, I thought it might be less harsh. I'm going to try some ketchup too, I've read that works well.

I think I may be embarking on a new obsession...

 

[DIS_Indoctrination]

Those pennies look great! I'm sure you're going to have a great souvenir to remember the trip by.

And I feel so bad about the car sickness and an totally relate. When I was younger we drove down to Disney and always left really early in the morning (like 2 or 3 AM). Unfortunately I suffer from a nervous stomach which is only made worse by early mornings. Needless to say our first few trips my parents were making numerous stops so I didn't throw up in the car. Luckily I've outgrown the car sickness, though my stomach still bothers me when I get up really early or am really excited or nervous about something. My mom used to give us dramamine to combat this, but we were 7 and older at the time and I can understand your DH's reluctance to over medicate. Good luck finding something that works.

I don't know what I'd do if I got sick when I was nervous. I'm nervous most of the time, I'd be an even bigger wreck!

I can't nap during the day because I wake up sick to my stomach. It was awful when DD was a baby. I was up all night, and if I tried to nap with her during the day, I just got sick. So I choose zombie land, and just walked around in a fuzzy daze.

 

[Queila]

Forgoing table service on your DHS day sounds like a good idea. You make sure you don't miss any show and you save 1 credit for another day. Smart!

I have to say I love the Buzz dress. So cute!!

Q

 

[2princesses2princes]

I've heard of the seabands things too, I am thinking of trying many different things for the drive, seabands being one of them. I get sick if I am in the back or not looking at the road, so that's why I drive mostly. Then my 2yr old and 8yr old get sick quite often too. Nuts for trying to drive I know, but we'll learn if it's something we can or can't do.

Glad the reunion was fun.