It will be my last trip for a loong time

[Pakey]

Wow, I don't know about Disney dollars online. I did get Disney gift cards online before our last trip.

I have seen those Buxton bags. They have so many compartments. I have a lime green baggellini that I only use for WDW trips. It has my lime green mickey head tag on it. And I'm not going to mention how many bags I own. I think they should start a bags anonymous group. My favorite thing that I do is I leave money in each bag and then when I find I need some loose cash, I can go through the closet and go money-mining.

We never pack ahead of time, we throw everything in the suitcase about an hour before we head to the airport. It's made for some very interesting stories with the lists of things forgotten.

 

[magicaldisney11]

Pakey..your joking with the packing right? An hour ahead of time I am having a stomach ache cuz I'm scared I forgot something,lol.

I will have to do the gift cards since it seems that I can't get the dollars I hate trying to keep track of the gift cards with how much is left, etc.


Home news:
Donald was home for 2 weeks on break and just left a few minutes ago to drive back to Rhode Island from Niagara Falls. I always get all tied up inside until he gets there safely. It's hard to see him go but my house is so much cleaner when that one is away at school,lol. It will take me a week to clean his room again now that he is gone. I would normally nag him until he had it right but there are just times it is better that I am the one doing the cleaning.
I heard from Mickey in Bootcamp this week, he is doing really well, and said he really likes it I don't know a lot of guys who say they LIKE boot camp,lol. We got to talk for 4 minutes and he said he was hoping for more phone time this weekend so he might call again. He was named division leader after 3 days there.
I'm just sitting here with my cup of java, a cigerette (yes I know, bad) and watching my landscaping shows. The temp dropped from the 40's back into the 30's this morning and we will have lots of rain.

 

[HeatherBelle614]

DH bans me from the Disney Shopping site. I'm trying so hard to stay away right now; they have a Stitch snowglobe that I really want ON SALE! Mean, mean DH!

I normally pack about a week in advance. The week of our wedding, I got so busy with everything else that the day before our wedding, I realized I hadn't packed anything. I wouldn't be going home between that day (my bridesmaids and I stayed in a suite the night before the wedding) and the honeymoon.

Luckily, my mom had taken me shopping for a bunch of new shorts and shirts for our honeymoon that I hadn't taken out of the bags. So, with my mom's help, we knocked out my honeymoon packed in less than 10 minutes right before we had to leave to get ready for everything! Normally, I would've been freaking out I forgot something, but I was so busy with wedding stuff that I didn't really care. And, thankfully, we didn't forget anything!

 

[Pakey]

I'm not joking on the packing. If we are going to Europe (those are usually 2 week trips) we do start packing a little the night before but on our domestic weeklong vacations, nope, the morning we are leaving is plenty early to pack. And our flights always leave by 6am so we just get up 1 hour earlier and pack. My husband has never forgotten anything but I have. The worst was the time I forgot my undies on a trip to WDW. There's not much selection there for anyone over 8 years old.

I am hooked on HGTV shows. Our house is newly built and we have a gardener so not much to do around here but we are planning on buying a second house for my son and his fiancee to live in and we're looking at fixer uppers. So I have upped my quota of home improvement tv viewing.

Hopefully Donald arrived back at school safely. Our youngest is 28 and its only been this last year that I've quit worrying with the driving.

 

[magicaldisney11]

Oh thank goodness I am single and there is no one to tell me I shouldn't go on the disney shopping site,lol. I love looking and wait and wait until things go on sale. Which is hard for me because I don't have patience when it comes to waiting for sales but I know that these items will get marked down 90% of the time.

We start packing early because I constantly lose or forget things I buy for the trip. I am super organizer at work and I get called into other offices to help them set up office working systems or filing systems cuz I'm so good at that but at home, not even close. It's quite weird actually.

I vow to clean out my junk areas this spring and buy bunches of totes to put and label things into. Yes a vow!! I will need you to help me keep that vow by reminding me every few weeks "did you do it" my boys have given up on me for this area,lol.

Pakey, I bow to you to be able to pack in that short period of time. It takes me a few days just to find my shorts and bathing suits that are in my house.

As for HGTV, I am so hooked and addicted it's beyond reason. This Saturday I ended up painting my dining room (I love to paint rooms all the time) because of what I saw on one of the shows and kept on going and painted my floors (that I had just stripped ) black. I love it, they look so good. I will now move on to my living room but I have to wait since my youngest dog is ready to have puppies any day now.

I am totally into the landscaping shows now that it's not minus 20 degrees windchill here. I have all kinds of plans for my backyard but I also change my mind every Sunday morning

Donald made it to school fine and got all checked into his dorm. He is pushing me to let him live off campus in the Fall but I am very very leary about it.
Goofy is now pushing me to let him go to Germany next Spring (2010) with the school for 3 weeks which also means I have to allow someone to live with us for 2 weeks this Fall (2009) UGH! I tell you. They don't go to their father about any of this stuff,lol.

 

[Pakey]

You painted your floors black? OMG. I would love to see pics of that. We have tile floors so no can do any painting of those. I'm really wanting to rip the carpet out of the bedrooms and put down wood flooring but I'm scared of my dogs having an accident and ruining the wood. My dogs have attitude issues and when they are upset, think it's perfectly fine to ignore the doggie door and punish me by pottying in the house. Right now, we keep all of the carpeted areas off limits by closing the doors and the tile is easy to clean. But I want wood.

At our last house, I was constantly finding home improvement projects to do. We had acreage and our yard got bigger and bigger as the projects went on. When we built this house in town 5 years ago, I had to promise my husband that I would not do that anymore. I'm so bored.

 

[magicaldisney11]

When I finish the trim I will add picture of my floor

I wouldnt know what to do without my constant projects around the house. I live in a home that was built in 1917 so it's old and there is always a lot to do.
We had wall to wall rugs in all our rooms but now I have none. I ripped them all out years ago (cuz my dogs also habe Issues here and there,lol) and we found some crappy wood floors underneath. Since then I have redone all of them but after 15 years they neded to be done again so I went with the painting instead. It's cheaper, easier and I can change then whenever I want to now,lol.

My baby Belle (my schnoodle) is pregnant by Mushu (my ****zu) it was an oops! I think she may have them very very soon. She is wandering around the house, they are not allowed on the second floor and have never gone up there before, but now she is going up and down and whining. We have never had a litter of puppies here before so I am not 100% sure but I think this is close to the time. I am very nervous!!!!

 

[Pakey]

Oh new babies in the house, how exciting. I have two hairless Chinese cresteds, Andy and Paris Hairless Hilton. They are not known to be easy dogs to potty train but mine do fine unless we go on vacation. Paris Hairless was paper trained by her breeder so I can't have any rugs out or she thinks its a pee pad. And Andy has separation anxiety and if I am home, he will not go outside unless I go with him. So I constantly have to remember when I'm home to take a break and walk out into the backyard so he'll go out there rather than in the corner in whatever room I'm in at the time. And when we leave them for vacation and have a dog sitter come in, Andy refuses to behave and goes wherever he wants until we get home and he feels safe again. I can't kennel him because of his behavior issues so we just close off as much of the house as we can and the poor house sitter has to deal with surprises when she comes in 3x a day.

My last home was brand new but I was constantly doing remodel projects of some sort. We sold the house when it was 7 years old and already I had replaced all of the flooring. countertops, faucets, fixtures, etc. And it was a custom; I just get bored. So I had to promise my husband in this one that I would stop the madness. We've been in this one 6 years now and it looks the same as the day we moved in (except dirtier of course ). A new old house would be a perfect project for me.

 

[magicaldisney11]

Well my Belle had three puppies. They look like mini cows,lol, all white with black spots. I don't think she will have more, it took 3 hours for her to have them.
Pakey, are your dogs like the one on "How to loose a guy in 10 days?"

I don't know what I'm going to do here, I have three dogs already so we doubled our lot,lol. I have one already spoken for but now I have to find homes for two more.

I will have to pray that they are wheened by the time we go to Disney or I'm totally screwed!!!

 

[Pakey]

Yes, mine are the same breed from How to Lose a Guy in 10 days. I have very very very bad allergies and sinus problems and I spent a couple of years doing a great deal of research to determine the best breed for me. Besides being allergy free, Cresteds are pretty much couch potatoes. Many small breeds are very hyper but trust me, these two are like hound dogs lying on a front porch somewhere. They are very low maintenance except I have to keep sunscreen on them in the summer for when they go out and they get blackheads.

Andy comes from a show dog breeder and he's gorgeous. Much like the one from "how to lose" (which means a Hairy Hairless) except instead of brown with blonde hair he is grey with white hair. Paris Hairless is a rescue from a puppy mill breeder and she could win an ugly dog contest. She is a Very Hairless and she has hardly any hair at all. She's tan with pink spots and has just a few hairs on the top of her head and the end of her tail plus she has ears that look like Yoda.

There are no breeders in the western US (too hot here) so both of my dogs came from the east and trust me, they are glad they are not having the winter all of you have had. Especially Paris Hairless because, like her namesake, she really hates to wear much clothing.

Congrats on the little cows! And good luck finding homes for them.

 

[magicaldisney11]

Pakey...You should post a picture of your babies.

One of my puppies was already picked out by someone at work. She named her Lily already.

I hit a small gold mine today, I was looking for a picture of a passport for kids on line for the cover of the one I was making for Simba's for Epcot and came across one that Disney already makes Others may know they have them, you can buy them in Epcot, but I didn't,lol.
It comes with a page for each country in Epcot and stamps you can put in them plus a vinyl holder for it. The kids go from country to country and get it stamped at the kidcot stations. Less work for me, yeah!

 

[HeatherBelle614]

Ohh; you have to post pictures of your puppy babies when they arrive!!

I want to see how your floor turns out, too! I love home improvement projects!

 

[magicaldisney11]

 

[Pakey]

The puppies are so cute. They are so little. Thanks for posting the pics of them. I love the name Lily. My dogs came with their names so I didn't get to choose. Well, Andy's real name is "Breedername first" Anakan Cloudbuster's Joy. The breeder called him Anakan but I was not having a dog named for a Star War's character so I got as close as I could with Andy.

Yes, I had gotten one of those Epcot passports for my grandson when we took the entire family 2 months ago. One of my other daughters in law thought it was so neat she had to get one. So she did the passport and the mask in each country and had a blast. My grandson, he wasn't interested. That's the way it goes. Hopefully Simba will have fun with it. I think it's a great way to get the younger ones more interested in Epcot.

I'll see if I can scrounge up a pic of my dogs. Or I could take some but that would mean finding the usb cable for my camera.

 

[HeatherBelle614]

Oh my gosh; I love puppies! Repeats to myself that I can't have another one right now...

 

[magicaldisney11]

First...puppies....my son's want me to keep the only boy in the group which we have named Gus Gus at this point. I keep saying NO (we have three already) they keep whining. I have to be strong, very, very strong!!


Second....stuff I bought.....well it's not much....I went on to ebay and got each of the boys 5 pins for trading when we go. It only cost $24.50 for 15 pins!! They might not be great ones but they will be really good to trade away,lol. They really got into it when we went in April 2008.

This will be added to Easter baskets. Can you see the pattern when the basket is going to be filled with stuff and not much candy

Honestly, my boys aren't into much candy. They have their favorite which I will purchase (oh my!! I mean the Easter Bunny

will bring) and then the rest is Disney stuff.

 

[Pakey]

Since we went in January, I did the same thing with Christmas gift bags. Everything was related to the vacation. I even went to the dollar store and got glow necklaces, etc for everyone. I'm not sure they were thrilled with the hand sanitizer things I put in there but oh well.

If they have already named Gus Gus, I think you are going to have a tough fight on your hands. Good luck with that.

 

[magicaldisney11]

Almost every morning on our way to school and work Simba asks...how days and hours Mom? or in "blank" amount of days what will we be doing in Disney?
I love those conversations. He likes the one the best that starts with in blank amont of days and hours we will be getting off the plane in Orlando and walking/sort of running to the fake monorail to Magical Express. They loved the ME. To them (okay and me) it was like we were getting a small dose of Disney as soon as we landed. When you see those cast members standing there behond the counter wearing their disney nametags it means the beginning of our Disney World, Home Away from Home vacation has started.
Right now my house is quiet and I am watching the Disney dvd looking at all the resorts and rides and the feeling inside me is just pure happiness.
I don't think we could ever do a "quick trip" there, the planning and the anticipation of going is so much of the joy of going.

I can hear Simba upstairs, so my house will no longer be quiet and we have plans for shopping today (groceries) but might take a trip to Target or Walmart to look for something else for the trip. It may just be the hand sanitizer (right Pakey) or a small containers of wipes but we will get something


By the way...64 days and 22 hours, 15 minutes and we will be getting off the plane in Orlando........

 

[Pakey]

I'm so jealous. 64 days is NOTHING. I know how hard it is for children (and some adults) to wait though.

Are you going during Spring Break? Since I don't have school age children, I lose track of these kinds of things.

I cancelled my Map trip to BC (boo hoo) so now I have no dates on the horizon for going. I have so many DVC points left for this year so I guess I'm going to be banking them and figure out what we are going to do with all of them next year. It's a terrible thing to have too many DVC points.

 

[magicaldisney11]

Our Spring break in the week before and after Easter, here in Niagara Falls. Our school district doesn't go along with all the others around here. It makes it easier for me though since I get time off for Easter at work (work for a catholic university) so I'm home a lot of the time with the boys.

We went in April in 2008 and I will NEVER go again during that time, it was super packed! I am taking the boys out of school for a week and a day to go this time and their teachers were all for the trip.


Why did you have to cancel your trip? That is terrrible!! I am already looking at short cruises for this Fall (Carnival's are hard to beat the price) since next year will be hard to plan anything.