Our First Family Trip PTR

[erinmomof2]

This will be our first real family trip and my first PTR so bear with me. Our first trip to Orlando in 2005 was a major budget trip. We spent a week in Orlando visiting SIL and family... we went to Disney for a day and a half because SIL got passes from a CM friend. That of course started my obsession and now we're finally able to go and spend some real time there.

CAST -
Me - 27yrs old. Loves Disney, planning, traveling, and good food. I'm much more adventurous food wise than my husband, who I sincerly think is the pickiest man alive. I'm kind of an obsessive planner and I've been driving friends and family crazy. That's why I'm posting here, hopefully I can stop bugging my family and the only people who will have to listen to me are people who choose too and who get the whole obession thing.

DH - 28 years old. As discribed above he is SUPER picky. He does not subscribe to the "try it once" mentality. He tolerates Disney, he's going cause he wants a vacation and he knows the girls and I will like it. His only requirement was that we go out to dinner every night at a nice restaurant. And he didn't want to stay at a value resort. He wanted to stay somewhere with a relaxing atmosphere.

DD - Almost 4 (!). Emily LOVES Disney. She loves watching Travel Channel shows on Disney, especially the Samantha Brown one. She loves princesses and tinkerbell. The Disney store is her fav place. She's super girly and kind of old for her age. She could go shopping everyday and likes doing her hair and dressing up. She also is so into High School Musical and was so bummed when we found out the parade wasn't going to be there when we go.

DD - 1 - Ashleigh is my little troublemaker. Her current obsession is climbing our tall staircase (15 stairs) and trying to get into the toilet. She's super cute though and the happiest baby around. She doesn't really know anything about Disney except Mickey Mouse. She loves her stuffed Mickey Mouse. Oh... and she loves the High School Musical sountrack, she could be pitching the biggest fit in the car and High School Musical comes on and there is instant silence. Gotta love that High School Musical.

Due to DH work schedule we had to take our vacation in Sept or Oct. We originally planned on October but when I found out about free dining I talked to DH and we decided to move our trip up and save some $$ We're about six weeks away from our trip now and I can't wait. I've made all our ADR's (more on that later) and I can't wait. I feel like I'm wishing the summer away and I'm trying to plan other things to take my mind off it. We've had a few disney movie nights. A few weeks ago we started making Fridays our movie day. We had Peter Pan 2 night, Cinderella night, Enchanted night, and we're trying to think of what to do this week since most of our Disney movies are VHS and our VCR broke. We may do High School Musical or Camp Rock. Camp Rock would be easy to make food for... just make some camping food. We'll see, DH isn't a huge Camp Rock fan... but than again there aren't many Disney movies he is a fan of.... crazy I know.

Well, I guess that's all for now. Nap time is almost over for Ashleigh so my quiet time is coming to an end. Next post ADR's and such....

 

[erinmomof2]

We've been trying to plan this as a budget trip. Well I have been planning it budget, my husband wanted a "nice" vacation. He would love to stay at AK Savannah view, but that was way out of our budget. So I researched and researched and finally landed on POFQ. I like that it's small and looks so peaceful and relaxing. And of course it's so beautiful. I've only ever stayed at Ft. Wilderness Cabins as a teenager, so I didn't really know where to look. DH likes POFQ though and Emily is so into the dragon slide.

I was up at the crack of dawn at our 180 day mark ready to make our ADR's. I got everything I wanted.
Crystal Palace
1900 Park Fair for dinner
Ohana for dinner
Chef Mickey's for dinner
CRT for breakfast
Coral Reef for dinner (the diver is scheduled for a surprise - it's our 8th anniversary)
Tusker House for breakfast
Le Cellier for dinner
Akersush for dinner (spelled wrong I'm sure)

I've printed out all the menus and I've been so excited, but of course there had to be a wrench in our plans. DH got gout, which I don't think would have been a big deal normally, but doctor's can't figure out why he got it and why it's not going away (been 3 weeks now)... now is uric acid levels are through the roof and he's in so much pain he can hardly walk. So he's on 3 meds and a really strict diet. So I'm not sure what's going to happen wth the trip. The new meds should help with the pain, but he'll probably still be on the diet and he can hardly eat anything. Pasta, pbj, fruit, white bread... that's about it. No meat, hardly any veggies, ugh. So I'm thinking I may have to rework our ADR's but I'm not sure. His next dr appt is the week before we leave and than he'll find out if he can adjust his diet, but even adjusted he probably won't be able to go back to his old diet. No fun. I'm just hoping the pain goes away, if not I don't know what we'll do. we have trip insurance so we may be able to cancel, but that would be so hard. We have the countdown chain for DD and we're all so excited.

I'm trying to be optimistic about it. I really think it will all work out, the diet thing we can work around. it won't be fun but we can manage it.

My daughter is doing a fashion show right now parading around in all her costumes. She loves being "fancy" as she calls it. She wants me to dress like a princess for dinner one night... Um.. noo.....I don't think so... I agreed to maybe wear a crown or something... than DD said, "That's okay mommy, I don't think they make princess dresses in your size.... you might be too big." So I dodged that bullet. Than she asked if they make handsome prince costumes for daddy. Oh, I wish they did... I can't imagine my husbands face if I handed him the costume. He is not the type to dress up... I couldn't get him in mickey ears for anything. He's such a party pooper. He watches us with amusement but isn't the kind to join in. I'm looking forward to seeing him deal with the characters, I really wanted to go to WCC just to see how he'd be with the waiters but it didn't work out. I was going to book 50's prime time, but he read about it and how the CM's act like mom and he vetoed.

Anyway, I've typed enough for now I guess. I'm off to clean up the pile of costumes that mysteriously appeared in my living room. Fun, fun, fun...

Oh, and eventually I'll post pics, but i don't know how to yet...

 

[erinmomof2]

So, a couple of weeks ago I emailed Debbi and Coral Reef the pictures for the personalized menu and I haven't heard anything back yet. I emailed her again today to see if she received it (I've never sent an email with pics before... so I want to be sure I did it right). I'm getting nervous though. And of course I lost her phone number. Should I worry?? Does she usually get back to people quickly?

On another note, I've been working on my gift bags for my girls. I plan to pull them out on the plane ride. They'll each have a backpack full of goodies. I'm really worried about my 1yr old who will not sit still. So far I have:

4yr old:
lots of pins
lanyard
snow white sunglasses
ariel notebook
sleeping beauty crayons
mickey & pooh coloring books
sleeping beauty lipgloss
princess stuff for her hair
stickers
a fairygodmother stuffed animal
a tinkerbell wand pen
one of those bath mitt things from disney store
glow necklaces
glow sticks
cinderella hat

1 yr old
minnie sunglasses
crown
tinkerbell crayons
mickey and pooh coloring books
goofy stuffed animal
minnie mouse toy from disney store (you tip her head down and her face changes)
bath mitt from disney store
minnie board book
glow necklaces
glow sticks

I think that's all, there may be a few more things that I'm not thinking of. I need more for the 1 year old. But she doesn't play with toys too much. She has a baby she likes and I'll bring that, but usually she just likes to walk around, attempt to climb on things, and pull out laundry from the laundry basket, and pull garbage out of the garbage bag if she can get to it. She's a strange little girl. I need to come up with something brilliant to keep her occupied. Any suggestions??? Anyone????

We'll bring DH's laptop to watch movies on if they need it, but I'm hoping not to use it. Ashleigh is too little to care about movies and Emily would be fine with out it.

Oh, while I'm rambling (which I tend to do) has anyone done Philharmagic? I've never done it before and was wondering how it would be with two little kids. Any opinions would be fabulous. I have done the Honey I Shrunk the Audience and while I loved it, I know Emily would be terrified of that snake. She gets scared pretty easy. Ashleigh hasn't been scared of anything so far so I think she's be fine.

Till next time!

 

[erinmomof2]

I finally called Coral Reef and left a message for Debbi. I HAD THE WRONG EMAIL ADDRESS! So for nearly 2 weeks I've been wondering why I haven't heard anything and now I know it's my own fault.

Now I have to wait for my husband to come home, cause all my pics are on his laptop which is with him, and than resend everything. It will all be worth it to surprise my husband for our anniversary.