lorac4disney
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2008
- Messages
- 377
Hi. My name is Carol. I am 35 and my DH is 43. We have a 15 year old son who's bent on getting his driver's license as soon as possible 
. We also have a daughter who just turned 11 this past week. She is our autistic princess.
We are planning on a DW vacation for June 6-12, 2009. We went ten years ago on what was suppose to be our once in a lifetime trip and I made all of the classic rookie mistakes. We fell in love with Fort Wilderness where we camped out in a tent. We loved to camp so what better way than to combine our two interests, right? WRONG! What was I thinking taking a preschooler and a 9 month old in the Florida heat of July with nowhere for them to nap in air-conditioned comfort???
It was a hard lesson in crankiness and exhaustion. Even so, both DH and I realized right away that we had to go back. I swore that I would not do it again until both of my kids were big enough to enjoy the rides.
Well, life throws you curves. Sometimes you swing and you miss. Sometimes you swing and you hit it out of the park. When we learned our daughter was autistic, we were naturally devastated. All of our dreams and life plans seemed to come crashing down around us. Suddenly, our life was filled with endless doctor appointments, therapy sessions, evaluations, team meetings, and a huge mountain of paperwork. All this while trying to work, raise our kids, keep our marriage from crumbling, and dealing with my daughter's increasing violent trantrums and outbursts. Our goal of going back to Disney just kind of faded away. I'd have just settled for a thirty minute nap or a trip to the grocery store without a meltdown, let alone a real vacation.
Just when I thought things couldn't get worse, DH and I start having serious marital problems. We managed to get back together only for me to get to have my own personal brush with the big C. Thankfully, they got it all with surgery (just passed my three year mark C-free!). But I believe life is a balance of good and bad. My Dad was diagnosed with Alzhiemer's while my daughter was making milestones that all of the professionals told me she never would do. Needless to say, she went from being totally non-verbal and on the severe end of the spectrum to being a total chatterbox on the high functioning end.
So now, DisneyWorld, HERE WE COME!!! In trying not to make the same mistakes as last time, I found this place and I am so grateful for it. Since I love Fort Wilderness, we decided to stay there again, but this time in a cabin. While the kids don't really need a nap anymore, I'll definitely need a place to take a break. I'm still debating about whether or not to get the DDP since DD is quite the picky eater and I would have to pay the adult price for her basically not to eat what they have and we plan on eating most of our breakfasts at the cabin anyway. Still got to do more research on the menus for that.
Anyway, I'm really looking forward to going and I hope I get to meet some of you while we're there.
~Carol
. We also have a daughter who just turned 11 this past week. She is our autistic princess.We are planning on a DW vacation for June 6-12, 2009. We went ten years ago on what was suppose to be our once in a lifetime trip and I made all of the classic rookie mistakes. We fell in love with Fort Wilderness where we camped out in a tent. We loved to camp so what better way than to combine our two interests, right? WRONG! What was I thinking taking a preschooler and a 9 month old in the Florida heat of July with nowhere for them to nap in air-conditioned comfort???
It was a hard lesson in crankiness and exhaustion. Even so, both DH and I realized right away that we had to go back. I swore that I would not do it again until both of my kids were big enough to enjoy the rides.
Well, life throws you curves. Sometimes you swing and you miss. Sometimes you swing and you hit it out of the park. When we learned our daughter was autistic, we were naturally devastated. All of our dreams and life plans seemed to come crashing down around us. Suddenly, our life was filled with endless doctor appointments, therapy sessions, evaluations, team meetings, and a huge mountain of paperwork. All this while trying to work, raise our kids, keep our marriage from crumbling, and dealing with my daughter's increasing violent trantrums and outbursts. Our goal of going back to Disney just kind of faded away. I'd have just settled for a thirty minute nap or a trip to the grocery store without a meltdown, let alone a real vacation.
Just when I thought things couldn't get worse, DH and I start having serious marital problems. We managed to get back together only for me to get to have my own personal brush with the big C. Thankfully, they got it all with surgery (just passed my three year mark C-free!). But I believe life is a balance of good and bad. My Dad was diagnosed with Alzhiemer's while my daughter was making milestones that all of the professionals told me she never would do. Needless to say, she went from being totally non-verbal and on the severe end of the spectrum to being a total chatterbox on the high functioning end.
So now, DisneyWorld, HERE WE COME!!! In trying not to make the same mistakes as last time, I found this place and I am so grateful for it. Since I love Fort Wilderness, we decided to stay there again, but this time in a cabin. While the kids don't really need a nap anymore, I'll definitely need a place to take a break. I'm still debating about whether or not to get the DDP since DD is quite the picky eater and I would have to pay the adult price for her basically not to eat what they have and we plan on eating most of our breakfasts at the cabin anyway. Still got to do more research on the menus for that.
Anyway, I'm really looking forward to going and I hope I get to meet some of you while we're there.
~Carol
