Oops! We did it again.... Leaving the kids at home... *5/26 Update

[oregondaddyof2]

What is Operation "ShutYourMouth" you ask???? My DW and I have a goal, to take a trip to WDW in December of 2012 and have our DS and DD not know about it until we leave... Can we complete this task?? Only time will tell...

Some of you may remember us from our trip reports in 2009 and 2010... Of course 2010 was never finished, I blame my wife for that


This is me. My name is Terry. I am 30 year old boy who loves WDW. My beautiful wife Toni. She will turn 32 during this trip. She is the reason why I enjoy WDW so much. This was taken during our trip together in 2010.

Here is our DS. He is 12. He is tall, funny as can be, and has a good heart.

This is our DD. She will turn 9 during our trip this year. She is the typical dramatic girl. She loves animals, and annoying her brother.

You now have the "Who" for the trip... We will follow up with the "Where" here soon...

 

[mrsksomeday]

FIRST!!!

I would blame the the photographer from the 2010 trip for the trip report not getting completed, but what do I know. I can't wait to learn about this trip. You are a beautiful family.

 

[oregondaddyof2]

Table of Contents

Update #1
Disneyland 2011 Recap #1
Disneyland 2001 Recap #2

 

[oregonmommyof2]

I would blame the the photographer from the 2010 trip for the trip report not getting completed, but what do I know.

I love you...

 

[oregonmommyof2]

One thing you should all know about us, is we are changers... We change it ALL!! Resorts, ADR's, dates, who is actually going on the trip... You name it, we change it, and we change it often... just ask mrsksomeday...

So, this trip started out as being a Christmas gift to the kids, and would take place in January.. We changed dates 14 times, added a cruise, took out a cruise, added a longer cruise, changed resorts, took out the longer cruise, looked at a non DCL cruise, changed resorts again...

Then Disney released the dates for MVMCP... Now, Terry and I saw WDW at Christmas time in 2010... But that was the trip we left the kids at home. So the wheels in my head started turning... We could still surprise the kids with this trip, but do it in early December... Right??

It took all of about 3 seconds to convince Terry... He loves seeing the castle all lit up. And he got a new DSLR the day AFTER we got home from our 2010 trip, so he is really dying to get back to take pics.

I am also a planner, to the fullest degree... Normally I have spreadsheets, binders, lists... But with us not telling the kids, my binder is tucked away in my nightstand, my spreadsheets are labeled as something else, and I have no lists!!

So here are the details as they sit right now, which can change at any moment, and considering I just got off the phone with Disney making the first change, I would say they will change at least a few times during the next 6 months!!

Dates~
November 27th to December 9th

Resort~
Coronado Springs

Now, we are waiting for Southwest to release flights for our dates, and if flights are the same price for a day or two sooner, we will most likely add a day or two to the beginning of our trip.

We are celebrating a few birthdays this trip, I will be turning 32 on Dec. 1st, and it will be my 3rd year in a row celebrating at a Disney park, last year was Disneyland! Tailor will be turning 9 on Dec. 8th, and mrsksomeday will be celebrating her birthday on the 9th, the day we head home, but I am holding out for an afternoon flight home so we can see her that morning.

And of course, Alec will be celebrating the fact that we let him live to see his teen years!!

I am thinking we will do a few recaps of Disney trips past... We never finished our TR from 2010 and it was a great trip filled with a LOT of pictures and one super awesome surprise for me!

 

[mrsksomeday]

I can attest to the changing, the changing, and OH the changing .

Bill and I are just letting them get all the changes out of their system before we start booking stuff .

I would really love and appreciate seeing pictures from the 2010 trip, you know the one where I physically saw Terry taking the pictures?? WHAT DO THEY LOOK LIKE???

 

[oregonmommyof2]

I can attest to the changing, the changing, and OH the changing .

Bill and I are just letting them get all the changes out of their system before we start booking stuff .

I would really love and appreciate seeing pictures from the 2010 trip, you know the one where I physically saw Terry taking the pictures?? WHAT DO THEY LOOK LIKE???

If you and Bill wait for us to be done changing, you won't book your trip until the day before we leave...

We are going to do a recap of 2010 for sure, we have 6 months to kill, so we will do that and my birthday from last year too!

 

[Tinkermom76]

OK I'm in since Tracy said to gt our butts over here. If only to hear how the 2010 trip ended

 

[oregondaddyof2]

OK I'm in since Tracy said to gt our butts over here. If only to hear how the 2010 trip ended

Hi Tinkermom... Thanks for stopping in... We will def get to the 2010 trip soon...

 

[oregondaddyof2]

In 2011, we were going to take a year off from Disney... Weird I know, but we had been the previous 3 years and we figured it was time for a change... We decided to go to Maui instead... We were scheduled to depart 12/4 and come home 12/12... Toni's parents were going to be joining us on this trip...

In late November, we got a phone call that would change everything.... Toni's grandmother had been in a car accident, had been transported to a local hospital with life threatening injuries... Dr's worked on her until they thought she was stable, and then life flighted her to a major hospital... She never made it to the major hospital, but died in route...

Some of you may remember the story from a previous TR, but this was the grandmother we had only found about 1 1/2 years ago... The kids, Toni, and myself had grown to love her... She was a great, loving, funny, and caring woman who was so happy to finally have us in her life...

This was Toni's Dad's birth mother... Toni's parents left immediately for California... We took care of things back in Oregon... About 4 hours later, we got another phone call... Toni's Uncle had just died as well.... This was her grandmothers brother... The deaths were unrelated and took place 4 hours and 400 miles apart... Toni's great grandmother is still alive and was told twice in the same day that she had lost a child...

A double funeral was set to take place on November 30th, which happened to be the day before Toni's 31st birthday... We left for California on November 28th and drove half way down.... We finished the drive on November 29th... We attended the funeral services... It was a very rough trip for everyone... I couldn't let Toni associate the funeral with her birthday....

Now let me back up a bit... While all the funeral arrangements were being made, I knew I had to do something to make Toni's birthday something special... She had already lost all of her grandparents, and really took this loss hard... I reached out to mrsksomeday for help finding discounts for DL tickets... I couldn't do it myself since I was taking care of my wife and kids and help get the travel plans made to make the funeral happen... One thing you should know about Tracy and Bill is they are the most wonderful, kind hearted, generous people you will ever meet... Tracy came back to me and said there were no discounts, but her and Bill wanted to buy Toni and Tailor their DL tickets as their birthday presents... Tailors birthday was a week after Toni's...

I was floored... It made DL a reality... She bought the tickets online and emailed them to me... I printed them out while Toni was on Yahoo messenger chatting with Tracy... I didn't want to just hand Toni the tickets, but wanted Tracy to be the one to give them to her... I had Tracy message Toni saying that she had something to give her... Once that message was sent, I handed Toni the tickets... This is what Toni looked like... Toni loves DL... We hadn't been there since our honeymoon in 2002...

Now that you have the back story, lets proceed to the happy part of this update.... Pictures from DL....

This is our Princess... She had no idea that we were going to DL... She thought we were going to go to Downtown Disney only for a little shopping... She knows how much her Mom has to have a new Disney ornament every year...

Toni took Tailor into World of Disney to look around while I snuck off and bought Alec and my tickets... This is her when she saw us... She was so excited to be at DL, even though she thought we were not going inside the park...

My beautiful wife strutting her stuff when she saw me...

We approached the gates, and decided to tell Tailor about the tickets that Tracy and Bill bought for her...

The gate to happiness...

And that began the morning... To be continued...

 

[mrsksomeday]

I am a believer in things happening for a reason.

Bill was meant to find and love me (My own Prince Charming ), he was meant to show me Disney, I was meant to find this board, Toni and I were meant to "meet" and start talking here and then meet in WDW.

I adore her and would do anything I could to help you and your family. I felt so helpless during that time, I didn't want to send a plant or a card, I wanted to "DO" something to help take some of her pain away . I was only too happy to help when the "Operation Toni/Tailor Birthday Plan" came along.

The pictures of Tailor finding out make me so happy. I am so happy you guys got to go to Disneyland.

I can't wait to read more .

 

[Tinkermom76]

That's a great birthday surprise, Toni you are very lucky cause from what I have seen here and on fb you have a great husband and great friends!!!

 

[oregonmommyof2]

I am a believer in things happening for a reason.

Bill was meant to find and love me (My own Prince Charming ), he was meant to show me Disney, I was meant to find this board, Toni and I were meant to "meet" and start talking here and then meet in WDW.

I adore her and would do anything I could to help you and your family. I felt so helpless during that time, I didn't want to send a plant or a card, I wanted to "DO" something to help take some of her pain away . I was only too happy to help when the "Operation Toni/Tailor Birthday Plan" came along.

The pictures of Tailor finding out make me so happy. I am so happy you guys got to go to Disneyland.

I can't wait to read more .

You will never know what your birthday gift did for me. It was just what I needed. I had to let go of the stress of the situation. It also gave me closure, my grandma loved Disney and told me that is where I got my love of Disney. She wanted us to go to Disneyland together.

Thank you again for being so amazing!

That's a great birthday surprise, Toni you are very lucky cause from what I have seen here and on fb you have a great husband and great friends!!!

I am extremely blessed with an incredible husband, he would do absolutely anything for me. And I have some of the greatest friends a girl could ask for.

 

[oregonmommyof2]

Here are the rest of our DL pictures...

Just for the record, I wasn't going to hit him... We like to play around...

It was an amazing day. And we were able to do everything we wanted to do in that one day. We headed out after the parade... The CM's next to us were talking about the fireworks being cancelled due to wind... We decided to head out and hit the road north, we were driving up to the bay area that night. It turned out there was a major wind storm that night and it made the drive terrible and me a nervous wreck. But we made it safely!

Got a few hours of sleep, went out for breakfast, and hit the road again, driving all the way back home, 12 hours of driving, plus a couple hours for stops. We didn't get home until midnight.

Saturday was spent loving on our animals, cleaning out my SUV, doing laundry and packing all over again... Because Sunday morning at 6am, we left for the airport for our trip to Maui...

 

[DizNee Luver]

Wow, I can see why you're relating to what I've been going thru the last 7 mths.......so sorry to hear about the loss of grandparents last November. We just missed each other at DL......I was there Dec 6-8.....so I'm guessing about a week after you.

Now we're probably going to be overlapping on the WDW trip!!!! I'll be interested in watching & seeing you actually "glue" down some of your plans (and dates.....lol)

 

[oregonmommyof2]

Wow, I can see why you're relating to what I've been going thru the last 7 mths.......so sorry to hear about the loss of grandparents last November. We just missed each other at DL......I was there Dec 6-8.....so I'm guessing about a week after you.

Now we're probably going to be overlapping on the WDW trip!!!! I'll be interested in watching & seeing you actually "glue" down some of your plans (and dates.....lol)

Hi!

Glad you were able to pop over...

We will nail down our final dates when Southwest releases flights and when Disney releases some sort of discount!

Our dates can fluctuate between Nov 25th to December 15th... SO we will find a block in there to go...

 

[DizNee Luver]

Hi!

Glad you were able to pop over...

We will nail down our final dates when Southwest releases flights and when Disney releases some sort of discount!

Our dates can fluctuate between Nov 25th to December 15th... SO we will find a block in there to go...

Does Southwest tend to offer the best prices for flights?? Everything we've been pricing is around $500/person for a round trip. We're actually thinking of flying into Tampa (since we were planning on renting a vehicle anyways) because there's about a $130/per person difference and with a family our size.....that's adds up!!

Looking forward to seeing what dates you end up going!!

 

[oregonmommyof2]

Does Southwest tend to offer the best prices for flights?? Everything we've been pricing is around $500/person for a round trip. We're actually thinking of flying into Tampa (since we were planning on renting a vehicle anyways) because there's about a $130/per person difference and with a family our size.....that's adds up!!

Looking forward to seeing what dates you end up going!!

Southwest seems to be kinda hit or miss for PDX... But with free checked bags, that can add up... I do like that you can change your flights with no charge with them.

We were actually looking at Tampa as well! And last night, I decided to just look and see what flights from SeaTac were running and they are like 340 per person, 1360 total! Way better then the 2200 to fly from PDX to MCO!! I know Seattle is a bit of a drive, but we love Seattle and have never taken the kids, so we would go up the day before our flight and stay at a park and fly hotel...

 

[oregonmommyof2]

So, I haven't really been paying attention to my countdown as far as days go... And I am normally counting the days, a few times a day... Just ask MrsK..

But I figured since we will most likely be tweaking the dates, why bother counting down until they are set??

Then I got bored this morning... And decided to hit timeanddate.com...

And today is our 199 day mark!! As long as we still depart Nov. 27th... I think it will end up being a few days later than that, but dang it, that is what we are booked for at this moment so that is what I will go off of!!

So I will now proceed to do my virtual happy dance, since realistically I am still laying in bed...

​

 

[DizNee Luver]

Great info about Seatlle......with my hubby's schedule I don't think we could do that.....we're already taking 11 days in a row.....I think adding one more day would be pushing it....... (besides with the price of gas right now.....it might not save anything doing it that way)

WOO HOO for being under 200!!!!! At least for now........