Jake & Crew
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2006
- Messages
- 445
We were that family, you know the one.
The only one on the street that had never been to Disney World (and the others had been more than once!) Our kids were okay with it, we told them when they were a little older (read bank account worthy of the paper/postage the bank sent out every month) and since they really had never been, they really did not know what they were missing.
We trekked up to New Hampshire every summer for a 2 day trip to Storyland and convinced ourselves this was Disney “enough” like for right now. Jim (DH) and I knew the real Disney World ( he went for his first time in 1996 while we were dating ~ I had started my love affair with the mouse in 1974) but we would never tell!
DD had been told by my mother that when she was 5 she would be old enough and the grandparents would take them. Well it just didn’t happen.
Life was busy, we also had a 3 year old, how could one go without the other….and then the younger cousins were popping up in rapid succession in Chicago, so as DD turned 5 Grandma stopped mentioning such a trip. DD is smart. She knew she had a whole year of being 5 so she just thought she would go later in the year. We did not tell her otherwise, just drove her back up to New Hampshire.
Summer of 2005 was our third trip there and as the girls were that much older, the trip a much anticipated family event with its own traditions Jim and I actually had even convinced ourselves it was our own Disney!
Then it happened. October 13, 2005 we were given my diagnosis, cancer. Two weeks later I had major surgery and while the cancer was thought to be cleared so were my dreams of our third baby.
The recovery was tough. After 5 days in the hospital I returned home. I spent four weeks gaining strength, the first week I only made it out of my room for meals. Put all I had into making sure I was sitting at that table with the kids and Jim. Slowly as the weeks moved on I came out of my room more, would “visit” with my kids and the caretaker of the day and would go back to bed as the kids were taken off to swim, dance, speech, or school.
Started watching television in those strange, quiet hours in my house. Now, I do not ordinarily watch television, yes I have the theme song to Franklin stuck in my head as my then three year old would watch it while I buzzed around the house in the BC (before cancer) days and I can recite the kids programming schedule as I work from home, so I would know when to plan an important call, exactly what 20 minute time frame would work best. But I personally could count on one hand the programs I watched in any given month.
November/December 2005 was a whole new ball game.
I was tv mania women ( which is why I think I usually avoid it!). I was glued for hours/ hours.
I was addicted to the Apprentice, ( even the Martha Stewart one), reruns of comedies like Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens, Little House on the Prairie, all the major networks prime time programming ~ all 23 weekly episodes of every variation of Law/Order, the short lived comedy with Henry Winkler…you get the idea.
Well, needless to say I had the entire commercial season also memorized and there was this one commercial played over and over which got me to sit up (literally) every time. It had a big toy cruise ship being gift wrapped and was promoting the perfect family gift, memories of a lifetime on this special vacation. Give them a Christmas gift worthy of the season and worthy of your family was the message. And I heard it loud and clear.
This is what I wanted to give our girls this Christmas. Then I started thinking what about that cruise line Disney had. That would be great for the little ones and my goodness if any two kids deserved such a vacation it was these girls. I watched them age so much with the concern and worry they had. They were struggling between being the little girls who wanted their old mommy back, and trying to take care of their mommy like this was their responsibility. My heart ached for them but I could not even take them on my lap at that point.
So I told Jim about my great idea. His response:
“No”
“What do you mean no?!!”
“We can not take them all that way and not go to Disney, let’s just take them to Disney”
“ I want this cruise too ( wow did that commercial do a number on me, and it was for a different cruise line!)”
So we decided to do both. Way over the top! But this was our big trip of a lifetime, would not go to Disney again for years probably. And hence my emotional therapy began.
My long days were filled with planning our trip. I became quite the “expert”, found these boards, TGM, the Passporter. You name it ! I had a mission and when it was dark, I turned on the Disney light. Little did I know how my expertise would be tested.
In May of 2006 we took that Land/Sea trip and it was wonderful!!!! We lived it up because this was it for a long time. We watched our children de-age back into a five year old and a three year old. And we saw them (and ourselves smile again.)
On our flight home Jim took the bump so my dad picked the girls and I up at the airport and we had dinner with my parents waiting for Jim’s flight to come in. Here, I believe was born the trip of all trips!
My parents, who had had quite the year with my illness and my sister’s wedding, watched their grandchildren dance and sing and come back to childhood right before their very eyes that afternoon. The kids had so much to share about their trip.
Just two months earlier we celebrated a big birthday for my dad. We put on a fabulous surprise party, made a beautiful scrapbook with input from family and friends from his whole life. Mom kept saying she did not need all that when she turned that age in March 2007. No, she would just like to go to Disney with her children, in-law children, and grandchildren…..all 14 of us. Well, watching her grandkids excitement that day got those wheels spinning again. Mom is not a planner though.
Finally one night in August while all of us were vacationing at my parents beach house together she brought it up again. Disney expert that I am, I told mom if we were going to do it we had to stop talking and start doing. SIL had just announced she was due (my third niece!) in April so that left February and that meant the 180 day windows had all ready started. My siblings and my SIL thought I was joking. Dad was on board with my worrying about the time frame (guess I know where I got it from.) Jim and my BIL moved quietly into the background, literally into the kitchen, if it was not for the clinking of their ice you would have forgotten they were there. Smart boys. Think they thought as we drank our wine (except for SIL of course) we would drown this scary plan right into oblivion. No such luck for them
By the end of that weekend I had all the Disney info, we had a “family meeting” and our One Big Trip to the World with 2 grandparents, 4 “kids”, 3 spouses, 1 (hopefully) future spouse ( brave boy!) and 4 granddaughters was launched with a 5 room, 7 night stay at the Wilderness Lodge for February Vacation 2007!
Buckle your seatbelts please we may hit some turbulence.
The only one on the street that had never been to Disney World (and the others had been more than once!) Our kids were okay with it, we told them when they were a little older (read bank account worthy of the paper/postage the bank sent out every month) and since they really had never been, they really did not know what they were missing.
We trekked up to New Hampshire every summer for a 2 day trip to Storyland and convinced ourselves this was Disney “enough” like for right now. Jim (DH) and I knew the real Disney World ( he went for his first time in 1996 while we were dating ~ I had started my love affair with the mouse in 1974) but we would never tell!
DD had been told by my mother that when she was 5 she would be old enough and the grandparents would take them. Well it just didn’t happen.
Life was busy, we also had a 3 year old, how could one go without the other….and then the younger cousins were popping up in rapid succession in Chicago, so as DD turned 5 Grandma stopped mentioning such a trip. DD is smart. She knew she had a whole year of being 5 so she just thought she would go later in the year. We did not tell her otherwise, just drove her back up to New Hampshire.
Summer of 2005 was our third trip there and as the girls were that much older, the trip a much anticipated family event with its own traditions Jim and I actually had even convinced ourselves it was our own Disney!
Then it happened. October 13, 2005 we were given my diagnosis, cancer. Two weeks later I had major surgery and while the cancer was thought to be cleared so were my dreams of our third baby.
The recovery was tough. After 5 days in the hospital I returned home. I spent four weeks gaining strength, the first week I only made it out of my room for meals. Put all I had into making sure I was sitting at that table with the kids and Jim. Slowly as the weeks moved on I came out of my room more, would “visit” with my kids and the caretaker of the day and would go back to bed as the kids were taken off to swim, dance, speech, or school.
Started watching television in those strange, quiet hours in my house. Now, I do not ordinarily watch television, yes I have the theme song to Franklin stuck in my head as my then three year old would watch it while I buzzed around the house in the BC (before cancer) days and I can recite the kids programming schedule as I work from home, so I would know when to plan an important call, exactly what 20 minute time frame would work best. But I personally could count on one hand the programs I watched in any given month.
November/December 2005 was a whole new ball game.
I was tv mania women ( which is why I think I usually avoid it!). I was glued for hours/ hours.
I was addicted to the Apprentice, ( even the Martha Stewart one), reruns of comedies like Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens, Little House on the Prairie, all the major networks prime time programming ~ all 23 weekly episodes of every variation of Law/Order, the short lived comedy with Henry Winkler…you get the idea. Well, needless to say I had the entire commercial season also memorized and there was this one commercial played over and over which got me to sit up (literally) every time. It had a big toy cruise ship being gift wrapped and was promoting the perfect family gift, memories of a lifetime on this special vacation. Give them a Christmas gift worthy of the season and worthy of your family was the message. And I heard it loud and clear.
This is what I wanted to give our girls this Christmas. Then I started thinking what about that cruise line Disney had. That would be great for the little ones and my goodness if any two kids deserved such a vacation it was these girls. I watched them age so much with the concern and worry they had. They were struggling between being the little girls who wanted their old mommy back, and trying to take care of their mommy like this was their responsibility. My heart ached for them but I could not even take them on my lap at that point.
So I told Jim about my great idea. His response:
“No”
“What do you mean no?!!”
“We can not take them all that way and not go to Disney, let’s just take them to Disney”
“ I want this cruise too ( wow did that commercial do a number on me, and it was for a different cruise line!)”
So we decided to do both. Way over the top! But this was our big trip of a lifetime, would not go to Disney again for years probably. And hence my emotional therapy began.
My long days were filled with planning our trip. I became quite the “expert”, found these boards, TGM, the Passporter. You name it ! I had a mission and when it was dark, I turned on the Disney light. Little did I know how my expertise would be tested.In May of 2006 we took that Land/Sea trip and it was wonderful!!!! We lived it up because this was it for a long time. We watched our children de-age back into a five year old and a three year old. And we saw them (and ourselves smile again.)
On our flight home Jim took the bump so my dad picked the girls and I up at the airport and we had dinner with my parents waiting for Jim’s flight to come in. Here, I believe was born the trip of all trips!
My parents, who had had quite the year with my illness and my sister’s wedding, watched their grandchildren dance and sing and come back to childhood right before their very eyes that afternoon. The kids had so much to share about their trip.
Just two months earlier we celebrated a big birthday for my dad. We put on a fabulous surprise party, made a beautiful scrapbook with input from family and friends from his whole life. Mom kept saying she did not need all that when she turned that age in March 2007. No, she would just like to go to Disney with her children, in-law children, and grandchildren…..all 14 of us. Well, watching her grandkids excitement that day got those wheels spinning again. Mom is not a planner though.
Finally one night in August while all of us were vacationing at my parents beach house together she brought it up again. Disney expert that I am, I told mom if we were going to do it we had to stop talking and start doing. SIL had just announced she was due (my third niece!) in April so that left February and that meant the 180 day windows had all ready started. My siblings and my SIL thought I was joking. Dad was on board with my worrying about the time frame (guess I know where I got it from.) Jim and my BIL moved quietly into the background, literally into the kitchen, if it was not for the clinking of their ice you would have forgotten they were there. Smart boys. Think they thought as we drank our wine (except for SIL of course) we would drown this scary plan right into oblivion. No such luck for them
By the end of that weekend I had all the Disney info, we had a “family meeting” and our One Big Trip to the World with 2 grandparents, 4 “kids”, 3 spouses, 1 (hopefully) future spouse ( brave boy!) and 4 granddaughters was launched with a 5 room, 7 night stay at the Wilderness Lodge for February Vacation 2007!
Buckle your seatbelts please we may hit some turbulence.
Ran to my Disney trip bin, grabbed last weeks receipt for must have (uhmm larger sizes) items and tried to determine if they were shipped in less than six days. Decided the stress was too much,then it hit me. 
