Most Expensive / Moist Exhausting Continued - Final thoughts and wrap-up

[tinacaplan]

Oh...and Happy Belated Father's Day, Glenn!

 

[MAGICFOR2]

Really!
.....You would have to share it with Liesa........

Notice I didn't come on here pimping my own personal TR knowing full well that yours will be ending soon and your faithful readers will need somewhere to go for witty banter and intelligent conversation........... (for a change)

I'm sure you are using that last term loosley

Well, there it is. It's done. I've registered for 2 classes I need towards applying to the nursing program: Psych 237 (Life Spans) and History 104 (plain Jane World History). After that I need a Computer Applications class, then onto the sciences: Chem, 3 terms of A&P, microbiology. Perhaps, 2 years before I can apply, realistically. I can only take a class, or at most 2, at a time in order to maintain some semblance of "home" while I do this, so it's the slow boat to China method- as they say, slow and steady wins the race.

I'm glad you got some classes you need Liesa. What? DCL is going to China?

is that a water animal?




No Dan, that word miscreant - was spelled correctly
Did I tell you how much we missed you while you were in Hawaii? Or how many times we check in to your report for an update


if i was lumped in with glenn in being called that, it must have something to do with older weird creepy guy who has a shrine in his basement.

 

[glennbo123]

OMG, how did THAT happen!!!

You really slipped up there.

Well, there it is. It's done. I've registered for 2 classes I need towards applying to the nursing program: Psych 237 (Life Spans) and History 104 (plain Jane World History). After that I need a Computer Applications class, then onto the sciences: Chem, 3 terms of A&P, microbiology. Perhaps, 2 years before I can apply, realistically. I can only take a class, or at most 2, at a time in order to maintain some semblance of "home" while I do this, so it's the slow boat to China method- as they say, slow and steady wins the race.

Looks like your family will get psychoanalyzed this term as you learn some new concepts. For your history class, just watch Mel Brooks' "History of the World: Part 1" and you'll be all set.

Take your time. It's important to keep some normalcy on the home front.

is that a water animal?

Only when you're swimmin'.

if i was lumped in with glenn in being called that, it must have something to do with older weird creepy guy who has a shrine in his basement.

Welcome to being old. (I'm sure you're already used to creepy. )

ouch. lmao:)

Of course, she'll need a place to go... yeah, that's it.

You two are apparently on the "steering committee".

Why didn't I think of that??!!

Oh I think you did....I remember an "easy as ABC" comment.

Oh...and Happy Belated Father's Day, Glenn!

Thanks Tina!

I'm sure you are using that last term loosley

Veeery loosely.

Hey!

 

[FauntleroyFAN07]

missed you guys too, i tried to post from my phone but it said it was to much info to load on it....dont have one of those fancy dancy phones yet...maybe with birthday money i will get one.

or just get a less fancy one, and get one of the free ones they are offering at my store now.



sometimes getting lumped in with glenn is good, sometimes it is bad...verdict is still out on this scenerio.

Welcome to being old. (I'm sure you're already used to creepy. )

hey who told you.

everyone in the neighborhood seems to like me.

all the moms smile and wave when walking by the house.

 

[Poolrat]

Amazing all the banter that goes on when I am busy at work in near 100 degrees.

Happy Belated Father's Day. I thought I was here last Fri or Sat but I guess not or.... the darned Dis ate my post again.

 

[englishrose47]

I was gonna make some extremely witty and sarcastic comments re: the banter !!But seeing as the BOYS are picking on each other I'll stay silent and demure !!!

 

[mom3sonstt]

**Pardon the interruption while I try to pick the brains of some of Glenn's followers**

**The following is my latest post on my TR which I am going to shamelessly plug on some of the other TRs that I am following. My link is in my signature if you are not already following**

I want to try to do a guessing game similar to Liesa's Master Predicter game. I am not organized enough to do one like Marv's with questions that I would answer in the report because I don't write my reports ahead of time. When I find the time I ramble on until I either run out of things to say, or time to say it. I'm not as creative as the Captain to blend movie quotes into the report. And I don't take many pictures (and avoid having ones of me) so I couldn't do a search and find like took over Glenn's.

But I am having a hard time coming up with questions that don't just have yes and no answers. I do have a few written down, but would like to request some suggestions from you folks! I will post a final list sometime before I go, will take the list with me to make sure I keep track of what the answers are. And will reveal the answers when I get back. Maybe to book-end my hat a day count-down, I will do an answer a day after our return.

**I will now return you to Glenn's regularly scheduled TR**

 

[glennbo123]

sometimes getting lumped in with glenn is good, sometimes it is bad...verdict is still out on this scenerio.

I'd say it's good, but then again, I always say that.

everyone in the neighborhood seems to like me.

all the moms smile and wave when walking by the house.

Let me guess -- you're holding Parker when this happens?

Amazing all the banter that goes on when I am busy at work in near 100 degrees.

Happy Belated Father's Day. I thought I was here last Fri or Sat but I guess not or.... the darned Dis ate my post again.

Thanks Pat!

That's okay....the DIS has been hungry lately.

I was gonna make some extremely witty and sarcastic comments re: the banter !!But seeing as the BOYS are picking on each other I'll stay silent and demure !!!

That's completely in-character for you.

**Pardon the interruption while I try to pick the brains of some of Glenn's followers**

**The following is my latest post on my TR which I am going to shamelessly plug on some of the other TRs that I am following. My link is in my signature if you are not already following**

I want to try to do a guessing game similar to Liesa's Master Predicter game. I am not organized enough to do one like Marv's with questions that I would answer in the report because I don't write my reports ahead of time. When I find the time I ramble on until I either run out of things to say, or time to say it. I'm not as creative as the Captain to blend movie quotes into the report. And I don't take many pictures (and avoid having ones of me) so I couldn't do a search and find like took over Glenn's.

But I am having a hard time coming up with questions that don't just have yes and no answers. I do have a few written down, but would like to request some suggestions from you folks! I will post a final list sometime before I go, will take the list with me to make sure I keep track of what the answers are. And will reveal the answers when I get back. Maybe to book-end my hat a day count-down, I will do an answer a day after our return.

**I will now return you to Glenn's regularly scheduled TR**

Hmmm, what do you plan on doing? Like, looking for hidden Mickeys, seeing parades, fireworks, riding roller coasters, ooooh how about scores on TSM and/or Buzz Lightyear?

 

[englishrose47]

Did everyone see Glenn agrees I am silent and demure

 

[eandesmom]

Did everyone see Glenn agrees I am silent and demure

 

[glennbo123]

Did everyone see Glenn agrees I am silent and demure

Sometimes those smileys (like this one ---> ) are veeery important!

Anyway....demure maybe, but silent -- no way!

 

[marvali]

I'm sure you are using that last term loosley

No. Why would I???

sometimes getting lumped in with glenn is good, sometimes it is bad...verdict is still out on this scenerio.

Anytime you're associated with Glenn........you're gonna take your lumps!!!

everyone in the neighborhood seems to like me.

all the moms smile and wave when walking by the house.

Those aren't waves Dan. Two fingers at their eyes, two fingers at you, two fingers at their eyes, two fingers at you........is something completely different!!! (I guess you CAN be glad it isn't just one finger......)

I was gonna make some extremely witty and sarcastic comments re: the banter !!But seeing as the BOYS are picking on each other I'll stay silent and demure !!!

Silent and demure???

Let me guess -- you're holding Parker when this happens?

 

[englishrose47]

Why does everyone misunderstand me

 

[FauntleroyFAN07]

Let me guess -- you're holding Parker when this happens?

i will neither confirm nor deny that.

Those aren't waves Dan. Two fingers at their eyes, two fingers at you, two fingers at their eyes, two fingers at you........is something completely different!!! (I guess you CAN be glad it isn't just one finger......)

you may be on to something here.

Why does everyone misunderstand me

i thought we understood you just fine.

 

[mom3sonstt]

Hmmm, what do you plan on doing? Like, looking for hidden Mickeys, seeing parades, fireworks, riding roller coasters, ooooh how about scores on TSM and/or Buzz Lightyear?

I am always looking for hidden Mickey's, but don't go in search of them (if that makes any sense ) so I don't want to include that. But I did add the Buzz & Toy Story scores to my list! Thanks!

 

[glennbo123]

Anytime you're associated with Glenn........you're gonna take your lumps!!!

I've gotta admit. This one did make me laugh.

Why does everyone misunderstand me

i thought we understood you just fine.

I am so with Dan on this one.

See Rosie, you were going to stay quiet while we picked on each other, and now you've brought us together.

i will neither confirm nor deny that.

Yeah, that's what I thought!

I am always looking for hidden Mickey's, but don't go in search of them (if that makes any sense ) so I don't want to include that. But I did add the Buzz & Toy Story scores to my list! Thanks!

 

[glennbo123]

Final thoughts on the 2010 trip.

Well, I suppose it’s finally time to write the dreaded last chapter. The one year anniversary of the trip has come and gone, whether we’re counting from the start of the trip or the end. I somehow stretched the report to an unbelievable 55 chapters, not counting side trips and life updates. It’s time.

But what more can I say about the trip that I haven’t already said? It was fantastic from start to finish. We had some really special moments like the girls auditioning for American Idol and their Pick a Pearl experiences. I had some great one-on-one time with each of my kids at various times during the trip. We had some exclusive perks for PChef people, like early hours at MK and an evening at DHS. PChef provided a day at Typhoon Lagoon that I was expecting to pay for – Woot! And, the whole ticket situation that I was so worried about before we left (whether I could upgrade the tickets we’d get from PChef to use for a later trip since we already had annual passes), worked out perfectly. One of my favorite moments was watching Hyperspace Hoopla -- in spite of the heat, crowds, and standing for a couple of hours. But the biggest “success story” from the trip was when we asked the kids what their favorite thing was, and they said “just being together”. You can’t beat that!

We had a couple of really nice DISmeets: Dan (FauntleroyFan07) and his family, and Cherie (BlueyedGirl) and her family. It’s always great to meet these crazy DISers in person. (At least from my perspective -- their point of view may differ!)

We had a bunch of firsts:

• first stay at Coronado Springs;
• first meals at the Pepper Market, Sci-Fi Dine-In, Whispering Canyon Café, The Wave, and Hoop de Doo Revue;
• first time on the Great Movie Ride, refurbished Space Mountain, the People Mover, the American Idol Experience, and seeing the Finding Nemo show;
• first visit to Typhoon Lagoon;
• and first time strolling on the Boardwalk.

Oh, I know a memory of the trip that I haven’t described a whole lot yet. I know we’ve talked about the “moist” occasions that contributed to the trip report title (rain, humidity, sweat, and even spit), and we had a couple of casualties throughout the week where exhaustion/fatigue was a factor. But the other day I remembered how much my feet hurt by the end of that week. They weren’t blistered or anything, but they just felt like I walked ‘em right off. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I looked down and saw that I was walking on nubs. Kind of like Patrick Star:

I know he's not a Disney character, but his feet resemble the way mine felt. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. We were at Disney, and we had a great trip.


What’s on the vacation horizon?

So what’s next vacation-wise? It looks like a “staycation” in 2011. The girls are each going on mission trips with their church youth groups, and since one’s in senior high and one’s in junior high that means separate places and separate times, which means fewer dates that the whole family’s free. Plus, we’ve had some expenses which have put a squeeze on the budget. So we’ll probably visit Hersheypark for a day or two, and maybe take a day-trip to Washington D.C. or something. Oh, I just remembered…I won a “civil war battlefield” tour on a United Way auction from a couple of guys who work for the same company as I do, and I still need to arrange that. I won it last year too and they gave us a fantastic tour of Gettysburg.

Now, 2012 will be big. We’re going to try to spend about 4 nights at the Vero Beach DVC resort, which is close to Judy’s sister. That isn’t our home resort, so I hope we’ll be able to get a reservation. Assuming that we can, we’ll probably be there somewhere around June 19th to the 23rd. From there, we’ll head to Disney World, but that’s where the planning isn’t firmed-up yet. Right now I have about 3 different scenarios that I’m mulling over:

1) The "stay a long time to use our 7-day passes and still have some relaxing days" scenario. (Remember the 7 day non-expiring tickets I bought at the beginning of this past trip?) This one would have us staying at Kidani from June 23rd to July 2nd. But even with that many days there would only be one non-park day if we took a day to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. So, this plan doesn’t sound very relaxing after all. And unfortunately, it requires a lot of DVC points. (ie. borrowing substantially from 2013's allotment.)

2) The "use only 3 days of our 7-day passes, saving 4 for the next trip" scenario. Again, preceded by 4 days in Vero, then to Kidani from June 23rd to the 29th or 30th. The idea here would be to save the bulk of our tickets for a future trip. We’d have some relaxing days around the resort and Downtown Disney, and if we throw in a day at Harry Potter and maybe a day at a water park, it may not feel like we got shortchanged on parks. But the question is, can I only spend 3 days of a whole trip visiting Disney parks. And if so, how will I split up visiting 4 parks over 3 days? What if I were to add 1 more day to the tickets? Hmmm.

3) The "let's get a 2-bedroom and invite someone" scenario. This one would again be preceded by Vero, but at WDW we’d splurge on a 2-bedroom. Not sure who we'd invite though. (I see your hands waving, please don’t PM me. ) I'd love for my mom to see Kidani -- my parents paid for a big trip for the whole extended family in 2001 and we stayed at AKL and she loved it, but going to parks might be beyond my parents at this point. Other than that, both Judy and I have siblings with families that might be interested. One added twist to this option is that in going to a 2-bedroom, we could potentially try a different resort than AKL, depending upon how many people we invited. If it were my parents, I’d want to stay at AKL so that my mom could see Kidani, like I mentioned. If it were someone else, with 4 additional people, it’d have to be either Kidani or Old Key West where we could fit 9 people in a 2-bedroom. If it were only 3 additional people, then we could try the Boardwalk or Beach Club Villas (or others, but these would be my preference), where 8 is the maximum in a 2-bedroom.

There’s a lot to ruminate on here! Maybe too much. I’ve even begun entertaining a 4th option, where we drive to Florida and spend a couple of nights at the DVC resort at Hilton Head, SC. Oy vey! So much to think about! Right now, I’m thinking that some variation of Option 2 will be where we end up.


The “Where’s Judy” game.

I never dreamed when we started this game that I'd have so many pictures where Judy was hidden or just a piece of her appeared. For an unplanned game, it was amazing. And all of you worked so hard at spotting her, that I feel like I need to at least give you the final score. A few weeks ago (before Marv accused me of not knowing the score) I went back and pored through all of the previous posts to compile the point totals. I awarded one for each round. You’ll notice several people with decimals…those occurred when we had to split the points among 2 or more players for various reasons.

Here are the results:

Magdalene 11.83
Marv 9.75
Pat 6.33
Liesa 6
Brook 5.33
Rosie 5
Tanya 2.75
Katharina 2
Dan 2
Molly 2
Jenbear 2
Tribilin 1
Rebecca 1
Kathy 1
Sleeping*Beauty 1
thegreggersmom 1
Disneymoon09 1

Magdalene is the overall winner! Congratulations!

Marv, the runner-up role is very important because as you know, if Magdalene cannot fulfill her obligations as “Ultimate Judy Spotter”, you will be asked to fill-in.

Magdalene and Marv, please PM me your addresses and I’ll send you a little something…Magdalene for winning and Marv as runner-up and for suggesting the game.

To all who played -- Thank you! I hope you had fun.


We had a request for pictures.

I’m all out of Disney pictures, but I recently downloaded pictures of this past spring, if you’d like to take a look.

James running the ball during a flag football game.

Marlene "borrowed" my camera one day and took some pictures of the blossoms around our yard. I was unaware of these pictures until I downloaded everything.

This one looks like it's in the style of my fastpass pictures.

Lauren's birthday dinner. Tortellini, grilled asparagus, and homemade bread.

Marlene demonstrating that photobombs are just as effective in the foreground of a picture as in the background.

Lauren's birthday cake.

Time to open presents. Swiffer loves to help.

I love Marlene’s expression in these next couple of pictures.

Swiffer wasn’t left out.

Back to flag football. James was in pursuit on defense.

Marlene at her choir concert. I could tell her choir director was pretty young when she told the audience that the song "Joy to the World" was made popular by a group called "Three Dogs Night". Oh that hurts.

Another night and another concert. Marlene playing the oboe. (Or "oboephone" as I call it.)

Lauren playing the piccolo in the Memorial Day parade.

Changing gears one more time for the last-but-not-least subject.

A huge THANK YOU goes too everyone who read, and in particular, commented on, this trip report. You have made this such a fun endeavor. What’s more, I got to know many of you through it and I consider you great friends.

I plan to take a little break from having my own thread, but I’ll be around. If anyone’s looking for new trip reports to follow, simply look at the signature lines of the posters here, many of whom also have TRs or PTRs in the works, and I encourage you to follow them. I’d list them, but I always get myself in trouble by absentmindedly omitting someone….but please, take this as an opportunity to click on someone’s TR and post a comment. Tell them Glennbo sent you.

See you around the DIS!

 

[MRYPPNS]

Just a quick 'Thank You' from a luker on your report. I know how time consuming a TR can be to write and post so Thank You for sharing your trip with us I enjoyed it very much!

 

[MEK]

wow...BEST ENDING EVER!

Love all the family pictures.

Marlene's pictures are spectacular. I think you need to put her in charge of photography on future trips.

Can I just say I love the oboe. Coolest woodwind instrument and so hard to play.

Can I just say that any girl that plays the piccolo and marches is A-OK in my book!!!!!

Love James football pix!

Hershey park - love that place!

to Vero and WDW in June 2012. I'm planning a June 2012 trip as well. Not sure how it will all shake out yet, but maybe our paths will cross.

Wait - Joy to the World.....Three Dog Night? I am assuming you mean the Christmas carol. No Way!!!!!!!! No she didn't!!!!!!!

 

[onelilspark]

I'm glad James is on the Eagles side of things. Smart kid!

I'm also amazed that Swiffer's eyes are so clear! You can't see any tear stains!! I hope Angel Eyes works for Bandit. We have the beef liver flavor now and it's upsetting his stomach a little...not enough to stop using it, but enough to notice. So we ordered a bottle of the sweet potato flavor. I hope that helps things!!