Mommy, I want to see the Castle.... my first PTR ~ UPDATED 10/22

[disneymom727]

I had yet to discuss the option of changing our dates with my friend who was planning on spending a few days down there with us. I figured it would be okay since they were very flexible with their dates. All of this was happening around the beginning of July. I found out on the 4th of July that my friend who was battling cancer became extremely ill and wound up in the hospital. I knew the last thing on her mind would be this trip so I figured we'd just make the decision and talk with her about it later. I did tell her she needed to get better because we had a trip to plan. Unfortunately my friend lost her battle a few weeks later. I was so saddened by this. She fought hard but the Lord saw fit to heal her by taking her home. As difficult as this was I knew she was healthy and whole and I know I will see her again. I am sad that we didn't get to do this trip together. It would have been a special time.

I said in my last post that I didn't know the reason we needed to change the dates of our trip but I believe this had something to do with it. I am so glad we are not still going during the time she & I had originally planned. God knew how sad I would have been at the thought of her not being with us. I'm sure I will still have moments of sadness while there. I plan on buying a little something to send to her son since I know how much WDW meant to her. Just a little something to keep her memory alive!

All of that happened in July. Although my mind was elsewhere, I still tried to get a few things organized for the trip. I worked on my binder a bit, ordered park maps for the kids, printed out a packing list, printed resort information, etc. Even though Nov. still seems like it is far away I know it will be here in no time! There is so much to do!!! Which brings me up to the current!

 

[disneymom727]

Here are our new plans (still subjected to change of course):

11/13 Chef Mickey's 7:50 (hopefully will still get something earlier)

11/14 Cinderella's Royal Table 5:35 ~ this is the day we will spend at MK for DD to really take in the castle, meet princesses, etc.

11/15 HS ~ no TS ADR's

11/16 AK ~ Whispering Canyon Cafe 6:45

11/17 day off We'll spend some time at DTD and probably exploring other resorts. Depending on the weather we may be able to spend some time at the pool too. ~ T Rex 12:30, Trail's End 6:30

11/18 Epcot ~ LeCellier 11:55

11/19 MK ~ 'Ohana 8:25


Not sure we'll do much tweaking but you never know! I'm looking for an earlier dinner time at Chef Mickey's. DH isn't crazy about have EMH's on a couple of our days so we may look at switching those around if that's possible. But if not then I think we're set! Feels so good having a plan!!!

 

[mousescrapper]

thanks for sharing the back story of how your trip came to be...I am sorry for the loss of your friend...I too believe in HIS hand in all our plans...

your week looks GREAT!

 

[disneymom727]

Thank you!

I plan on posting more tomorrow ~ with a pic or 2

 

[disneymom727]

It's been a while since I posted. Life has been a bit stressful lately. It seems like anything and everything that can go wrong is! Last month our upstairs air conditioning went out. We found out the cost to repair it will be ridiculously expensive. We put a "band aid" (not a cheap one) on it and were just hoping to get through the summer. A couple of nights ago we heard dripping from the overflow pan. The air is still working but we don't know for how much longer. Unfortunately the only money we'd have to fix it is in our "DISNEY FUND" which would mean cancelling our trip in Nov. I can't imagine having to tell our children that we can't go. To say they will be devastated is an understatement. I just can't believe on top of everything else we've had going on lately now we may have to cancel our trip!!!!!

 

[disneymom727]

So far so good with the air conditioning! We've also had a few gorgeous days here in Raleigh so hopefully fall weather will come soon. DH says we're still on for WDW, cancelling is a LAST resort. I love him!!!

We are now at 64 days until our trip. That makes me smile!!! We've started doing some things to get ready. Last weekend we bought "our little princess" a Cinderella dress to wear for our meal at CRT. She was beyond excited! We found a pair of sparkly silver shoes at Target, though we're putting off buying those for a few more weeks.
I also bought an adorable shirt on ebay that recently came.

I got it in my head that I was going to "make" passports for my kids to use at the World Showcase at Epcot. Now I am not the most craft person so I've been trying to find something I could buy instead. So far I haven't had much luck. Someone here on the boards sent me several pages of one that another Disboard member designed. It is super cute! This weekend we're going to try to see how much it would be to have it made at Kinkos or Office Max. Hopefully it will be affordable. It would cost quite a bit to print it out ourselves so we'll see. I'll keep you posted on that

As I said in my original post I'm a list maker so I'm thinking it's time to start making my lists! Let the fun begin....

 

[DuckFace]

Great picture!!

 

[disneymom727]

Great picture!!

Thanks! We think she's pretty cute

 

[mousescrapper]

love the picture of your DD she looks so excited in her dress got to love Target!

glad to hear the air is holding out...we lost a 1/4 of our Disney fund (which was our dining) to unexpected needs in late July and have to pay it back...stinky. we'll have to pull from the souvie fund to make up for it not crazy about...but better than charging I guess

lists...love lists...oh man you should see my 3 month countdown list...I better get cranking...

Happy 64 days and counting till you go...

some ideas to cut the cost of making the passport books, is to print at home on nice cardstock, you can buy a package of white for not to much...and based on your printer it shouldn't be too bad...

plus print as 3 x 5 cards you can get 4 sheets on a single 8 x 11 piece of paper...trim the edges minus 1 side and a cover you can buy self laminating 4 x 6 sheets then hole punch add a string and good to go...

The DISigns boards Natalie (donatalie) has a great one in her photobucket account.

hope you can work it out!

 

[disneymom727]

love the picture of your DD she looks so excited in her dress got to love Target!

glad to hear the air is holding out...we lost a 1/4 of our Disney fund (which was our dining) to unexpected needs in late July and have to pay it back...stinky. we'll have to pull from the souvie fund to make up for it not crazy about...but better than charging I guess

lists...love lists...oh man you should see my 3 month countdown list...I better get cranking...

Happy 64 days and counting till you go...

some ideas to cut the cost of making the passport books, is to print at home on nice cardstock, you can buy a package of white for not to much...and based on your printer it shouldn't be too bad...

plus print as 3 x 5 cards you can get 4 sheets on a single 8 x 11 piece of paper...trim the edges minus 1 side and a cover you can buy self laminating 4 x 6 sheets then hole punch add a string and good to go...

The DISigns boards Natalie (donatalie) has a great one in her photobucket account.

hope you can work it out!

Thank you! Thanks for the tips on the passport. I was planning on just covering it with contact paper as lamination. Ink for our printer is pretty high so we'll see this weekend once we get it priced out if it will be cheaper for us to print it or have it done somewhere. I think Natalie's design is the one that someone sent to me. It is really cute!

 

[disneymom727]

Yesterday was a FUN mailbox day!! I had completely forgotten that we ordered DD an autograph book for the trip. Disneystore.com was offering free shipping over Labor Day weekend so we ordered her the official one from the parks. It came yesterday. She is going to love it. DS still uses the one he got a few years ago though I'm not sure he's going to want to get any autographs now that he's at the ripe old age of 8 but we'll see. We just always add the date that he got each autograph so we can decipher between the trips. I'm really excited about the princess one we got for DD. It has a page for a picture next to where each autograph will go. What a fun memory it will be for all of us.

We usually make up a little gift set for each of our kids before we go on a trip. That way they each have something new to play with on the way down. Like I've said before this year we are working with a much lower budget than normal so I'm not exactly sure what we'll be getting for them. It's getting harder and harder to buy for DS. He's into Pokemon so I'm sure that will be part of his gift. I'm not really sure what "Disney" type of thing he would like. Over the summer he played Club Penguin a lot but not so much anymore. I'm thinking of getting him the book about Hidden Mickey's. For DD I will have the opposite problem. I can find tons to get for her!!! All of course!!!

This year I'd like to find something special for DH too. He works so hard and is looking forward to this trip so much. I know things have been stressful for him but he never complains. Not sure yet what I can do but I'll figure it out. He definitely deserves a bit of Disney magic


Hope everyone has a great weekend!

 

[tngrammyof2]

What an adorable little girl you have.....she makes the perfect Cinderella!!!

 

[disneymom727]

WOW what a productive weekend and week I've had! We were able to get the passports done for the kiddos this weekend. All along I kept saying I wanted to get them both for $20 or less. I came up with that number knowing that I could go and buy them at Epcot for around that so that was my budgeted amount for those. The ink alone for our printer would have cost more than that so I knew this would be no easy task. We went to Office Max first where the woman looked at us like we were crazy to even ask them to help us with this project and she sent us to Target. We went even though we knew they wouldn't be able to help us. Of course they couldn't! Not a wasted trip though, we bought our daughter a dress to have her school pictures made this week. Frustrated, we went over to Kinko's. Now we had asked there before but just sort of generically asked and it was going to be too expensive. However, we went in, disc in hand with exactly what we needed, and explained to the man what we wanted to do. He quoted us a MUCH lower price. He took his time to split the pages so they'd be matched up correctly (and in order of how the countries are laid out) and printed them off. He also stapled them at no extra charge for us so we wouldn't have to worry about binding them ourselves. All of this for 2 books came to, wait for it.... $19.50!!!! I couldn't believe we were able to stay within our budget and have such great looking passports. You know sometimes the littlest things can make you so excited!

After this we were off to the library. I had requested a copy of the Hidden Mickey book so we could check it out and see if it was something our son would enjoy doing while at the parks. I haven't had much of a chance to look through it yet so I'm looking forward to reading a bit more this week. The library wasn't open yet so while we sat in the car and waited about 15 minutes we played "the guessing game" as my son calls it. Basically 20 questions but we played it with our subject being anything at Disney World. Can you tell we're ALL anxious and excited about this trip?!?!?!

Monday I got the sparkly silver shoes to go with DD's Cinderella dress. Her birthday is next week so DS will be giving her those as a present. I can't wait to see her face. She absolutely loves those shoes. Like mother, like daughter I guess! I'm quite the lover of shoes myself. On a side note, I asked her this morning where she wanted to eat for her birthday. Her answer ~ "the cas-hole"!

 

[disneymom727]

I can't believe I forgot another exciting Disney "thing" that happened this past weekend. We were able to get Chef Mickey's for an earlier time. Thanks to another "Disser" who posted about a number of open times in Nov. we secured a 6:15 ADR for our first night there! That was the last thing we needed to finalize our dining plans. I was so excited you would have thought I'd won the Publisher's Clearinghouse or something!!!

56 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[disneymom727]

We celebrated DD's 3rd birthday this weekend. It was such a special weekend!!!

 

[Disney Mommy 3]

Love the cakes!! And her little dress!!! Too cute! Glad you got your passports done and at such a great price!!!!!! We are getting closer every day!!!!

 

[mousescrapper]

great news on the passports & CM's time....plus I love the pictures of your DD's cakes

we alwys have little goodies bags of stuff for our kids too before go of some new trinkets and activities for the plane ride or in the resort room...I think that is great you are going to surprise your DH w/ something special too

 

[disneymom727]

Thanks! It was a fun celebration! We didn't do a big party. We took her and to her cousin to Build-A-Bear and then went to Grandmama's for cake. We found those cakes at Wal Mart. As you can tell they are not very big but they are adorable. We thought Sleeping Beauty looked a little odd but she didn't notice. She got the "sparkly" shoes to go with her Cinderella dress from her big brother so she's all set.

Today was final payment day!!!! Woo-Hoo!!!! We are now only 50 days away from our trip. It still sounds like a long time but we have a few busy weekends coming up so I'm sure it will be here before we know it.

Thanks for still reading my report. It's been a lot of fun to write about and share my excitement with others!

 

[disneymom727]

great news on the passports & CM's time....plus I love the pictures of your DD's cakes

we alwys have little goodies bags of stuff for our kids too before go of some new trinkets and activities for the plane ride or in the resort room...I think that is great you are going to surprise your DH w/ something special too

Any suggestions for goodie bag items for an 8 yr. old boy? I'm having a lot of trouble with ideas for him. I'd like to have something "Disney" themed but it sure it tough!

 

[disneymom727]

In exactly 30 DAYS we will be at Disney World!!! It seems like we have been planning this trip FOREVER!!! It really can't come soon enough. I made a list today of all the things that we need to do, I'm sure it will get longer even with each thing that gets crossed off.

This weekend should keep us pretty busy. I've decided I need to do a "mock packing". I'm sure DH will be thrilled about this I need to make sure the kids have clothes that still fit them and take inventory of what they might still need. DH and I both need new shoes. I'm trying to find something I can wear all week that won't hurt my feet. I haven't had much luck with Crocs. Any suggestions??? Hoping to get to the Disney store this weekend too and pick out a couple of things for the kids gift bags. All fun things!!!