Rabbits are not our friend trip report

[hockeymomoftwo]

Chapter 2 Tears of Joy? http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=14854947#post14854947



Ok here is the pretrip report given posttrip. We'll just call this this pretrip thingy part I. I've never really written a what I did on summer vacation report when I was in school so here goes.



The cast of characters:

Cody: He is my 8 y/o boy who just goes through life with a happy go lucky attitude about most everything. He however is a very sensitive child. Cried during old yeller (along with his momma). Cody goes affectionately at school as king cody and I already have girls writing him love notes daily. He plays hockey (hence my board name), soccer and dabbles in a little baseball. He pretty much thinks he's a stud and his big brown eyes will get him through life. I call this one CJ.

Brody: This one is my 5 y/o boy who is just the opposite of his bro. Looks at us with a bizarre look on his face during the crying scene in old yellar (kind of looked like my family are morons look). Brody is a rough and tumble little boy who has a lot of dennis the menace characteristics. His career choice has been decided and he is a pirate. Now most kids pretend they are pirates for a little bit of the day and then go onto something else. Not B (my nickname for him). He IS a pirate. HE HAS BEEN A PIRATE FOR 2 YEARS NOW. When he turned 5 we had his 3rd annual pirate party. At Day care they all call him Captain Jack and he will not talk to you if you don't call him capt jack. The folks at the icerink all wonder what is up with the kid that dresses like a pirate all the time. He also plays hockey (again more reason for the name). However I really just think that his hockey stick is a sword and he is really out there playing pirates cause I can't get him to put two hands on his stick he just jabs at the puck like he's in a sword fight. It is kind of cute sometimes.

DH: My Dh is 42 and just goes along for the ride. Not particularly a disney enthusiast but does like theme parks in general. Heat not really his forte either. His ideal vacation would be holed up in a hotel with a remote control in hand, phone number for pizza delivery and no kids to disturb him. In other words kind of a peace and quiet kind of guy. Uh Ohh this kind of spells trouble. It was his idea to go to wdw for our honeymoon. I wasn't too jazzed about the idea at the time though.

Myself: I am much younger than DH (haven't hit the 4-0 quite yet). We are older parents though which definately affects our endurance level. I am a nurse now but a former airline employee and travel agent so of course every bit of trip planning and organization falls into my lap. (Thank Heavens or we'd never have any fun). I'm definately a control freak. I am the little one's hockey team manager (go figure).

The setting: We live in Colorado and we took our boys to disneyland two years ago and had an absolutely fantastic time. We had planned to go to wdw when the boys were old enough and willing to ride all the rides. We were thinking 12 and 9. Long ways down the road. Well we ended up with a little surprise money and were trying to figure out what we wanted to do with it when out of the blue I got an email about WDW having a free dining promotion. This just seemed like Karma that we had to go to WDW. Ok so I'm off to price the trip out and it just doesn't seem like we could ever go any cheaper. One glitch though we are going to go during hurricane season. We are landlubbers from the rockies so this hurricane stuff is not really our thing and so we worried that we might have to cancel our trip at the last minute so maybe we shouldn't tell the boys so they wouldn't be incredibly disappointed. I'VE GOT A GREAT IDEA LETS SURPRISE THEM.

So a surprise trip was planned. So we ordered the planning video because they had never been to wdw we couldn't expect them to be too excited if they didn't know nothing about it. We got them to watch it by telling them we were thinking about going in a few years down the road. They thought it looked pretty cool but weren't overly enthusiastic.

 

[hockeymomoftwo]

Ok trip planning is going along pretty good thanks to finding the DIS. I get all my adr's booked and then rebooked etc, etc. You all know what I'm talking about here. I order my baggalini, start swiping lgmhpc's which my children just look at me like they are going to be orphans while I'm in prison for my crimes. I'm already an avid croc wearer so it seemed we were all set for the trip. Our plans entailed staying at the all star sports until I discovered that movies had a mighty duck theme. So we ended up booking a split stay at both resorts. Added a little cost but Oh well were are only doing this once while they are little.

So Dh and I do a lot of code speak around the house but for the most part he is just nodding while I'm talking to him. He also thinks I'm a moron when we talk in code speak like instead of saying magic kingdom I would say mk. I think he thought I was going to start selling marykay or something. Honestly I don't think he heard a word I said in those months because about 2 days before when I reviewed restaurants etc with him he was very confused and preceeded to make suggestions about where he wanted to eat. Ok where is that PIRATE when you need him (WALK THE PLANK BUDDY).
However we have been married for 11 years and this is pretty much how all our vacations go so i'm pretty used to it.

THE DRAMA:
Ok come July just prior to our final payment our house succumbs to some horrific events. Right after the 4th of July both boys come down with Strep throat. No biggy I'm thinking. Both get started on antibiotics. B is better almost immediately. CJ however is not. We begin on our own tower of terror ride right in our own home over the course of July and early August. Cj became a lethargic, fireball for 28 days in July. We made the poor little guy a pin cushion checking him for every disease that we could think of. His mom the RN was pretty manic most of this time and he really thought he was going to die. The end of July after multiple rounds of many different antibiotics and parents that were about to lose their marbles we admitted CJ to the hospital with a "chest mass" diagnosis. So here we were so worried about what was going to happen to our child that all of our (my)fun planning was all gone away. I was really disappointed to think that all that pixie dust was for nothing. CJ ended up having a lymph node biopsied which thank heavens turned about to be an infectious process and not a malignancy. Now to figure out what infection it is. The preliminary diagnosis from the pathologist was Cat Scratch Disease so we got to go home since he had recieved the proper treatment for that. So 3 days after discharge I start getting calls from our local health department. It is not cat scratch disease but looks like tularemia (rabbit fever). Not a common illness at all. Hasn't been a case in our area in 40 or 50 years. So here we go having to figure out how he got this and dealing with the media reports. King Cody is starting to feel a little better now because he is on yet another antibiotic and it might be working so he is pretty impressed that he was featured on the news and in the paper. (thank heavens his name wasn't mentioned or there would be no living with him) So 45 days later we start to think maybe we are going to get to go. It was all I could do to not tell him during his illness cause I thought it would make him feel better. So how'd he get rabbit fever you all probably want to know (or not). We live in a prarie area and we have a ton of wild rabbits. (we actually got a cat this summer to start thinning the heard). Unfortunately we are not really sure how he got it if he got a little mosquito bite from an infected mosquito or what. The boys both did handle some baby bunnies in the early summer but it wasn't probably from that. So rabbits are kind of a laughing joke in our house. I think it is safe to assume Cj will never pick up another rabbitt. He now has become our dead animal monitor. There is no critter that will be left to rot on our property with CJ on the job. I'm constantly picking up dead things now where before I would let the owls and hawks take care of business.

So all is well. CJ is recuperating and is becoming a more normal boy each day so it looks like we are back in business.

Now at first I was feeling pretty guilty about taking him out of school for wdw and had prepared a whole project to present to his teacher so that she would excuse him to go. Well after his horrific summer how could anyone deny the little guy a trip to the happiest place on earth. Everyone at my work knows as well as all their teachers. Amazingly on dh came close to slipping.

Here is the plan.

We pick up Cj from school at lunch time telling him that we need to take his uncle to the airport and then stay with his grandfather. This explains why we are going to the airport and why we have our dog and a car full of luggage. Pick up brother in law and drive to the airport and SURPRISE you're going to WDW. What could be better right. Well that is part II

 

[DISUNC]

Off and running!

I AM FLIPPEN DYING TO KNOW HOW YOU SUPRISED THEM......It's been killing me.

So glad Cody is so much better! What a fright!

....and now I wait!

 

[hockeymomoftwo]

I'll post the next installment tonight

 

[PigletFairy]

I wanna know too!! I cannot wait to read it!

 

[stinkerbelle's mom]

You tease! Great start!

I am so glad everything worked out with Cody! With all that you went through its nice to know he's healthy again!

 

[roberrl187]

I'm in.

 

[dwheatl]

Can't wait to hear how it all went down. Now that I've seen the picture of your guys, I know what you mean about Cody's big brown eyes.

 

[TOT_Princess_412]

Great so far !!!

SOOOOO how did you suprise them!!

 

[kaw1218]

I would post ' more, more, more' except that would mean I would have to update my TR.......hmmm.....decisions, decisions.


Ok. More!More! More!

I wanna hear about the surprise.

 

[hockeymomoftwo]

Ok so here is the long sordid story of how the surprise went. Maybe this will be a big how to not do a surprise vacation for you all.

Ok big day comes. I've been packing in secrecy for several days after the kids go to bed. Momma why are taking our suitcases out? Well I'm just relocating all of them. So my washing machine gets it work out as that is where the luggage gets stored in between packing.

I followed all the tips I had learned off the board. I ziplocked each childs outfit for each day in a baggie. Great idea by the way. I can't remember where I read that. Got my pop up hamper packed. Lots of glow bracelets, fans, misters, lgmhpc's, ds sticky tape, lime green ponchos. And so it goes on each night as I check through the lists from the previous months hours of dis'ing.

Dh who already thinks I'm an over planner disney geek is really starting to wonder if this vacation is going to be a vacation by this point. But this is also the first time in the whole planning that he starts to show any interest in any of the plans and starts to put his on input as to where we might want to eat etc. Murder was not far out of my mind by this point.

Ok on to the surprise part. We decided to give the kiddos a letter from mickey mouse at the airport inviting them to wdw. That way we could hold out the surprise as long as possible and my plan was to be able to photograph and film the moment because it was going to be so cool to see their reaction.

Dh decided to take that day off so this then threw a new glitch in the plan as I had to come up with something to explain why Dad was in the car.

The plan:
We decided that the plan was to pick up Cody at 10:30 from school. We would leave right from school and drive to Colorado Springs. We were on a mission to drive our Uncle to the airport who was flying out to see a friend on a last minute trip and we wouldn't be home in time to pick him up from school. We are going to bring the dog Murphy with us because we are going to stay with Grandfather so he doesn't have to stay home alone on the weekend with everyone gone. Sounds pretty good doesn't it. Explains why the dog and luggage are in the car along with Dh picking him up early from school. Well he buys it hook, line and sinker and doesn't think anything of it.

The Mission:
Ok we are driving along to Colorado springs secretly grinning to ourselves. Boys are in the back fighting over something petty and Murphy decides to get silently car sick on the luggage. None of us heard him getting sick. It was quite a nice surprise when we arrived at grandfathers house to pick up uncle. Slight delay as clean up mission was began. Kids are too busy looking at Grandpa's paint job on his 68 slug bug he just finished so mission continues as planned. Ok everyone in the car we are off to the airport. We are going to leave Murphy at Grandfather's house though since he has a tummy ache. Mission continues to go with success despite dog vomit set back.

We arrive at airport. I am sitting in back seat between the two boys and we are chatting about going and looking at some airplanes while we see Uncle Tim off to ugh Cincinnatti. Sounded like a good place since that was actually where we were connecting through. We pull up to the curb and DH and uncle turn around and say to Boys guess what we are going to WDW. (going through my mind at this moment was finding a good hit man. ALL THAT PLANNING FOR WHAT). Best part no camera ready, No film footage. WOO HOO for DH. He really scored high on this one. Well boys have a look of shock and awe on their face. Dh is know to be a kidder. The boys are constantly asking me if what he is telling them is true so they aren't really buying it yet. So I had to jump in their at this point and tell them that we were really going to orlando and you know how we were watching all those planning videos and travel channel shows for the future upcoming trip to WDW in 3-4 years well it is here now. Brody (littlest one) is kind of starting to get excited at this point. Cody (8 y/o) just has this look of worry on his face. (Imagine the pictures at this point). So we hop out of the car and start taking out all the bags. As we are unloading all the bags I am starting to feel like I'm going to have to give the kid a sales pitch to get him excited about the trip but no time now as we want to get our baggage checked in and leisurely get through security to our gate where we can have some more detailed discussion.

Ok so know we park the boys on a bench in the airport near the ticket counter while I proceed to check bags in and all that jazz. Ok everything gets checked ok. We walk back to the boys to gather up our carryons and Cody is absolutely having a meltdown. Tears and everything.

So by this time I'm starting to get concerned about what is wrong with this child. Who wouldn't want to go to wdw. What 8 y/o boy wouldn't want to skip a week of school. It's the happiest place on earth gosh darn it. This kid is just not right. So here is a summary of the conversation.

Me: CJ why are you crying?
CJ: I'm going to miss Murphy! Followed by more tears.
Me: Murphy is going to be fine. He's going to hang out with his pop pop (grandpa) and dog cousins. He'll have a blast.
CJ: I don't want to go. I want to stay with Murphy.

This continued on for several minutes. I'm starting to get the picture that this really has nothing to do with Murphy. This is a very sensitive child who picks up on many details when you don't think he does (except WDW packing and travel plans). We are in the airport on 9/15 just 4 days after the 5 year anniversary of 9/11. I am beginning to think this has him really scared. SO our conversations goes in this direction.

Me: CJ I don't think any of this has anything to do with Murphy. Is there something else your worried about.
CJ:Yes. I don't want our plane to crash. (Just as I had expected his worry was about).

So he and I sat at the ticket counter having a long conversation about what the airlines do to keep us safe and the pictures of the planes crashing into buildings happened a long time ago and lots of things have changed to keep us safe. He hadn't flown since he was a baby so we had to talk about going through security and all that.

Ok with a worry wart child like this I don't know why I didn't see this coming. I normally would have had him all prepared and ready but this came out of no where for me.

So we finally start to get some calmness back into the scene when I start trying to get him excited about his surprise bag and what he was going to find in it. So let's go catch up with dad and B. So they are at subway eating lunch. B is happily going through his Winnie the pooh suitcase looking at all his cool surprise stuff. Well Cody's bag is no where to be found in our carry on. So in the excitement of all unloading and sales pitch for WDW we had forgotten his carry on in the car. Oh Man this really got bad at this point. I'm worried at this point that someone is going to think that we are kid napping this child and forcing him on a plane at gunpoint.

DH is really peeved at this point! He just can't understand why he's upset. He'll just have to get over it and they can share their stuff. I'd like to say that this was the only argument we had on the trip but it wasn't. Well I call to Uncle and ask him if he wouldn't mind turning around and coming back to the airport. We had enough time but man DH is peeved at us right now. So Cj and I take our lunch and go outside to the curb to wait about 15 minutes for Uncle Tim to come back. We eat and talk and things are finally starting to calm down. Sales pitch continues. You remember when we went to dl and you traded pins and got autographs.........

Well uncle tim pulls up and I explain the situation with him and he talks to CJ also. By now he is more calm and starting to show some enthusiasm. So we head back to DH and B and prepare to enter security.

Here is CJ and B going through Cody's bag of goodies.

So now you might be thinking what else could go wrong right.

Well tune in for the next chapter: HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM!

 

[crossfamily]

OMG I love it. You must have been thinking to yourself "My gosh we are going to DW now shut up everyone and have fun. We are going to the happiest place on earth" Sounds like my kids!! I have a very sensitive one and 2 pain in the ***s. Keeps you hopping. Sounds like your dh is just like mine. No wonder us disers get along so well. hey you have to send some pointers for dl my way. your kids were little when you went so I would appreciate all the imput you have. I can't wait to hear about the layover!!!!!!!

Ok so here is the long sordid story of how the surprise went. Maybe this will be a big how to not do a surprise vacation for you all.

Ok big day comes. I've been packing in secrecy for several days after the kids go to bed. Momma why are taking our suitcases out? Well I'm just relocating all of them. So my washing machine gets it work out as that is where the luggage gets stored in between packing.

I followed all the tips I had learned off the board. I ziplocked each childs outfit for each day in a baggie. Great idea by the way. I can't remember where I read that. Got my pop up hamper packed. Lots of glow bracelets, fans, misters, lgmhpc's, ds sticky tape, lime green ponchos. And so it goes on each night as I check through the lists from the previous months hours of dis'ing.

Dh who already thinks I'm an over planner disney geek is really starting to wonder if this vacation is going to be a vacation by this point. But this is also the first time in the whole planning that he starts to show any interest in any of the plans and starts to put his on input as to where we might want to eat etc. Murder was not far out of my mind by this point.

Ok on to the surprise part. We decided to give the kiddos a letter from mickey mouse at the airport inviting them to wdw. That way we could hold out the surprise as long as possible and my plan was to be able to photograph and film the moment because it was going to be so cool to see their reaction.

Dh decided to take that day off so this then threw a new glitch in the plan as I had to come up with something to explain why Dad was in the car.

The plan:
We decided that the plan was to pick up Cody at 10:30 from school. We would leave right from school and drive to Colorado Springs. We were on a mission to drive our Uncle to the airport who was flying out to see a friend on a last minute trip and we wouldn't be home in time to pick him up from school. We are going to bring the dog Murphy with us because we are going to stay with Grandfather so he doesn't have to stay home alone on the weekend with everyone gone. Sounds pretty good doesn't it. Explains why the dog and luggage are in the car along with Dh picking him up early from school. Well he buys it hook, line and sinker and doesn't think anything of it.

The Mission:
Ok we are driving along to Colorado springs secretly grinning to ourselves. Boys are in the back fighting over something petty and Murphy decides to get silently car sick on the luggage. None of us heard him getting sick. It was quite a nice surprise when we arrived at grandfathers house to pick up uncle. Slight delay as clean up mission was began. Kids are too busy looking at Grandpa's paint job on his 68 slug bug he just finished so mission continues as planned. Ok everyone in the car we are off to the airport. We are going to leave Murphy at Grandfather's house though since he has a tummy ache. Mission continues to go with success despite dog vomit set back.

We arrive at airport. I am sitting in back seat between the two boys and we are chatting about going and looking at some airplanes while we see Uncle Tim off to ugh Cincinnatti. Sounded like a good place since that was actually where we were connecting through. We pull up to the curb and DH and uncle turn around and say to Boys guess what we are going to WDW. (going through my mind at this moment was finding a good hit man. ALL THAT PLANNING FOR WHAT). Best part no camera ready, No film footage. WOO HOO for DH. He really scored high on this one. Well boys have a look of shock and awe on their face. Dh is know to be a kidder. The boys are constantly asking me if what he is telling them is true so they aren't really buying it yet. So I had to jump in their at this point and tell them that we were really going to orlando and you know how we were watching all those planning videos and travel channel shows for the future upcoming trip to WDW in 3-4 years well it is here now. Brody (littlest one) is kind of starting to get excited at this point. Cody (8 y/o) just has this look of worry on his face. (Imagine the pictures at this point). So we hop out of the car and start taking out all the bags. As we are unloading all the bags I am starting to feel like I'm going to have to give the kid a sales pitch to get him excited about the trip but no time now as we want to get our baggage checked in and leisurely get through security to our gate where we can have some more detailed discussion.

Ok so know we park the boys on a bench in the airport near the ticket counter while I proceed to check bags in and all that jazz. Ok everything gets checked ok. We walk back to the boys to gather up our carryons and Cody is absolutely having a meltdown. Tears and everything.

So by this time I'm starting to get concerned about what is wrong with this child. Who wouldn't want to go to wdw. What 8 y/o boy wouldn't want to skip a week of school. It's the happiest place on earth gosh darn it. This kid is just not right. So here is a summary of the conversation.

Me: CJ why are you crying?
CJ: I'm going to miss Murphy! Followed by more tears.
Me: Murphy is going to be fine. He's going to hang out with his pop pop (grandpa) and dog cousins. He'll have a blast.
CJ: I don't want to go. I want to stay with Murphy.

This continued on for several minutes. I'm starting to get the picture that this really has nothing to do with Murphy. This is a very sensitive child who picks up on many details when you don't think he does (except WDW packing and travel plans). We are in the airport on 9/15 just 4 days after the 5 year anniversary of 9/11. I am beginning to think this has him really scared. SO our conversations goes in this direction.

Me: CJ I don't think any of this has anything to do with Murphy. Is there something else your worried about.
CJ:Yes. I don't want our plane to crash. (Just as I had expected his worry was about).

So he and I sat at the ticket counter having a long conversation about what the airlines do to keep us safe and the pictures of the planes crashing into buildings happened a long time ago and lots of things have changed to keep us safe. He hadn't flown since he was a baby so we had to talk about going through security and all that.

Ok with a worry wart child like this I don't know why I didn't see this coming. I normally would have had him all prepared and ready but this came out of no where for me.

So we finally start to get some calmness back into the scene when I start trying to get him excited about his surprise bag and what he was going to find in it. So let's go catch up with dad and B. So they are at subway eating lunch. B is happily going through his Winnie the pooh suitcase looking at all his cool surprise stuff. Well Cody's bag is no where to be found in our carry on. So in the excitement of all unloading and sales pitch for WDW we had forgotten his carry on in the car. Oh Man this really got bad at this point. I'm worried at this point that someone is going to think that we are kid napping this child and forcing him on a plane at gunpoint.

DH is really peeved at this point! He just can't understand why he's upset. He'll just have to get over it and they can share their stuff. I'd like to say that this was the only argument we had on the trip but it wasn't. Well I call to Uncle and ask him if he wouldn't mind turning around and coming back to the airport. We had enough time but man DH is peeved at us right now. So Cj and I take our lunch and go outside to the curb to wait about 15 minutes for Uncle Tim to come back. We eat and talk and things are finally starting to calm down. Sales pitch continues. You remember when we went to dl and you traded pins and got autographs.........

Well uncle tim pulls up and I explain the situation with him and he talks to CJ also. By now he is more calm and starting to show some enthusiasm. So we head back to DH and B and prepare to enter security.

Here is CJ and B going through Cody's bag of goodies.

So now you might be thinking what else could go wrong right.

Well tune in for the next chapter: HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM!

 

[BeautyNBeast]

Poor Cody! The rabbit disease, and then the airplane dilemma. I hope he got through both plane rides alright. Both of your kids are cute. Cannot wait to hear more of your TR

 

[stinkerbelle's mom]

Poor MOM, I know you worked so hard for this! Hope things turn magical soon!

 

[rer1972]

I'm so glad Cody is doing much better. I'm hoping things got better after part 2, but the title of the next installment doesn't give me much hope. I'm so hoping everything turns out fine.

 

[Minniespal]

Enjoying reading ~ Thanx for sharing.

 

[hockeymomoftwo]

Thanks everyone for your kind comments. I'll try and get the next installment done this weekend.

 

[uhtimex]

I am so glad to be reading this. After reading with you during the summer, it is really neat to read your TR

 

[hockeymomoftwo]

Thanks for the nice comments. I'm going to try and get another chapter in soon.

 

[LAS]

I can't wait to hear more.