Memories of Little Green Men and Sardines (6/8-17, 2010) **FINAL UPDATE 2-25-2011**

[wdwgirl03]

Awesome AKL pictures!! I miss it there.

 

[photographymom517]

OMG!!! Thank you so much for posting the slide show!!! The lodge is beautiful!!! I so can not wait to stay there is Dec. I bet it is even more amazing decorated for Christmas!!!

And yes, I feel that same way after coming home from Disney.... I am dreaming of my next trip as soon as I board the ME bus to the airport!!

Not a problem at all Reese!!! Glad you liked the pictures! I have heard it is absolutely gorgeous at Christmas time! I'd love to see that huge Christmas tree in the lobby!

Last trip, I cried on the way home!!! I don't know how I'll manage to go all summer & fall without Disney! I wish I was there right now!

I like your new plans!! I think giving yourself the weekend to recover before heading back to work sounds like a great idea to me!!

Thanks! It was more of a choice for my husband than for myself...I only babysit part-time, but I still keep plenty busy being a stay-at-home mom! I also do online sales part-time, mostly in the summer. Now I just have to remember to call Disney & change our dates!

Awesome AKL pictures!! I miss it there.

Thank you...I'm glad you enjoyed the pictures!!! I miss it too!!! I used to go on vacation at least once a year with my parents. We'd usually just do weekend trip or like 3-4 days in the summer so I was constantly staying in different hotels/condos...but I've never in my entire life stayed anywhere as gorgeous as Disney property!!! I'm sure all the resorts in the Orlando/Lake Buena Vista area are amazing, but nothing tops Disney IMO.

I cannot wait until December!!!

 

[DevonsDisneyMom]

Not a problem at all Reese!!! Glad you liked the pictures! I have heard it is absolutely gorgeous at Christmas time! I'd love to see that huge Christmas tree in the lobby!

Last trip, I cried on the way home!!! I don't know how I'll manage to go all summer & fall without Disney! I wish I was there right now!

Oh me too!!! After the day I had I totally wish I was in Disney right now... The sad part is, its only been like 6 months since I been there!

Can you say obsession. LOL!!! Yes, I know WL is amazing during Christmas time, and I bet AKL will be just as beautiful! Hey is it December yet???

 

[ForTheLoveOfDCL]

Oh I can't wait, December I hope comes fast , though I don't want snow again yet...LOL

DevonsDisneyMom----we aren't obsessed just excited....LOL

 

[photographymom517]

Oh me too!!! After the day I had I totally wish I was in Disney right now... The sad part is, its only been like 6 months since I been there!

Can you say obsession. LOL!!! Yes, I know WL is amazing during Christmas time, and I bet AKL will be just as beautiful! Hey is it December yet???

Hey Reese, hope you are having a better day!

I soooo wish I was there right now too...doesn't help that I know a ton of people down there, so I am constantly hearing about & seeing pics of the gorgeous weather they have all year!

Do you know that I have family that lives down there & they actually come up to PA for the winter?!?!? I don't understand it at all...I told them we should trade houses for a few months!

I cannot wait to see the Christmas decor...at the parks & the resorts!

Oh I can't wait, December I hope comes fast , though I don't want snow again yet...LOL

DevonsDisneyMom----we aren't obsessed just excited....LOL

I know what you mean Michelle! I want it to be December sooo badly so we can leave for our trip! I am NOT looking forward to the snow either! We got hit so hard this past winter...now I'm afraid for what next winter will bring!

This 10 day trip will be our longest vacation ever, so I think I'm more excited this year than ever! We also have more "free time" on this trip so I'll actually be able to enjoy the resort...we missed out on that last trip. We also missed alot in the parks (we only had 3 days last trip). I was going through my "Birnbaum Guides Walt Disney World for Kids" last night making a list of all the attractions, rides, shows, etc. at each park...I cannot believe how much we missed out on! This year, I'm going prepared! LOL

Oh, and I'm not so sure about not being obsessed...lol...I think I seriously am!!! But I love it & enjoy it so thats all that matters! I think planning makes the trip more enjoyable for me because its like I've been "living my trip" for the past year before even arriving at Disney!

 

[DevonsDisneyMom]

Hey Reese, hope you are having a better day!

I soooo wish I was there right now too...doesn't help that I know a ton of people down there, so I am constantly hearing about & seeing pics of the gorgeous weather they have all year!

Do you know that I have family that lives down there & they actually come up to PA for the winter?!?!? I don't understand it at all...I told them we should trade houses for a few months!

I cannot wait to see the Christmas decor...at the parks & the resorts!

Thanks Girl!!! Day is going a better then yesterday, but then again its still early!!

Ugh, I know... I know so many people down there too... Matter to fact, I am driving Devon to school today, he lets out a big sigh and goes, I wish we were on our way to the airport going to Disney right now! All I could say was me too bud... Me too!

 

[ForTheLoveOfDCL]

I just had to tell you girls that I am so obsessed with Disney that I have my girls trained to find hidden Mickey's in EVERYTHING!!! They are so cute. Everyone here thinks i am weirdo Disney person. I guess since my family room is painted in Mickey's colors(red, yellow, white and black) and prints all over my house. My license plates say something disney, I have the disney attenna thing and disney family pic on the back windsheild. Also working on my second mickey tatoo. Yeah I am obsessed!

Well I hope you guys are having a good day! I better get back to work! TTFN

 

[Mombits]

Just found your PTR, gonna try to get caught up.

 

[MPS516]

CONGRATULATIONS !

I wish for you a permanent remission.

 

[photographymom517]

Thanks Girl!!! Day is going a better then yesterday, but then again its still early!!

Ugh, I know... I know so many people down there too... Matter to fact, I am driving Devon to school today, he lets out a big sigh and goes, I wish we were on our way to the airport going to Disney right now! All I could say was me too bud... Me too!

Reese, glad you had a better day!

I had an awful day on Wednesday & to make things worse, that evening I decided I would just get online & spend some time researching Disney...I thought it would cheer me up...well, my internet just stopped working!!!! So I haven't been online or on DIS. Time to catch up now!

I will give you credit...I bet it was soooo hard not to tell Devon when he mentioned Disney to you on the way to school!!! Way to go for keeping the secret!! He will be thrilled once he finds out!

I just had to tell you girls that I am so obsessed with Disney that I have my girls trained to find hidden Mickey's in EVERYTHING!!! They are so cute. Everyone here thinks i am weirdo Disney person. I guess since my family room is painted in Mickey's colors(red, yellow, white and black) and prints all over my house. My license plates say something disney, I have the disney attenna thing and disney family pic on the back windsheild. Also working on my second mickey tatoo. Yeah I am obsessed!

Well I hope you guys are having a good day! I better get back to work! TTFN

That is so funny that you taught your daughters to find Hidden Mickey's everywhere. I was outside the other evening & found one! For some reason, no one else saw it but me, but I insist it was there!

I love the idea of your family room! I am slowly redoing my craft room/office area into a Disney theme. Its very hard to plan because the room is tiny...I think its 6' x 9' maybe smaller??? Originally I had planned on more of a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme...since the walls are green, I was going to paint those big colorful circles all over the walls so I wouldn't have to repaint the walls! But now I'm thinking I should do a more general Disney theme. My favorite characters are Goofy, Mickey, Eeyore & probably a million others! lol But I definitely want to keep my Eeyore things in the room so thats why I want to do a more general theme. Right now its more of a "no theme room" with a bunch of frogs, silver/pink stuff, Eeyores, Vinylmations, and tons & tons of pictures!!! The Eeyores do look nice in the room with the silver flower desk accessories...but I don't have a place for all of my Mickeys! Last summer I almost changed the room, but other things just kept coming up. Hopefully I'll get to it this year. I already have 2 other projects started, so I better finish those first! My husband and I are notorious for not finishing projects!

I wish I could put all of that stuff on my car...but I think my husband would yell at me. lol I have a bright red car too...it would be perfect with Mickey accessories!

Obsessed??? Wait until you read my post later this morning...

This entire week, I went around local stores finding Disney items & taking pics of them on my cell phone! Since I don't have any trip updates, I thought it would be nice to post something Disney related. Plus, I figured it might help someone to find cute little things to pack for their kids on their trip to Disney!

Just found your PTR, gonna try to get caught up.

Welcome! Take your time getting caught up. I plan to post an update later this morning...well its not trip related but I found tons of Disney items in local stores & want to share all the info with everyone!

Congrats on your trip & beating the cancer! That is awesome! I agree with MPS516's message below.

CONGRATULATIONS !

I wish for you a permanent remission.

 

[DevonsDisneyMom]

Reese, glad you had a better day!

I had an awful day on Wednesday & to make things worse, that evening I decided I would just get online & spend some time researching Disney...I thought it would cheer me up...well, my internet just stopped working!!!! So I haven't been online or on DIS. Time to catch up now!

I will give you credit...I bet it was soooo hard not to tell Devon when he mentioned Disney to you on the way to school!!! Way to go for keeping the secret!! He will be thrilled once he finds out!

Hey there!!! It must have been something in the air this week... Everyone I have talked to this week said that they had at least 1 bad day this week!!! Girl I know that feeling when you have computer issues!!! I was in that boat a few weeks ago!!! hope is all works out! '

And yes... It is getting super hard keeping the secret, especially with my adr date coming up soon, I want his input!!!

 

[photographymom517]

I wanted to post this yesterday but I didn't get the chance to. This entire week, everytime I went to a store, I would look for Disney merchandise.

I was doing it for a few reasons
1) so I could post a Disney-related update since I don't have any updates for my trip
2) to get an idea of items to get my son for on the airplane & as surprises at the resort and
3) to give others some ideas for little items to get their kids!

Unfortunately, there aren't a ton of stores near me. All of the "good" stores are over 30 minutes away so I just went to a few local stores when I was in town. I plan to go to Target, Kohls, the Disney Store, the mall, and other places before our trip in December to get more Disney stuff!!! I did get pretty good deals on plain tshirts & tanks for myself & my son at Kohls -- I'm making us personalized shirts for our trip! I'll post another update about that this weekend or next week. However, from reading other trip reports, it looks like I better find some long-sleeve tshirts or hoodies for us as well. I think the weather in FL in December is chillier than I thought it would be! Anyway, here are some of the items I found this week!

My first stop this week was for groceries at, of course, Walmart. I personally prefer Marc's and definitely Target but there isn't one close to us. At Walmart, I found Tinkerbell, Woody, and Cars lunchboxes & a matching thermos for each. I also found dinerware sets that included a bowl, a plate, and a cup. These were in princess themes, Cars, and Toy Story.

They also have alot of different Disney fabrics!!! I think they come in 2 yard pieces & each costs $7. The prints my local store had were Mickey Mouse, Toy Story, Tinkerbell, Disney Princesses, Pooh, and Cars.

They also had a lot of cute costumes for younger kids. They even had "Minnie" gloves which are actually used by most of the characters. They cost $6 and I plan to get a pair for my Disney-themed office/craft room!

They also had coloring books, crayons & paints, and puzzles that were Disney themed. I didn't get to look around in all of the departments, but I know they have Disney tshirts & clothes in the kids, adults, and infant departments. A few weeks ago, they had tshirts on sale for $3 each & some toddlers shirts for $1. I didn't see any this trip.

I also went to Big Lots where I was very pleasantly surprised at all the Disney merchandise! I haven't been to our local store for about 6 months or so. They had tons of stuff in the stationary department...pens, crayons, drawing sets, journals, paint sets, cards, and stickers. I also found Princess tea sets, Handy Manny & Pooh figures, bath books, toddler bibs, socks, flashlights, phones, play cooking sets, kids laptops, books, and other toys.

Whenever I stopped by our local Kmart, I was able to find tons of Disney books, toys & infant clothes. They had onesies, blankets, socks, underwear, pants, tshirts, babybooks, and banks in the baby department.

I also found lots of books, coloring & activity books, crayons, make-your-own book, pencils, markers, & puzzle books in the book department.

Moving on to the toy department (I think the largest section at our Kmart!)...I found lots of Handy Manny toys including some of the newer ones, Mickey's Choo Choo ($49.99), Handy Manny & Mickey laptops, the Cutey Heads Mickey & Minnie dolls, and my FAVORITE Singing Goofy! I insist my son needs one...it costs $17.99 and I think I might buy one for myself if my son doesn't want it! lol

I also found some videogames including V.Smile Motion Tinkerbell and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (I think they also had Handy Manny & Pooh). They also had the other V.Smile cartridges including Nemo, Cars, and Little Einsteins.

Moving on to the little girls section of the toys, I found tons of cute items! I have all boys in my family so I don't usually go to the girls toys. Here is what I found: Princess costumes, jewelry, shoes, small & large dolls, tons of Tinkerbell stuff, play kitchen dish sets & tea sets. I also found all of the Princess dolls including Aurora, Cinderella, Ariel, and even Princess Tiana! My favorite was the Princess Tiana doll with the light-up skirt that cost $26.99 (my son even liked it! lol)

Another one of my favorites was a set of 4 of the Princesses that each came with another outfit & characters from their movie. It was a nice set & I believe it cost $24.99 but I'm not sure. They also sold each Princess separately with 2-3 outfits & some characters/animals from their movie. They came in a cute little carrying case.

I also found Toy Story & Snow White dolls in the clearance section! I wasn't able to go into the boy section of the toys because my son was with me & he just recently started the "I want everything I see" phase! So to avoid having to tell him "no" or having to spend tons of money, I decided to just move on to another department!

I found silverware, cups, bowls, and plates of Princesses, Mickey Mouse, and Cars. In the infant section, I found adorable Mickey Mouse & Cinderella Carriage banks! I believe they each cost $12.99 but they had a "Buy One get one 50% off" sale going on. I was very tempted to buy one of each, but didn't.

I then moved on to the toddler clothing & found tons of Disney summer outfits. I already purchased some when they first came out, but I was surprised that they had all new choices this time! They had Cars, Toy Story, Tinkerbell, all the Princesses together, Handy Manny, and Mickey Mouse designs in the 2 piece tank/short sets. They also had tons of cute girls pjs, but only a few choices for boys. Last trip, I noticed alot more pjs, so they must have had a sale since then. I've noticed Kmart switches over merchandise quickly now. My son's favorite character is Manny & it was very hard not to buy the outfit, but I already bought him a few for this summer & for our trip in December. I really liked this outfit though because it was the new motorcycle movie design. Who knows, I might go back & buy it. lol Each outfit was between $7-12 and I think the pjs were $10.

I will post pictures in my next update. I didn't realize I was going to write so much!

 

[photographymom517]

Here are some of the prices from Big Lots. I'm not sure why but I didn't write down the ones from Walmart or Kmart, but I did remember some of the ones I mentioned in my post.

Here are the ones from Big Lots that I wrote down. Some of the others you can see their price tags in the pictures.

- 255 Tinkerbell stickers (comes in 9 rolls so you could split it between many kids) $1

- Arielle and Cinderella ceramic portraits $5
- Cars, Tinkerbell, or Princess pen sets $1
- Princess or Cars crayon sets with sharpener $1
- Disney paint sets $2 (Princess, Cars, or Tink)
- Pooh card set (2 pack) $1.50
- Pooh light-up pens $1.50
- Tink or Princess markers (8 pk) $2
- Journals (Princess, Tink, or Cars) $2
- Stationary set (Disney Princess) $5
- Princess sticker set (in 8x10 plastic case)
- Art to Go set (with crayons, markers, stencils, stickers, glue, poster, 20 coloring sheets in a small backpack) $6
- Princess or Little Mermaid tea set $12
- Handy Manny figures $7
- Pooh figures $5.50
- Disney bath books $2.50 (WallE or Lilo)
- Disney Princess toddler bibs $3
- 3 pk socks $3 (I also saw these at Target for $1 a pair)
- Tink or Cars Flashlight $3
- kids play phone (Mickey, Aurora) $3

 

[photographymom517]

 

[photographymom517]

 

[photographymom517]

I got this "Bedtime Favorites" book for my son! I believe it cost $15.99 but I'd have to double check on the receipt. Its a cute book & I plan to take it on the plane when we go to Disney.

 

[photographymom517]

 

[photographymom517]

 

[photographymom517]

 

[ForTheLoveOfDCL]

See those thermos's for 12.88 u posted on page 9, well that's what I take for my girls so that I can put their hot chocolate in it for MVMCP. It's so nice cause it keeps it warm for them and I don't have open cups out. Also for those that don't know , U get complimentary strollers at MVMCP. We always get a double, even though my girls can walk they die by the end of the night and I tell them to climb in and I push fast....LOL Even if you have one kid having a double is awesome for the added extra space, plus I take a blanket for the to have to sit on for cushion or to cover with.

I would say that Dec is hit or miss for the weather, we have gone and wore shorts and gone and wore jeans and t-shirts. I will take mostly shorts and t's and a pair of jeans and capri's, should cover it all, along with a windbreaker. Us nrtherns don't need a parka and mittens....shoot mine don't wear gloves unless it's snow, the cold doesn't make us wear them!!

Ok well I will post some of my disney stuff I bought since you are Disney merchandise crazy today....LOL LOL TTFN