October 2015 PTR: a “Halloweenie” and her Fearless Companion conquer their first HHN!

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

 

[dancin Disney style]

I sense a theme here

 

[sk8jdgca]

@sk8jdgca , are you still out there? I have been thinking of you, and wondering how your trip went. I hope your health was good for the duration of your vacation, and that you and the kiddos all had a marvellous time. I am hoping you still plan on doing a trip report of your adventures!

I wanted to tell you.....I took your advice, and purchased the Conair steamer for our pirate costumes (rather than have to take them to a dry cleaner once we arrived in Orlando). We did a test steam of Steve's pirate shirt last night (probably the most wrinkly of all the pieces).....and it worked AWESOMELY! Thank you so much for the recommendation! Its a little bigger and heavier than I pictured, but nothing insurmountable. As a person who despises ironing, I think we'll more than get our money's worth from that little unit.

Thanks for thinking about us. I'm going to start my trip report soon, just busy with real life. Glad you liked the steamer ...so much better than ironing

I held up ok but did have to get a scooter when I was in Orlando, my back didn't hold up with all the walking

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

I sense a theme here

Thanks for thinking about us. I'm going to start my trip report soon, just busy with real life. Glad you liked the steamer ...so much better than ironing

I held up ok but did have to get a scooter when I was in Orlando, my back didn't hold up with all the walking

Well, shoot. That's too bad. I am glad you decided to get the scooter.....much better than suffering things out for the duration of your vacation .

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

 

[ArwenMarie]

Coming so soon!!!!

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

Coming so soon!!!!

I know !!! I'm not sure if that is exciting or terrifying at this stage......so much to do, so much to do......... .

 

[buckeev]

Ditto with the 15 days! I am SOOOO not ready! And we are still working 18/20 hour days/nights trying to get orders out for these oh-so-patient customers!!! Aw well...they're paying for this trip, so we'll deal...
Changing flights to add another day right now...so why am I here...?

 

[Lynne G]

Now I can say 15 days.

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

Ditto with the 15 days! I am SOOOO not ready! And we are still working 18/20 hour days/nights trying to get orders out for these oh-so-patient customers!!! Aw well...they're paying for this trip, so we'll deal...
Changing flights to add another day right now...so why am I here...?

Yay to adding on an extra day!!! I love it when it works out that a trip gets extended!! Squeeze in as much fun as you can while you have the chance .

Steve are I were marvelling last night at how much preparation is needed for a 10 vacation. We seem to have clients and co-workers coming out of the woodwork with "we need this" and "we need that before you leave".

If we didn't need a vacation with things when they're normal, we'll certainly need one by the time we are finished getting ready to go!!!

We also have the added responsibilities of dealing with all the regular autumn stuff for us northerners....taking down the gazebo, putting away the patio furniture, readying the gardens, raking leaves (thankfully, that hasn't been an issue yet because its been soooo warm.....but the first turn of the weather and our neigbourhood will be buried under piles and piles of orange, red and brown). Much of that stuff we want to have done before we depart, so its not on the to-do list when we come home.

We are down to two weeks. How did that happen?!?!?

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

Now I can say 15 days.

Yay Lynne!!!

Who have we all got lined up for our Dismeet at Margaritaville? It's good to be simply awesome to have the chance to meet up with some of my Dis Friends live and in person!!

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

 

[macraven]

Yay Lynne!!!

Who have we all got lined up for our Dismeet at Margaritaville? It's good to be simply awesome to have the chance to meet up with some of my Dis Friends live and in person!!

i'm totally lost.
haven't been keeping up as have been out of town twice this month house hunting.
when home, boxing up present house.

what are the plans for the meet up?
place/date?

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

i'm totally lost.
haven't been keeping up as have been out of town twice this month house hunting.
when home, boxing up present house.

what are the plans for the meet up?
place/date?

Hi mac!!

Last I heard, we were planning on getting together on Monday, October 12th at Margaritaville......unless, of course, that's changed based on everyone else's availability. Its a non-HHN night, so the parks close at 8.

 

[RocketCityMama]

Happy Labour Day everyone . I hope you all are enjoying a relaxing last long weekend of summer. I always find Labour Day to be a bit melancholy....unlike most parents, I was never eager to see the end of summer fun so heading back to school made me a bit blue. It’s especially emotional this year, as this is potentially Jake's last back to school, ever. A very strange feeling for a mom!!

Weather here is grossly hot, humid and oppressive. While I hate to complain about the heat (Lord knows the cold and snow will be here before we know it), what we have today is a little much . Poor Steve is working all day today, and inside the plant it’s even worse than outside. He will be mighty grateful for the a/c when he gets home later tonight (on the upside, because it’s a statutory holiday in Ontario, he gets paid double time plus holiday pay.....so his 12 hours of work nets him 36 hours of pay today.....a nice boost to the budget a month before our trip!).

There's been a couple of changes over the past weekend.....one to the trip, the other to family life in general.

Now that this trip is just over 30 days away, we've been chatting a lot about the little details like flight times and what not. Our arrival back in Buffalo at 8 pm on departure day was causing us a bit of concern, especially after experiencing our first flight delay (and a very long middle-of-the-night commute home from Syracuse) in May. Buffalo is a 4 hour trip for us (plus any time spent at the border) so at best, we were looking at a 1 am arrival home even if we limited stops en route and our flight was on time. So we have been tossing around the option of spending the night in Niagara Falls .... which will allow us to enjoy a nice meal in Buffalo before crossing back into Canada ... and making the trip home on Sunday morning, rested and in the daylight. Turns out we had accumulated enough credit card points to cover our night’s stay at the Falls in its entirety, so I booked the additional day our vacation has just grown by a night. Since we don’t return home now until early Sunday afternoon, I have taken the Monday off work as well to give me an extra day to get organized before getting back to the grind.

We also found out on Friday that Steve returns to 12-hour continental shifts on a permanent basis, effective today. After being on shifts for 20+ years, he was moved about a year ago into a special assignment position which switched him to straight 8-hour days. While we knew the special assignment wasn’t permanent, we got mighty used to the normalcy of family life with him working 7 am to 3 pm weekdays. The special assignment is now over (the project he was given to design has been successfully implemented and running on its own with the desired results) so it’s back to shift work for my Steve. 12 hour continentals are quite tough on the body.....its Monday/Tuesday days, Wednesday/Thursday off, Friday/Saturday/Sunday nights, Monday/Tuesday off, Wednesday/Thursday days, Friday/Saturday/Sunday off, etc.....so it’s going to take some getting used to again for all of us. While we are super grateful that Steve is blessed with a good job with excellent benefits, we still had a bit of a pity party on Friday when we heard the news and had to self-medicate with ice cream sundaes. I am going to miss being able to spend every evening with my favourite guy.

Other than that, there’s nothing much new to report. After this weekend is over, I suspect time will start passing really, really quickly. My FP+ date for the first MNSSHP night is less than a week away!

Hola! Wow I missed a bit of updates, school started back for me and volleyball and church activities and and and... well you get the point. here's a hashtag for you #overbookedandoverwhelmedmom

So sorry about Steve's shift change, that's no fun! My dad used to work swing shift too, his was 12 hours and work 2 off 3, work 3 off 2 and alternated between day and night shifts. It sucked big time!

Well, it ended up to be a rather sleepless night here in our house (for me, anyway....Jake could sleep through a hurricane, I'm sure of it). Since Steve is working nights all weekend, Jake offered to watch The Purge with me to help me prepare for HHN (Steve and I watched Insidious last weekend....2 movies down, but still lots to go). It took me FOREVER to get to sleep after the movie, then we had a roaring thunderstorm just after 3 am -- complete with loss of power -- which jangled my nerves even more. I despise night time thunderstorms, especially when I'm alone in the bed!! Let's just say I couldn't get back to sleep after that....as the storm raged on and the power was still out, I was certain that one of those smiling Purge faces would walk through my bedroom door any moment. Once our hydro returned and I was able to peek my head out from my hiding place under the covers , I opted to take advantage of my wakefulness and make our FP+ selections for the first party. Things like the Mine Train were, not surprisingly, no longer available, but I was happy to be able to get Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and Pirates of the Caribbean.....all rides that are "must do's" at some point during the two parties.

Jungle Cruise and Splash Mountain will be two FP+ selections we'll try for on Wednesday, when our window opens for the second party. Again, I'm not holding out any kind of hope for Mine Train as I'm certain it won't be available anyway. I will probably only book the two FP's anyway, one in the 3:30 - 4:30 slot and the other in the 5:30 - 6:30 position since we have our dinner at the Plaza to work around on that second date.

It's another rainy, cool day for us here (2nd in a row ) so it shaping up to be a lazy Sunday (perfect after only 3 hours sleep). The Purge 2 might be in my future if the boy is up for it . Hope you are all having a great weekend, whatever you are up to!

I used to be a huge horror fan, then I had kids and I got wimpy! I can't watch any real "scary" movies now, I can watch old stuff from when I was a kid that I watched but the newer stuff no thanks. I have nightmares if I do or I need to watch like 5 hours of funny/stupid stuff like Impractical Jokers to get my mind of the insane stuff. So excited for your trip and photos to come! Did you post pics of your halloween costume?

 

[tink1957]

So jealous of your dismeet ...I wonder if my boss would object if I extended our trip by 6 days probably and I would have to eat and pay bills so maybe next year.

 

[dancin Disney style]

Gina, it's Friday night again...what kind of trouble can we get into this time?????

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

Hola! Wow I missed a bit of updates, school started back for me and volleyball and church activities and and and... well you get the point. here's a hashtag for you #overbookedandoverwhelmedmom

So sorry about Steve's shift change, that's no fun! My dad used to work swing shift too, his was 12 hours and work 2 off 3, work 3 off 2 and alternated between day and night shifts. It sucked big time!

I used to be a huge horror fan, then I had kids and I got wimpy! I can't watch any real "scary" movies now, I can watch old stuff from when I was a kid that I watched but the newer stuff no thanks. I have nightmares if I do or I need to watch like 5 hours of funny/stupid stuff like Impractical Jokers to get my mind of the insane stuff. So excited for your trip and photos to come! Did you post pics of your halloween costume?

Well hey there, my friend. Welcome back!! Glad to hear the things that have kept you away from this PTR are all the good Momma stuff with those lovely ladies of yours. Enjoy the "busy-ness", because soon enough you'll be wondering what to do with your time. Trust me, I'm speaking from experience!

I think I posted pics of the costumes when they came in (in their packages, not actually "on".....we're saving that for MNSSHP night! ) but it would be quite a way back in this thread. Probably easier for me to just repost the photos and save you a lot of searching!!:





Steve's shirt is nicer than the one shown with the pants.....he's got a gauzy, frilly black one (aside from the frills, he thinks its much more "manly" and "pirate-ish") rather than the one white one featured in the pic. He's also got some cool "pirate socks" (striped black and white), pirate hair (lord knows he doesn't have enough of his own to make do ) and he's even grown out his goatee so he can do it up right too (he's thinking beads, but we're not sure how we will get them to stay in). We both have swords (hoping they don't get confiscated by TSA) and other accessories like earrings and eye patches. I even managed to find panty hose that have skull "tattoos" up the side of the leg.

Yeah, we're just big kids at heart!!

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

So jealous of your dismeet ...I wonder if my boss would object if I extended our trip by 6 days probably and I would have to eat and pay bills so maybe next year.

Eating and paying bills is highly overrated .

In all seriousness, that stinks that just miss us just by a smidge!! But I'm not averse to setting an autumn 2016 date following our return home from this trip, assuming that our Halloween adventures turn out as fun and awesome as we hope they will be. We've already got our May dates booked, but we'll still have another timeshare week to allocate. It's good therapy to always have another vacation in the planning stages!!

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

Gina, it's Friday night again...what kind of trouble can we get into this time?????