~~~ May 16, 2009 ~~~ Western Magic ~~~

[Nik's Mom]

Yes, I second that. DH and my brother-in-law did this a few times because they wanted to try 2 different entree's. The servers are wonderful!

By the way, we moved to Kansas over the weekend! It was so sad to say goodbye to friends and family, but I'm looking forward to a better life here in Overland Park!

 

[lizzyb]

We are cruising too. This will be our first cruise. I need to start planning

 

[Hudson5&Lennon3]

to the group! YAY! We're growing so fast!

I see you're taking another Disney vacation in a couple months! How exciting!

If you want any info added to post #1, you can PM me or post it here, and I'll transfer it to the list.

 

[Hudson5&Lennon3]

Sherry--how's the "new life" in OP, KS? I hope the move went well for you and your family. We'll be going to KC in a few months for a little getaway, and I remember you mentioning the dinosaur restaurant there. I'm thinking we'd like to check that out while we're there, too, so I was wondering what the name of it is so I can get more info about it. Thanks so much! That will probably be the only meal of the entire trip that won't be BBQ. DH is a grill enthusiast and loves to cook low-n-slow, so he's anxious to taste the "real" KC BBQ way.

Actually DH just told me this morning that my Mother's Day present is tickets to the American Idol concert in KC in late August, so I'll be going back there with a friend a couple weeks later. (Yes, I'm a BIG Idol fan. GO DAVID COOK!!!) I went to last year's concert in Omaha and had such a good time. Blake was AWESOME!

Well, I hope all the moms are having an AMAZING Mother's Day!!!!!

 

[lizzyb]

to the group! YAY! We're growing so fast!

I see you're taking another Disney vacation in a couple months! How exciting!

If you want any info added to post #1, you can PM me or post it here, and I'll transfer it to the list.

Thanks for the warm welcome.

DH and I will be travelling with our 2 boys who will be 2(almost 3) and 6 then. We are staying on deck 6 and have the early dinner.

 

[Nik's Mom]

Hudson5&Lennon3,
Yes, you must try T Rex Cafe! It's a great family restaurant.
We are still unpacking, if you can believe it. We moved in to the house last week after spending a few days at the Great Wolf Lodge just outside of Kansas City. The kids had a great time! Our moving truck didn't arrive until Saturday, so we spent Mother's Day unpacking. We were so eager to get our house set up! I'm just hooking up my computer to the internet today!

So far, we love Overland Park. The tornado alarm went off last week, but it turned out to be a false alarm. How nerve-racking though!

The best part about being in Kansas is that it is a much shorter flight to WDW!

lizzyb, Welcom to our group! You guys will have a blast! Cruising is so much fun. We did the 4 night cruise last year, but found that we didn't have enough time to enjoy the ship. That's why we are doing a longer cruise this time.

 

[Nik's Mom]

Oh, it just occured to me that the cruise is almost a year away now! It's getting closer!

 

[lizzyb]

Hudson5&Lennon3,
Yes, you must try T Rex Cafe! It's a great family restaurant.
We are still unpacking, if you can believe it. We moved in to the house last week after spending a few days at the Great Wolf Lodge just outside of Kansas City. The kids had a great time! Our moving truck didn't arrive until Saturday, so we spent Mother's Day unpacking. We were so eager to get our house set up! I'm just hooking up my computer to the internet today!

So far, we love Overland Park. The tornado alarm went off last week, but it turned out to be a false alarm. How nerve-racking though!

The best part about being in Kansas is that it is a much shorter flight to WDW!

lizzyb, Welcom to our group! You guys will have a blast! Cruising is so much fun. We did the 4 night cruise last year, but found that we didn't have enough time to enjoy the ship. That's why we are doing a longer cruise this time.

Thank you. We are really looking forward to it.

 

[starlawyermom]

Hi - I have been reading the forum posts and notice that Palo has been getting mixed reviews. Any thoughts? 15 bucks is no big deal (esp where I come from - $15 will only get you a glass of wine at a fine dining establishment in Boston!). I can handle mediocre food for $15 per person (have had worse and paid gads more), but it sounds like the dining experience is more than just the food: ie., no kids, a little more formal, nice views....anyone?

 

[Hudson5&Lennon3]

Hudson5&Lennon3,
Yes, you must try T Rex Cafe! It's a great family restaurant.
We are still unpacking, if you can believe it. We moved in to the house last week after spending a few days at the Great Wolf Lodge just outside of Kansas City. The kids had a great time!

We're excited for the T Rex Cafe and GWL! We'll also be going to a Royals game and WoF/OoF. DH and his business partners are celebrating their 30th anniversary of the company and are giving every family a night in a hotel, tix for WoF/OoF, a celebration meal, and some spending (or gas!) money, so we're pretty excited about going! Then 2 weeks later, a friend and I will be going back to KC for the Idol concert. I wish I could've been there a couple days ago for David Cook's homecoming trip!

The tornado alarm went off last week, but it turned out to be a false alarm. How nerve-racking though!

Unfortunately, that's part of living in "Tornado Alley." (Have you learned all the "safety rules" of tornadoes yet?) You'll get used to it, but it's still scary when it happens. Our friends who used to live in SoCal have now become "storm chasers" because they are so intrigued by the constantly changing weather. Our city had some pretty ferocious tornadoes (7 of them, actually!) one night in 1980. I was just a wee one at the time, but I still remember that night and how it really destroyed a lot of our town. Some parts of it have just finally been rebuilt in the last couple years.

The best part about being in Kansas is that it is a much shorter flight to WDW!

We're thinking maybe we'll book a flight directly from our city to KC and then on to MCO. Ours is just a small airport, so we've never done that before, but we're getting a new air carrier this summer who will offer $59 flights from GI to KC! The price of a tank of gas to get to the Omaha airport and parking there for more than a week would cost us more than that! Maybe we'll be on the same flight as you out of KC! What are the chances of that?!?!

Oh, it just occured to me that the cruise is almost a year away now! It's getting closer!

We'll be leaving one year from today! YIPEEEEE!

Hi - I have been reading the forum posts and notice that Palo has been getting mixed reviews. Any thoughts? 15 bucks is no big deal (esp where I come from - $15 will only get you a glass of wine at a fine dining establishment in Boston!). I can handle mediocre food for $15 per person (have had worse and paid gads more), but it sounds like the dining experience is more than just the food: ie., no kids, a little more formal, nice views....anyone?

We LOVED Palo!!! And all the other food on DCL! I haven't been to the main forum for awhile, but there's always people there that have their own opinions and don't think the food on DCL is all that great. I think it just depends on where you come from and what you're used to. Unfortunately, we come from a town of chain restaurants--Applebee's, Carlos O'Kelly, Red Lobster, etc. People around here think those are the best restaurants around when, at the same time, many very nice, upscale, locally owned restaurants can't stay in business because they aren't names that everyone knows. (Sorry for the rant--I'm a little peeved by it!) Anyway, back to the question...We thought our Palo meal was definitely worth it! We had the brunch, too, and really enjoyed that, but we're not fans of eating that much so early in the day. We were ready for a nap instead of KW! We'll definitely do dinner again. I had the filet mignon and something like prosciutto alfredo (I know it had a different name, but I can't find the Palo menu right now), and I'll definitely be ordering that again! The brunch had a lot of seafood, which I'm not a fan of, so we're not sure yet if we'll do that again, but the pizza at brunch was WONDERFUL! I think they have it at dinner, too, but I'm not certain. We had dinner there on our 10th anniversary, so it was a special night for us anyway (DH surprised me with a BEAUTIFUL ring, too!!!!!), but it really was nice to have at least one meal without the kids, even though they slept through most of the other dinners anyway!

Just think of it this way...if you're willing to pay the extra $ for it, at least try it once. Then you'll know if you want to do it again when you go back (because you will be rebooking on board, I guarantee it!! ) And if you time your ressies right, you can always go eat at your regular dining time if you don't like your Palo meal. Believe me, you won't go hungry on DCL!

Any other opinions for starlawyermom?

 

[Nik's Mom]

We enjoyed Palo. We had the brunch. It gave us an opportunity to have some time to ourselves without the kids.

 

[starlawyermom]

Thanks for your input. I view food as a very personal thing - what might be yummy to me may be "gross" to someone else. For 15 bucks, its worth it in my opinion -
Hoping that we all meet on the cruise, I was thinking we could share some things about ourselves - and if people choose not to so so, we all understand, right? I am a lawyer = have been practicing law for 18 years. I worked for the same law firm in Boston for 17 years (about 250 lawyers in MA, CT, FL and NYC). Left the big bad city in 9/07 to join a 3 person law firm 6 miles from home (I only live 22 miles from dowtown Boston, but there is very bad traffic in rush hour) - a huge change, but so worth it. The 3-4 hour daily commute round trip was hell and with my husband travelling almost weekly in his new position, being a virtually single mom with the stress of the commute and life in a big law firm was not a good thing for anyone. I now get the kids off to school (I said "so long" to the full-time nanny), drive 10 minutes to work and instead of wearing suits to work, I wear jeans (unless I am in court or meeting with clients!). We love living here in the Northeast (no tornados, but plenty of snow!) - I grew up in the next town over from where we live and now that I am truly a "local" again, I have been getting reacquainted with old friends in the community who have stayed here as well. We love the outdoors as a family (as I write this I am sitting on my deck and just finished planting about 100 flowers!). My hobbies include cooking (I am addicted to the food channel and I collect cookbooks!), needlepoint and skiing (snow, that is).
Cheers!

 

[Nik's Mom]

starlawyermom,
I think that's a great idea! Here's my short history...

DH and I have been married since 1996. We met while in College. We have 2 sons (age 9 and 6). As some of you know, our children are both high functioning autistic. DH is an Engineer. I was a Financial Aid Advisor at a University in California. I saw was because we just reolcated from California to Kansas 2 weeks ago. DH has worked for the same company for about 10 years. Recently, they offered him the opportunity to transfer to Kansas. We took the leap and went for it. So far, so good.

Kansas seems like a much better place to raise our family. I've been pretty busy getting us unpacked and trying to get the kids to adjust. I'm now a stay-at-home Mom. Boy, that is hard work, but very rewarding. I do miss my students back at the University though. They were kind of like my kids too.

We are WDW fans. We took our first trip on our honeymoom and have been hooked ever since. 2007 was our first cruise though. Now we are hooked on that!

 

[Hudson5&Lennon3]

I think it's a great idea, too! On our last cruise, we all posted family pictures so that we could recognize each other right away in the terminal, at the first DIS meet, and just along the way. We really did run into the DIS people quite a bit and even scheduled some events together--margarita tasting, beer tasting, wine tasting (we don't drink wine, though). I had some people recognize me from my posted pics who were just lurkers and had never even posted on the thread!! We also linked our ressies so that we could be sat at the same table or at least near each other for both the early and late dining groups. We had requested APL rotation for our late dining with probably at least 5 other families, and we were all right together. Our family had a table just for 4, though, so we didn't get to "bond" like some of the other families did. There was also a group of early dining families that were linked and were sat together, too. Maybe keep that in mind if anyone wants to do it. DH thought it was weird at first and didn't want to "meet" anyone else and feel obligated to do stuff together, but it wasn't like that at all! We did schedule an excursion with 3 other families (Cap'n Marvin's on GC), but other than that, we all went our separate ways and did things with our own families. If we happened to be in the same place at the same time, GREAT! At least we had someone else to talk to that we "knew."

Here's some scoop on us. We celebrated our 10th anniversary last April on the Magic, but we dated for 7 years before we even got married (I was still in high school, and DH was just out of college when we started dating). We were both born and raised right here in Grand Island, Nebraska (just under 50,000 people), and we'll probably never leave. I own a medical transcription service and work at home for the last 10 years. I also just recently signed up as a Mary Kay consultant about three weeks ago so I can get my stuff at a discount and maybe make some money in the process. DH is 1 of 5 partners at a tool & die shop and does designing, engineering, and production of metal stamping dies, etc., and the company also designs and builds plastic injection molds. DH & his partners slowly bought out the original owners starting in 1999, and they did the last of the buyout about 2 1/2 years ago--a week after DH had a kidney removed due to cancer. (His 35th birthday present was the cancer diagnosis, but he's doing great and has had no recurrence. He's a SURVIVOR!!!) He started out sweeping the floors at the shop on weekends while he was in college and worked his way up when he was offered the incredible opportunity of the buyout. Our boys are 6 & 4. Hudson's last day of kindergarten was yesterday, and Lennon finished his MWF preschool on Wednesday. He'll turn 5 in August and could go to kindergarten in the fall, but Hudson had such a great experience with the preschool's Monday through Friday program that we would like Lennon to do it, too. They both got awards this week for perfect attendance at school this year, which is why I'm so bummed about having to take Hudson out of school for the cruise, which I thought I had planned around the last day of school, but they're extending the dismissal date a few days next year for some reason and have spoiled my "perfect" plan. I do a lot of activities with the kids' schools--driving for field trips, helping with special activities, room parent for holiday parties, etc., but my main "hobby" is TV. I'm an addict! Tivo is the BEST INVENTION EVER! I like to cook, too, when I have the time, and I'm pretty new to flowers. We put in landscaping about 3 years ago after we built our house, and I definitely don't have a green thumb. I can't figure out why some things aren't surviving. Maybe starlawyermom can give me some pointerss! Justin is pretty busy with his hobbies. He loves music, electronics, and motorcycles. He's a DIY guy that builds almost everything that he can from his own audio equipment to a custom motorcycle that he just finished in Janurary (it's sweeeeeet!). Hudson's hobbies are Wii and computer games. Lennon loves his bike and his new scooter--and helping with anything he can (especially cooking with me and helping Justin in the garage). I'll post some pics of us when I get on my other computer.

It sounds like big changes were all for the better for Sherry (Nik's Mom) and starlawyermom and your families! What great stories you have!!!

Here's our formal night last year outside the Walt Disney Theater. DH & I haven't changed, so maybe tomorrow I'll find some good photos of the boys that are more recent.

Here's the boys and their favorite stuffed "friends." Hudson is on the left, and Lennon is on the right.

 

[starlawyermom]

Well, it sounds like we come from all different walks of life from big city to small town!

Can anyone explain how to post a picture? I'd love to send one of my girls. Loved seeing the ones you sent!

 

[Hudson5&Lennon3]

I'm going to try to find a post from my previous cruise's thread that had it all listed out very well. You'll need to set up a free photobucket account first (if you don't have one already). The instructions looked pretty overwhelming at first, but it really is very easy!

Here's a link to that post.
http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=17171429&postcount=394
Hope it helps! Can't wait to "see ya!"

 

[starlawyermom]

Thanks! Let's see if I can do this...

Here are my two girls at Fenway Park last summer (they had an open day at the park for families of my Boston-based law school and other alums of the University). My oldest is a huge Boston Red Sox fan already and we have to fight to get her to bed on late-night game days! They were sitting just on top of the "Green Monster" - Those of you who know Fenway or follow the Red Sox will know what part of the field this is. Also, a photo from a ski weekend this past winter!

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[Hudson5&Lennon3]

starlawyermom--GREAT pics! They're so cute! It wasn't too hard to post them, was it?

Sherry--have you had much time to shop in/around KC yet? My friend & I are planning our Idol concert visit, and we want to do some shopping, too. I've found about 7 malls to pick from that we might want to go to, and we're thinking we might stay at Hampton Inn in either Overland Park or Merriam since they're close to Oak Park Mall. We'd also like to check out Country Club Plaza. Zona Rosa looks pretty neat, too. Do you have any suggestions?

 

[Nik's Mom]

Hi Hudson5&Lennon3,

I really haven't ventured out too much. We did visit the Union Station area. It's mostly museums though. We walked around Crown Center. I wouldn't waste my time there, although I don't see it on your list. We liked Country Club Plaza. It has plenty of shops and some interesting architecture around it. I haven't tried Zona Rosa, but I've heard good things

Today we were at the Sprint Center and the Power and Light District is right across the street. People seemed to be having a good time over there. It looks like lots of shops and restaurants.

I've walked around Town Center Plaza in Leawood, but only because it's the closest mall to my house. They have a William Sonoma there! They also have a Macy's Pottery Barn, Vera Bradley, Gap, Banana Republic, Bath and Body works...

As for Oak Park Mall, I've never been. I did hear that a woman was kidnapped from the Target right behind the mall. She was murdered. Poor thing. Her Parents were just on the news last week to talk because it was the one year anniversary. I have a friend who goes to that mall all of the time though and she says she feels very safe.

I can suggest a nice hotel in Overland Park. When we made our many visits here to research the area, we stayed at Holtz Executive Suites. It's not too far from the freeway. They have reasonably priced one bedroom suites, as well as standard rooms. Breakfast is free in the morning too. We stayed at the Marriot in Overland Park once, but it is being remodeled.

Oh, another shopping area is Legends. It's just outside of Kansas City. That's where the T Rex cafe is. I'll see what else I can find out for you.

 

[lizzyb]

Hello everyone.

IS everyone getting excited. I cannot wait. I will be getting more into our planning after our WDW trip.