SSMC2006 cruise friends

[fireplug]

Mary the twins are adorable.

Squid

 

[tinkerbelle77]

Steve, It's good to hear your dad is feeling a little more upbeat...Hope things go well for him and your family!

Mary, The pics of the twins and Christopher are just adorable!

Hi everyone, just dropping in quickly! Hope everyone is having a great Labor day! We are just hanging out at home, Krystina is not feeling well, I think she may have caught a 24 hour flu bug. Hopefully she will be feeling better later today or tomorrow!

 

[fireplug]

First and most importantly our deepest thanks for all the well wishes. Coleen, Dad and I really appreciate them. He is doing much better today. Breathing is improved. The Drs are deciding on treatment, for now no surgery is planned which is good news. Some radiation and some chemo. He is really pretty healthy otherwise so they are confident he will tolerate the treatment well.

Thanks for all the prayers

Steve and Coleen

 

[fireplug]

Since dad is doing better we decided to take a short trip this weekend. Most of you know what our fave resturant is. Since this is their 25th anniversary year they are running a "contest" where you get a passport and go to 25 different HOOTERS and get it stamped. Then send it in you are entered in a drawing for $25,000 AND recieve a certificate for 200 free wings. So since Coleen and I had two days off, a full tank of gas in the convertible, a free night stay at a Fairfield Inn AND needed 7 more stamps OFF we went to St Louis.

First stop Florrisant Mo.
(sorry bad pic not sure why either)

Next stop was in St.Peters Mo.

Third store in Mayland Heights Mo.

Fourth visit of the day South County I dont even KNOW what town it was

And our FIFTH Hooters of the day was Fairview Heights Il.

We had a fun day driving all around and we were eating lightly at most of the stops.

SUNDAY

We dropped the top

and headed from Collinsville Il. to St Louis. Now if you visit St Louis you MUST go to the Arch, we have been many times before but love seeing it.

There is also a historic courthouse nearby. The famous Dred Scott slavery trial was held here.

Amazingly just off the plaza from the courthouse was

Next a short 100 mile ride up the road we ended in Springfield Illinois. Our state capitol and our 7th HOOTERS in two days. A fitting place to get our 25th and final stamp we thought.

All in all we drove 595 miles and had a wonderful weekend. We are both working Labor day so it worked out fine to be gone for the two days prior. I cant wait for our certificates to come in so we can party hardy with our friends

Squid

 

[cgcw]

It looks like you and Coleen had a lot of fun. What a cool weekend trip!


I spent my weekend volunteering with our cub scout pack at our Villages annual labor day fest. I'm beat and heading off to bed in a little while. We sell pop, water & gatorade and the temperature cooperated as it's been in the 80's (I think), sunny & dry. We sold a lot of pop, which will pay for all the events the boys do over the next year. Not a bad deal for 3 days of work!

I just wish I had tomorrow off. Morning is going to come quickly and those 4 little ones coming through the door rearing to go.

 

[Stitch#1]

Steve you and Coleen are my idols!!!!!!!!
I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE what you did for your "weekend getaway". You guys ROCK!!
You totally crack me up!!

Keeping my fingers crossed that you win the big $25K prize!!

 

[crzy4dals]

We are home from the East Bound Repo. WOW what an amazing cruise. Weather was great the entire trip. We had rain in Puerto Vallarta and the last part of the canal but that did not put any kinks in our plans. The rain was welcomed in PV as we had just climbed up the side of a mountain to ZIP down. I havenever been so nervous in my entire life. After the 2nd line - I finally calmed down.

We saw Mary and Ken quite often and Robin and family. Mary has "Disney stars" in her family. Who knew Ken was such a wild and crazy guy. He was selected to be an on stage assistant to one of the comedians. Then Dana was picked to help out a Crew member in the Crews Talent show - think Dancing with the Stars..... She was great!

I think my favorite port was Cartagena - really hard to pick one. The city center was very clean. It has some great history. We did a City tour and saw many amazing sites. Easy to say I would NEVER go to Acapulco again. Its days are far over.

We gave Nick the ability to check himself in and out of the Lab this cruise. He only had to have us paged to let us know where he was going. He did a great job about coming back to the room at our specified times. (Funny side note - our clock we brought with us gained time and every 5 days became 20 minutes fast. One night Nick comes in real proud that he was early and looked at the clock and it showed he was 10 min late. He told me "I know I left the lab at 11:50")

What did I miss - not having you all to be a part of this. The pirate group was good - lots of things planned and Cartagena might not have seemd so great without the tour we did with some of them. BUT it was very hard to "come together" with so many people it was impossible. It would be fun to one day again cruise with the "fits" -

Maybe some day......

 

[crzy4dals]

Mary congrats on the new grandbabies. They are cuties.

Steve I will continue to keep your father in my prayers.

 

[MaryJ]

We are home from the East Bound Repo. WOW what an amazing cruise. Weather was great the entire trip. We had rain in Puerto Vallarta and the last part of the canal but that did not put any kinks in our plans. The rain was welcomed in PV as we had just climbed up the side of a mountain to ZIP down. I havenever been so nervous in my entire life. After the 2nd line - I finally calmed down.

We saw Mary and Ken quite often and Robin and family. Mary has "Disney stars" in her family. Who knew Ken was such a wild and crazy guy. He was selected to be an on stage assistant to one of the comedians. Then Dana was picked to help out a Crew member in the Crews Talent show - think Dancing with the Stars..... She was great!

I think my favorite port was Cartagena - really hard to pick one. The city center was very clean. It has some great history. We did a City tour and saw many amazing sites. Easy to say I would NEVER go to Acapulco again. Its days are far over.

We gave Nick the ability to check himself in and out of the Lab this cruise. He only had to have us paged to let us know where he was going. He did a great job about coming back to the room at our specified times. (Funny side note - our clock we brought with us gained time and every 5 days became 20 minutes fast. One night Nick comes in real proud that he was early and looked at the clock and it showed he was 10 min late. He told me "I know I left the lab at 11:50")

What did I miss - not having you all to be a part of this. The pirate group was good - lots of things planned and Cartagena might not have seemd so great without the tour we did with some of them. BUT it was very hard to "come together" with so many people it was impossible. It would be fun to one day again cruise with the "fits" -

Maybe some day......

Thanks Erin for the kind words about my family! Yes, Ken served as the human "dummy" for the ventriloquist. The guy sitting next to us took a video and at some time I'll try to put it online. I also have video of Dana dancing. Dana was actually onstage twice. She was also one of the people from the audience that was hypnotized. Every time she heard the word "pirate" she thought she was Jack Sparrow!

I must agree with Erin that this cruise just wasn't the same without all of you. I never even tried to get involved with the pirate group because the thread just moved too fast for me! (50 pages a day sometimes! ) As for us, I have to say that Cabo San Lucas was our favorite shore excursion. We ziplined there over canyons. But, going through the canal was awesome to see too! A dream come true for me.

Dana and I are still at WDW. We are spending time with her best friend who is a CM here. Tomorrow we fly home to our real worlds...back to Indiana for me and Denver for Dana. I'm ready.

 

[gometros]

I'm so jealous of you guys. We had booked it back in the beginning, but then dropped it when we realized it would overlap our youngest's return to college. As it turned out, she stayed in DC all summer (she moved off campus), so she wouldn't have needed us anyway. Oh well, at least I get to sail on the Magic right after it gets out of dry dock in 5 weeks.

 

[chipscinderelly]

Erin and Mary - sounds like a fabulous cruise!!! We followed you online during canal day which was exciting.

 

[cherylp3]

I'm jealous as well but we know new ships are coming in, hopefully they'll need repositioning as well.

I'll be on the 2008 member cruise soon.

 

[tinkerbelle77]

Glad to hear your cruise went so well...I'm a little jealous also...With the kids in school, we would never be able to do a repositioning with them, and I dont think we could leave them for that long, but maybe someday! Sounds like all of you had a blast!

We have had a bit of bad news in the last few days...Tim's grandma fell while taking Lauren to Pre-k and broke her hip, she was scheduled to go on the Members cruise with us. Sadly shes unable to go now. Disney Cruise Line has worked with us, and allowed us to do a name change on the reservation for only $35. So my dad is now going with us. But back to Tim's gram, shes having hip surgery tomorrow morning, and it couldnt happen soon enough as far as Gram is concerned, shes in alot of pain. She's expected to make a full recovery..for 85 shes a tough cookie

 

[crzy4dals]

Glad to hear your cruise went so well...I'm a little jealous also...With the kids in school, we would never be able to do a repositioning with them, and I dont think we could leave them for that long, but maybe someday! Sounds like all of you had a blast!

We have had a bit of bad news in the last few days...Tim's grandma fell while taking Lauren to Pre-k and broke her hip, she was scheduled to go on the Members cruise with us. Sadly shes unable to go now. Disney Cruise Line has worked with us, and allowed us to do a name change on the reservation for only $35. So my dad is now going with us. But back to Tim's gram, shes having hip surgery tomorrow morning, and it couldnt happen soon enough as far as Gram is concerned, shes in alot of pain. She's expected to make a full recovery..for 85 shes a tough cookie

Prayers to you, Tim and Gram...

 

[cgcw]

It sounds like you had a blast on the repo cruise. I wish we were there to experience it with you. Maybe another time.

Tina, we're sending good thoughts for Tim's grandma. I remember when my sister had her hip replaced. It was a tough recovery for her and she was much younger than 85. I hope the surgery goes well and she makes a speedy recovery.

 

[Stitch#1]

Erin & Mary - Welcome Home. So glad to hear you had a good time on the cruise. I was so looking forward to going but alas we had to cancel. I am looking forwrad to hearing about upcoming cruises. I too would really like to cruise again with some of our "dis" friends.

Tina - I am so sorry to hear about Tim's Grandmother. P&P tha she has an uneventful surgery and speedy recovery.

Sandy - I would have loved to have spent time in DC this summer. We are hoping to make it there next summer for a trip.

 

[fireplug]

Tina sorry about Grams hip. I hope all turns out well

Sounds like the repo cruise was AWESOME. We dont have ANY cruise booked for now and Coleen and I are both getting the urge to sail again.

Next, a big thank you to ALL of you who expressed care and concern about my dad. Coleen and I deeply appreciated it.

Dad has been released from the hospital. They found 2 small spots on his brain and some other areas in both lungs. They are going to treat the brain spots with radiation starting maybe as early as monday. They are going to do chemo for the lungs. It will begin when radiation is done. All the Dr.'s have been cautiously positive that treatment will be effective. As they say, it is cause for concern but not cause for panic. There is still a long road ahead but at least we know the path to take for now.


Steve and Coleen

 

[#1Mouse]

Tina I hope to hear Tim's grandma's surgery went well and that she has a speedy recovery.

Steve I wish your dad the best with the radiation and chemo. Hopefully that will take care of it. We'll still keep him in our prayers.

Erin what a great cruise to go on, I'm sure you guys along with Mary and the wild and crazy Ken had a great time. Like Steve we don't have a cruise in the works and it's driving me crazy. I would like to go on a cruise next summer for my 50th er I mean my 29th birthday.

 

[Stitch#1]

Steve - I'll be keeping your dad in my thoughts.

Well tomorrow I have to bring Mom & Dad to the airport.
They are doing the Adventures by Disney Viva Italia tour. They have been wanting to take a trip like this for a long time so I'm so glad they are finally going. Dad is especially excited to be going to the Coliseum. He keeps saying he can't wait to walk were Cesaer once walked. I think my mom is most excited for when they are in the country and they will be making pasta.
I just hope the whole trip is great for them and I can't wait to see there pictures after they get back.


So I read some rumors that Disney may have a cruise to Alaska in 2010 and supposedly the Magic will be in Denmark in June of 2010. Could be some fun cruises to check out!!

 

[tinkerbelle77]

Thank you for all the well wishes for Gram, I wish we had better news, but she had surgery on Friday afternoon, and never recovered. She threw a clot and stroked during the surgery. She passed earlier this evening. I'm still in shock...Its been a long weekend, as Gram was coming out of surgery Tim was going in to have a kidney stone removed. He's home doing well. I guess the hardest part of all of this is we should be planning the member cruise together, not her wake and funeral. That cruise is going to be so hard for us. I'm exhausted, so off to bed I go!

Steve, I'll keep your dad in my thoughts and prayers.