Our tale begins a day or two before we actually traveled to WDW. Its boring, I know, but a few things that happened are actually worth sharing.
I very much doubt I'm going to be bored.
I'll just sit right back and hear this tale.
I was not prepared for this trip.
WHAT?????
Hold the phone!
You?!???!? Not prepared????
Oh Id made a dozen shirts, a few bags, taken on a ridiculous project for myself (more on that later), and made 2 or 3 trips to Target, but I wasnt ready.
No. Of course not.
You've already done more than most of us put together....
But you're not prepared.
aside from about a dozen princess dresses I had not packed for Maddie and I at all.
Yeah. Aside from that.
Finally 2 days before we were scheduled to leave I carved out a few hours in the afternoon to get our things packed.
Wow! Not only can you sew, but you can carve too!
The next day I lugged the 4 suitcases (one stuffed full of princess dresses and accessories, one with mostly Maddies bathing suits and underwear, one with my clothes, and one mostly empty one for souvenirscause bags fly free with Southwest!) that Maddie and I were taking down the stairs.
Only 2 suitcases for Maddie?
So disappointed.
A tip for those of you that may not be light packers-- check your Mickey Mail when it arrives. Turns out they send one yellow tag per person.
You really should have specified that at least one of the persons going was a princess.
They make allowances for them.
The very nice gal who answered confirmed that it was too late for new tags, but told me that I could give them my claim tickets at the airport DME counter and theyd gather our bags and deliver them to our hotel room along with the tagged bags.
<phew>! Sounds like it might (stressing the "might") work.
I took a few minutes to log onto the Disney Stores website to see if they had the blasted Anna Coronation dress that Maddie had her heart set on getting from the BBB (note to self, work on childs unreasonable expectations).
I sense some frustration here.
"blasted" dress.
Yup. Possibly some frustration.
Thats when I realized that the basement floor was wet. Again.
Oh, no! Not now!!!
Those of you who followed my last TR may remember that we became the proud owners of not one, but two new sump pumps last winter, so the water was a very unwelcome surprise. I dried it up as best I could, and called Bryan who in turn called our plumber.
I do recall.
I'm also thinking... (without reading ahead)... that's it's something else.
I picked Maddie up at school and from there we went for our traditional day-before-vacation pedicures.
Her toes, not mine
Very nice.
And I already assumed they were Maddie's.
Unless you have very tiny feet.
We met Bry at home where the plumber was just finishing up. He assured us that hed taken care of the problem. Since I probably wont remember to report this later, Ill tell you now that he was wrong. We got home to find about 3 inches of water covering the entire basement.
!!
Three...
THREE inches????
Oh, he did a really good job there.
Perhaps it's time to ask around for another plumber.
One who actually knows something about plumbing, perhaps?
In the last week weve ripped up and reassembled our deck and spent several thousand dollars on new pipes for the septic lines that run beneath it. We also have a new water softener!
Whoa, boy.
Not fun.
The plumbers have been here so often that our beagle now considers them friends and gets very sad when they leave.
I shouldn't laugh at your misfortune, but that's funny.
I was tasked with trying to get a very excited princess to sleep.
Chloroform?
Rag soaked in gasoline?
Vodka? (Or was that for you?)
Around 8 am MiL texted me to say that our flight was already delayed 30 minutes but we decided to leave as planned and use the extra time to eat some lunch.
We always prefer to arrive too early, than too late.
breezed through security because MiL had been pre-approved by TSA and they let us go with her.
Have you mentioned this before? On another flight?
Seems like you have, but I could be wrong.
Now that is the way to travel! We didnt have to take off our jackets, remove our laptops, or go through the full body scan. It was great!
DW and I were just talking about that.
I'm going to have to look into it.
Once at the gate, an announcement was made that our flight was delayed another 45 minutes (it was stuck in Kansas City).
Ugh.
At this point, there's no point in keeping track.
Just assume that it'll keep getting delayed until you finally get on the darned airplane!
if you ever find yourself in Chicago get some Garrett's popcorn, you'll thank me later.
Please, Lord.
Help me remember....
Nevermind Lord. I sent myself an email.
Upon arrival in Orlando we found our way easily to the DME desk, and it turns out the woman Id spoken to was correct-they will pick up your bags and deliver them for you-even without the yellow tags! Score one for Bryan who would have been stuck lugging all that!
Yay!
And I feel for Bryan... or would have, I suppose.
We used our Magic Bands for the first time at the DME lines, and found ourselves on a bus within 15 minutes
However, due to the Magic Bands being not quite what they're advertised...
We wound up in the worst part of Miami, in between two gangs engaged in a war.
Grainy selfie featuring blinged out Magic Band and mom-made Anna and Elsa shirt
Who cares if it's grainy.... you're there!
As most of you know, Maddie is a serious character hunter.
Its a really big part of WDW for her, but I know that it wont last forever.
Also,
I wanted to make her a nice keepsake of all of her character hunting trips, and I got the bright idea of making her a quilt.
That's a really good idea, Shan.
In classic Shannon fashion though, I couldnt just make a simple quilt.
I would've been shocked if it'd been otherwise.
Oh no! That would be too easy. What I decided to do was have each character sign a plain white square of fabric, and once we returned home Id frame each signature with a specially designed border.
Cool idea, though.
Before we left, I cut all the squares, ironed them onto freezer paper to give them some stability, bought a 6x6 clipboard to make them easier to sign, assembled many colors of Sharpie, and stuffed the whole mess into a gallon sized freezer bag that we (and by we I mean Bryan) carried in our park bag.
Um....
Yeah.
That
is a lot of effort!
She better appreciate this!!!!
Queen of Hearts-stay tuned for the fun story how we met her (on day 8 
)
I'll hold ya to that!
Thanks for letting me share! I'll post more pics as I complete some more squares!
Sounds good! What you've got so far is pretty impressive!
Thanks for posting Shantafrass!
and I can't believe how quickly it has gone!!
Waiting for the next update!
