Life’s too short...to never sleep in a treehouse! 8/27 TR is up! Link in siggie

[eandesmom]

He just lost more man points....

He'd probably be proud of that

She's going to have a majorly hard time finding these I fear! Good luck!

True.

I guess I need to see the man-ual!

Rosie, You're on a roll with some really good word use today!! I'm not a VERA person either. Shall we stand the Vera Alamo together??!

Oh I'm sure she could find them, I'm surprised she doesn't own them but ugh with her dress.

I wouldn't call me a Vera person either, it will be interesting to see what I really think once it gets here!

Cynthia! Yay, I was finally able to get back on your ptr. I don't know what the deal was. Maybe Mozilla doesn't like the DisBoards?

So... awesome news about your business idea - I guess I wasn't the first person to tell you you should do that, huh?! I think you'll do great at it, you definitely are very skilled at design, and it also sounds like you have the right business background to make a go of it. I hope you will keep us up to date with all the developments. My mom is trying to start an ecommerce website right now, and she is just in the development stages herself, so I'll be really interested in how it is moving along for you.

Also, gorgeous papers, gorgeous dress!

Like the bag too. By backsack, I'm guessing its like one of those string backpacks? I'm not a Vera person myself, although I do like those patterns. My current park bag is a baggallini, but I thought it was a bit heavy last year, so I might want to shop for a something different. I'll have to check out the Veras at my Hallmark store.

I didn't try to get in via Explorer but you are right, it could have been a Mozilla issue on Sunday, not sure. Glad you are back!

I'm looking at all the e-commerce options, my goodness there are a lot to choose from! I bit the bullet on the site so I could get it built and then will layer on the e-commerce before it goes live otherwise it was a little overwhelming and it seems one should play off the other anyway. Is working out pretty well so far and let me get my arms around structure (very visual that way) so now I can create accordingly.

I bought a bagallini and have literally never used it. I tested it one day here and didn't like it but had already taken the tags off and then just kind of blew it off thinking I might take it to WDW last Feb. I should really ebay it. The cross body bags just don't hit right, feel flattering, hold bulky things like glasses cases for me.

I prefer more of a baguette style but that can get old in the parks and a backpack is bigger than I need or want and not really me. So yeah, it's basically a string bag that's a little prettier. Which should be about right and nice and light and comfy. I liked the pattern for working with what I will be taking to DCA so....we will see!

Of course I just saw a dress on ebay I really like....

 

[glennbo123]

He just lost more man points....

Building your own seaplane = mega man points. He's got plenty to spare!

 

[carissanboys]

I guess I need to see the man-ual!

I wonder how many pages it is?

 

[KathyRN137]

my dress

Hopefully it works out! I love the color and the fabric in the picutre...not positive about the cut but we will see.

Love it! (I wish I had the figure for it!)

The papers are so pretty... photobucket can be strange sometimes... I'm sure they look even more gorgeous in person.


Kathy

 

[GreatBiscuit]

I would say something about the dress, but I wouldn't want Jeff to kick.....

Great and creative paper. I think I've said that before.

I'm with Jordan. I do like the colors.

What they said.

I guess I need to see the man-ual!

I'm sorry, it's forbidden.

Building your own seaplane = mega man points. He's got plenty to spare!

True dat.

I wonder how many pages it is?

It fills many volumes.

 

[carissanboys]

It fills many volumes.

Can I find volume one on your TR?

 

[Angies1274]

The papers are great!!!---and the dress is stunning!! Love the color!!!

 

[All7OfUs]

I wonder how many pages it is?

No idea- but I can give you some chapter titles:

1) Texting in the can

2) Eating from the pan

3) Scoring points for the man

4) How to be a football fan

5) Setting up the LAN (and making it look like you know what you're doing)

6) Never asking directions- Find it you can

7) Foot odor and farts, never get a ban

I'm sorry, it's forbidden.

True dat.

It fills many volumes.

I'm sure it does.

Can I find volume one on your TR?

He puts up new info all the time!

 

[carissanboys]

No idea- but I can give you some chapter titles:

1) Texting in the can

I can't tell you how many times my husband has posted a status update on Facebook while he was in the can.

4) How to be a football fan

I think I'm part man in this regard. More so than my husband!

Thanks for the laugh to help wake me up this morning!

 

[eandesmom]

Building your own seaplane = mega man points. He's got plenty to spare!

valid point!

I wonder how many pages it is?

Probably not very many....

Love it! (I wish I had the figure for it!)

The papers are so pretty... photobucket can be strange sometimes... I'm sure they look even more gorgeous in person.

Kathy

I've had that issue before where it turns something one way even though the original photo is another, very odd!

Thanks on the dress, we will see if it works out!

What they said.

I'm sorry, it's forbidden.

True dat.

It fills many volumes.

I'm sure it's in man code...

Can I find volume one on your TR?

Not sure about Volume one but he definitely has chapter excerpts liberally sprinkled.

The papers are great!!!---and the dress is stunning!! Love the color!!!

Thanks Angie!

No idea- but I can give you some chapter titles:

1) Texting in the can

2) Eating from the pan

3) Scoring points for the man

4) How to be a football fan

5) Setting up the LAN (and making it look like you know what you're doing)

6) Never asking directions- Find it you can

7) Foot odor and farts, never get a ban

I'm sure it does.
He puts up new info all the time!

That's awesome Liesa!

I can't tell you how many times my husband has posted a status update on Facebook while he was in the can.

I think I'm part man in this regard. More so than my husband!

Thanks for the laugh to help wake me up this morning!

Very true....hence your treadmill decor!

 

[glennbo123]

No idea- but I can give you some chapter titles:

1) Texting in the can

2) Eating from the pan

3) Scoring points for the man

4) How to be a football fan

5) Setting up the LAN (and making it look like you know what you're doing)

6) Never asking directions- Find it you can

7) Foot odor and farts, never get a ban

Hey! No peeking!

 

[eandesmom]

Ok all you crafty people out there. I am looking for feedback as I get papers created so have set up a feedback site. Feel Free to stop by here and let me know what you like, don't like, what you'd love if it existed...

I will shamelessly run with any ideas!

 

[glennbo123]

Aha! Now I think I understand your comment on Jordan's website, regarding the alternate name had you had a boy.

So, to give feedback do you just put comments in the Guestbook area? (Not sure that I have any comments, but I wasn't sure exactly how to do it.)

 

[winkers]

I had a looky-loo at your site!

They're gorgeous!

I don't have any suggestions, they're perfect.

 

[Native NYer]

LOVE the dress.

And the papers are beautiful.

 

[eandesmom]

Hey! No peeking!

I had a looky-loo at your site!

They're gorgeous!

I don't have any suggestions, they're perfect.

Thanks! I don't know about perfect but I'm having fun! Well most of the time. A few computer issues today but yesterday was a blast.

Another set up though!

LOVE the dress.

And the papers are beautiful.

Thanks!!!!!!!

 

[englishrose47]

The only sort of "Crafty" I am is sneaky !!! So no ideas from me !!!

 

[eandesmom]

Looking back is not always fun. It done right, it can be enlightening and empowering. If not careful it can bring you down into the sea of regret. I prefer to think of it as a lesson in….what not to do.

The great challenge in recognizing what not to do, is actually figuring out what TO do. Ever in the pursuit of happiness, never looking up, it is all too possible, probable dare I say, to look happiness in the face and see it as a stranger, choosing to run away in fear. The unknown is scary.

Since I started this PTR back in September you have walked back with me a couple of times. You’ve read about the bad, the sad, and even the mad.
Seems to me, it’s about time for some glad! About doing it right, even when you don’t realize that’s what you are doing. About seizing the day. Moments.

For me, my adult Disney memories start here.

My magic, my own personal pixie dust.

Lets go back to 2004. My parents wanted a do over for the semi-disastrous DL trip and had decided to rent a couple of houses off-site and buy everyone park tickets if we picked up our flights, rental car and food expenses.

Everyone was a LOT of people. I am the oldest of 6 and at that time 4 of us had some type of SO (spouse, fiance, etc) with 7 kids between us. Add in a few “extra’s” that wanted to come and “poof!” we were a group of 21.

Jeff and I had been dating for about a year and a half. We were getting married 2 weeks after the trip and were in the middle of trying to sell 2 homes and build a new one. To say it was nutty, and stressful, would be putting it mildly. Jeff is from a small family, just he and his brother. My family is a clan. A close knit loud mouthed debate with you to death walk through fire for you but don’t get in our way….kind of clan. A fair amount of opinions and strong personalities.

For Jeff…like going to a foreign country. Make that TWO foreign countries. The one that is my family and that other one….Walt Disney World. He'd never been. He grew up in Cali, figured "what's the big deal?" was going to humor me (and his future MIL!).

I am, if nothing else, a research hound. A compulsive list maker. A planner.

I

Did

Not

Plan

A

Thing

For

This

Trip

Hard to believe I know. We hopped on a red eye and headed down to Orlando blind as a bat. Here is what we knew.

1. We had a rental car lined up through my dad, as he’d gotten some kind of deal. Details were fuzzy at best.
2. We were flying down a day earlier than my folks so the houses would not be ready till the next day. We had booked one night at All Star Music (pre-POP!)
3. Our big fat plan was to sleep on the plane, head to the hotel, hang out and then go to Kennedy the next day before meeting up with the crowd.
​

That’s it. That was the extent of my planning. We were so swamped between our jobs and the house that I don’t even think I remembered my camera! Lord knows I don’t have many pictures to show though I have been promised them by my mother. (I’m still betting she is making me something for my birthday….we will know soon!). As you may have guessed, based on the bad and the sad of previous attempts…I was not the Disney crazed individual you all know today. I wasn’t anti Disney, not by a long shot but really I was….along for the ride. Just looking forward to a trip with my family, praying Jeff would survive and not have second thoughts about what he was getting into and nervous about a trip with just the 4 of us.

Prior to this trip, we had done a couple of trips with just the two of us but only one “family” trip with all 4 kids. Yep, our first family vacation, pre-wedding, was Camping in the Rain Forest! I look back at this and shake my head. Who does that for a first potential blended family trip? We were nuts. We had a blast. It was a contained environment though, just the 6 of us. This….21 of my closest family members…is not what I’d call contained.

We were staying in the “quiet” house, of the two houses but…they were next door to each other. We’d been doing so well with the house selling, building, wedding planning that I was terrified that things were too good to be true. We’d had crises after crises and we had been blessed over and over and over again with unexpected miracles smoothing our path. To the point that we were both really believing that someone was really looking out for us. Not that we didn't already believe that but the things that were happening were so surreal, so in-your-face BELIEVE kind of of things that we were both shell shocked. In a good way. But when you aren't used to the good, you look for, and expect the bad. It took us both a long time to realize we didn't need to live our lives like that anymore.

There was that nagging feeling. When you are used to living your live in crises mode, bracing for it becomes your norm. Something had to go wrong. One of the days it was going to “stay” wrong, I was pretty sure we’d used up all our little miracles.

Right?

Flying out together was the 4 of us, my brother Phillip and his two boys which meant we had a 4 year old, two 5 year olds and one 7 year old all taking a red eye. My SIL was flying out with the rest of the gang the next day due to a work conflict.

NO ONE SLEPT. Not a wink. Not a nod. All things considered I guess the boys were all well behaved but the 3 adults arrived shell shocked and exhausted, stumbling off the plane in search of….Alamo…or Budget…or crap we can’t recall and don’t know where to go and we’d like to strangle 4 little boys. Who are hungry. And crabby.

OY.

We made our way to baggage claim. Collected a bazillion suitcases, 3 carseats, a booster seat and if memory serves, an umbrella stroller. Waddled to the car rental.

THEY WERE OUT OF CARS

Now we wanted to strangle my dad for being cheap. Which he's known for. And proud of. Jeff and I muttering that we should have booked it ourselves through our company discounts...myself being the much bigger brat having been very used to, and spoiled by, corporate rentals and just walking up and getting into my car without even standing in line. But we'd been being cheap too. You get what you pay for sometimes.

OY.

We waited. Sat on the curb while they tried to get a car. Four boys ran like animals around the parking lot and we hoped they wouldn’t get hit…I’m sure we yelled at them but even the memory feels bleary. Jeff and I were the only ones getting a car, Phillip was to be picked up by my other brother, Todd who was then stationed in Alabama and was driving up. He was running late so we told him to just meet us for breakfast.

For some reason, it wasn’t until we’d waited almost an hour and the car arrived (a Taurus if memory serves) that we realized we had a small problem.

There were 7 of us. The car sat 5. We had 3 carseats, a booster and a heck of a lot of luggage.

We decided we didn’t care. Somehow we crammed everyone into that car and took off. How they let us out of there I have no idea. I know I had a kid on my lap, as did my brother and my guess is the older boy was holding a younger one, all in a carseat. We headed to the closest possible place we could find to the airport.

Perkins Cake and Steak.

I’ve always been Perkins fan. So was Phillip. We sang the Halleluiah chorus as we saw that familiar sign and poured out of the rental car like exploding sardines. Todd arrived and the sun seemed to shine. We were in Florida, we were going to eat, all would be well.

Or not.

We must have picked the slowest Perkins in the nation. We ordered rather quickly. And waited. And waited. The place kept filling up. Everyone was at least 60. You know that feeling of being a bug under a microscope? Try sitting in a pancake house full of senior citizens with 4 boys under the age of 7 that haven’t slept in 24 hours. We inhaled our coffee, praying and hoping for refills. Praying and hoping for food too but we could see the kitchen was busy and were understanding. To a point. I think there were tops, 2 servers. Coffee never came. It got to the point where Todd got up, walked next door to Dunkin Donuts, bought 4 coffees and came back. We live in the PNW. We are coffee snobs. We hate Dunkin Donuts. That's how desperate we were.

Still no food.

1 hour after we arrived, so did the food. We’d let the kids choose from the kids menu, clearly not paying attention to what they ordered. Pancakes drowning in whipped cream and chocolate chips.

Oy.

We ate. We walked next door and got MORE coffee.

I don’t think we stopped to breathe.

We tried to pay our bill. The whole process of eating and paying, took another hour.

If there is a hell I think it looks like the MCO Perkins Cake and Steak and it has 4 high on sugar sleep deprived boys in it and surrounded by senior citizens. Two hours of non stop riding the kids so they wouldn’t be obnoxious and I was worn out to my fingertips. On our way out we were stopped by a couple of the senior citizens who complimented us on how well behaved the boys were.

All we could think is that their grandchildren must be horrors. Or my nonstop stage whispers to the kids didn’t register in their hearing aids. I was grateful as truly, they’d been a nightmare the entire time and I really couldn’t blame them.

We landed at 6:30 am.

It was now 11:30. They'd been up since 6:30 am the previous day.

Jeff, myself and the E’s clambered back in the car to head to All Star Music. My brothers and the two boys were headed straight to Kennedy and planned to crash down there and then hit the parks the next day, the opposite of our plan.

I thought they were nuts.

I was also feeling ill, like the trip was already at the edge of a cliff and one more misstep and it could be disastrous. I had high hopes for the trip. High hopes, matched by deep dark fears.

We arrived, assuming we would not be able to check in, thinking we’d go sit by the pool and nap in our clothes. The exterior scared me a little but it was only for one night. I have issues with motel rooms, the whole someone walking by my window thing freaks me out for some reason. The lobby however was cool. And really really RED. And HUGE. Really overwhelmingly huge to me. Because it was EMPTY!

I’d like to say I booked All Star for some deep meaningful reason. Like being close to the parks. Like staying on property and experiencing the magic. Not so. We had no plans to hit the parks, we were assuming it was a lost day. It was cheap, seemed close and so…why not. That was the extent of my research.

No that's not my picture but seriously that's what it looked like.

There was NO line at check in.

And….

We could go straight to the room.

Little miracles can feel REALLY REALLY big sometimes. Because they are.

I think I feel in love. Right then. Right there. I felt, as keenly as you feel these things, that the CM (of course I had no idea they were called CM’s then!) could FEEL how tired, frayed and on the edge of a meltdown I was. That they were making some kind of magical exception just for me. They made me feel that special, right at that moment. It made me BELIEVE.

I have no clue what building we were in, what our room number was only that it required carrying stuff up stairs (another issue I have with motels lol). We went straight to bed. In our clothes. Out COLD.

At 5pm we woke up. Refreshed, energized, EXCITED! It wasn’t really warm enough to swim and besides, we were newly full of life and raring to go. And we had Park Hoppers with more days on it than we could use anyway due to our Kennedy day and our flight home time. For some reason that didn’t hit us as a possibility until we actually got there, that it would be perfectly ok to activate them without the massive clan, we wouldn’t be cheating or anything.

So we went.

Like children, skipping off into the unknown

To a land called MGM

Our lives would never be the same.

Next. Four year old + ToT = ?

 

[KathyRN137]

I like Glad the best!

Wow... what a travel day! That is the travel day story to beat all travel day stories!

Imagine that... you fell in love with Disney!


Kathy

 

[eandesmom]

I like Glad the best!

Wow... what a travel day! That is the travel day story to beat all travel day stories!

Imagine that... you fell in love with Disney!


Kathy

I like glad the best too!

I was always in like. But in that moment, in that weird shiny red lobby...the magic overtook me and it did become...

love.

Or as Jeff would probably put it...

the beginning of my assimilation

and boy did I fall hard. Fast.