House of Terror...

[Kate and Pete]

Okay - my first time to WDW, so, my first pre-trip report. Bear with me!

Cast:

Me: 28, about to turn 29. I'm an English teacher on a small island off the coast of Maine. I've traveled around the world, but never been to WDW. DH promised me on our honeymoon that we'd go to WDW for our 5th anniversary - so here we go!

DH: 29. Quiet and calm. He's the opposite of me! I keep asking him if he's excited, and he says, "Yah."

Our House: (Seriously, it's a character) About 15 years old. We've owned it for just under three years. It's a small, three bedroom, one bath. We've redone all of it (new floors, new mudroom, remodeled bath room...)

Rick: Our Plumber...

Mack: Our 15 mo. old boxer pup. Loves to chew, hates his kennel (this becomes important...)

Duke: Our almost 2 yr. old boxer pup. Loves his mom!!

Flash and Books: Our cats

Char: My 24 yr. old sister - lives four hours away from us in MA

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My first trip to WDW ever! DH went as a child, but hasn't been back since. Okay, so we joined DIS and TGM. I've been on here as much as humanly possible learning everything I can. I made up laminated cards using TGM's advice and we're ready to go. Our dog sitter has canceled on us, but we've found backup! If that's as stressful as it can get pre-trip, then we have it covered!

We're three weeks out from our trip and frigid weather hits Maine. "Great!" I think, it'll make me even MORE excited to get out of here!

I arrive home after a late meeting, beating DH and step into my house to find.....four inches of water on the floor! Yes, folks, our kitchen and LR are under water! I quickly shut off the water and call the plumber/heater guy - yes, a pipe has burst (it happened last year, too. That's why our house has brand new floors). Because we have a slab foundation, the water just collects and collects, sometimes pouring out the front of our house....

The Rick arrives, and it looks bad. We're going to either have to put anti-freeze into the system, or redo the hotwater piping and move the heating unit off the exterior wall onto an interior wall because it keeps busting. We opt for anti-freeze. But he can't do that UNTIL we order a NEW COIL for the heating unit. Okay, it'll take a week to come in. In the meantime, Rick shuts down that heating unit. We're now waiting on the new part to come in.

 

[Kate and Pete]

So, the next day, I'm on the way home from work and I call my mom to tell her about the broken pipe and how our house is now torn apart! I laughingly say, "Haha! Wouldn't it be funny if ANOTHER pipe burst???" She told me not to joke and we hung up.

I pull into my driveway, and, wait, the base of my house looks wet. Must be from yesterday with the water pouring out. No, wait, I see steam... You have GOT to be joking!! Nope, another burst pipe. Same story - run in shut off water, call Rick. He comes over - but I don't greet him, DH does, because I'm.....


TAKING FLASH to the vet! He has a UTI and it spraying everything in sight!

Okay, so I drive to the vet (1/2 hour away) and talk to DH on the phone. This one's bad, too. It busted in the attic and ran down through the walls. Our new flooring is taking a hit...Rick shuts off all the water in the pipe - we should be good. Still waiting for that piece to come in....

In the meantime, Flash is still sick. Get a new pill to give him (antibiotic two!) and we come home.

An uneventful Thurs. and Friday...

Sat. we wake up and I go to make breakfast. Open the fridge - no light. Open the freezer to see if that light goes on. Nope, no light there either. Wait, the food in the freezer feels soft...Are you joking? Our fridge has died!!!!

Okay, so, off to buy a new one. But we can't get just ANY fridge - we have to get a side by side because whomever built this house put the island entirely too close to where the fridge goes, so we can only open it if it has those 1/2 doors. That means more $$$$$. But, Home Depot has ONE in stock - a "stainless" side-by-side (it's one of those fake stainless...). Fine. We have to have a fridge, and it has to be today.

We call some friends to help us move it in...

 

[Kate and Pete]

We open the box, and yes, folks, it's dented. After some rather angry phone calls to HD, they knock $100 off the price (the first offer was $40!!!!!). Okay, fine. Who's going to see the dent.

So, new fridge, still waiting for heater to be fixed...Char calls - she doesn't have mono like we thought (not in the other posts - this is the first mention of it, because I've been wrapped up in the other happenings!) but she has LUPUS! Oh my. Well, at least she can live with it and manage it. She was being tested for blood cancer - so we're relieved to find that that's not what it is...

Both dogs are scheduled to see the vet this past Friday - so off we go. Mack's suddenly drooling, however, which he NEVER does. The vet says it might be a stomach infection - do we want x-rays? We decide not to since he's not exhibiting any other symptoms - we'll just watch him. He won't take a treat from the vet, which is REALLY strange because that dog loves food more than any little doggie in the whole universe. We chalk it up to him being overly excited.

When we get home, we feed the dogs, but Mack won't eat. Something's wrong. I decide to look in his mouth - something the vet (who we later find out is a vet tech - they were just supposed to be there for shots...) didn't do. OMG - he's broken his left lower canine tooth off at the gum!!! At this point it's 8 pm, so the vet's closed. We call the emergency vet. He should be okay until morning...

 

[Lan]

You have had a stressful week

 

[Kate and Pete]

In the meantime, we get on the Internet and start looking around to see what happens when a dog breaks its tooth. We see all sorts of info. about root canals and crowns (gold, no less!!!) that run from $1300 - $2500! (Did I mention I was a TEACHER??? ) I panic - DH says, "This is why we have a savings account..."

Sat. (gosh, that was only yesterday...) we take Mack BACK to the vet. Yep, it too looks bad (that's a theme). Fortunately, they can do an extraction - only $330!!!! Yay! DH wants them to give us an estimate for a root canal too - he really wants his dog to have a gold crown, but the vet says there's no advantage to a RC, so we're sticking with the extraction. (I'm just not willing to spend an extra $1000 so the dog can have some bling...)

So, tomorrow, we'll be six days out from our trip - and Mack will be having surgery. We can't wait to get to the world and get away from our House of Terror!

Oh, acutal trip info. soon to follow!

 

[GeminiAngel]

LOL!!! sounds like a movie!! Maybe "The Money Pit"!!!
Oh wait. Sorry this is all happening right before your trip. Isn't it something how things like this go wrong right before something wonderful. Happens to us to all the time!

 

[Kate and Pete]

I know! I mentioned that to DH, too!

Also forgot to mention that the airlines changed our flight so that we weren't getting in until midnight on Sunday - makes for a rough opening morning at Epcot. I called to change it and was told that I called and changed that flight, so there was nothing they could do!!! WHY WOULD I CHANGE MY OWN FLIGHT???? Got a supervisor, she wouldn't do anything, saying that I changed it - asked to speak to HER super. - said she couldn't do that - so I got her ID #, hung up, got another person who said, "Yes, let me change that right away!" and got on a BETTER flight than I had originally booked! That took 2.5 hours and tearful phone calls to the car rental place begging them to keep our awesome deal (which they did - they ROCK!!!!!). Well, that, then, was a good thing!