EWP group?

[helenabear]

Wow, the boards have been slow for me so it's been hard to get in here!!!

Lisa, I will keep those dates in mind. I am not sure I'd go over Mother's Day weekend again but those dates might be okay for me as well. Of course I won't know until about March/April next year what I will be doing. Last year we planning going the weekend after Memorial Day and this year we did it earlier. Not sure we have any "set plans"

I am so glad to hear you had a good anniversary

Linda, I am very happy to hear that you take Tom in for those tests. Better to be safe than sorry with that! I am glad all went well too. So glad you liked Saratoga Springs. Some day I do plan to stay there (not sure when though). I can envision you there smiling with your green shirt on

You are right, it is better to learn about Money some day than never at all. Some kids do listen though I have some habits that my dad instilled in me to this day

 

[SlightlyGoofy]

Elaine, I do my best to take good care of Tom but it is not easy. It scares me to death that I have to make all the decisions about everything and I sweat bullets when I do. I did a lot of research as to where to take him for the test. It sure was not going to be locally since there is such a high rate of infections. I am glad that he seems happy with my choice. It is tough being the ruler of the universe unless you are a tyrant. I may rant but do try to be a benevolent dictator. (smile)

I give classes in the local high schools on how to budget and shop wisely. Is something I was never taught, not that we had any money when I was growing up. I think it helps to be taught by someone who has been a have not rather than someone with no common life skills. I just wish I had learned more and sooner. Money is a tool, not a passion with me. I have had a sick child in my arms and not had any money so I give it some respect.

Lisa, the questions I miss are forever rolling in my head. LOL I just finished playing on line trivia. I was in second place with only; 4 points at the end of the first half with the first place winner at 8 pts so I let it all hang out and went for it. You lose points if you make a mistake so it is not a wise strategy. Somehow I pulled it off and won the game. School was out here the last week of May but I am conducting Granny School with a pupil of one now. Doubt anyone else would be up for the challenge as at one point Dalton decided that in order to improve his brain power he needed to remove his pants and let his Spiderman underwear air out. It worked LOL. He has already amassed 150 points toward his Summer Reading Club total of 600 points and has only been here for two days. I also pay him a quarter a book read so he will have a handsome sum to go shopping with before he returns to school I figure if it costs me a $100 or so it is a good investment. He used the word "ain't" at the bank today and I told him that I was taking him directly to McD's for a job application if I ever heard that word again. (grin) You just do NOT mess with an English Lit major.

What a wonderful anniversary! You and Frank are such a great couple and so in tune with each other. Please tell Frank that I have noticed that the smartest people are the quietest and since he was the most quiet he can infer what he wants from my statement. (grin) I have heard my sister talk about Wicked so I know that it is a great show. I say you should celebrate as long as you can. Life is too short to do otherwise.

Have another session of Granny school tomorrow and Dalton has a ball game, Austin will be spending the night and then Dalton has another game on Saturday. Jackie will not be able to come to the game so I will have to cheer extra hard. Austin is working at the ball field, cleaning, setting up and scoring. He is getting rich,. He made $40 off me by mowing my lawn. Only takes about 10-15 minutes as we have little grass and many gardens and we were only gone two weeks. He mowed it 4 times. Always hunting for a loophole. Next time I will stipulate only once a week. LOL

No tornadoes in the area today. First day in quite awhile. Hope they have calmed down in your areas as well. Tom says he saw that there were tornadoes in NJ the other day. Scary out there. Take care.

SG/Linda

 

[IASW Rider]

Hey Everyone!

We went to our very first DIS Meet yesterday and had a fantastic time! We met some really great people, and it was so much fun! And it was so neat to hear people tossing around terms like "PM" and having everyone know what they meant! It was a really well-planned event - our host, Fred ("Majestic") had given us a homework assignment - to come up with several "What am I?" things or locations in WDW and provide clues for them, so that everyone could guess and win prizes. I was the first one up there, providing my clues to everyone..........the first "thing" that I had everyone guess was the EWP! And when someone got it right, I put in a "plug" for our Suite, saying that we had a 3-year-long EWP thread going, here on the Community Board, and that everyone was welcome to drop in and visit us! Fred also had a gentleman come and speak to everyone about the history and "art" of pin trading, and he had the author of a recently released WDW trivia book come and have a trivia contest (.......guess who one of the big winners was......ME! ). He also had a representative of Dreams Unlimited speak for a bit about the services that they offer. There was great food, amazing prizes and souvenir favors, lots of WD Travel Co. information about WDW and DCL, theme park music playing in the background, and best of all - great company! Wish that you all could have been there! If you'd like to see some photos, a whole bunch of people posted links on the NJ DIS Meet thread. Here are 2 of them (you can see me "in action" in the trivia contest!)":

http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/li...f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/lisaandfrankdisney2004

http://community.webshots.com/album/149751690zWxxkU

Aside from that, we had a really nice time at the shore on Friday. It was nice to spend some time on the Boardwalk, looking at the ocean........and pretending that we were still on Castaway Cay (which - strangely enough - was not that difficult, since they somehow have actual, live palm trees growing on the beach in Point Pleasant! )!

Please keep me posted about your prospective May '05 travel plans, as the months progress, Elaine! It must be so neat to be able to plan trips so far in advance. We sat with some DVC members at the Meet, yesterday, and they also made a very convincing case for joining..........!

It sounds like Granny School is in full swing, Linda! And it sounds like Dalton is doing a fantastic job, as always (loved the story about his needing to air out his Spiderman undies.......hey, whatever works, right? )! You have such accomplished and motivated grandsons! And I think it's so neat that you have set up such a great and effective "system" of making learning fun, providing fun and appropriate "incentives", etc. It's no wonder that you are such a great teacher! And you should share some of your financial wisdom with us - perhaps you could give us all a bit of a "correspondence course" so that we can all benefit from your expertise in money management! Not to mention your expertise in the area of trivia!

No tornadoes in our area, now - just cold, rainy weather - yuck! But thanks for thinking of us, though! Fortunately, the temperatures should be returning to the more seasonable 80's, tomorrow.

Ooh - another thing that I learned at the Meet is that there is another thread out here, on the Community Board, where there are a bunch of people who are constantly on a never-ending "virtual vacation"! We were sitting with one of the posters, yesterday, and I told her about our Suite. Maybe I should "visit" them on their current "tour" and invite them to stop in and "visit" us, if their "travels" take them to the general vicinity of WDW! Here is the link to their thread - it's very cute!

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=556241

Hey out there, Colleen (hope that you're having a great time!), Angie, Caroline, Emily (I believe you're in WDW, too - hope that you're having a great time!), Depply, and Wendy!

Hope that you're all having a great weekend! Talk to you soon!

 

[edcrbnsoul]

Hello all from the homeless Dis'ers, IASW Rider was kind enough to extend an invite and I thought I would come in and say Hi.
We are in Barbados right now, sailing towards FLA and plan to crash for a week or so in WDW. I think we should be there by friday or maybe early next week( we stop at islands we that look inviting along the way) I thought it would be a good chance to do a little cross threading, you could come over and party with us and we could come by and watch the EWP and party with you guys.

http://disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=556241&perpage=15&pagenumber=1

 

[SlightlyGoofy]

Howdy there Homeless People. For homeless people you sort of live high on the hog don't cha? LOL Nary a shopping cart to be seen. You are most welcome and I hope that your comrades in arms will come over to see us while visiting DW. I went over to see how you all were doing and it sure looked like a lot of fun. I will have to wander that way from time to time and see what you are getting up to and might even come up with an idea or two myself. I went over to Mexico and picked up a supply of layered margaritas and some French pastries for a light snack before we head into the parks for a late night of revelling. Edcrbnsoul, it most wonderful to meet you and hope to get to know you even better.

Rider, what a wonderful meet! Were there any familiar names there? I loved the pictures. Noticed that black was a major theme color, you fit right in there. LOL The food looked so good and I was surely glad that I had a good meal in my belly or I might have been tempted to cheat, a bunch. I hope that the NJ people I met in the park are reading about the palm trees. They looked at me like I was nuts when I told them about the pictures you had sent me of such. Did I tell you I ran into some people with Rutgers t shirts at Perkin's? For a tiny state you all sure do get around. (grin) Was that Frank at the podium in the one picture? Why were you all alone on side while the others were together? I am not at all surprised that you won the trivia contest. I bet you would do well at most types but most especially Disney. Did Frank play also?

Since we are planning on being somewhere in the area in May of next year it should be possible for us to at least drive over for a day or two if we can get a meet going. Might not be able to join you in the parks as our passes run out the first part of November and we had not planned on buying more for a year. We do have a day or two left on some old passes though.

It is easy teaching children when you have not fully grown up yourself. LOL I figure that there are many ways to learn and I will try each and every one until it clicks. My house is a treasure trove of educational materials. Schools come here and borrow my things! All children are special. It is sort of like opening Christmas presents, you just never know what you are going to get and it is so interesting watching them unwrap ( I mean that in a non Michael Jackson way).

Austin just popped in from church and has asked to spend the night. His dad will pick him up tomorrow when he drops Dalton off at basketball camp (I won that fight LOL) and then I will pick him up afterward for Granny School. I am going to be a bad grandma tomorrow night as I have the quarterly trivia championship game. I seldom miss a game so maybe he will forgive me. It will be a shock as I seldom say no though. I am afraid that I used my brain power up the other night at a regular game as I came from behind to win that round. LOL

I think I saw where Helenabear has a virtual group somewhere. Wonder if it is the Homeless Group? Sounds like something she would get up to. (smile) I would love to see the two of you get together. So much energy in one spot!!!!

Hope Colleen and her crew are having a great time and have a safe trip home. I miss her and am looking forward to meeting her soon.

SG/Linda

 

[helenabear]

Hi everyone! It's been a while since I could pop in. I had my friend, Dawn's bachelorette party on Saturday. We went out for dinner and to a comedy club then had a "slumber party" back at her house. It was a lot of fun but made for a long day!

Lisa, glad you had a good time at your meet and congrats on the trivia contest! I must admit I was impressed with the set up of your meet with the banquet hall, food, speakers and all that!!! Most of ours are at a mall or person's home and no where near as "fancy" and organized

I will certainly keep you posted on my May trip (if any) I have to think on it a little and really usually won't plan until about a month or two out. I have two totally different styles of planning for trips. My December trip is always very well thought out while my May trips never seem to be Disneyland has been truly "in the works" since last fall though. So I vary with my ways of doing it all. I had to laugh at your comment about talking with other DVCers! I will say as convincing as we like to be, we also are more realistic with it too, so we won't push when we know it won't work for someone.

Thanks for that invite to the group!!! I know I saw the thread when it first stared, but since I wasn't "homeless" I stopped in, said hi to you all. I do post regularly with several other threads and I am "in charge" of the Ya Yas on the DIS. We just recently moved to a Pirates ship

Linda, I truly smiled when I read all you had to say about teaching children. I am sure though, there are other reasons why you do so well at it!!!! Good luck to you at your Trivia quarterly championship! I am sure you will do great!

I should head back to work... best wishes to you all!!

 

[castlegazer]

Looks like we will be able to meet up for some chatting and some visiting next week when we dock in Port Canaveral. Thanks for inviting us to your suite. We will definately stop in and say Hi!

 

[suzannen]

Another Homeless Diser saying thanks for your gracious invite. We'll definitely stop by and say "Hey" when we dock. We're a friendly group and love to socialize.

 

[MOMTOMOOTOO]

Hi everyone. I met Lisa at the NJ DIS MEET on saturday and she invited us homeless disers to stop by. Nice to meet all of you . I have asked my homeless friends to be on their best behavior, so please feel free to hop on board. We are now docked in lovely ST Lucia and are planning some nice excursions. See you there.

 

[IASW Rider]

Hey Everyone!

Welcome, Edcrbnsoul, Castlegazer, Suzannen, and Momtomootoo! It's so nice of you all to stop by........uh, I mean "send postcards from your cruise"! Looking forward to your visit when you ship docks in Port Canveral! We'll definitely get the Suite ready for you and have our attendants prepare some extra rooms for you all, in case you'd like to spend part of your stay at WDW with us. We have unlimited park hopper passes to share, so you won't have to worry about admission to the parks, and we have specially arranged viewings of various fireworks shows and other special events, as well! You're welcome to join us any time! And thank you for inviting us to stop by on your vacation, Momtomootoo! I will jump on our private EWP Suite helicopter and come by, via your ship's heliport to say "hello", in a minute!

How was your friend's bachelorette party, Elaine? Her wedding must be coming up soon! That will be fun! Now kindly explain to me.........exactly who are you "Ya Ya's", how did you originate (I know that you've been around for awhile), and what are you doing on a Pirate ship??? (Is THAT where you've been when you're not in residence in the Suite??!!) And will you all be traveling via your Pirate ship to DL?

Hi Linda! Lots of good luck with your Trivia Quarterly Championship! There's no doubt who will win - we'll have Don and Bo and the rest start planning your victory party, right now! You'll do an amazing job - maybe we should start referring to you as "Ms. Hot Seat"!

Your house sounds so wonderful - with so many interesting things to see and learn about, inside! It's so neat that schools borrow materials from you for their students - maybe you should formally merge with one of them and have a formal school - or at least an after school program or library - right in your own home! On the other hand, that might interfere with Granny School, so never mind........!

Yes, the DIS Meet was beautifully planned and executed. Our host, "Majestic" and his family really put a lot of time and effort into putting it together, and they did a wonderful job! I don't know how I wound up standing by myself in that trivia contest - it was the closest place to my table and I was too nervous to move around a lot when the "moderator" asked that everyone stand side by side - I just stayed glued to the floor where I was! I haven't done any "public speaking" in a long time, so standing at a lectern with a microphone was a little unnerving for me, when I presented my own trivia "What Am I?" clues! Frank didn't play - he's not the WDW trivia freak that I am - he just watched in amusement! Momtomootoo (Laura) is one of the great people whom we met, on Saturday - along with her adorable children!

Hope that all is well with all of you, out there, and hope that you're all having a nice day! Colleen and Emily should be returning soon, hopefully bearing fun trip reports and photos! Ah yes.........just 341 days to go!

 

[IASW Rider]

P.S. Linda - the NJ people whom you met in the parks should certainly believe that the Jersey shore palm trees are real........here they are again, just a few days ago!

http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/li...2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/lisaruthb6/my_photos

Ah, yes............spending a lovely afternoon under the swaying Jersey palms..........

It IS very strange - I have no idea how they survive there, all winter long........but they were definitely there to greet us, last Friday! Well, it's not quite Castaway Cay, but it will have to do.........for the next 341 days!

 

[helenabear]

Hello everyone!!! Welcome to all the new faces!!!! Do stop in at any time!! We love meeting new people

Lisa, a Ya Ya is just another "group" out there. We got the name based off the book/movie about friends who were so close they were like sisters. Well, that's what we are (although no where near as snotty as in the book). I "head up" the group now and I've been with them from Day 1 We like to go to new "homes" now and then and we voted and Pirate Ship won. I believe we have had resorts, castles, ships, islands, towns, casinos, mansions, beach cottages... all that for our previous homes so we just go where we like. And yes I go there often. The "style" is different... shorter posts and more frequent check ins. I am able to go there daily since it takes less time to read the short posts

Your meet really sounds wonderful! I am so glad you had a great experience at your first meet

 

[FPgurl04]

I'M BAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

stay tuned. more details coming soon!

 

[IASW Rider]

Welcome back, Emily!!!!!!!!!

When you have a chance, please stop in and tell us all the details! What did you do? Where did you go? Where did you stay? Tell us all!

I was wondering if the Ya Ya's originated as the result of the book or the film, Elaine! I think that that's really neat! Hey - it's always nice to have lots of fun, virtual "homes" to visit, both here in the Suite and out there on your Ya Ya adventures! The cool thing is that you all really WILL be traveling together, within a matter of months!

That's why I'm determined - even if it takes a few years - for us all to somehow meet in WDW at the same time! I know that I say this every year, but I just have a feeling that it's going to happen, some day!

Not too much to report from the Garden State, tonight - just wanted to say "hi everyone"! Have a great night!

 

[edcrbnsoul]

Hello EWP group, the homeless Dis'ers have made it to FL we are in Key West right now. We should be in WDW by Monday, we will be starting a new thread when we get there, so look for "The Homeless Dis'ers invade Disney World"

 

[SlightlyGoofy]

edcrbnsoul, I will thinking of you and the group watching the sun go down tonight. Hope that you do not wake up with hangovers tomorrow though. Watch out for those six toed cats. Key West is on my short list of places to visit in person one day. Invade away, we welcome your visit and hope it is a long and fun filled one.

Helenabear, snooty? Nah, never. LOL Tom and I will drive over for at least the day if you and Rider are going to have a meet in May. We had already planned to be in Florida anyway. Now if we can get Angelina and Colleen and some others on board? I watched Ya Ya at the movies with three of my sisters on our last Indy reunion. It was a blast but my sisters are such a hoot that they made the movie pale in comparison. LOL

Rider, I sent you a big post and nothing new has happened since. LOL Have to go pick up Dalton in a bit so this is a short post.


Emily, welcome home. Will you post a report and if so, please let us know. There is such a wide array of things to do at DW and each trip is different for each person. I would love to hear what youngsters find most appealing there.

Slightly Goofy/Linda

 

[castlegazer]

Originally posted by SlightlyGoofy
edcrbnsoul, I will thinking of you and the group watching the sun go down tonight. Hope that you do not wake up with hangovers tomorrow though.

ed has a nasty one today - go over to our ship and blow the ship's airhorn for him - he'll love it!

 

[helenabear]

Emily, welcome back!! I can't wait to hear all the details

Lisa, it is kind of neat that the term came from the book/movie. I just started reading the book though and I am glad I am not like those characters. They are very uppity types. I've traveled with many in this group before and they are wonderf to travel with. We have so much fun together

Next stop is WDW??? Oh I can hardly wait to go back

Linda, I didn't mean that the people who are on the thread are snooty, but the characters in the book sure are!!! Not my cup of tea at all really. I was shocked, but I guess the movie they were portrayed slightly differently.

I will definitely keep you posted though on when/if I go to WDW next May

Oh what a day at work... I sure do not want to be here, but oh well

 

[colleen costello]

Hello ladies! I am safely back from a wonderful trip to WDW. Thought of you all many times. We had dinner at Bob Evans last night in Columbus Indiana and of course I loved being in Linda's turf... It's nice to be home but I miss Mickey already!

We had a great trip. The Polynesian was wonderful. I half expected it to be a bit of a letdown after all my plotting and planning and daydreaming. WRONG! It was wonderful and then some. The grounds are so beautiful and the whole area just blows me away. They were great in assigning our room. We were in Raratonga, literally steps away from the lobby. We had adjoining rooms with my Mom, ground floor. She rented a scooter and this made everything accessible for her. We would leave our room and in less than a minute be right in the lobby. Another minute and we could jump right into the Volcano pool. It was GREAT! It was extremely hot and this actually worked out well. It forced us to RELAX -- no way we were doing the parks in 97-degree heat. We swam every day and I drank MANY pina coladas (some evn had alcohol)! I got my Mom hooked on them. Ian drank many strawberry smoothies. The kids went down the volcano slide about a million times. We'd have breakfast at Kona Cafe (yum) then visit a resort or hang out, swim all afternoon, and have dinner somewhere nice after Scott got back from the conference at the Marriott. Even THAT worked out OK -- the Marriott was all of 10 minutes away so staying at the Poly didn't cause him any grief. He even admitted the Poly was "nicer than he expected." Raratonga has just been renovated and re-opened just weeks ago. The rooms were spotless and fresh and very roomy. If I could just win the lottery I would stay here every time!

My Dad flew down to surprise my Mom for the last two nights. He showed up at the pool and my Mom about died. The bartender gave us fluffy drinks and took our picture. It was great. We had dinner his first night at Ohana and the next at Boma. Both were great as always. Saturday morning my parents left for the airport and we checked into Old Key West.

OKW is NEVER a letdown. We had a 1-bedroom unit and the room was perfect. We were near the Turtle Pond Pool and bus stop. We hung out and swam and I did all my accumulated laundry! It's a joy to have a washer/dryer in the room! We visited the parks every morning and would go back in the evening. We did MGM, Epcot and the MK. Had dinner at the Crystal Palace and got great pics of the kids with the Pooh gang. Also had lunch in the castle at Ian's request. That was great -- the food and service were wonderful. Had a wonderful last night meal at Kona Cafe, Erin's favorite. The we let the kids take one last dip in the volcano pool, and as we were leaving, we could see the firworks over the beach. After we checked out on Wednesday, we had lunch at the Wilderness Lodge, fed the ducks, and I drank one last pina colada! Overall, a great time. Despite the heat and a LOT of raging evening thunderstorms, we managed to see lots and squeeze in tons of fun. It was crowded but not unusually so, and the only evidence we had that it was supposed to be super-crowded for "Gay Days" was a lot of really nice-looking, well-dressed men traveling in groups!

Reality sucks. My house hasn't sold and I am trying to unpack and clean FAST because people are looking today at 3:30. Yikes! We are going to take the kids and see "Harry Potter." Mom said to wait til we got home and that would be a treat after the "letdown" of returning home. Good idea! Erin turns 10 on Tuesday and is having her birthday party at the local putt putt golf range. The kids are excited about that. We had a good drive home and talked a lot about all we did. Ian, bless his heart, talked to me about going back and said "Mom, who would EVER want to leave Disney World?" I am training him right! He lost a tooth while we were down there, which I thought was really special. The tooth fairy left him $5 DISNEY dollars!

I thought of you all repeatedly. Hope all is well with everyone in the suite. I am already looking forward to our March 2005 at Beach Club Villas -- the only way to cope with coming home is to plan the NEXT trip!

 

[TalkisCheap]

Hello! My computer has finally been fixed(by me, the 13 year old girl, and not by the 2 guys who fix computers for a living and couldn't do it....)! I've missed all of you, but it doesn't appear any of you have missed me!


Emily and Colleen, glad you're back safe and sound!


Well, the championship meet as well as the track season is over and done with. 2 of my 3 events were squeezed into the few hours of sunshine last wednesday. I placed 2nd in the 400, and 4th in the HJ and my relay was cancelled due to lightning/rain. Oh well. It was a good end to the best season! I'll miss it terribly!


Well, I hope everyone is well...I'll check in later! Have a great weekend!