Pease Please PLEASE! No More National Lampoon Vacations! My First PTR!

[shadowryter]

Hi everyone. So sorry for the long pause between posts. I have to rest my arm…a lot. Which means minimal use of the mouse. I tried that little touch pad thingy on my laptop and absolutely hate it but if I use it my arm and shoulder doesn’t get so tired so quickly.

So what have I been up to? Well believe it or not I have the suitcases upstairs(which I already store a lot of vacation clothes in anyway.) and I’ve been learning the art of packing light. It’s been a struggle but I think all you light packers would be proud of me.
Dan is happy with a couple of pairs of shorts, one pair dress pants, a couple of polo’s, one dress shirt and tie and a few extras of course. Me??? Two pairs of capris, one pair black pants, two dresses, one skirt and a few tops and a dressy shrug. Heather’s about the same except extra bathing suit mix and match pieces. One pair of dress shoes each, one pair flip flops and we’ll be wearing our sneakers. I’ve finally got a handle on the 311 travel bag thing and got quite a few zip lock bags in various sizes. I’ve also decided to mail my FE goodies to the port instead of lugging them with us. Our pirate dress is still up in the air because my little family is going nuts with more t-shirts. Dan designed a really cool Star Tours image (black shirt)as well as a simple Jack Sparrow Flag with Party Like a Pirate on it. This would look great on red shirts so I’m off to A.C.Moore.

My PT is moving along, though I do have some pain when my limits are met. The rain and wind has been really heavy the past couple of days. Tropical Storm Irene was on us today (Sunday) but we got by pretty easy. I have some debris on my front and back yard and a section of our deck pulled away from the house, so we have to be careful with that until we can get it repaired.

The perfect dress has still to makes it’s appearance. They moved the shipping date from August 15th to Sept 2nd and now to the 8th. I’m thinking a back up plan might be needed. Dan has been home this week on vacation and just returned to work tonight. This has been his first break since the first of the year and it was nice to have him home, though laptop time was scarce…for me anyway. Lol! We all went out to dinner for my “real” birthday, on August 20th and the next day my parents had a nice cake for me. We went out for sushi, had an ice cream treat and finally got to see part two of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This coming Sunday, Sept 4th will be Heather’s official 21st birthday. Her dad and I are taking her to Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods to celebrate. We will be staying at the MGM Grand at Foxwoods and have reservations for Bobby Flay’s restaurant, Bar American at MS. I can’t wait. The menu is to die for. Yum!

I spent some time today printing out my t-shirt transfers, magnets and tip envelopes. They came out really nice and I’ll probably work on my shirts tomorrow. It was suppose to be only 6 shirts and now we have 11! When I finish them I’ll be sure to post. So sorry that I have no pictures this time but I hope to make that up later. Next will be my FE gifts. We should have a final count by mid-week but I’m gathering up all my materials to get started. If we don’t split the list it will be something like 32 cabins I think. Lot’s of work ahead of me. Talk to you soon.
Linda

 

[DesertGal]

Subscribing.

My sister took the auto train home last year on one of their trips. Mixed review! I wish we could drive or take a train. The flights from AZ are ridiculous.

I can't wait to hear about the Dream. What a fun way to celebrate. We are celebrating my nieces 16th birthday at WDW on 11/21 (Kstie), and then my DH's birthday on 11/28 on the Magic. I can't wait.

I agree about your comment on packing lightly. I still haven't mastered that. Realistically, I probably never will but I always try!

Bless you for doing all of our artwork requests when you are planning your own magical vacation and doing a trip report. I love reading them, but just can't do one.

 

[shadowryter]

Hey DesertGal, thanks for reading.
Hi all…Sorry for such a long delay before posting but when you read the following you’ll understand…I hope.

9/7...We all had a great time and Heather had a 21st birthday that I’m pretty sure she’ll never forget. We had a wonderful room on the 24th floor overlooking the pool and a wedding. Heather was surprised with a birthday cake from the MGM Grand and later a birthday dessert from Bobby Flay’s Bar Americain, which by the way was an incredible dining experience. We lost some money and made it back and we were up until 3 am! I’m the kind of girl that watches the ball drop on New Years Eve, toasts with sparkling wine (Asti to be exact), give DH a kiss and then off to bed. Lol! Needless to say I was exhausted when I got home but it was worth it.
Not Disney, but thought I’d share a few shots of our weekend.
Lobby at the MGM Grand

Heather and her birthday treat from the MGM Grand

Heather at Bar Americain and her birthday dessert

Bar Americain

Our view from the 24th floor

Now for all of you who are still wondering….Ta-da!!! The perfect dress has arrived. Actually it was shoved into my mailbox the day before we left. It is gorgeous and Heather looks absolutely beautiful in it. We are planning our dress up night around her color. Really simple since I have a black dress with a lovely sheer black beaded shrug to wear over it. Dan is wearing black slacks and a black shirt and will wear a tie to match Heathers dress. I’m such a planner. I wore my black pants for dinner this weekend and decided these are not going on the cruise. I’ve slowly lost about 20 pounds and I’m swimming in them so I guess a skirt or capri’s will have to do.

Update….
Well as of today 9/12...I have been without internet for the past 2 days, previously I got about 6 hours online in a total of seven days all prior to Heather’s birthday. Brand new modem/router on the 3rd and two solid days of internet and then…on the 6th, first Heather lost connection and then I did. My DD says that Charter has been to our house so much that we should place a cot in the room next to the desktop so they’ll be on call. So as of now, I am waiting for Charter and the 4th tech to visit in less than two weeks. I have decided that this is it. If I have one more problem after today I will be looking into other options. I’ll let you know how this plays out. When I can post of course.

Since I have had no internet, I have once again starting rummaging through my luggage. I have removed more things that I realized I will not need and Heather and I are even going to share a skirt…me for pirate night and her for our last dinner. I also got Heather to part with some of her clothing that she plans to take so I can see how many suit cases we will actually need. So far so good but I am starting to doubt that I will be able to mail my FE stuff to the port. We have 34 cabins and no one wanted to split the list…or wanted to be the first to say so. I’m fine with it though, I just read that somewhere where someone had 97 cabins!!! I guess I’m getting away with it kind of easy. It will be fun and I am looking forward to it.

9/22...Yeah… I finally did get my internet back but it was slow and painful. I get booted off occasionally but it only seems to last a few seconds and then reconnects??? Oh well.

At this point we are a little more than a month out. I got Disney mail and received our documents from our resort and then the cruise documents followed. Still waiting for our DME tags but so are others. I’ve been working on my FE gifts…90 book marks have been printed, cut out, laminated, holes punched and now all I have to do is string the ribbon through. I purchased some really nice ribbon which has Disney Dream and the date printed onto it. Black satin ribbon with gold print. This will be more for the adults while the kids have plain black ribbon for the boys and hot pink for the girls. When the book marks are finished I will start on the pendants and key chains. I also have Disney stickers, pirate tattoos, Halloween pencils, mini highlighters, magnets, little pool balls, glow bracelets. It sounds like a lot but believe me when I say it is less than our last cruise but just as nice. I may also be able to ship this stuff to the port. We’ll see how that plays out. I’ve also finished most of my shirts with DH Dan holding up the works while he decides which Grumpy he would like.
My finished products:
Our MNSSHP shirts

I placed my screen name on the back of mine

Dan’s Studios shirt and Pirate night shirt

Back of Dan’s Studio shirt…his design by the way

Heather’s Epcot and Studios shirt…do we sense a theme here?

9/28...Yet another update….My FE stuff is all done and packed it one of those, “If it fits…it ships,” box. I decided to assemble my gift bags on the ship. This may sound crazy but it doesn’t really take that long and I have a list of who gets what and stickers with the cabin #’s on them…I think I’m all set. So happy not to be dragging these through the airport and cruise port.

PT is ongoing but I am making improvements. I still can only use my computer for a couple of hours at a time which is why I have been writing this in my document program. Internet is holding…kind of . We’re all getting excited about our trip and have all our documents except our DME tags…still waiting on that one. I now realize through the past months that I now have lost a total of 28 lbs. I tried on a dress that looked so-so back then but now…I look pretty darn good. Lol!
Here are a few pictures of things getting done.
Bookmarks

Close-up of personalized ribbon

Ladies and Teens Pendants

Men’s and Teens Key rings

(Disney ones are for kids 9 to 12)
I just trimmed and laminated our signs for our cabin on the Dream. This weekend I’ll add the magnets and then have 4 more shirt to do.

Tonight I ended out opening the sealed box of FE stuff and assembling all the gift bags. It took me over 3 hours but I’m glad I won’t be spending my time on the Dream putting these together. I plan on taking them to UPS on Monday so I can calculate when to ship them to the port. Seventeen days and counting....

 

[DesertGal]

OMG, your gifts are so fabulous. I want to be on your cruise. They are beyond amazing. Love, love, love the ribbon.

Your daughter is so cute. I loved the dessert. You should have posted pics of the dress. Hooray for you to lose 20 lbs.

Your trip is sob soon. I'm jealous.

 

[shadowryter]

Hi Lisa, thanks for the comments. I can't believe we are leaving a few days.


Wow! Five days and counting. I have to admit that I’m a little apprehensive about flying but I know I’ll do it. May not like it but I’ll do it. Lol! I finished my shirts and pirate bandanas. They came out pretty cool. I’ll be shipped my FE stuff to the port this afternoon and it should arrive by next Tuesday. Our cruise mates want to get together for a meet. Should be interesting with over 100 people but I think only the regular posters might be the ones to make it.

Some serious packing is going on right now. I cut it down to three suitcases and not jammed packed either. I keep watching the extended weather forecast….yeah right…watch it change from rain to sun and back to ran again. Here’s hoping not another NLV. I’m hoping for some decent weather and pray not a situation like last Sunday where the port was shut down due to a tropical storm. I sat up till around 1 am and saw the Dream still sitting there. I felt so bad for those people but I hear they still had a great time.

I’m hoping that my shoulder behaves. Despite everything I will still have to take time out of my days to do my exercises. I’m feeling better but it’s taking sooooo long. I guess I’m just being impatient. There are only 3 mailing days left and still no packet from from DME. I’ve called them at least three times and have just been getting what I consider to be the run around. But thanks to the folks here on the DIS I know what to do and already have my plan B in the wings.

So I’m planning on posting at least one more time before I take to the skies and enjoy our vacation. Here's a few more pics of our finished shirts and vacation stuff.
Our embarkation tees

The back of mine and my just because shirt

All shirts completed and packed

Cruise Docs, luggage tags and tip envelopes

Disney World packet, mousekeeping envelopes and MNSSHP tickets (notice the bright yellow DME tags...not!)

 

[MNTwinsMom]

Linda - all your projects turned out amazing! Are there directions somewhere on how to make the bottle cap pendants? I love seeing new ideas! Have a great trip. I am looking forward to hearing about it when you return.

Oh, one more thing . . . CONGRATS on losing all that weight!

 

[Swissmiss]

Hi Linda,

Happy travels and enjoy WDW! I hope to get a few MNSSHP tips when I see you in person on the ship! We may or may not make the meet. We are doing "family astronaut training" Sunday morning at the space center, so we will only arrive about 2:30. But I will give it a try.

I am glad your shoulder is better. I will offer to drag you with me to the gym, but given jet lag, that's likely to be me begging to be let in at 4am

See you next week!

Heidi