Jumping, Dancing & Jamming Our Way Through Walt Disney World! I'm With the Band Now!

[PlutosRHM55]

Sounds like this will be a fun report... I'm in!

 

[bellebookworm9]

I'm joining in. I've read bits and pieces of your other TRs and they always make me do this: . I'm sure this will be more of the same!

The way you feel about Lacey moving to Tennessee sounds like my mom. I want to go to Florida for grad school next year and she keeps freaking out that I'll be 1500 miles away.

Hunter has gotten really tall!

I'm excited to see more pictures of Caribbean Beach, it always looks so pretty.

 

[ddstratton]

Howdy! I was looking at the Port Orleans picture thread day before yesterday and saw the lovely ones you posted. How are the vacation plans going?

Thanks!! We really enjoyed POFQ. Our vacatin plans are CHANGING!!!! Again. We're not going this year now. Not to Florida/Disney, anyway. We'll be taking a short trip to Virginia/Washington DC. Then next year - either May or October, haven't decided yet - we'll be making a Disney trip. And I haven't decided which resort for that! It'll either be Caribbean Beach or Coronado Springs..... Trying to decide now.

 

[Marshay]

OK, all caught up!

I did recognize some of those other TR!! You have a very creative style -- I love it!

That is too funny about your daughter skipping school ... to go to church prayer meeting. If only that would be the worse thing our kids would do!

Love the picture of you and your DH! You both look so cute together!

 

[RinkyTinkyTinky]

Can I join in?

We are staying at CBR for the first time in October and I am really excited! I saw your pictures on the CBR picture thread so I thought I would come over and join in! I caught your last trip report at the very end, so I'm glad I got in early this time.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Good morning to all my Disboards friends! I'm coming back in a little while to reply to the new posts.

I thought I would write up an installment Friday afternoon or over the weekend but, life happened, and trip reporting didn't happen.

Since my boss is in court out of town this morning, I've started writing an installment and should have it up soon. Hang in there!

 

[Villainess]

Page 5 already? OMG! Well, better late than never. Cannot wait for your 1st installment!

 

[TinksThree]

Hey there! Oh yeah....PK's are definitely T.R.O.U.B.L.E.! Well, that is until someone like me starts cracking the whip. Nah, I'm just playing. John did do quite a few things that startled me when I heard about them but they were all good honest fun....nothing criminal...thank gooness!

Oh my gosh, it's so funny to hear that Hunter left an impression because Madison did too! As a matter of fact, John asked him if he had gotten Madison's number so he could call and check in with her. When Hunter told him that he hadn't, John couldn't believe it.

You are too funny....a DisBoard Celebrity. I hadn't even thought about it until I was approached by a fellow Diser who called me that.

I had really good friends growing up that were PKs and we always had fun getting them into "trouble"! LOL But like you said good honest fun....nothing criminal!!

That is really funny about Hutner too! Madison giggled all the way to the bus stop. Too cute!

 

[Angies1274]

Hey Angie! Any Disney trips in your future? I'd love to see pictures of your boys to see how much they've grown. Feel free to post a few here.

Hi Lisa! Yes! We are planning a Disney trip! We've decided to head back again next April for the F&G Festival. We're so excited...we really missed not being able to go this year. Oh and the boys are getting so big. Nick is as tall as I am and of course loving it! Noah isn't far behind either. Here's a couple pics from our quick weekend trip in April.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Finally, finally May 24th had arrived. We had been counting down to this trip for a year now and were more than ready to hit the road. Unfortunately, hitting the road would come some eleven hours later than when our day started.

At the booty crack of dawn, John was off to work and I was lying in bed checking things off my mental "did we pack so-and-so" list. I didn't have to get up and get ready for work for another hour or so but I couldn't go back to sleep. After lying there for a while, I gave up trying and went ahead and got up. I threw the last load of clothes in the washing machine and turned on the dishwasher.

By that time, Lacey was wide awake and came in to ask what she and Hunter needed to be doing during the day. It was the standard....a) take out all garbage; b) clean the litter box at the very last minute; c) put out the food for both the cat and dog so that my sister and niece would have it handy; d) let Oddball (our dog) run around as much as he could during the day because he wouldn't be getting out much while we were gone; e) make sure all the rooms were tidy; f) toss my curling iron and the hair dryer in the overnight bag (couldn't do that before I left because they were still warm from my using them), etc. She said she'd make sure it was all done before I got home from work. It sure is nice having that extra set of hands around and I'll miss 'em when she gets married.

I was extremly proud of my family because we had, for once, gotten all of our suitcases packed a couple of days before we were scheduled to leave. That may not sound like an amazing feat to most of you but it is for us....especially, for John. Bless his little Southern heart, the man is as slow as molasses. He talks slow. He walks slow. He packs slow! But, I love him and I've pretty much got him well trained so I think I'll keep him.

Anyway, I finished getting ready for work and was about to walk out the door when I remembered to snap a couple of pictures of some of our things we had gathered together:

The hours at work seemed to draaaaaaag by! I talked to John at lunch time and he said that he'd take his shower when he got home and then start loading Mama's van.

Wait..........did I tell ya'll we were taking Mama's van to Walt Disney World? The van is at least ten years old but it only has 70,000 miles on it and she had it checked out a week or so before we were scheduled to leave. The guy at the shop said it looked like it was good to go. Yay! We initially said we would go in my car but decided to go in the van since there would be more room to spread out.

Anyway, John said he and the kids would load our stuff as well as Mama's stuff in the van. I reminded him to make sure the three overnight bags were on the top because we'd be stopping on the road our first night. Well, not literally on the road, we were going to stay at a hotel but........

Fortunately for me, my boss had been moving from one house to another and had been a bit preoccupied, thus it made my workload a bit less than normal. His fiance was coming in from South Carolina the week that I would be gone so that was another plus and kept his mind off the office. That's not to say that I wasn't busy 'cause I was. I just wasn't as busy as I usually was.

At about 3:30 p.m., my boss said he was leaving to go meet some repair/installation/something-or-other guy at his new house and for me to have a good time on vacation. Adios Amigos! Get thy booty out of the office so I can start wrapping things up buddy! If he was leaving early, then by-golly, I was leaving early too! Sounds like a plan doesn't it? It was!

I had one set of papers on my desk that was waiting for a client to come by and sign. Of course, they called and said they were on their way and would be at the office at 4:00 p.m. 4:00 rolled around and they weren't here. They called and apologized and said they were about 10 minutes away. Come on already! Didn't they know that I was ready to leave? When the arrived, I got their signature on the paperwork and, in my nice charming way, walked them to the door so they wouldn't stick around and chat.

When they hit the door, I turned off the computers, copy machine, lines, etc., picked up my purse and out the door I went. I was in my car and over the bridge, headed towards the bank. (My boss wrote my check ahead of time and I was stopping by to deposit it.) There was a mail box at the bank so I put the office mail in it and, when I started down the road it was:

Not a lot earlier than I would normally start home but at least I had gotten my errands run and was on my way. I called John and told him I was about 10 minutes from home. He said they had all of the luggage in the van and he was filling up the small collapsible ice chest as we spoke. All I had to do was come home, change my clothes and put the maps and snack bag in the van.

Last year, as I was driving home, there were dark ominous clouds in the sky. This year, there were just a few white fluffy clouds.

I made it home and everybody was waiting for me. I changed out of my work clothes and threw on some comfortable riding clothes. We had a long drive ahead of us and I needed to be comfortable. After a quick walk through of the house, it was determined that everything was turned off and we were ready to go! In between changing clothes and doing the walk through, I scarfed down a sandwich Lacey had made me before I got home.

We left our driveway at:

I took this picture while we were at the redlight and before getting onto the interstate.

As you can see, John was already getting cozy in the backseat. He had been up since 4:45 that morning and was ready for a nap. Lacey and Hunter were in the middle seat and Hunter was talking about pulling out the portable DVD player. By the time we were on the interstate, a grand total of 6 whole minutes, Hunter was in the snack bag and ready to eat some Life Saver gummies:

As I said just a while ago, last year, the skies were dark and cloudy and it rained on us during our first leg of the trip. This year, it was totally different. The sun was shinin' and the birds were chirpin' and we were all talkin'. It's so exciting to start a road trip. Especially, a road trip to Walt Disney World!

Between our house and Vicksburg, Mississippi, it's pretty much all farm land. There's crops on the left and crops on the right. As we were driving along, I saw an eighteen wheeler in front of us pulling a trailer that was all twisted up. I mean, seriously twisted. It looked dangerous and shouldn't be on the road. Of course, me being me, I had to take a picture:

Or two:

And, a few pictures of the crops and the irrigation system they use:

I also snapped a picture of the first water tower I saw on the trip. This one is in Start, Louisiana, the town where Tim McGraw grew up and still holds an annual fund raiser in.

Round hay bales in a field:

**Continued in next post

 

[407-W-DISNEY]

Yeah! The drive has begun!
What a GREAT idea to put shoes in the see-thru comforter bag!! I never thought to do that....will do from now on!!!

For some reason I didn't see the updated pic of Hunter...I kept seeing readers comment on how much he has grown....WELL, I saw the pic of him in the van....OMG....he has grown!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOW...he's turning into a very handsome young man!

Looking forward to reading more...

 

[ddstratton]

Looks like a great day to start a road trip! Sunny and gorgeous.

 

[mickeystoontown]

As I mentioned in my pre-trip report, we usually stop in Vicksburg, Mississippi at McDonald's but, this year, we wanted to see the flood waters. We had seen pictures of the river and the flooding on television and in the newspapers but we wanted to see it for ourselves. Instead of spending the time at McDonald's, our plan was to stop at the Mississippi Visitor's Center and take pictures.

Our plans changed when we started seeing the Mississippi River bridge ahead of us. They had the right lanes blocked off.

Right after that, we could see what my Mama called "backwater"....the water outside the banks of the river. I had never ever seen it that high. I bet we could have leaned over the edge of the ramp of the bridge and touched the water. It was unbelievable:

It was a bit hard to take pictures since we were in the inside lane of the bridge. But, the water was so high that it looked like the barges on the river were almost even with us. Okay, I guess that's a slight exaggeration but, seriously, you usually have to look down to see the barges. Now, we only had to look straight out.

It was simply incredible to see how high the water was. My 77 year old mother said she had no memories of it ever being that high.

Instead of getting off the interstate at the Visitor's Center, we decided to continue on and we soon saw the Welcome to Mississippi sign:

It was then that I spotted another water tower and I got the idea to take a picture of each water tower I saw along the way to Disney. (You'll see later on that I didn't do so good at getting a clear picture but it was a fun game to spot them and try to take a picture before we were past them.)

Somewhere between Vicksburg, Mississippi and Jackson, Mississippi, I took this one:

And then we saw this:

A closer one:

We've always called it the mini Spaceship Earth/Epcot ball and, thanks to TinksThree, I now know that it's some sort of sports arena.

We made it to Richland, Mississippi:

During the week before we left for our trip, I told Hunter that I was going to make a list of all sorts of crazy/random stuff to look for during our drive. I said something like a giant monkey and a purple van. Hunter said a fat bald guy sitting on a bench and a giant cowboy. Just random stuff. However, I forgot to make the list. That didn't mean, however, that we weren't on the look out for random things.

Random things like this giant can of paint:

Or this church that looks like it ran into a lighthouse:

Or a giant metal knight. Okay, so you can't really see it in this picture but if you squint your eyes really hard and look to the far right of the picture, you can barely make out his sword that's pointed downward:

As you can see, it was starting to get dusky out and Lacey and John were out like a light. I saw another water tower and got Hunter to take a picture. You can see Lacey's reflection in the window and her head all sideways 'cause she's asleep:

At some point in time between Jackson and Mobile, our tummies were telling us that they were hungry. Not really hungry for anything big but for something. We also needed gas so we stopped at a Burger King that was up on a hill and had the raggediess (that's crappy with lots of potholes) road leading up to it. We bounced our way up and into the parking lot. The gas station was right next door so that was convenient. The kiddos with their Burger King bags:

***Up next, we've made it to Mobile, Alabama, home of racefanof88!

 

[PirateKate]

The drive seems to be going pretty well so far. That twisted truck looked pretty funny. I would have been nervous driving next to that.

 

[lbuzz52]

That river flooding was really something wasn't it? it was high enough near my house that it closed my husband's work for a couple weeks.

 

[longing2Batdisney]

Great start! great idea on the van....I always wish my parents would let us use their's for the trip....although, our next trip will only be the three of us so our car will be fine as long as the luggage fits....

awesome MS river pictures, too bad you were on the outside lane but great shots from where you were! our water was no where near as high as up that way. I remember as the cruise ship was pulling out I told Danny look at St Louis Catherdral it looks like the river is as high as it's spears.

 

[MissLiz]

Great start!!!

Awesome idea of the water towers! That had to be fun!

As always, I love all the pictures! It makes me feel like I'm on the trip with y'all!

 

[rndmr2]

Great Start! That's crazy how high the Mississippi water is.

 

[Queila]

Great start! I LOVE road trips! Great random pictures, specially the one about the church that ran into a lighthouse.

Q

 

[Villainess]

Great start! Glad to hear you were able to get out of work a bit early and there were clear skies!