Part 1, An Introduction
When: May 28-June 9, 2007
Where: Port Orleans Riverside
Who: Read on...
I can't believe how excited I am to be writing a trip report again. I love to write, and I love to talk about myself. I am just such a fascinating person.
And of course, there's nothing better than having a rapt audience. Especially when that audience is comprised of people who are just as freaky about Disney as I am.
For me, half the fun of going to Disney is planning. The other half is writing the trip report. That whole being there stuff
that's just what you have to do to be able to write the trip report.
So let me introduce myself. I'm Kim, also known as Miss Kim if you're a digital scrapper or a blog reader. I have my own happy little
blogwhere I post about my life. It's pretty digi-scrapping oriented, but I do the occasional holiday trip report, or rant about CSI, or post a recipe. It's *my* blog, so it's about whatever strikes my fancy. I'm a special ed teacher, have been for a decade now. I am fortunate to work about five minutes from home and I've just never been happier. Since I started working so close to home, I've lost over 50 pounds. Not sure if the happiness thing has anything to do with that, but all that extra time I used to spend driving is now spent working out. I flippin' love to exercise. I just put on some workout clothes, slip my little iPod shuffle in my bra and I'm off. Pretty funny to me, considering two years ago I was well over 200 pounds and exercising meant driving down to Sonic for a M&M Blast.
Oh man, I almost forgot my age (ha!). I'm 36. That's what my license says anyway. Inside, I feel like I'm in my twenties, so let's not tell my insides the truth. I love my girls' pop music, I have a crush on some cutie brothers who perform in Branson, and I'm wearing heels to work. Don't worry, I manage to act mature most of the time. You just don't want to catch me when I'm alone at home before I go to work... I can do a mean boogie while I'm blow drying my hair.
I'm an uber-organized-to-the-point-of-being-annoying person. I keep two calendars
one by my home computer, one on my desk at work. I do lesson plans a week in advance, always. I get the shakes if it's Tuesday and I'm not ready for the following week. Never know when someone will get the stomach flu and I'll be out 2 or 3 days. Seriously, I plan for things like that. When I've got a Disney trip on the horizon, I get my little DisneyRunner of Knowledge out and going. OK, it's actually a Deluxe Passporter (notice that word "deluxe" there... I'm all the way classy), but you know it's just a Day Runner with a guide book inside, right? Except I pretty much remove all the guide book stuff. I keep the section on our resort, and the theme parks, and some of the dining stuff. The rest gets sprinkled around book cases as I remove it. Then I go to my beloved Tour Guide Mike website and print important information on 8.5x 5.5 sheets, punch holes and add them to my Passporter. Gotta know when to zig and when to zag.
Then there's Dan. He's 38, and got a full head of gray hair. Not that the gray hair is important to this trip report. But when I start posting pictures, I don't want y'all thinking I'm married to Bill Clinton. Actually, Dan started getting his hair buzzed every few weeks because he was getting "You look like Clinton" comments too often.
Dan's a Schwans man. He likes watching sports of any kind (including poker... like that's a sport), watching movies, and acting like a kid. His memory is pretty poor. Or mine is exceptionally good. He has general memories of things -- like he remembers he likes POR -- but his detail memory sucks. Like he'd probably never remember that Chesney had her first Mickey bar at Epcot in searing heat outside The Land pavillon. I'm the detail person. He's pretty happy to follow my plans when it comes to Disney. Until he starts thinking he knows better than me. Then I'm going to have to shut him down. I know kick-boxing now, so it could get interesting.
We have 3 kids. And 3 cats and a dog. But the animals aren't coming with us.
Our oldest is our only boy, and we'll just call him Tater. That's really what we call him. It's not his name, but my sister started it long before Ron White/Tater Salad was famous and it's stuck. He'll turn 13 just 2 days after we return from our trip. He's quite a child. Loves basketball and video games. Is scared to death of a lot of stuff (including bugs, Bratz hair, and driving through hills) and I've just gotten to the point where I laugh. He wants to be all brave and stuff, but he just can't do it. This trip is really for him. We go to water parks every year. My favorite is Typhoon Lagoon , and when we went in 2004, Brady was such a goof that he was afraid to go on anything. Then the following year, we went to White Water (in Branson, MO, which will probably be referenced multiple times during this report. We go to Branson at least yearly. Already been this year. Went 4 times last year. It's one of our 2 favorite vacation spots.) At White Water, Brady did the unthinkable. He rode every single ride. Even the steep drop speed slide. So we began to think that maybe this boy -- the one that was too afraid to ride the Magic Carpets in 04 because he was afraid we'd exceed the weight limit and crash our carpet and die -- was finally getting brave. And hey, if our kids are finally getting brave, it's time to go to Disney again. Except that it took a little longer to get here than I'd like, mostly because both Dan and I are freaky about budget and refused to take this trip on credit cards. So we had to save a bit.
Our middle child is Kiah. She's 11 and a complete preteen drama queen. I suppose it could be worse. She doesn't insist on certain labels on her clothes and she's only asked for a cell phone a couple of times. Most mornings, however, I wonder how we're going to survive the next 7 years. She's at the stage where she questions every decision I make. I really, really hate that. Probably because I know it's exactly what I did as a child. She's always been the one who would do the thrill rides with her dad. Not TOT or RNRRC, but she's done the coasters in Branson. She'll do just about anything once, but don't ask her to go again. And don't even mention going upside down. Just not gonna happen. She thinks she's me, and loves telling her brother and sister what to do. Which sometimes causes minor problems. Like the 3 of them beating each other up. I usually break it up. Unless I'm on the computer. Then I ignore them.
Our baby (ha!) is Ches, and she's 7, with big front teeth and a huge grin. She's a reader -- reading 4th grade level books in 1st grade -- and she totally believes in magic. She was 4 on our last Disney trip, but she really doesn't remember much of it. I'm looking forward to showing it to her again. She has the greatest belly laugh and recently we've been watching Disney movies and she's just rolling. I never find them all that funny, but she just giggles until she can't stop. Her favorite Disney character at the moment is Mater. She also loves the moose (mooses?) from Brother Bear. And Stitch.
This girl just loves comedy.
So that's us. We bought our plane tickets back in August, just as school was starting. One of my big gripes the last two years is that Dan prefers to split his 2 weeks of vacation per summer into 2 separate weeks. Since I'm a teacher, I've got the whole summer off, but I find every year that I think I'd prefer to do one 2 week trip rather than 2 1-week trips. If you do 2 one week trips, you technically gain a couple of nights, but you've got all that packing and unpacking, laundry and all that stuff that Dan never has to do, and I always have to do. I finally talked him into 1 two week trip this year. For one thing, I hate flying. If I'm going to fly, it had better be for a good, long trip.
In 2004, we had bought plane tickets on Air Train out of our hometown. Then a week before we were to leave, Air Tran called me at work to see if I'd be willing to take a bump -- to 2 days later -- in exchange for RT tickets. I was appalled. They were oversold for about 5 days straight. I ended up compromising with them... we drove about 3 hours to a larger airport and caught a plane there. Still got the RT tickets, but ended up never using them. And we'd flown out of our hometown when we went in 2000. Both times, we had bad experiences. Once we missed a connecting flight (due to our originating flight being late) and had to wait six hours for the next flight. For the other flights our connection flights were delayed. So let's just say we're fairly familiar with the Atlanta airport. Hours and hours spent sitting there with 3 kids.
I just couldn't do the connecting flight thing again. This trip, we're doing nonstop. It means driving to the major airport and man, didn't I hear Kiah griping about the extra 3 hours. But I'd rather spend my 3 hours in the van, with the DVD player going, and enjoying my pretty new Uplander, than I would stuck in an airport miles and miles from home. So we booked almost a year early with Midwest. When I was a kid, my family flew Midwest to Chicago all the time. I'm kind of feeling nostalgic about our airline choice. It was the right price, great times for the flights and the all important non-stop flights.
So air is done. Lodging should be easy, right? (Pardon me while I roll with laughter. We are the worst at deciding on lodging. For any trip. Unless someone gives us a free condo. Then we're satisfied. Otherwise, we're continually debating cost vs. features vs. room size and so on. You'll see.)
and I am ready to tune in for your trip report!
Seriously, one of our favorite lines in Cars.
