How to make $3600 on your disney vacation! WE DID!! NEW 9/3*The Epilogue, DONE* p. 54

[kahluacream]

You got my attention with your trip report title, and now I'm hooked. Looking forward to your next installment.

 

[horsegirl]

Golly willikers, what a great bunch o' bananas you guys are! A girl jots down a few minutes of her life and meets a whole gaggle of new geese. Thanks to you all for the encouragement. Right now I have 5 kids under the age of 7 here- and most of them are too old for my little Jack's new favorite show "Wonder Pets"- so the natives are a bit restless. If I have time tonight after I put the patooties to sleep, do the laundry, clean up supper, feed the animals and clean the stalls, vacumn, dust and ready my office area for work tomorrow and talk to hubby about plans for our Hawaii trip (stll in its inception- although hubby doesn't know that is where we are going for sure...) I'll try to get another installment out, but I can't promise it.

 

[casey49781]

subscribing

 

[pooksma]

Another subscriber waiting patiently...

 

[mdhkitten]

Yet another subscriber! We want more!

 

[halekai64]

subscribing...can't wait to hear the rest!

I went through a very similar experience back Feb '96 before a trip to the big Island of Hawaii.. Delta flew us out 1 day early and when we finally got to our B&B in Hilo (called Hale Kai which means "home facing the ocean" and where my userID comes from ), we turned on the TV and reveled in the fact that we were looking at 18 inches back in Boston.. That feeling of looking out onto Hilo Bay, whales spouting water and then back at the TV and 18 inches back home had to be one of the sweetest moments!!

soo... tell us what happened!!

 

[binky503]

Loking forward to hearing the rest of your trip report. Show me the money!!!

 

[Aimeemee]

Ok.....so far they haven't made it to WDW. My guess is that either.....
A. They never did make it there, saving them 3,600.00
B. They did get there and didnt' for some reason stay in WDW & instead stayed
somewhere less expensive. Thus saving them 3,600.00.

I'm sticking to A though.
Any one else out there with a take on this?

 

[taekwondo mom]

 

[meloneyb21]

 

[kushball21]

subscribing

 

[kimmar067]

Sooo, anyone know exactly how long DOES it take to clean out horse stalls???!?!

 

[momrek06]

HEY MANIAC:

YOU CAN'T GET HERA FROM THERA....my mom lives on Drakes Island in the Summer and all the Mainards (sp) talk with that awesome "downeastern" accent.

In the famous words of Mr. Paul Harvey...."AND THE REST OF THE STORY"....

PLEASE, WE ARE ALL ON THE EDGE OF OUR COMPUTER SEATS....

 

[mamaof2]

Don't leave us hanging!!!!
I can keep putting smilies on if you don't finish your story!!!

 

[sajetto]

I'm listening

 

[PaMom001]

Subscribing to yet another trip report. If I could write so interesting, I would've done my trip report.

 

[IMGONNABE40!]

I am subscribing too!

 

[flminivanmama]

subscribing

 

[horsegirl]

12 hours to go. There's alot to do in that time. The first thing I do is pour myself a little Baileys and sit by the woodstove and revel in the fact that we may just get to WDW 24 hours earlier than planned. I call WDW directly after deciding to splurge for one night at the poly or CR or something. No luck. Everything is sold out everywhere on property. The guy is really sweet and finds me a room at CBR. This is fine, kids will like the pool there and its pretty, so I am happy to know where we'll be in 18 hours. I clean out the fridge and dry the last of the laundry, as coming home to mounds of mold in both the fridge and washing machine is really the pits. I'm giddy and in between packing and planning, I still have to take care of the little darlings, who still require most of my attention. DH and I set off to make sure we don't forget anything. There is just too much to pack when you are traveling with 3 little people. I had hoped to get to sleep by 9 pm which would be a miracle as I rarely fall asleep before midnight. At midnight, DH brings down the luggage and I am still laying little cat bowls everywhere and I put the plastic spongebob tablecloth on the dining room table and set even more cat food there. Ever see those ads for puppies all eating out of the same bowl? Not so with cats, they spit and terrorize each other when they get too near one another, and thus needs tons of dining space.DH calls me in to where all the luggage is. "Gem, we need to lighten the load here". Drats, the suitcases are over the weight limit. So I move stuff around, take out stuff I thought were essentials and try not to break the zippers of some of the bags as I finish the repacking. All this dang stuff takes time. We live in a big old wonderful farmhouse that always causes us anxiety when we leave it in the winter. You know how people talk about the charm of these old places. Ours is oozing in it. But, it has its quirks. One of them is that periodically the furnace stops and we wake up to the house at 50 degrees. Sometimes I can't tell if DH is further eeking down the heat to save money or if old ironsides has chosen to punch out on the timeclock for a while. At 2 am, neither of us is asleep. We have another Baileys and put the finishing touches on getting on the road. Hours earlier, we had dressed the kids in cozy travel clothes and prepared them we would be leaving in the middle of the night. That moment was upon us and DH even splurged and preheated the car to warm it for the munchkins. I know he loves them because this guy can't bear wasting resources. It's not that he is cheap, but he has a strong environmental commitment. I admire that and his philosphy has rubbed off on me. I admire his social ethics- if only he could lobby those washington dorks that continue to allow us all to slurp up all the resources of this fragile planet. Have you all heard about Brazil? They use sugar cane to produce ethynol for their cars. I think it is something like 40% of the cars are run on this fuel. Anyway, the car is warm and we each go up to grab a babe. I am so excited to bring them on this journey. My joy is their joy. I hate to awaken them, but it's for a good cause. My sweet girl opens her eyes and says "Is it the middle of the night when we go to Mickey?" "Yes sweetie its time!", I whisper. She is kind of a baby huey. She is now taller than her older brother and is really solid. At nearly 50 pounds she still wants to be carried. Unfortuantely I don't do it very often but on this night I manage to get her safely down the stairs. My DH grabs Carson, who sees monsters in the shadows and looks like a deer in the headlights when he is awakened. Poor little guy, he pulls the cover over his head initially and shivers as the freezing wind blowing at us as we walk to the car. I go back up for little Jack. He is grumpy at times, always when he wakes up, but this night he does ok. We get them all in their seats, and hope for their sakes, they will slip right back into dreamland. It is 3 am. The dogs look depressed. They know we are leaving. It is a strange thing, but they get it, particularly Winston, our 11 year old cocker spaniel who sleeps with us every night. I can't bear to look at them. One of the cats, Moo, has to be removed from the last open suitcase and as we lock the door and head out of the yard, I look back at the barn and see the horses and ponies gazing over. I hate leaving. There is so much to do, and these creatures depend on us for everything. I wince and get in the car. Giggles, lots of giggles and questions. These three little kids are not sleepers. They are up and like every car trip we've ever taken, they are up for good now. All three of them stopped napping around 18 months. That was a joy let me tell you. I got advice from everyone on how to get them to nap. Nothing, I say nothing, ever worked and one day I eventually just accepted that we have wakey kids who have a lust for life and while it can be exhausting, they surely love life.

We are finally on our way and there is no sign of snow in sight. I need to back track and tell you that DH and I disagree sometimes about how and where we should spend our money. He wanted a new septic, I wanted new furniture. He wanted new tires for the Odyssey, I wante a new laptop. Well, his wants are based on logic and probably lean more towards needs. So we got the new septic, when I realized not having a working septic in Maine in November or December would make for a very long and disgusting winter. So DJ prevailed and he was right. The new tires, heck it passed inspection, why do we have to spend $500 on stupid tires. Then I got to thinking, what if they blew on the way to the airport on our WDW trip. We got tires the next day, and when I explained why I gave in so quickly on the tires, he chuckled. BTW, DJ researched tires for our honda on a forum like this, only all they talk about are tires and transmissions. Blah, Blah, Blah and instead of having signatures with where they stayed and when, they have the year and color of their Odyssey. OMG how boring. It is not like a minivan is anything great. I never even wanted the damn thing. I wanted a suburban. I'm a horsegirl. I'm a mom. I'm a horsegirl mom and I never saw myself in a -gasp- minivan. Now I know there are tons of minivan folks on these boards. Please don't think I am judging ye. But we all have an idea of what image we have and project. I am a quirky kind of gal who has never really fit in with the PTA crowd. I'm just alittle to bohemian. But bohemain or not, Dh had ideas and a rational for why he wanted to Odyssey, namely oil and the environment. He often caves on stuff if I really dig my heels in, but I caved because I knew he was right. I did make him get the jazzy model with the leather and DVD though. On the day the minivan arrived, it took 6 weeks to get it from the factory, he bought me a wig. It looked kind of like a soccor mom doo, you know the kind of hair thats had a soft perm, layered, with bangs. I wore it on the way home and tried to get excited about our new vehicle. He was way right. I really love the minivan now, and have gotten over the image thing. I was right too. He loves the leather and DVD. We make lots of good decisions, being on the opposite side of things. We often get to a nice spot in the middle.

As an aside, I need to tell you that my DH is right now watching America's top waterparks right now. I have converted this former Washington aide who only watches PBS and listens to NPR. He is really kinda cute as a yuppie Disney Dad. It's a nice mixture focusing on politics, the environment and DIsney. His face looks alot cuter right now as I look over at him than when he is watching the Newshour.

Boy, I have really gone OT. Where was I? Oh yeah, the tires. We had nothing to stop up now from getting to the airport on time. We pulled in to PWM at 4:30 am. That is early in my books folks. It always amazes me when you arrive at the airport in the wee hours and it is packed inside. This was the case this morning. DH dropped off me, the 3 dks, the stoller, the five pieces of luggage, the carry on, three car seats, the three stuffed mickeys, the three blankies that the kids take everywhere, the kids three backpacks, his computer and my carry on. He drove off. OMG that was alot of crap and the skycab folks started asking for stuff and people started queing up and the doors kept opening letting that frigid Maine wind in. I was not prepared. I couldn't find our paperwork and plopped the whole mess on the counter. I tried keeping an eye on all our luggage and the kids while working with the sky cab folks. I watch some of our luggage get put on cart and things sort of seem to be working when Sky starts squriming that she needs to pee. I tell her to wait. Within a minute she is crying and several mothers are glaring at me. I tell the skycab folks I have to go, and I pack all our valuables on the stroller with Jack, who insists on being pushed. The three kids and I work our way frantically to a bathroom for Sky and I have the boys go too. This is the first of a thousand complicated bathroom stops on this trip. We finally getback to the curbside checkin and meet up with DJ. He looks so relaxed and makes a little comment that I seem stressed. Hmmmm....

We work our way through security and little Jack refuses to take off his shoes and coat, won't let go of Mickey or get out of the stroller and finally keeps touching the apparatus that you walk through to be scanned and he won't walk through. It is here that I realize I brought too much carry on stuff. We had like 20 of those plastic bins and held up the line for say 10 minutes putting ourselves back together. Jack by now was crying and jumping up and down. We aren't sure why, but people are staring. I know what they are thinking, no praying, please don't let that child be on my flight. I see eyes following us to see which gate we will land at. Perhaps I am imagining it, perhaps it is true for some, but I see relief in the eyes of folks at the two gates we pass. Our Dks are busy busy little bees. They are buzzing now as the excitement of the day dawns on them. It is 5:15 am and we are right at the gate. We are really on our way. We think.


I have to stop. I want to say I don't want to mislead anyone with this title. This is not a get rich quick scheme, nor is it advice on how you too can make $3,600. I hope you all aren't subscribing so you can cash in. But I will reveal how we got $3,600 on this trip on the next installment if I don't digress too much, as it happened early in the trip. Again, not trying to lead anyone on, just trying to tell a tale. Night night.

Part 3- Go to PAGE 6

 

[Costumesaremylife]

bump