Jun Honeymoon YC & Nov Invasion ASSp-Uptd 12/29 Holy Updates Batman!!

[joleen76]

You had me in total tears. I've been a complete lurker til now (sorry!).

Your story is great.. all of it. We're a blended family as well, and I know how us Step-moms can be. LOL I'm sure she completely understood, I know I would.

((HUGS)) to you. Now get working on that NOV trip!

First I have to say glad your here!

Sorry for the tears .

Thanks for posting and coming out of lurkerdom. I know what that's like, I am a serial lurker making myself come out of hiding!

I'm so glad you are enjoying our story. You are right about the blended family thing. Now that I am a step-mom and a mom, I have a better understanding. I have always gotten along with DS13's step-mom and are good friends, so that also helps. When I appologized to her, she told me to think nothing of it, she understood. Now me and DH's ex....that's another story, but we try to get along.

New post coming up in the next 30 mins!

Oh, and have fun on your trip to the World next month!!

 

[joleen76]

Packing and who will feed the animals?

Have you ever tried to pack for six people? The logistics of it all is quite challenging to say the least. We have a car that seats us all comfortably….but where are we going to put all the luggage? DH & I decide to buy a bag that straps to the top of the car to put all the luggage in. Hmmm what kind and how much? I lucked into a deal at Wally World and was feeling quite proud of myself. Well until DH gets home opens the box up and notices the straps are not in the box. Hmp! Now I know why it was so cheap. So now I have another trip to the store in my future. I was quite proud of myself that when I went back, I bought the right straps! Not bad for a city girl!

We only had 2 days to pack in and it took us every bit of that to get ready. Not to mention I was still taking care of DS13 at the time and fighting with him to keep him relatively relaxed and calm. This is a cunundrom in itself. See DS13 is ADHD and I couldn't give him his medication for at least a week. My plan of attack was to rent him Wii & Playstation 2 games! It actually worked pretty well.

Where was I, Oh yes back to packing. Have you ever experienced a laundry tornado? I have. Picture 6 piles of clothing in 3 different rooms. Triping was a occurance we got used to quickly and learned how to brace ourselves. Not to mention when our kitty's decided it was play time and pounced all over the piles. I'm one of those packers that has to have everything ready and accounted for before we start putting things into the bags. I hate questioning what we have and don't have and digging through everything. Honestly, (sigh) I am a organizer....it drives DH nuts sometimes. I usually have lists of things to pack for big trips. I emplored this technique while packing for our honeymoon and DH decided he liked knowing that he brought everything he needed in advance. This time sadly with our stent in the hospital I had no list. Had not had the time to create one, so we went with my previous experience and the list in my head! I wonder how that's going to turn out? I do get most of the packing done while DH is at work, so that helped. Great so packing is going well.

I also have to give a shout out to our church fellowship. They were just awesome through all this. Not only did many come to the hospital to see us and support and pray with us, but after we were home, they brought us dinner so I wouldn’t have to cook in the midst of everything else. God is so good!

DS must have been appreciative of everything they did as well because he insisted we go to Wednesday night service the day after we got home from the Hospital. We were so blessed, overwhelmed, and euphoric all at the same time!

So along with peace sometimes comes more caos. So, of course another “issue” had to pop up, but we were handling everything in stride at this point. It was during the packing that DH tells me that his friend that was supposed to watch our animals and feed them everyday had bailed on us. Oh NO!!! I make a panicked call to my Dad and beg him sweetly to help. He is an awesome dad and no begging was even necessary. He was more than happy to help. Yay!! Thank you Daddy!

The night before we are to leave for Disney, I ended up making some "packing the car" lists before we got ready to go. So we did all the lists checks etc. I think it was probably after midnight and I was just exhausted. I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow. DH stayed up a bit longer and took care of all the left over stuff.

Up next our Travel Day and how will 4 boys fair in the LONG car ride? And how did DS13 handle it all??

 

[joleen76]

Today we are driving to DISNEY!!
We wake up in the morning; we know this is the day we leave for Disney!! We had slept in as planned. We start the process of getting everything to the door in our house by the garage. My dad stopped by at lunch to get the low down on the animals and to see DS13 again before we left. While he was there, DH & I packed the car. By the time DF had to leave we were all packed and ready to head over to the little guy’s grandmother’s to pick them up and get on the road. Traveling with 4 boys in a car for 17 hours each way is at best stressful. Luckily we had planned on driving most of this leg at night. It was about 3-4pm when we had picked up the boys and got on the road. Everyone was so excited. The little guys have never been to WDW before and couldn’t wait to see what it was all about. We packed a cooler full of drinks, snacks for everyone, and a bag full of DVD’s and DS games. Everyone had their own spot with their respective blankets and pillows. The kids were all very comfortable. (Yes more foreshadowing) As the trip wore on, the kids started to pass out one by one. Even DS13 was doing well. We had to make sure we stayed up on his med’s time. I was so proud of him, he hardly complained at all. DH even switched places with him for a couple of hours and watched a movie with the other boys when DS’s legs were getting cramped.

We had planned to take turns driving and sleeping. I took the first leg. DH tried to nap, but it was hard. Somewhere along the way we swapped and I remember falling asleep before we hit Mobile. This was a bad decision because when I woke up we were in downtown Mobile and not on I10. I wake up and I ask DH where are we? He says I’m following the GPS directions. Oh NO!!! Ultimately it worked out, but I would not recommend taking Hwy 98 through the heart of Mobile. Luckily it was the middle of the night and there was no traffic, so we were back on track and on our way. The rest of the drive was uneventful.

Up next…..We’re Bbaaaaccccckkkkkkk…..We invade Disney!!

 

[GreatBiscuit]

I also have to give a shout out to our church fellowship. They were just awesome through all this. Not only did many come to the hospital to see us and support and pray with us, but after we were home, they brought us dinner so I wouldn’t have to cook in the midst of everything else. God is so good!

Don’t you just love it when things work out like that?

So along with peace sometimes comes more caos. So, of course another “issue” had to pop up, but we were handling everything in stride at this point. It was during the packing that DH tells me that his friend that was supposed to watch our animals and feed them everyday had bailed on us. Oh NO!!! I make a panicked call to my Dad and beg him sweetly to help. He is an awesome dad and no begging was even necessary. He was more than happy to help. Yay!! Thank you Daddy!

Go Dad!

Traveling with 4 boys in a car for 17 hours each way is at best stressful. Luckily we had planned on driving most of this leg at night.

A Biscuit Clan Approved method of travel!

We had planned to take turns driving and sleeping. I took the first leg. DH tried to nap, but it was hard. Somewhere along the way we swapped and I remember falling asleep before we hit Mobile. This was a bad decision because when I woke up we were in downtown Mobile and not on I10. I wake up and I ask DH where are we? He says I’m following the GPS directions. Oh NO!!! Ultimately it worked out, but I would not recommend taking Hwy 98 through the heart of Mobile. Luckily it was the middle of the night and there was no traffic, so we were back on track and on our way. The rest of the drive was uneventful.

Wheh! Glad that worked out!

Up next…..We’re Bbaaaaccccckkkkkkk…..We invade

 

[Mrs. The King]

Hey Sweet Joleen!!

Your Laundry Tornado had me I am currently in the mists of one right now, so at least you got me laughing about it.

Thank goodness for wonderful Dads.

GPS systems have their own agenda a lot of the time. They will someday take over the world.

I love that your friends and church took care of you guys in your time of need, we hear very little about the magnificent side of humanity, so I really liked that part.

Looking forward to your arrival!

 

[joleen76]

Thanks for posting Mr. Biscuit! I'm getting excited for you and your family. Your trip is so soon!!

Sometimes we feel like the Clampets when we travel....DH is often heard to say "we's from Wylie" in his best backwoods hick accent! But what you gonna do? I laugh at him and roll my eyes.

Can't wait for you guys to see my pictures of the Christmas Party!

 

[joleen76]

Hey Sweet Joleen!!

Your Laundry Tornado had me I am currently in the mists of one right now, so at least you got me laughing about it.

Any task I don't want to do is WAY better when laughing. DH & I had to replace the innerds (lol yes the inside workings) of our toilet last week. I had recently bought one of those blue tabs to make the water blue and pretty and to help clean the toilet so I don't have to as much thingys. I had been waiting to put it in there until the toilet was fixed, but one day I was at the store and came home to find our toilet water was blue. I knew the problem would be not so much with the running toilet we currently had but with the repair. So....we bought all the parts and came home to repair it. DH quickly realized the blue water stains.......and stains anything it touches. Do you remember the smurfs? Picture DH with almost completely blue hands. I had to die laughing He did not appreciate this as much as I did until the repairs were complete and my smurf comments became as funny to him as they were to me! It took a couple of days for it all to come off his hands! It was pure entertainment to me and all I had to do was stand there and hold some things in place for it!

Thank goodness for wonderful Dads.

My dad is awesome. He's been my hero since I was a little girl and still is. I have been truly blessed.

GPS systems have their own agenda a lot of the time. They will someday take over the world.

This is so true. Half the time in town I take a different route than it tells me too, and honestly I've made the drive to Disney enough that I bipass some of it's directions to get there. Unfortunately DH was very literal in the following of the GPS while I was asleep and we almost became a statistic! Good thing I'm a light sleeper and woke up!

I love that your friends and church took care of you guys in your time of need, we hear very little about the magnificent side of humanity, so I really liked that part.

I have been very blessed to not only be born into a great family but to be reborn into an awesome family as well. We would have had a really hard time getting through it all without the support each "family" brought to us.

I agree we don't hear enough about the very generous, loving, and supportive side of the world.

Looking forward to your arrival!

I can't wait to share it! Should be up tomorrow so stay tuned!

And your trip is so soon too!!! I can't wait for more tales of the jiggler antics and I hope the jelly bag issues will be avoided!

 

[joleen76]

November 21 – Day 1 Part 1

We arrived at All Star Sports about 12-1 pm. I had noted on our ressie’s that it was DH’s & I’s anniversary as well as all 4 boys birthdays. Honestly it was in the middle of 3 of their birthdays and couldn’t leave my summer baby out in the cold on that Disney magic. The CM at the counter who checked us in was supper nice. She gave us all our pin’s and pointed DH to where he could get a wheelchair for DS13. She said our rooms were ready and pointed out a building in the homerun court. I hadn’t had time to fax a room request stating all the changes etc. So I politely asked if they could move us closer to the buses etc since DS13 had just gotten out of the hospital and we would have the wheelchair. She was so sweet about it. She said hang on a minute and went to talk to her manager. Within 10 min’s we had our connecting rooms assigned. They asked if we minded one double bed room and one king bed room? Mind? Oh no, not at all. DH & I wink at each other. Score! No chance of sleepovers, I mean it was our anniversary after all! They also added only one of the two rooms were ready. No problem. The new rooms were in the Touchdown building closest to the main building. We decide to start unloading the car and take our things to the room that is ready and divide it up later.

This was waiting on us when we got to our room.

We get it all unloaded we decided DH & I needed a nap. Yes in the same room with 4 boys. Luckily there is a babysitter…umm I mean TV in the room. (J/k for all those sudden gasps we just heard) I think I got about 30 mins out of the 1hr I tried to lay down for. By now it was about 3 pm and DH & I decide it’s time to head to MVMCP. We know we cannot put these boys off any longer. They were so excited! The little guys especially, they had never been to Disney before.

We stopped to take some pictures on our way to the bus stop.

DH & DS13 (You can see he’s already hating that chair)

I have a big gap here from when we leave the hotel until Wishes….we were busy at MK and everyone was so excited. It didn’t leave me much room for pictures. You will however be glad to know that my firework pictures have gotten much better! And just in time for Holiday Wishes!!

When we arrived at the MK we went immediately to guest services. Many nice people told us to stop and get a GCAC or GAC card for our stay. The CM’s were just awesome about it. They gave us the card and it was good for all of us to go with DS13 on the rides through the wheelchair access. More on this later.

We rode buzz first.

I’m not sure what was next but I know it was HM and then BTMR.

Then DS13 acting silly

It was getting close to time for Holiday Wishes so we decided to go close to the hub. I believe it was close to the bridge to Adventureland where we stopped.

 

[catherines_mama]

Sounds like a great arrival day. SCORE on the room! I totally understand, I'm reqeusting a King/Double connection for our trip as well. Steve is a big boy 6'1" 240... he cant sleep in a double. Yup, that's the reason.

DS13 looks thrilled beyond belief, but I am sure he was happy to have the wheels.

Can't wait for more.

 

[GreatBiscuit]

Excellent first day. I have a feeling our "Nap" on arrival day will be about as effective. Of course I'll be so giddy, it'll probably be the girls patting me on the head and saying "You have to take a nap first Daddy."

 

[joleen76]

Sounds like a great arrival day. SCORE on the room! I totally understand, I'm reqeusting a King/Double connection for our trip as well. Steve is a big boy 6'1" 240... he cant sleep in a double. Yup, that's the reason.

DS13 looks thrilled beyond belief, but I am sure he was happy to have the wheels.

Can't wait for more.

We loved the extra room in the King room. Only down side was the shower was wheelchair accessable so there was no bathtub, but all in all it was a really good room.

DS13 is well a teenager for lack of a better way to describe it. Add to that some pain and well, the first couple of days were a bit tough, but we were in Disney and even he couldn't resist it's charms!

 

[joleen76]

Excellent first day. I have a feeling our "Nap" on arrival day will be about as effective. Of course I'll be so giddy, it'll probably be the girls patting me on the head and saying "You have to take a nap first Daddy."

I ALWAYS find it hard to nap on Day 1 no matter what we have planned for it. I just can't wait to submerse myself in the magic of the parks! I am as bad as the kids on that one. DH has come around to that way of thinking as well!

On the giddy scale picture twinkle toes on DH and some skipping even I believe it was, but shhhhh he wouldn't be happy I ratted him out like that!

 

[joleen76]

Day 1 Part 2

Lots of firework pictures!!

The fireworks were starting to shoot off all around the park. It was hard deciding where to shoot!

The fireworks were just awesome!! Everyone was in awe and that’s saying a lot for 4 boys.

I had pre-bought the photopass CD so I made us all stop and have our pictures taken after the fireworks. DH told me later he had forgotten about that and had encouraged the kids to make the faces! I told him great….now people won’t just think we’re hicks there will be no doubt. Huh huh folks, we’s from Wylie!

I tried to make it better by making it black and white….but ….umm well… The castle looks beautiful!!

This was my other stellar picture.

DH & DS13 stopped to goof around.

Then it was on to some more rides until the Parade started.

 

[noogagirl]

Great pictures! I loved seeing the castle with all of the lights in December. On the last night of our trip, we always stand and stare at the castle until we want to cry. We never want to leave. I know we're so lucky to be able to go often.

 

[GreatBiscuit]

I can't wait to see wishes. It looks like such an awesome show! I had to crack up at the "mugging for the photopass" shots.

 

[joleen76]

Great pictures! I loved seeing the castle with all of the lights in December. On the last night of our trip, we always stand and stare at the castle until we want to cry. We never want to leave. I know we're so lucky to be able to go often.

Glad you are enjoying the pictures. I am quite the picture obsessed one on vacation. Seeing the castle while the Christmas decorations are up is my favorite time of the year to see it. We have also been very fortunate to have gone as much as we have. Unfortunately, it looks like we will be skipping this year and saving for 2010 for ou next trip.

 

[joleen76]

I can't wait to see wishes. It looks like such an awesome show! I had to crack up at the "mugging for the photopass" shots.

You are going to LOVE LOVE LOVE wishes!!! It's my favorite.

There is always a good laugh when DH gets in the pictures, and he's corrupting the boys. I have to be really firm when I want "serious" pictures, but I've also seen pictures where they are always waving. The mom would wave her hand above the camera before she took the picture to get their attention and they had a habbit of waving back. It was too cute and I could totally relate.

 

[joleen76]

Day 1 Part 3

So after the fireworks we kind of milled around a bit taking pictures and then heading to the Parade.

DS 7 acting like a Pirate

Decoration pictures

Up next was the Parade. Now, I will admit my firework pictures have improved dramatically….but my parade pictures….well not as much. We were able to sit and watch the parade in the wheelchair access area at the hub in front of the castle. This was the first time I had ever been able to watch it from this area. It was very exciting and the boys just loved it.

Picture Limit!! To be continued!!

 

[joleen76]

Cont.

Day 1 Part 4

Parade Cont.

After the parade it was getting very cold and we were all exhausted.

DS13 was starting to look like this and wine. I knew his head was hurting him and he’d been a trooper all day, so we headed back to the hotel and passed out.

We had, had an awesome first day. All the kids were behaving and DS13 had been tolerating everything well. He is at that age though, were he tries to act “badder” than he his, so the wheelchair was an argument.

Tomorrow we are off to AK and our first ADR of free dining! Will the roaming herd get me or will I be able to keep them in line?

 

[GreatBiscuit]

We were able to sit and watch the parade in the wheelchair access area at the hub in front of the castle. This was the first time I had ever been able to watch it from this area. It was very exciting and the boys just loved it.

See? Every cloud had a silver lining! Nifty update - looking forward to seeing how the rest of the trip goes down.