Nathan's Wish Trip Aug. 2008

[Robin+5]

We spent the afternoon yesterday on Lake Winnapeakaukee on the Ms Mount Washington. It is a good size boat that travels all around the lake. The cruise was sponsored by Make A Wish. It was a 2 1/2 hour fun filled cruise. The weather was great and they had a DJ, a Band and a huge lunch buffet. It was for the donors and wish families to meet and greet. They had all kinds of games for the kids. I really thought that once your wish trip was over, that was it. They have activities all year long. They told us that any wish family that wants it, can have free skiing, lessons and equipment rentals from any ski resort in NH, Maine or Vermont. we don't ski, but maybe we will learn. It would be great for the kids to take lessons and learn the right way. we also found out that MAW does a Christmas part for the kids. We are considered a new wish family.

 

[Tnkrbelle565]

We spent the afternoon yesterday on Lake Winnapeakaukee on the Ms Mount Washington. It is a good size boat that travels all around the lake. The cruise was sponsored by Make A Wish. It was a 2 1/2 hour fun filled cruise. The weather was great and they had a DJ, a Band and a huge lunch buffet. It was for the donors and wish families to meet and greet. They had all kinds of games for the kids. I really thought that once your wish trip was over, that was it. They have activities all year long. They told us that any wish family that wants it, can have free skiing, lessons and equipment rentals from any ski resort in NH, Maine or Vermont. we don't ski, but maybe we will learn. It would be great for the kids to take lessons and learn the right way. we also found out that MAW does a Christmas part for the kids. We are considered a new wish family.

What great news! How fun about the Mt. Washington cruise. I love it up there!

 

[sherreis]

The cruise sounds beautiful. I imagine that autumn has arrived in New England. Are the leaves turning?

 

[bex271]

it sounds like y'all had a great time and learning to ski sounds fun too.

becca

 

[bigdisgrandma]

How fun for you all. I would just love that. I know that MAW here in Utah told Lindsey that they will always be a wish family and will be invited to all the activities that they have. They did their Rubber Ducky Derby recently but it was just about the last free weekend we had to get ready for our trip so they weren't able to go but it included free admission to a Water Park, food and lots of fun!

Learning to ski would be great for your family. I personallyam afraid to ride the lift so that sort of eliminates that activity for me but then your kids are braver and smarter than I am! I say take the opportunity if you can.

Have a great day!

Denise

 

[Robin+5]

After reading Denise's TR, I was inspired to try and finish mine. It is real lonely around here with all the kids in school. I have a million projects to do but just can't get motivated. I am so used to having Nathan by my side...it is weird. Now on to my TR

We were all exhausted at this point. We let the kids sleep in and went to CBR counter service for breakfast. On the way to GKTW one time we saw a sign the read Disney Outlet store. We decided to check it out. Don't bother going there. It was not worth it. We went to the Premiun Outlet Mall and went into a few stores and had lunch in the food court in the mall. We poked around a bit and went to GKTW for dinner. We saw that pasta was on the menu, we all love pasta. When we got there is was changed to a taco night. We like tacos too They said they had to change the menu because they did not get all of their supplies due to the storm. Here are some pictures of GKTW and naturally ice cream for dessert

We decided to go to Downtown Disney and check that out. It was very crowded probably due to the rain. My husband does not do well shopping and it is even worse when it is crowded. The kids loved the pin store. They spent a long time in there. You could really spend a mint on all the pins. I am going to get the kids shadow boxes to put the pins in so they can see them all the time We went into the Art of Disney store. I love that store. In the wish lounge in MK, I saw a picture of the Castle that Thomas Kincade painted. Well in this store they had 8 X10's of the same picture. I bought one and it is in my family room now. One of the CM's saw our matching shirts and asked us about them. We told them the story of the Big Give and she asked if we wanted our picture taken with Walt & Mickey. She was vey nice, to bad Ralph had changed his shirt by then. While we were in the Art of Disney Store, Katelyn who LOVES Tinkerbell, saw a $600 Tinkerbell painting. She asked if she could have it. We naturally said no way. Then she said "can we just carge it to the room". I don't think she undestood the concept that you still have to pay for it if you charge it to the room.

We saw this frog sitting on one of the window ledges in DTD. I thought it was fake at first until we saw it breathing. We thought is was odd, the ledge was about 3 feet up. I'm sure we looked odd staring at this frog and taking pictures of it. It doesn't take much to amuse us

Kim, Courtney and I wanted to stay in DTD for a while longer so Ralph took the van back to CBR and let the kids swim in the rain. We took the Disney bus back to the room later. We went to bed early knowing that tomorrow was going to be a long busy day.

 

[bigdisgrandma]

Great to hear more. I do so love the pictures. Especially the frog. Later in my TR I will post lizard pictures. We must be kindred spirits!

I have been to that Disney Outlet store. A few years ago it was really great but the last few times we stopped in it was not worth the time. A much better place to get low cost Disney items in Orlando is WalMart! I didn't go to the one close to GKTW but there is one on the way closer to DTD from GKTW that is great. They have a huge selection most of the time and they are lots cheaper than on Property. I must admit however that I do love DTD and have spent more than my share of money there over the years. How funny that your husband is not a shopper. Mike will tolerate it a little but I really have to keep moving or he will come to me and say..."I'll be outside on a shady bench."

I know what you mean about having a hard time when the house is empty. I really hate that feeling. When Mandy and Tim decide to move out, I will be absolutely devastated (but of course happy for them as they get on with their lives). Mike says it isn't all that bad to have 2 kids with"Failure to Launch" syndrome. We can always make them clean, cook and mow the lawn!
Have a wonderul day.
Denise

 

[jessica52877]

Love hearing more about your trip! I love downtown disney too!

 

[jillalvarez2003]

Wow, what a frog! Cool!

 

[mom2lilnick]

Wow! I would have taken a pic of the frog too!

 

[dee47]

LOVE the frog! These are the sorts of pictures I take -- from many different angles until my DS says "Mom, can we go now?"

 

[OhMari]

Hi,
Sorry I didn't find your Pre-trip sooner. I have been begging for a new moderator for the pre-trip boards.

I am going to move you to our regular boards.

Marisa


Edit-I heard about Mt. Washington. I am an avid hiker, and I had friends that hiked the Appalachian Trail. I heard some of the hikers "moon" people in the gondola's that go up the mountain. Such naughty people. Glad the MAW is such a great organization. Thanks for writing your TR with us.

 

[Robin+5]

The cruise sounds beautiful. I imagine that autumn has arrived in New England. Are the leaves turning?

They have just started to turn. I love all the red and gold colors of the leaves

it sounds like y'all had a great time and learning to ski sounds fun too.

becca

We will try to take advantage of the skiing this winter.

How fun for you all. I would just love that. I know that MAW here in Utah told Lindsey that they will always be a wish family and will be invited to all the activities that they have. They did their Rubber Ducky Derby recently but it was just about the last free weekend we had to get ready for our trip so they weren't able to go but it included free admission to a Water Park, food and lots of fun!

Learning to ski would be great for your family. I personallyam afraid to ride the lift so that sort of eliminates that activity for me but then your kids are braver and smarter than I am! I say take the opportunity if you can.

Have a great day!

Denise

Thanks. I'm not afraid of going up, and afraid of falling going down. These old bones would break if I fell.

 

[vdarrell]

Read your trip report.
Reading it brought home some memories of the West Nile Virus we had several scares within our family and I sympathise with you,We found 3 effected crows in our yard and many in the neighbors (total of 12 altogether) within a month's period and all tested for WNV during that time my youngest and two neighborhood boys got really sick went through the whole ordeal of test,ect.but thank God things were okay.My prayers will be with you and your family.
Loving your report,pictures,outfits sucks I'm just loving your whole dang family.
I just love the fact that your family got wished upon by so many you truly are a deserving family.

 

[Robin+5]

It was August 21, Kim's 19th birthday. I woke her up by singing Happy Birthday to her (way off key ). I do that for all of my kids birthdays. I will sing HB all day long. I got everyone up early, we had a long day. We were trying to squeeze in 2 parks in one day. We had a quick breakfast at CBR and got the bus to AK.

The park was not crowded at all, probably due to all the rain . We put on ponchos at made the best of it. I don't know which is worse, getting wet or sweating with the poncho on . We headed to Africa first to Kilimanjaro Safari ride. We love that ride. We walked right on. There was no wait. After that we went to Asia. We love the Kali River Rapids. We thought we would be smart and put our ponchos on so we would not get soaked. There was no wait at this ride either. We stepped off to the side to put the ponchos back on and discovered that we lost one along the way. Ralph being the gentleman that he is said "I will go without, besides last year I didn't get that wet". (hahaha) So naturally we said ok, we were no fools . So we got on the ride and went around and when we got to the end there was no line so the CM asked us if we wanted to go again. We all screamed yes except Ralph. But he lost out and we went again. Here is what we looked like.....

Here is what Ralph looked like

Now who do you think got the short end of the stick? Ralph got soaked. every water spout and splash got him wet. When we went around the second time, he was in the same spot and got hit again by all the water. We were all cracking up laughing . His clothes were dripping wet.
The kids did the Expedition Everest ride and Ralph and I just hung out (I was still giggling).
We headed over to DinoLand and the kids saw the Primeval Whirl.

Ralph (still dripping) went on with the Nathan, Morgan and Katelyn. Kim, Courtney and I went into the store and made a pluto dog tag for our dog Max.
Everyone was getting hungry so we stopped at Restaurantosaurus and had lunch. The food was good and it was nice to sit down for a while. After lunch we went on the Dinosaur ride. Ralph kept telling us that it was dark and dinosaurs keep jumping out at you. WELL....that is one ride I will not be repeating Neither will Kim, Courtney, or Katelyn.

We are in the first 2 rows of the ride.
Well after we regained our composure, we went over to camp Minnie-Mickey. I got a lot of great pictures on Photopass of the kids with Minnie & Mickey. I will do a post of my favorite photopass pictures when I get the cd. We also saw brown bear ..

Notice the outfits Thank you everyone
Birthday Girl with Brown bear

Off to Epcot

 

[ibdamamma]

Awesome update! The rain was horrible wasn't it and those poncho's! UGH! They stuck to you like plastic...wait....they were plastic! We didn't get to do animal kingdon this trip I am so jealous! I always wanted the frightening picture from the dinosour ride!

 

[sherreis]

I started laughing when I saw your DHs picture totally wet. What a trooper - even if he doesn't like to shop.

I also chuckling looking at the frog pic. We would've been the same way and I would've taken lots of pics of it and I would've been saying "how many thousands of dollars did this vacation cost and here we are staring at a frog???" It's the little things

 

[bigdisgrandma]

We had the same fun experience on Kali, they let us go twice but we didn't have our ponchos with us. When we hit the first big splash, it looked like a tidal wave coming over the raft. We looked like drowned rats in orange hawaiian print clothes. When they asked us if we wanted to go again we figured we had nothing to lose because once you're wet, you're wet!

Love the pics!
Denise

 

[Robin+5]

We had the same fun experience on Kali, they let us go twice but we didn't have our ponchos with us. When we hit the first big splash, it looked like a tidal wave coming over the raft. We looked like drowned rats in orange hawaiian print clothes. When they asked us if we wanted to go again we figured we had nothing to lose because once you're wet, you're wet!

Love the pics!
Denise

That must have been a sight I can just picture it. Isn't it fun anyway?

 

[Robin+5]

We took the bus from AK to Epcot. We got there around 2pm. We headed right for Test Track. Everyone loves that ride. We showed our GAC and we were ushered to a side door and told to go up the elevator. The doors opened and a women sitting behind a desk welcomed us. She asked us to sign in and showed us to the VIP lounge. We were offered use of a bathroom, sodas or coffee and to look out these big windows to part of the ride below It was pretty cool. We didn't stay to long because time was running out and we had a lot of ground to cover. We went to a different elevator and went just about right on the ride. After the ride we went by the Character Spot and checked out who was there for characters. We had already seen all of the characters that were there. We were looking for Jasmine, didn't find her but...look who we did find..

We were hoping to see Jasmine but no such luck.

Well after we saw Genie, look who else was there...Mary Poppins and penguin

She was very into her character with the British accent
We stoped by a Coca-Cola taste test shop. They had different Colas from around the world that you could sample. Some were pretty gross. I can't remember the name of it. After that we headed off to Soarin. They had stopped giving out Fast Passes for the day, and it was only around 4pm. This is were we waited the longest for a ride. It seamed like forever. That ride is just way to cool I love it. After that we went to Living with the Land. I love seeing the different ways they find to grow fruits and veges
we stopped for a quick snack in the cafe there. By this time it was pouring again. It was 5:00 and we had dinner reservations at Rose & Crown in the UK for 6pm for Kim's birthday. When I made the reservations I told them that it was our daughters birthday and that we wanted a cake. We figured that maybe we could get in early. Well..so did everyone else. We didn't actually get seated until around 6:15. The problem was that due to the rain, people weren't leaving and they had to close part of the restaurant because the rain was coming in. We waited in the store across the street it was packed with other people trying to get out of the rain too. The floor was soaked and some of the merchandise was even getting wet from everyone's ponchos dripping on everything. When we finally got to sit down, it was nice. The meal was good and the waiter Jon was awesome. We told him it was Kim's birthday. He had an Irish accent and said everything was "fantastic". He was a cute kid. He had everyone sing to Kim and had everyone sign a card for her and he brought out this "fantastic" dessert for her. I had to take a picture of it.

This is Kim and Jon. He was 19 years old too.

I asked him if I could get a picture of him with Kim. Kim was embarrased but Jon didn't seem to mind at all. He was a really good waiter, I might have to write a letter to Disney about him .

Kim & Courtney love the phone booths

We finally finished dinner around 8:00. Illuminations was cancelled because of the rain. It was still pouring so Ralph took the younger kids back to the room. The older girls and I still had the Kidcot books that we wanted to get done. So...we had 11 countries and 50 minutes before the park closed. The race was on. Our umbrellas were turning inside out, our shoes were squishy and we were getting soaked, but we were determined to get as many countries as we could. We got 8 of the countries done. We missed Mexico, Norway and the US. We figured that gives us a good excuse to go back. Not like we really needed one We were proud of ourselves We took the bus back to CBR. We waited for ever to get the bus. When we finally did get on we ended up sitting all the way in the back. We were the first stop and the side doors would not open. We had to squish our way all the way to the front of the bus. You know how they pack those buses full. It was not a pleasant sight . We finally got back to the room around 10:30 and crashed . When we checked it I told CBR staff that on the 21st it was my daughters birthday and I wanted balloons and a card. They said no problem. When we got back to the room there was no balloons. I called and they said due to the storm, they could not deliver the balloons She did get a card signed by Pooh, Eeyore, Tigger and Piglet though. We still had a great day with a "fantastic" waiter to end it off