Our Planning session...12/12/05 *Engagment Photos Added**

JonetteA · Dec 18, 2005

This is a trip report...with some pictures. I didnt get many at Franc's, but there are some surprises for those who can hang on. Some of this is in the past, so hang on as I get you all caught up.

I just realized that 12/12 thing....I am such a weirdo.

I wanted to get this started right. We leave in the morning and I am still trying to get everything together. It iced in Dallas today so things have been crazier than normal. Here is the schedule.

Tomorrow - We leave! Check into the POFQ and go to Downtown Disney.
Friday - Engagment Picutres with Randy, Animal Kingdom, My annual pass, and dinner with "The Gang!"
Saturday - Epcot!!!
Sunday - MK in the morning, lunch at Whispering Canyon, MGM for Fantasmic and the Osborne Lights, and then over to Mickey's Very Merry.
Monday - Planning session, California Grill
Tuesday - Meeting up for breakfast with a friend of mine that works in Entertainment, and then back home.

Hopefully we are going to get to see all of our friends while we are down there.

Cast of characters - And I mean that LITERALLY!

Leif - Fiancee
Dad - My dad
Kathy - My Stepmom
Me - The chick in the picture below.

I have to go tomorrow to the Origins Spa, yes we are lucky as we have the only one in the US, to get the eyebrows waxed. I know vain, but I just dont want to think about how huge my eyebrows are! I am going to drive about 15 miles or so and hopefully it still will not be icy. Then we are going to hit the road to go to the airport. Lunch at Chili's with a Salad, and then to do standby. Our original flight did not get in until 11 pm tomorrow night, but it looks as though the straight through has openings and so we are going to try for that one. Once off the plane, straight for Magical Express and off to the hotel. From there, we are going to check in and hit Downtown Disney. I need the golden ears. Then back and to bed at a decent time. If we have time, we may go to the Poly and watch Wishes! Off to beddy bye as Lisa is showing up early to go through a makeup and hair trial run and to fix me up for the engagement photos. I am hopeless with my naturally curly hair. I hope she can get it to behave despite the humidity.

Talk to you guys when we get back! I will take lots of pictures.

Jonette

JonetteA · Dec 18, 2005

We got back a few days ago, and both of us have been under the weather. I am going to be doing a little over the next few days. During one point, my digital battery ran out, so I used film. Some of those will need to be developed in the coming weeks.

Thursday - We are leaving for Orlando!
It was really icy on the roads. But hey, here in Texas the ice only gathers on the bridges and over passes. So people rocket through and slam on their brakes when they get to the bridges. I went to bed about 1 am trying to get everything done, and was up by 7 am on Thursday so that I could go and do girl maintence before picking up Leif for the drive to the airport. We decided to fly standby on an earlier flight. I got the girl maintence done and then headed a few blocks to get Leif. We ate at Chilis and headed for the airport. I am glad that we did standby, otherwise, we would not have made it into Orlando for our engagment pictures. The planes that had a stop through in Atlanta were delayed by at least 2 hours, and the next flight to Orlando would have been in the morning. During this time I had been on the phone with Randy Chapman and Lisa to determine if we needed to move the shoot. It was supposed to be pouring rain. We decided with a 30 % chance of rain that we would press ahead and just do what we could do. Randy had weddings all weekend, and Lisa had weddings and was working with Regis.

We finally arrived at MCO and checked in for Magical Express!!! We went pretty quickly to the French Quarter checked in and headed to the food court to wear out the DDE and get something to eat. I had a baked chicken with mashed potatoes and corn. I think that Leif had the same. After that we hit Downtown Disney for a quick shopping trip. We got golden ears and had them embroidered and were going to wear them for the photo shoot the next day. I just thought it would be really cute. The only catch was that Leif would have to pick them up at 10 am the next day.

That night we tried to hit the bed relatively early. However, I am a lucky girl and I have a guy that saws some serious logs. =) I finally poked him a couple of times and was able to get a few hours of sleep. After all, Lisa was going to be showing up around 7:30 in the morning, and I had our alarm set for 6 am in order to get a work out in.

JonetteA · Dec 18, 2005

On Friday, we got up early in order to meet with Lisa. I thought that we were going to be able to do both engagement hair and figure out the best style for the wedding. Well due to time pressures, she could only do my hair and makeup for the engagement shoot. I will post the picture of what I am going to do for wedding hair in my planning journal when I get the picture from Lisa.

Here is what I looked like before the rain hit!

Miracle worker that Lisa is. After Lisa had left, I sent Leif off to get the ears at Downtown Disney. His for alone forray into the Disney Transportation system. He came out of it a better man!!

Randy came to the room. I was sweating the timing with Leif, b/c I knew that Randy had a wedding that day. Leif made it back just in time to change and be ready to go. Believe it or not it was really hot on Friday. I think it hit almost in the 80s. We took pictures around the French Quarter because that is like home for me, and then headed over to the GF. I will post pictures when I get them from Randy. While we were taking pictures at the French Quarter Stan called, and we set up a time to meet.

The rain held off for the shoot. We left Randy to get to his wedding, and headed to Epcot via Monorail to put our nice clothes in the locker, and to get the annual pass redeemed. Can anyone guess what is missing here??? Yep the golden ears...I left them in the room....*sigh* oh well. (Just as a side note, we never did get pictures with the ears on)

We then bused over to Animal Kingdom. Leif had never been there. As I said it was pretty hot and as you can see I am in a sweater and jeans. I hit the outfitters to buy a t-shirt, I put it on, and we go to eat at the BBQ place. Flame creek? Anyways, GREAT BBQ! and the minute we set down the temp dropped what felt like 20 degrees. After lunch, we saw Tough to be a Bug, and rode the Safari.

It was time to head over and meet Stan and the gang for supper.

Here is Stan

A whole bunch of us met for dinner. There was Sam, Helen and her husband Walter, Jen and Berry, Stan, and Leif and I. Needless to say we had a full crowd.

Here are the girls.

And here are the boys..I think Stan has had it in with us girls... :lol:

Here we are, all together!

Anyways, I have to say that the company at dinner was amazing. We had such a great time and loved every minute of it. My dad and my step-mother Kathy were supposed to meet us there, but got waylaid by Disney's Magical Express. So they ended up eating in the food court at the French Quarter. After dinner, Leif and I got our stuff from Epcot and headed back to have beingets with Dad and Kathy.

JonetteA · Dec 18, 2005

Saturday was all about Epcot.

We got up early and took Disney Transport to Epcot. When we got there, Dad and Leif decided to ride Mission Space. Quite honestly, after having rid it twice during other visits, I decided to wisely skip it this time. While the boys were riding, Kathy and I hit the Character Connection and headed over to get FastPasses for Soaring. I am glad that we did that. Soarin' in now located in the Land Pavillion and is the BEST attraction. I have ridden it several times during my visits to California. We made it back just in time as the guys got off Mission Space, it didn't look like either of them felt the best, so we headed over to Test Track and did the Single Rider.

I think my dad enjoyed this better than Mission Space. We then headed over to visit Figment and take a tour. Dad and Kathy played like kids in the after area. I remember as a child playing in the upstairs of the building. Everything you see downstairs they had upstairs and more. Of course that was many, many moons ago. On the way into the park, I made priority seatings for lunch at the Garden Grill, where we ran into these guys. Enjoy the next few picutres!

The one that means the most to me is the one of Dad with Mickey.
To catch you up, my dad keeps wondering when I am going to get over this Disney thing and grow up. YEAH RIGHT!!! Like the lost boys, I am NEVER going to grow up!!!

After lunch we headed over to the Canadian pavilion. I don't remember ever going over there, but we saw Koda and Kenai. Unfortunately no pictures with them, but check out the gardens.....remember this is December.

I was amazed how beautiful it was. We then headed over to the UK to check out the wedding site. Pictures of this will follow later, and then went to the American Pavilion to see the show, which almost all of us almost fell asleep in and the girl in front of us did. By that time it was getting dark and time for the Candlelight Processional. Here are the pictures that I took during that time. We did not wait in line to try and get a seat, but just waited in the back and listened to the music.

Leif is so tired of me taking his picture!!

Dad and Kathy

After it was over we hopped the boat to the front of the park to eat at Electric Umbrella. Here is a picture of the ball from across the lagoon.

Luckily we were in time to see the last few seconds of the tree lighting.

In front of the arches were thes beautiful doves.

Epcot had the water fountains timed to Christmas music.

After dinner we headed over to the French Island to stake out our turf for Illuminations. I wanted to sit near there as that is where our dessert party will be. There is one snag with the French Lower. It is NOT handicapp accessible. This is a problem for our group as Leif's dad can not move well due to narapothy (I am not sure of the spelling, it is when your nerves do not fire as they should), and my grandmother being 87. Bill is going to look for a different location.

Here are some Illuminations photos to help you through the day. This was the expanded Christamas edition, and where my digital camera gave up the battery ghost.

Our Planning session...12/12/05 ***Engagment Photos Added****

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Our Planning session...12/12/05 *Engagment Photos Added**