May 2011 Yo Ho Ho! Let Down Your Hair! (New 10/9 Lessons Learned #550)

I'm joining LeeLee in better late than never club! I just read your whole PTR and am amazed at how creative you are! I love dinner themes! The girls are growing up so fast!

Can't wait to follow along! :yay:
 
I have only made it Through page 8 but just saw your posting about your Daisy troop and had to tell you that we live in the same town. I wondered when you posted you lived by the Dulles airport but then saw the link about the Daisy troop.

Also we took the Autotrain in 2008 and my son loved it. We only had one child at the time so we got a roomette.

So howdy neighbor! Now I am going to go back and finish reading.
 
Doing a little trip report pimping. I just started my new report and thought I would let you know. :goodvibes Make sure to post a link when you start yours!

Feeling Hot Hot Hot! The Rain Curse is Broken! Two Weeks of Fun in the Sun!

I joined in and will read up soon. Still working on my photos from Photopass...only 5 more to go!!!


I'm joining LeeLee in better late than never club! I just read your whole PTR and am amazed at how creative you are! I love dinner themes! The girls are growing up so fast!

Can't wait to follow along! :yay:

Thanks for joining!! and the compliments. We really enjoy the disney days prior to our trip. It really does bring the magic home.


I have only made it Through page 8 but just saw your posting about your Daisy troop and had to tell you that we live in the same town. I wondered when you posted you lived by the Dulles airport but then saw the link about the Daisy troop.

Also we took the Autotrain in 2008 and my son loved it. We only had one child at the time so we got a roomette.

So howdy neighbor! Now I am going to go back and finish reading.

HI neighbor!! Are you in the Farm? Do you do Girl Scouts, too?

Welcome to my TR.

We went to the community's pool today and I was fearing icy cold water like it typically has been in the past -- nope!! The water felt wonderful. So something really positive for all this darn hot weather!! Feels like August and it's not even June.

Glad you enjoyed the train ... or rather your son did. We'll hopefully take the train more now. Also, I found out my MasterCard points can be traded for Autotrain points, so I think I'll start using that card more.
 

Glad to report that I got through all my photopass pictures and now there are (only) 603 pics!!!! I started with 200+ and just went crazy making borders, cropping, etc.

I'll review them tomorrow and hopefully then can send them away to Disney and start working on this TR and my own photos.

But now I need a break...going to watch "I am #4"

Rachel did confirm her 6th Birthday party theme -- she will be Rapunzel and the other girls will be Disney princesses. So now we have to start working on that, too. If everyone shows up we'll have 8 girls, 10 including my own. Rachel wants us to assign Disney names to everyone so we'll be doing some princesses and maybe even some fairies too.
 
Rachel did confirm her 6th Birthday party theme -- she will be Rapunzel and the other girls will be Disney princesses. So now we have to start working on that, too. If everyone shows up we'll have 8 girls, 10 including my own. Rachel wants us to assign Disney names to everyone so we'll be doing some princesses and maybe even some fairies too.

That sounds like a really neat theme! Should be fun to plan.
 
Glad to report that I got through all my photopass pictures and now there are (only) 603 pics!!!! I started with 200+ and just went crazy making borders, cropping, etc.

I'll review them tomorrow and hopefully then can send them away to Disney and start working on this TR and my own photos.

But now I need a break...going to watch "I am #4"

Rachel did confirm her 6th Birthday party theme -- she will be Rapunzel and the other girls will be Disney princesses. So now we have to start working on that, too. If everyone shows up we'll have 8 girls, 10 including my own. Rachel wants us to assign Disney names to everyone so we'll be doing some princesses and maybe even some fairies too.

oh wow girl. You sure got a lot of pics

I can't wait to see them :thumbsup2

Her party sounds great. I am sure it will be a blast :cutie:
 
Oh Marsha how fun Rachel's party sounds. I can hardly wait to hear all about it.
 
Glad to report that I got through all my photopass pictures and now there are (only) 603 pics!!!! I started with 200+ and just went crazy making borders, cropping, etc.

I'll review them tomorrow and hopefully then can send them away to Disney and start working on this TR and my own photos.

But now I need a break...going to watch "I am #4"

Rachel did confirm her 6th Birthday party theme -- she will be Rapunzel and the other girls will be Disney princesses. So now we have to start working on that, too. If everyone shows up we'll have 8 girls, 10 including my own. Rachel wants us to assign Disney names to everyone so we'll be doing some princesses and maybe even some fairies too.

Love a princess theme! The party sounds so cute! When is her bday?
 

That sounds like a really neat theme! Should be fun to plan.

This is the first year she didn't want to do Mickey mouse!! That's a big change for her. My little girl is growing up....

oh wow girl. You sure got a lot of pics

I can't wait to see them :thumbsup2

Her party sounds great. I am sure it will be a blast :cutie:

Yeah, we tried to do a lot more pictures this time...still didn't get as many as I wanted (I still want to do that balloon trick on main street and stitch coming out of the hole and baby simba, etc).

I'm excited to plan a princess party!!

Oh Marsha how fun Rachel's party sounds. I can hardly wait to hear all about it.

We'll definitely show pictures here!! We went to AC Moore on Monday to see what type of stuff we can do. I think we will decorate your own princess hat with stickers, etc as we wait for everyone to arrive. And Jerry bought Glitter Tattoos so I think we'll do that for the girls, too. But that's all I got so far.

Love a princess theme! The party sounds so cute! When is her bday?

I hope it's cute, too! Rachel and I both share the same birthday -- July 13th! So we'll do her friends party the week before. This will be the first time she's had a friends party. And then we'll still have a family party with my parents and Jerry's family the Saturday after her birthday.

Rachel said -- and what about on July 13th? I told her, yes, Jerry, Elie, you and me will also do something ON your birthday.

So then she says -- so I'm going to have 3 parties??!! Yeah!!!!!

:rotfl2:
 
Yes, I'm now over the Disney blues...excited about getting my photopass pictures done and sharing our trip with all of you! Then I can concentrate on our January trip and see how many points we have left over to plan our next one.

I, too, want to go for the Halloween party. We'ver done the Pirate and Princess and the Christmas one ... just need to do the Halloween party now.

I'm not expecting warm weather for January -- just something better than the cold, dark, dreariness of a Virginia January!! Although another one of my DIS friends just told me that they even did a water park in January...so I guess you never know!

We've always lucked out in January with the weather. It's been in the 70's and even 80's when we were there. This year it was just a bit cooler. I don't think I wore shorts at all, but it was warm enough for swimming, if you are a kid! :laughing: Is it ever too cold for them? It just makes it harder to pack, as you have to take some of everything. Thankfully we've never had the really cool weather that others have gotten, but you are right, it's still better than the weather at home!

We did get to do the Pirate and Princess Party in 2008, but I don't think they've had it when we've gone since then. If they did, I'd totally do it again!
 
We've always lucked out in January with the weather. It's been in the 70's and even 80's when we were there. This year it was just a bit cooler. I don't think I wore shorts at all, but it was warm enough for swimming, if you are a kid! :laughing: Is it ever too cold for them? It just makes it harder to pack, as you have to take some of everything. Thankfully we've never had the really cool weather that others have gotten, but you are right, it's still better than the weather at home!

We did get to do the Pirate and Princess Party in 2008, but I don't think they've had it when we've gone since then. If they did, I'd totally do it again!

Yeah, so glad we are taking the autotrain, so we'll be able to pack a lot -- shorts, jeans, pants, winter jackets, short sleeves, long sleeves, etc. :rotfl2::rotfl:

We did the P&PP in May 2008 -- it was really cool and I wish they would bring it back. This was Rachel (DD5)'s first hard-ticket event. She made it until about 10:30pm-11pm, which was great for an almost 3 year old!!
 
Hey Marsha! Checking back in and looking forward to seeing those Photopass pics! My disk came in on Saturday and I just finished choosing which ones to post - I did the same thing and went crazy with borders :rotfl2:
 
Hey Marsha! Checking back in and looking forward to seeing those Photopass pics! My disk came in on Saturday and I just finished choosing which ones to post - I did the same thing and went crazy with borders :rotfl2:

Yeah!! I can't wait to see your photopass pics, too!!

609 photos later but my CD is ordered!! Now I have to go through my personal photos.

sorry, guys this is taking so long, but I hope to start my TR late next week!
 
Yeah!! I can't wait to see your photopass pics, too!!

609 photos later but my CD is ordered!! Now I have to go through my personal photos.

sorry, guys this is taking so long, but I hope to start my TR late next week!

no worries...:goodvibes
 
Yeah!! I can't wait to see your photopass pics, too!!

609 photos later but my CD is ordered!! Now I have to go through my personal photos.

sorry, guys this is taking so long, but I hope to start my TR late next week!

Yeah, no worries Marsha. We'll be here when you're ready to start rolling with it!
 
HI neighbor!! Are you in the Farm? Do you do Girl Scouts, too?

Welcome to my TR.

We went to the community's pool today and I was fearing icy cold water like it typically has been in the past -- nope!! The water felt wonderful. So something really positive for all this darn hot weather!! Feels like August and it's not even June.

Glad you enjoyed the train ... or rather your son did. We'll hopefully take the train more now. Also, I found out my MasterCard points can be traded for Autotrain points, so I think I'll start using that card more.[/QUOTE]

Yup I live in the Farm as well. No Girl Scouts for us yet as my daughter is only 6 weeks old although I imagine my son will want to
join Boy Scouts when he can. We haven't made it to the pool yet since we just got home from Disney yesterday.
 
Yup I live in the Farm as well. No Girl Scouts for us yet as my daughter is only 6 weeks old although I imagine my son will want to
join Boy Scouts when he can. We haven't made it to the pool yet since we just got home from Disney yesterday.
[/QUOTE]

Small world indeed!!

Welcome back from Disney!! Are you doing a TR? I'd love to join if you do.:thumbsup2
 
So today is Friday, May 13th! Rachel goes to Kindergarten for about 1 hour but that leaves us time to finish packing and load up the SUV. Elizabeth goes down for a quick nap.

Last few trips, Jerry has waited until the night before or morning of to pack...causing us to be later than I want to leave. However, this time Jerry is nearly ready!! Good job, honey!

We leave our house at 12:30pm and the plan is to pick up Rachel at school, get fast food to eat on the way and go to the train station. However, we realize that when I cleaned out the truck, I took the travel trays out and never put them back in. (mistake #1) They are so much easier for the kids to eat off of, so Jerry drops me off at school, goes back for the trays, then heads to McD's. This is prime lunch time (mistake #2) so it takes about 15 minutes to get through the line. I'm not sure where he is and waiting and waiting. It definitely felt much longer! Finally he pulls up and away we go.

We look at our food and see that they gave us 2 extra Happy Meal Toys!! 4 toys altogether -- woo hoo! One extra was one of those little balls where you push a button and it turns into a little animal with cutie pie eyes (Zoobles?). Both Rachel and Elizabeth loved them, so good job McD's! The other was a Batman toy. Rachel declared that we would give the "boy toy" to a boy on the train.

It was then that I started to make a list of "Praises and Prayers". At the end of each day I was going to list all the wonderful praises that God gave us (on Dis we call them pixie dust but I wanted to acknowledge the REAL giver) and also listed the things we needed "prayers" for (guess I could call these the things that went wrong!)

We arrived Lorton, VA train station about 1:45pm or so. Perfect timing. We chose the later dinner service (mistake #3) b/c I thought 5pm was too early, esp since you can eat snacks in the lounge car until 4pm. I didn't want to be all filled up on snacks and not eat our dinner (silly me!)

The movie was also about some guys climbing Mt. Everest. I knew that wouldn't interest my girls so figured it would be better to eat during the movie.

After looking for seats in the waiting area, we see this sign:
DSCN0017.jpg


Cool! Rachel and Elie love watching Disney's Chuggington. How perfect!! Praise to God for having a kiddie play area. We feel like the start of our magical vacation has begun.

The girls are dressed in purple.
DSCN0019.jpg


There were coloring books and crayons ... pillows and a large coloring sheet on the floor...a tv showing CHuggington cartoons ... a train table, etc. My girls thought they were already in Disney!
DSCN0024.jpg


Rachel made a new BFF who was also going to WDW! Isn't it great that kids can make friends so quickly?? What happens when we become adults and it is so much harder? Rachel just goes up to her and says, "hey, want to be my friend?" She said "yes" and away they played!
DSCN0026.jpg
 
I love the play area! I'm sure my boys would too!

Travel trays, I might need to look into these.
 




New Posts









Receive up to $1,000 in Onboard Credit and a Gift Basket!
That’s right — when you book your Disney Cruise with Dreams Unlimited Travel, you’ll receive incredible shipboard credits to spend during your vacation!
CLICK HERE













DIS Facebook DIS youtube DIS Instagram DIS Pinterest DIS Tiktok DIS Twitter DIS Bluesky

Back
Top