Make-A-Wish, GKTW, Disney...Catherine's wish...5/17/10-5/23/10**UPDATED 8/2/10 pg. 6!

[mebbradley]

It sounds like you guys are having a great start to your trip!

I'm from Maryland too! The eastern shore

 

[twob4him]

T-Rex and DTD is a great start to the vacation!!! Yaaa!!! Glad check in went smoothly. How nice to return to a villa rather than a hotel room! Worlds apart!!!

 

[lorli]

What a great start to your trip, can't wait to read more.

 

[disneymomof1]

Love the report so far. GKTW looks like such an awesome place !!!

 

[jessica52877]

Downtown disney is one of my favorite places to go! The beach house is a great choice! Dallas just legos and well, so do I, so he has quite the collection. I might just like them more then him sometimes.

The ice cream sounds so yummy! I am dying for a Friendly's sundae too. The closest one is probably in Orlando though! Doubt I'll be getting one any time soon.

Can't wait for more. I am enjoying your TR so much!

 

[Disfan3]

Very cute!! I love your TR!! Great read with nice pics!!

 

[javamom]

Enjoying your report. My youngest is a "heart kid" too. He had surgery when he was a week old, but is doing great. He has a valve defect, and a damaged valve. Hopefully, though he won't need any further surgeries until he is much older. We just have to wait and see.

GKTW sounds fantastic!

 

[wishin' on a star]

What a great day you had. Love DTD so much to do down there. Can't wait to read about your first disney day. What park did you go to? I know I have to wait and see. LOL Hope the kids are feeling better soon.

We had a lot of marathon days, so much more to come! Everyone is well now, thank you!

Sounds like a great travelling day. Your first bit of magic was at T rex

We really felt like there was magic everywhere. Just having the button and the green light GAC made such a difference!

It sounds like you guys are having a great start to your trip!

I'm from Maryland too! The eastern shore

T-Rex and DTD is a great start to the vacation!!! Yaaa!!! Glad check in went smoothly. How nice to return to a villa rather than a hotel room! Worlds apart!!!

The villas at GKTW are amazing. And so incredible that most everything there is just donated by so many companies.

What a great start to your trip, can't wait to read more.

Thanks for following along!

Love the report so far. GKTW looks like such an awesome place !!!

It is!

Downtown disney is one of my favorite places to go! The beach house is a great choice! Dallas just legos and well, so do I, so he has quite the collection. I might just like them more then him sometimes.

The ice cream sounds so yummy! I am dying for a Friendly's sundae too. The closest one is probably in Orlando though! Doubt I'll be getting one any time soon.

Can't wait for more. I am enjoying your TR so much!

Thanks Jessica! DH is the lego man in our house...when something goes awry in lego land, I have to defer to Daddy!

The ice cream palace was definitely one of the most popular spots at GKTW!! And the M&M's and whipped cream were the favorite toppings for my kids!

Very cute!! I love your TR!! Great read with nice pics!!

Thanks for reading!!

Enjoying your report. My youngest is a "heart kid" too. He had surgery when he was a week old, but is doing great. He has a valve defect, and a damaged valve. Hopefully, though he won't need any further surgeries until he is much older. We just have to wait and see.

GKTW sounds fantastic!

I am glad you are following along. I'm sorry your son needed heart surgery. The unknown is so scary for us, but we just have to wait and see, like you said. For today, we are great.

 

[wishin' on a star]

Today is a big day...Catherine has kindergarten graduation. My kids go to a catholic school, and so graduation is a mass. Catherine is doing a big reading during church this morning. She'll be reading in front of the whole school and all the parents! Wish her luck!

 

[cajunfan]

Good Luck Miss Catherine!

Wow that is a big honor! My son (16yr old) goes to Catholic school too, so I know what a big deal that is!

Can't wait to hear more about the trip. It's been great so far! McD's made me laugh. We always fly SWA too, and we know where every one is between here and all the Disney properties (we used to know where every fry cart was in the parks, but it appears that those are disappearing...I don't know what my son is going to do the next time we go down there.

Lynn

 

[howlongtildisney]

I happened upon your TR yesterday and decided to subscribe. Then, I was checking out another TR written by TigerLaw. Look what I found!

Here are a few pics from our Tuesday night at Epcot:

That's Mary Poppins with your two little girls isn't it?

 

[wishin' on a star]

I happened upon your TR yesterday and decided to subscribe. Then, I was checking out another TR written by TigerLaw. Look what I found!



That's Mary Poppins with your two little girls isn't it?

OMG...it is! I just posted on his TR! Too funny!!

 

[cydswipe]

OMG...it is! I just posted on his TR! Too funny!!

OMG! I LOVE Seeing big sis' top "in action"

Monica from Big GIve!

 

[TigerLaw]

OMG...it is! I just posted on his TR! Too funny!!

How awesome is that! here is a link to the full picture in case you want it:

http://travel.webshots.com/photo/2964418290101338200SpKCHn

 

[casper_jj11]

Subbing! Just read your PTR and can't wait to hear how the full trip went.

 

[jenb1023]

I'm finally catching up on my PTRs/TRs. I can't wait to read about the rest of the trip and to see all of those great Big Give clothes in action! Take your time - we will be here!

 

[wishin' on a star]

First of all, my apologies for taking so long to get back here. The kids finished school in grand fashion, and the following week spread strep and a stomach bug through the house. Catherine is just finishing up her antibiotics now....but still complaining of a sore throat, so we'll see how the week goes. I also had some issues getting my photopass pics uploaded to PB, but I think I've got a system down now. Everyone is home this week, and we're headed up to Rochester, NY to visit Dave's family on Thursday for the long weekend.
I'm going to work really hard to get this installment done. At a minimum...lots of pictures for you!!


So, it's Tuesday. We started the day with breakfast at the Gingerbread House.

(GKTW stock photos)

This was our first meal there. I wish I would have pulled my camera out and taken pictures of the food... but it's a really nice buffet. The GB house is run by Perkins, and we loved starting our day off here with a nice hot breakfast. The southwest eggs were to die for! They always had pancakes, sausage, bacon, biscuits and gravy, lots of fruit, cereal, waffles to order, and a pastry/doughnut cart as well. Angel volunteers would carry your filled tray to a table. Everything in the GB house is kid sized, including the tables and chairs. We always left with a few pieces of fresh fruit for the backpack and the villa.

After breakfast, we headed over for our first ride on the carousel.

Katie (The Lurker) was volunteering this morning, and picked the girls out by their customs right away!! They thought it was so cool to be recognized from the Big Give, and I did too!! Why didn't I ask you to take a picture, Katie?!

We headed over to the Castle of Miracles next, as we heard that Diego was there. My kids are not real big into Diego anymore, so this was not a big deal for them. This picture is on my GKTW CD, but I don't have that handy, so this will have to do for now!

So, we headed back to the villa to get on our way...first stop: Epcot!

 

[goofy's_gurl]

The GKTW looks soooo beautiful!!!!

 

[wishin' on a star]

We found the parking to be fantastic at every park we went to. Once you get through the gate, stop and show the parking attendant your GKTW button and let them know you are a wish family. They were so good about directing us to very close parking.

We had lingered at GKTW longer than we anticipated, so our friends were already at Epcot when we arrived. As a result, we never stopped to have an obligatory photo done at the entrance. This would prove to be an ongoing theme at most every park for us...and one that I wish I could do over now!

We headed over to grab a stroller. We opted for a double, which worked great for us. None of our kids are nappers, and really just needed a cool place to hang out and rest periodically during the day. I can see where a better stroller would be imperative if you have napper, though!

George and Sheryl and the kids were over at The Seas, so we went that way. They were just coming out as we were going in, they headed over to ride TT, while we did the Nemo ride (no line, walked right on), Turtle Talk with Crush (fun!), and explored the aquariums a bit.

We headed to Soarin' next. John was adamant about not riding, so Dave waited for George and Sheryl while the girls and I headed in. The button got us in the fastpass line, which was probably still a 20 minute wait. I bet this is the longest we waited for any ride the whole week. I wasn't sure what to expect, but all three of us LOVED Soarin'! Catherine still says it was one of her most favorite rides. While we were on Soarin', the rest of the group rode on the The Land boat ride. We met up, and then had lunch at the Sunshine Season Food Fair on the first floor of The Land. It was a food court of sorts with lots of good choices. The kids had some rotisserie chicken and mac and cheese and I had a grilled veggie sandwich.

After lunch, Dave and Carmella went with George and Sheryl on Soarin'...they had a FP and it was time. I took Catherine and John on The Land boat ride.

We all met up again, and headed to the Imagination! Pavilion and rode the Figment ride and explored in there, before we all decided to split up for a bit.

We wanted to do TT, and George and Sheryl had already used their FP for that. We started to head towards TT...but ended up making a detour at the Character Spot and met the Fab 5!! This was our first Disney character greeting, and it didn't disappoint. We weren't quite sure how the button would work for this, but we just asked the first CM we saw, and we were escorted right to the front.

Everyone looks like they're falling over in this one!

Minnie was delighted to see the girls, and compared outfits!

She was taking a while to sign autographs...

...and Donald was anxious to meet us!

Just Minnie and the kids

With Minnie and Donald!

Finally Donald gets his turn!

And last, but definitely not least...Goofy!

Donald getting in on the action again! The kids thought it was hilarious how Donald kept following them through the character line. It was definitely a bit of a magical moment!

Next up, Test Track. Everyone was certain they wanted to try this ride. We probably waited for about 15 minutes in the FP line. I think it was a little faster than Catherine anticipated, but she came through it like a trooper!

We were hot now. It was mid-afternoon, and getting close to time for a meltdown. AKA...SNACKTIME! Dave took Catherine and John for an ice cream, while Carmella and I met up with everyone else in Innoventions. She and Austin created their own roller coaster and rode it in a robotic simulator. Very cool. The kids also did some recycling activities in here, and we watched a movie about electricity. We didn't do everything in this building, but it will definitely be a stop for our next trip. For some reason, my camera didn't make it out of my pocket for this part of the day! Or perhaps, Dave had it with him!

We all decided to finish Future World and get ready to head over to the World Showcase. We did Spaceship Earth and started our trek over.

 

[ellenbenny]

First of all, my apologies for taking so long to get back here. The kids finished school in grand fashion, and the following week spread strep and a stomach bug through the house. Catherine is just finishing up her antibiotics now....but still complaining of a sore throat, so we'll see how the week goes. I also had some issues getting my photopass pics uploaded to PB, but I think I've got a system down now. Everyone is home this week, and we're headed up to Rochester, NY to visit Dave's family on Thursday for the long weekend.
I'm going to work really hard to get this installment done. At a minimum...lots of pictures for you!!

So, we headed back to the villa to get on our way...first stop: Epcot![/SIZE][/COLOR]

Yay, I am so glad you are back to posting! I love seeing the kids in all fo their customs. I sure hope everyone is feeling better and no more sickness! And welcome to Rochester this weekend... I sure hope we have good weather for you!

Ellen