chaospearl
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2005
- Messages
- 65
So... short introduction. I'm 27 years old, live at home with my parents due to disability. I go to Disney once a year during the summer and have for the past 5 years. Normally I go alone. Last year I was there for Gay Days and ended up meeting some really fabulous people whom I spent most of the trip with, and the experience made me realize that while solo Disney is great, Disney with friends is even better. Unfortunately, the vast majority of my friends possess inconvenient things like spouses, children, and full-time employment -- not to mention a disinclination to use up a precious week's vacation time and spend a thousand dollars to go on a trip with a pal from the Internet. Not happenin'.
It seems, then, that I need to look for a travel companion of the unmarried and unemployed variety, yet also someone with the available funds and the childlike delight in Disney World. Hmm. What kind of person has money but no 9-to-5 job? What kind of person has a flexible schedule with no family to worry about? And what kind of person is willing to put up with my late and lazy sleeping hours, my need for an IV of caffeine every few hours, and my obsessive tendency to pack three suitcases crammed with cosmetics and clothes for a week's vacation?
Then it hit me. Clearly, there exists the perfect creature for my Disney companion needs: a college student!
Conveniently, it so happens I have one on call. My little sister is 19 years old and she'll be home from school for the entire summer, doing absolutely nothing of use. She also comes complete with a significant checking account from working part-time at a pizzaria whenever she's home and having few personal expenses, due to our parents' generosity with their Visa card. And to be perfectly honest, I've missed her since she's been away. We haven't spent much time together in ages. My Disney trips are always on or around my birthday in late May, so at that point she'll only have been home for a week or two and we won't have had time to become re-annoyed with each other for the usual sisterly things such as sharing a bathroom and finishing the last of the Oreos.
Perfect. I quickly made a phone call and enlisted her cooperation. 24 hours later, we had hotel reservations at the Pop Century and plane tickets on Southwest Airlines. I'm flying down on the 25th of May and she'll be joining me on the 29th -- she wasn't up for a full 10-day trip -- then we'll fly home together on June 3rd. This works out well for a number of reasons. I'll be there for several days before she leaves, so I can let her know what the weather's like, what she may want to bring or leave behind, and whether I've forgotten something phenomenally stupid as I do EVERY SINGLE YEAR. (Last year's starring moment was the realization that I'd tossed my swimsuit into the washer the night before I left, as it had been in musty storage all winter, and then forgot to pack it. The year before that, I left my eyeglasses behind without thinking, as my contacts are the sort that you can sleep in so I rarely need the glasses. It turned out my eyes had trouble adjusting to the dryness of air conditioning on full blast in every building, so I spent the first few days of my trip looking like I'd just burst into tears.) Also, I always, always leave Orlando with far more junk than I'd brought there, and it will be extremely handy to have an extra person with an extra luggage allotment on the plane ride home.
My sister's companionship on this trip is a windfall for another reason as well, perhaps a more important reason than extra room in her suitcase. A 10-day vacation is stressful even at Disney World, my favorite place on earth, because I am physically disabled and rarely get out of the house. The first half of the trip will be perfect and fabulous, but as I keep racking up 15-hour days with little sleep, much caffeine, and lots of movement and activity, I'll probably be slowing down by day 5 or 6. By day 8 and 9, I may well need a little assistance with things like getting dressed, combing out my hair, climbing into and out of the pool and spa, and getting onto\off of various rides and attractions. That sort of thing can be awkward even when I'm traveling with a close friend who is sympathetic to my various medical needs. How many friends do YOU have whom you can call out to when you're stuck sitting on the toilet because your knees can't support your weight to stand back up from such a low seat? How many who will hold your hair back out of your face while you're puking into a trash receptacle? Those are both frequent occurances for me and even though I know many of my friends wouldn't mind at all helping me, I'd still feel pretty humiliated and horrible. I'm more comfortable and much safer being with my sister, who's lived with me and seen my day-to-day needs, who understands when I'm pushing myself too hard and need to slow down, who will hold doors and carry backpacks for me automatically without my needing to ask for help, who can remind me to take my medications and keep an eye on my blood glucose levels throughout the day, and who knows exactly what to do in the event of a medical emergency (which for me could be anything from an Addisonian crisis or a hypoglycemic episode to a popped-out hip joint or fractured rib).
Yes, I'm much pleased to share this year's vacation with my sister. Her name is Katelyn, incidentally -- easier to introduce her by name than to keep typing "my sister" in every paragraph. She's a freshman at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut, there on a full athletic scholarship to play LAX. She's been an athlete for her entire life, playing soccer and LAX at the varsity level even in junior high. In fact, that's the reason that I've never invited her on my Disney trips in the past; in high school she played in travel leagues and her summers were mostly spent traveling to various tournaments up and down the Eastern seaboard. She very rarely had a full week without an away game and even if she had, her coach would never have let her skip a week's worth of practices to take a trip to Disney World during the tournament season. Oh sure, she could have just lied about where she was going, but regardless of the reason, she'd have been benched for the next half a dozen games. For a high school student being recruited by Division I colleges, that could mean kissing bye-bye to a scholarship offer. Our parents would never have permitted that.
This is the first time since, well, birth, that my sister's summer hasn't been scheduled to within an inch of her life with athletics. She's worked damned hard to get where she is, and she deserves some time for laying on the beach or partying with her friends. Our parents have always pushed her hard and expected a great deal from her, and even at school she can't escape. LAX team practice is bright and early at 7am, followed by a full schedule of classes, two more hours of evening practice on some days, and games nearly every week. Not to mention the hour or two spent in physical therapy and treatment anytime she strains a muscle or joint, which any college athlete can tell you is a frequent occurance. I recently spent a week living with Kate in her dorm room during her school's Spring Break (I was there as a short-order cook to feed her and a few friends, as the cafeteria and eateries were closed for the break) and I was shocked by how little time she had to herself between practice, treatment and games -- and that's without any classes going on!
That's why this thread is entitled PRISON BREAK. I apologize for spending so much time yammering on about off-topic matters! Now that the background's done with, let's head for the good stuff. Kate and I are going to Disney World this summer and we'll be a thousand miles from parents, coaches, trainers, and physical therapists! Whoooo HOOOOO baby!
My sister has only been to Disney twice in her life. Once when she was still a toddler, and once about six years ago when our entire family went together. We stayed off-site in a timeshare that year and rented a car, so Kate has never experienced a Disney hotel. I'm incredibly thrilled to bring her there and show her the magic! For the past two days I've been excitedly yapping at her in Instant Messages, talking about all the things I almost, almost but not quite, take for granted because I've seen them every year.
The Disney transportation buses were first on my list. I don't have a driver's license; she does, but she's 19 and most agencies won't let you rent a car unless you're at least 25. Not a problem! Disney has a fleet of buses that run every 20 minutes and will take you anywhere you want to go -- any of the parks, Downtown Disney, Pleasure Island, any of the resorts and hotels. The bus can even accommodate my electric scooter. We can go wherever we want to, whenever we want to, no advance reservations needed, no schedules to stick to, no need to call a taxi company and then wait for 45 minutes to be picked up.
Let me back up very briefly here and explain why this is such a big deal and why I harped on it when explaining how wonderful it is to stay onsite at a Disney hotel.
As I said, our family took a trip to Disney six years ago, all four of us; Kate and me and our mom and dad. We stayed offsite in a timeshare, which we had for the full week, Sunday to Sunday. Unfortunately Dad had to return to work on Friday and Mom wanted to go with him. I, on the other hand, saw no reason to waste three perfectly good days by leaving early when the timeshare was "ours" for the full week. I'd traveled on my own many times and I had been to Disney alone once before, so there were no qualms about letting me stay on in the timeshare by myself. My sister was only 14 and Mom didn't love the idea, but after much begging and pleading, she agreed that it would probably be safe for them to fly home on Thursday morning and leave Kate with me until Sunday. And so it was.
I was only 22 and couldn't have rented a car even if I'd had a license, so the two of us had to rely on taxis and shuttles for transportation for the four days we were on our own. That Saturday we spent the day at Animal Kingdom, and I had arranged in advance for the shuttle service to take us back to the timeshare when the park closed that evening. The shuttle driver gave us a sheet with a pick-up time and the designated numbers for the parking lot area. The day was overcast and cloudy and the time 5pm rolled around, the skies had opened and it was raining steadily. Not a torrential downpour, but heavy enough. I'd bought us both those overpriced Disney rain ponchos at the park earlier when it had started to sprinkle briefly, but even covered in plastic sheeting it's still no fun to be caught outside in a rainstorm. To make matters worse, Kate had purchased an extremely large plush elephant at the gift shop -- one of those things that our mother would have said "Absolutely not!" to, but she was a few thousand miles away. The elephant was roughly the size of a Volkswagen and she didn't want it to be ruined in the rain, so she wrapped her poncho around it and we were both huddling under mine. So in other words, we were pretty much soaking wet five minutes after we'd stepped into the parking lot to wait for the shuttle. Which never showed up. We waited, and waited, and waited. We consulted the information sheet several times to be certain we were in the right place. After twenty minutes, I called the shuttle company to find out what was going on, and was told the shuttle was on its way, that the weather was slowing down traffic. We continued to wait -- by this time the park had closed for the night and the nearest structure with a roof was a small bus shelter at the entrance near the gates, two parking lots away from where the shuttle was supposed to pick us up. If we went over there to escape the rain, we wouldn't be able to see the shuttle when it arrived, and since we didn't know if it would show up in 5 minutes or 15, we didn't dare leave the designated space we'd been told to wait at. We continued waiting. I called the shuttle company twice more at 15 minute intervals, and on my third call -- now 50 minutes after the scheduled pickup time -- I was told to my complete surprise that the shuttle had in fact picked us up already. This seemed odd to me, being told that I'd been picked up ten minutes prior, while I was still standing out in the pouring rain in the middle of a mostly empty parking lot next to my little sister and a pony-sized plush elephant wrapped in a poncho. After much confusion and several more calls, it turned out the shuttle driver had gone to the wrong parking lot and encountered several people waiting there for a taxi they had called. Apparently these people thought that a large handicapped accessible mini-van with "Timeshare Shuttles" painted on the side was in fact the taxicab they had ordered less than 5 minutes before from an Orlando taxi company, so they got into it and told the driver they'd decided to go to a restaurant for dinner instead of their hotel. The driver assumed "the hotel" was the timeshare for which the shuttle was contracted and never found out otherwise. In the mean time, Kate and I stood in the correct parking lot a thousand yards away as our shuttle drove off, having duly picked "us" up.
It took another half an hour for the shuttle company to get another driver there. By this time we'd been standing outside in the rain for an hour and a half. To their credit, they were extremely apologetic. The driver told us that my money would be refunded in full not only for this trip, but also for that morning's shuttle service which had dropped us off at the park. As we pulled out of the parking lot, Kate and I were discussing where to eat that night, talking about a restaurant we'd been to the first night in Orlando that we'd really enjoyed. The driver interrupted to apologize again and state that he'd be happy to drop us at the restaurant if we wanted, and we could call him when we'd finished and he'd pick us up and bring us back to the timeshare, at no charge. We took him up on the offer and had a very nice dinner -- after stopping in the gift shop to buy dry T-shirts and spending twenty minutes in the restaurant's ladies room using the electric hand dryer on our bras and jeans.
So... in summary, THAT is why I felt compelled to tell Kate all about the wonders of the Disney bus transportation and how we could go anywhere we wished at any time while staying at a resort on property, instead of being at the mercy of pre-arranged shuttles!
Kate still has the plush elephant, which emerged from its poncho cocoon completely dry and fluffy. Its name is Ella and it lives among the pillows in her room here at home. She wanted to bring it to college with her, but it was too big to fit on the bed in her dorm room.
It's now close to 3 in the morning and so I suppose I'll continue this pre-trip planning report another time!
In the next post: Adventures in lactose intolerance, a piece of luggage dedicated entirely to entertainment activities for a single "relaxation and rest" day, what to plan for when and whether to plan at all, and my terror and guilt at having to tell Kate that Space Mountain will be closed for refurb during our trip.
Cheers!
Jenni
It seems, then, that I need to look for a travel companion of the unmarried and unemployed variety, yet also someone with the available funds and the childlike delight in Disney World. Hmm. What kind of person has money but no 9-to-5 job? What kind of person has a flexible schedule with no family to worry about? And what kind of person is willing to put up with my late and lazy sleeping hours, my need for an IV of caffeine every few hours, and my obsessive tendency to pack three suitcases crammed with cosmetics and clothes for a week's vacation?
Then it hit me. Clearly, there exists the perfect creature for my Disney companion needs: a college student!
Conveniently, it so happens I have one on call. My little sister is 19 years old and she'll be home from school for the entire summer, doing absolutely nothing of use. She also comes complete with a significant checking account from working part-time at a pizzaria whenever she's home and having few personal expenses, due to our parents' generosity with their Visa card. And to be perfectly honest, I've missed her since she's been away. We haven't spent much time together in ages. My Disney trips are always on or around my birthday in late May, so at that point she'll only have been home for a week or two and we won't have had time to become re-annoyed with each other for the usual sisterly things such as sharing a bathroom and finishing the last of the Oreos.
Perfect. I quickly made a phone call and enlisted her cooperation. 24 hours later, we had hotel reservations at the Pop Century and plane tickets on Southwest Airlines. I'm flying down on the 25th of May and she'll be joining me on the 29th -- she wasn't up for a full 10-day trip -- then we'll fly home together on June 3rd. This works out well for a number of reasons. I'll be there for several days before she leaves, so I can let her know what the weather's like, what she may want to bring or leave behind, and whether I've forgotten something phenomenally stupid as I do EVERY SINGLE YEAR. (Last year's starring moment was the realization that I'd tossed my swimsuit into the washer the night before I left, as it had been in musty storage all winter, and then forgot to pack it. The year before that, I left my eyeglasses behind without thinking, as my contacts are the sort that you can sleep in so I rarely need the glasses. It turned out my eyes had trouble adjusting to the dryness of air conditioning on full blast in every building, so I spent the first few days of my trip looking like I'd just burst into tears.) Also, I always, always leave Orlando with far more junk than I'd brought there, and it will be extremely handy to have an extra person with an extra luggage allotment on the plane ride home.
My sister's companionship on this trip is a windfall for another reason as well, perhaps a more important reason than extra room in her suitcase. A 10-day vacation is stressful even at Disney World, my favorite place on earth, because I am physically disabled and rarely get out of the house. The first half of the trip will be perfect and fabulous, but as I keep racking up 15-hour days with little sleep, much caffeine, and lots of movement and activity, I'll probably be slowing down by day 5 or 6. By day 8 and 9, I may well need a little assistance with things like getting dressed, combing out my hair, climbing into and out of the pool and spa, and getting onto\off of various rides and attractions. That sort of thing can be awkward even when I'm traveling with a close friend who is sympathetic to my various medical needs. How many friends do YOU have whom you can call out to when you're stuck sitting on the toilet because your knees can't support your weight to stand back up from such a low seat? How many who will hold your hair back out of your face while you're puking into a trash receptacle? Those are both frequent occurances for me and even though I know many of my friends wouldn't mind at all helping me, I'd still feel pretty humiliated and horrible. I'm more comfortable and much safer being with my sister, who's lived with me and seen my day-to-day needs, who understands when I'm pushing myself too hard and need to slow down, who will hold doors and carry backpacks for me automatically without my needing to ask for help, who can remind me to take my medications and keep an eye on my blood glucose levels throughout the day, and who knows exactly what to do in the event of a medical emergency (which for me could be anything from an Addisonian crisis or a hypoglycemic episode to a popped-out hip joint or fractured rib).
Yes, I'm much pleased to share this year's vacation with my sister. Her name is Katelyn, incidentally -- easier to introduce her by name than to keep typing "my sister" in every paragraph. She's a freshman at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut, there on a full athletic scholarship to play LAX. She's been an athlete for her entire life, playing soccer and LAX at the varsity level even in junior high. In fact, that's the reason that I've never invited her on my Disney trips in the past; in high school she played in travel leagues and her summers were mostly spent traveling to various tournaments up and down the Eastern seaboard. She very rarely had a full week without an away game and even if she had, her coach would never have let her skip a week's worth of practices to take a trip to Disney World during the tournament season. Oh sure, she could have just lied about where she was going, but regardless of the reason, she'd have been benched for the next half a dozen games. For a high school student being recruited by Division I colleges, that could mean kissing bye-bye to a scholarship offer. Our parents would never have permitted that.
This is the first time since, well, birth, that my sister's summer hasn't been scheduled to within an inch of her life with athletics. She's worked damned hard to get where she is, and she deserves some time for laying on the beach or partying with her friends. Our parents have always pushed her hard and expected a great deal from her, and even at school she can't escape. LAX team practice is bright and early at 7am, followed by a full schedule of classes, two more hours of evening practice on some days, and games nearly every week. Not to mention the hour or two spent in physical therapy and treatment anytime she strains a muscle or joint, which any college athlete can tell you is a frequent occurance. I recently spent a week living with Kate in her dorm room during her school's Spring Break (I was there as a short-order cook to feed her and a few friends, as the cafeteria and eateries were closed for the break) and I was shocked by how little time she had to herself between practice, treatment and games -- and that's without any classes going on!
That's why this thread is entitled PRISON BREAK. I apologize for spending so much time yammering on about off-topic matters! Now that the background's done with, let's head for the good stuff. Kate and I are going to Disney World this summer and we'll be a thousand miles from parents, coaches, trainers, and physical therapists! Whoooo HOOOOO baby!
My sister has only been to Disney twice in her life. Once when she was still a toddler, and once about six years ago when our entire family went together. We stayed off-site in a timeshare that year and rented a car, so Kate has never experienced a Disney hotel. I'm incredibly thrilled to bring her there and show her the magic! For the past two days I've been excitedly yapping at her in Instant Messages, talking about all the things I almost, almost but not quite, take for granted because I've seen them every year.
The Disney transportation buses were first on my list. I don't have a driver's license; she does, but she's 19 and most agencies won't let you rent a car unless you're at least 25. Not a problem! Disney has a fleet of buses that run every 20 minutes and will take you anywhere you want to go -- any of the parks, Downtown Disney, Pleasure Island, any of the resorts and hotels. The bus can even accommodate my electric scooter. We can go wherever we want to, whenever we want to, no advance reservations needed, no schedules to stick to, no need to call a taxi company and then wait for 45 minutes to be picked up.
Let me back up very briefly here and explain why this is such a big deal and why I harped on it when explaining how wonderful it is to stay onsite at a Disney hotel.
As I said, our family took a trip to Disney six years ago, all four of us; Kate and me and our mom and dad. We stayed offsite in a timeshare, which we had for the full week, Sunday to Sunday. Unfortunately Dad had to return to work on Friday and Mom wanted to go with him. I, on the other hand, saw no reason to waste three perfectly good days by leaving early when the timeshare was "ours" for the full week. I'd traveled on my own many times and I had been to Disney alone once before, so there were no qualms about letting me stay on in the timeshare by myself. My sister was only 14 and Mom didn't love the idea, but after much begging and pleading, she agreed that it would probably be safe for them to fly home on Thursday morning and leave Kate with me until Sunday. And so it was.
I was only 22 and couldn't have rented a car even if I'd had a license, so the two of us had to rely on taxis and shuttles for transportation for the four days we were on our own. That Saturday we spent the day at Animal Kingdom, and I had arranged in advance for the shuttle service to take us back to the timeshare when the park closed that evening. The shuttle driver gave us a sheet with a pick-up time and the designated numbers for the parking lot area. The day was overcast and cloudy and the time 5pm rolled around, the skies had opened and it was raining steadily. Not a torrential downpour, but heavy enough. I'd bought us both those overpriced Disney rain ponchos at the park earlier when it had started to sprinkle briefly, but even covered in plastic sheeting it's still no fun to be caught outside in a rainstorm. To make matters worse, Kate had purchased an extremely large plush elephant at the gift shop -- one of those things that our mother would have said "Absolutely not!" to, but she was a few thousand miles away. The elephant was roughly the size of a Volkswagen and she didn't want it to be ruined in the rain, so she wrapped her poncho around it and we were both huddling under mine. So in other words, we were pretty much soaking wet five minutes after we'd stepped into the parking lot to wait for the shuttle. Which never showed up. We waited, and waited, and waited. We consulted the information sheet several times to be certain we were in the right place. After twenty minutes, I called the shuttle company to find out what was going on, and was told the shuttle was on its way, that the weather was slowing down traffic. We continued to wait -- by this time the park had closed for the night and the nearest structure with a roof was a small bus shelter at the entrance near the gates, two parking lots away from where the shuttle was supposed to pick us up. If we went over there to escape the rain, we wouldn't be able to see the shuttle when it arrived, and since we didn't know if it would show up in 5 minutes or 15, we didn't dare leave the designated space we'd been told to wait at. We continued waiting. I called the shuttle company twice more at 15 minute intervals, and on my third call -- now 50 minutes after the scheduled pickup time -- I was told to my complete surprise that the shuttle had in fact picked us up already. This seemed odd to me, being told that I'd been picked up ten minutes prior, while I was still standing out in the pouring rain in the middle of a mostly empty parking lot next to my little sister and a pony-sized plush elephant wrapped in a poncho. After much confusion and several more calls, it turned out the shuttle driver had gone to the wrong parking lot and encountered several people waiting there for a taxi they had called. Apparently these people thought that a large handicapped accessible mini-van with "Timeshare Shuttles" painted on the side was in fact the taxicab they had ordered less than 5 minutes before from an Orlando taxi company, so they got into it and told the driver they'd decided to go to a restaurant for dinner instead of their hotel. The driver assumed "the hotel" was the timeshare for which the shuttle was contracted and never found out otherwise. In the mean time, Kate and I stood in the correct parking lot a thousand yards away as our shuttle drove off, having duly picked "us" up.
It took another half an hour for the shuttle company to get another driver there. By this time we'd been standing outside in the rain for an hour and a half. To their credit, they were extremely apologetic. The driver told us that my money would be refunded in full not only for this trip, but also for that morning's shuttle service which had dropped us off at the park. As we pulled out of the parking lot, Kate and I were discussing where to eat that night, talking about a restaurant we'd been to the first night in Orlando that we'd really enjoyed. The driver interrupted to apologize again and state that he'd be happy to drop us at the restaurant if we wanted, and we could call him when we'd finished and he'd pick us up and bring us back to the timeshare, at no charge. We took him up on the offer and had a very nice dinner -- after stopping in the gift shop to buy dry T-shirts and spending twenty minutes in the restaurant's ladies room using the electric hand dryer on our bras and jeans.
So... in summary, THAT is why I felt compelled to tell Kate all about the wonders of the Disney bus transportation and how we could go anywhere we wished at any time while staying at a resort on property, instead of being at the mercy of pre-arranged shuttles!
Kate still has the plush elephant, which emerged from its poncho cocoon completely dry and fluffy. Its name is Ella and it lives among the pillows in her room here at home. She wanted to bring it to college with her, but it was too big to fit on the bed in her dorm room.
It's now close to 3 in the morning and so I suppose I'll continue this pre-trip planning report another time!
In the next post: Adventures in lactose intolerance, a piece of luggage dedicated entirely to entertainment activities for a single "relaxation and rest" day, what to plan for when and whether to plan at all, and my terror and guilt at having to tell Kate that Space Mountain will be closed for refurb during our trip.
Cheers!
Jenni
Ya' see, we are DVC members and have been going to WDW on a regular basis for 20 years. My kids - all teenagers now - have been going their entire lives, the youngest even went before he was born 
But my very first trip was as a 10 year old with my parents and my older brother. Years later, when my kids were 3 - 8 we took my parents with us, but my brother had never been back. He is 4 years older than me, never married, no kids, various health issues (many of which I also have - plus I have some he didn't and vice versa). When my oldest son graduated High School and went to college he was unable to go on a trip with us so I suggested that he and my brother go down together in the summer - we would use or Vacation Club points to get a room for them. They enjoy spending time together - it sounded like a win-win situation. I got to "treat" my brother to a trip (sorta) - at least by providing them with lodging it would cut down on their expenses. My brother and I were both doing peritoneal dialysis, so my son was used to my doing it and would therefore not be surprised or inconvenienced by him doing it - and on and on. But my brother got laid off and wasn't sure by summer where or if he would be working so he didn't commit fully to the trip. In October he got a kidney transplant and things were looking promising. He had a job interview at a college which also looked good, and since it was a college seemed like it might work out for taking off some time in the summer. Then November came and we lost my brother. Some of the medications he was taking after the transplant cause chest pain. He mentioned it to his Dr's and they said it was probably from the medication - he looked online and did indeed see where many people on the same medication complained of the same symptoms he was experiencing. It was uncomfortable to eat and he started to get light-headed and they were concerned that he was becoming dehydrated from not eating so he went to the emergency room where they discovered he had had a heart attack earlier and went into another full-blown one there in the ER. I miss him terribly - because he's my brother - my only sibling and also because he was a really fun uncle for my boys. I hate that I never got to get him back to Disney. Even though I wouldn't have been there with him, I know he would have had a ball there with Sean - he was really just a big kid.
We will be going back again in August (before college starts so my oldest can go with us - his summer trip without us was cancelled) Make wonderful memories with your sister before she becomes one of those busy employed people with too many commitments!
