testing flickr pics

[Mary626]

 

[Mary626]

April 20th, Thursday

I had fallen asleep at a normal time Wednesday night – around 11 pm or so, but had woken up 2 hours later and was too excited to fall back asleep. I got out of bed and saw that Sue (Jim’s mother) was awake and packing, I went to say hi to her. As I was talking to her she mentioned that I should pack some umbrellas and a rain coat. I had checked the weather the day before, and it had looked like there was going to be clear skies the whole time. I had checked that once and promised myself I wouldn’t check again because I didn’t want to get obsessed with it, when I had absolutely no control over what the weather would be. But since Sue mentioned it, I told her what the weather report said. Then she said “really? Janiece called and said it looked like it would be non-stop rain for the next four days”. I think my heart stopped beating for a few seconds there. I went online and looked up the weather again, and sure enough there were scheduled thunder storms here and there for what looked like the whole week. I was devastated. I tried to reason and be rational and tell myself that this is Florida, and the weather was really unpredictable, and the weather channel has been wrong before, but nothing I could tell myself was making me feel any better about it. I didn’t care so much about if it rained on the wedding day, but if it rained and cancelled my fantasmic dessert party I was going to be so angry. I didn’t want to pay over $1,500 for some desserts in a room somewhere!! And I wanted all my guests to see the Fantasmic show, I just knew they would love it and weren’t likely to watch it on their own. Most of my guests barely knew there were more then one theme park in florida, I wanted it to kind of introduce them to Disney and maybe get them excited about it.

Anyway, I was a mixture of really excited about the trip and worried about the rain. I only got a half an hour asleep before the alarm woke us up.

The night before I had made a music CD with some wedding songs to put in my alarm clock. I thought it would be fun to wake up to “going to the chapel” or something. At 3 am, the alarm went off and it was “the game of love” by Michelle branch. That wasn’t the song I was thinking would play, so I hit snooze thinking it wasn’t time to wake up yet. I did that twice more before finally realizing it was playing the wrong CD. Oops. I was so tired but was so excited that it was FINALLY the day we were leaving!!!

I cooked some breakfast for me and Jim, cheese omelettes and bacon, but was getting ready while making them, so I ended up burning the omelettes which left a lovely cloud of smoke in the kitchen. We both quickly got ready and packed our last minute stuff and I went over everything in my head to make sure I had the important stuff. I had a pair of Winnie-the-pooh- ears that I sometimes wear to Disneyland, I decided to put them on my head that morning to get me in Disney mood. I forgot to take them off until we were in the car on the way to the airport.

Our flight was for 7:30 am at the los angeles airport, which was usually 30-60 minutes away depending on traffic. I hired a towncar to come pick us up at 4:30 am. I was so ready to be on our way that I went outside and was kind of pacing around waiting for the guy to come. It was 4:45 am and still no driver. Finally I call the company and they tell me he’s just a few minutes away. In the meantime, Jim and Sue are watching a Tivo’d episode of the Daily show while I am pacing around outside waiting for the driver. My dog was looking really depressed, I think he knows what having a bunch of suitcases in the hallway means (we had a house/pet sitter for while we were gone). At 4:50 the driver comes, apologizes for being late, we pack up our plethora of bags, and we are on our way to LAX!

My dog looking depressed:

This wasn’t even all of our bags:

It was too early in the morning

Packing our bags into the towncar

A few people from Jim’s family were actually going to be on the same flight as us, but we were all driving separately, and since Jim and I had upgraded our tickets to first class, we barely saw them the whole time.

I was still a little worried about the weather but was trying not to think about it. We get to the airport, check our bags, and go to security. I had set aside our disposable cameras so I could ask them to handcheck them. We watched the security guy checking them over doing some really technical looking stuff. Me and Jim were impressed and were making jokes about CSI and stuff, and the security guy seemed to be pretty amused by it.

We went to our gate and played tetris on Jim’s gameboy to pass the time. Five minutes till boarding and Jim’s family still wasn’t at the gate. Jim was worried, but I know his family well enough to know that they’d be there one minute before they needed to be, no earlier and no later, and it would be fine. And sure enough I was right. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to go to the airport by ourselves, I like being there with time to spare so I’m not rushed or worried. Jim was watching over his mom’s bag while she was going to use the bathroom, and right then they started to board first class. I wanted to get on, so Jim asked Josh (one of the groomsmen that was there) if he could watch the bag. He said something like “you said you’d watch it, it’s your responsibility”. I kind of rolled my eyes big time but Jim told me he was kidding and he took the bag and Jim and I got on board.

I was sooo grateful that Jim’s mother had upgraded our tickets to first class, we had soooo much leg space and it was the most comfortable 5 hour trip I’ve had! Their food was actually really good and the service was great. The brunch they gave us also included a bagel which was the first time in a year I had anything with bread in it. It took a while to get used to and to not feel guilty about it. It was weird. I didn’t have any such problems with the warm chocolate chip cookies they gave us though.


In between the meal services, I managed to fall asleep on and off for 2 hours, which I desperately needed. Jim watched X-men on our laptop while I slept.

Pretty sunrise over LA

Brunch:

Jim eating a bagel

Jim trying to make me laugh:

Fluffy clouds, we must be over florida!

We landed a short while later and I turn my cell phone on. I call my mom, who was on a flight from Michigan with my dad, sister, and brother-in-law, they landed the exact same time we did and they said they were still on the tarmac. I was on such an adrenaline buzz to finally be in Orlando, I was so excited!! After I hung up, my phone beeped that I had a voice mail message. I assumed it was my mother saying they landed, so I play back the message and it was my coordinator.

She had a serious voice and said something like “mary, this is your coordinator, when you get this message please call me as soon as you can, thank you”. I was like, well that doesn’t sound too good! Immediately I lose that excitement buzz and enter the “oh great I just touched down in Orlando and already something is wrong” mode. I tried calling her back but she wasn’t there, her assistant said she would call me back as soon as she got back. Which gave me just enough time to imagine all sorts of things that might be wrong.

The most likely scenario I thought was that she was going to say Fantasmic was cancelled, that’s the only thing I could really think of. We get off the plan and are waiting at the gate for Jim’s family to de-board (they were in the back). Finally the coordinator calls me back, it was hard to hear her as they kept making boarding announcements at the gate, but from what I could hear she was telling me that one of the bridges at the Italy Isola – where my ceremony was to take place – had been under refurbishment, and was scheduled to be completed that day, but it didn’t pass inspection. Me, with my jaw dropping, asked “You mean we can’t have the ceremony at the Isola??” Hopefully it didn’t sound rude, I was just a little shocked and confused. Jim, who could only hear my side of the conversation, was looking worried too. The coordinator tried to sound optimistic and said there was still a chance we could have it there, but there was an ugly construction wall blocking off one of the bridges, so Jim and I would have to come by the Isola to take a look at it. If we didn’t want to use the Isola then we could use the Italy courtyard, she said.

Well that left me with a bit of a shock. Honestly though, I was just glad she didn’t’ say fantasmic was cancelled. I had a feeling we’d figure something out for the ceremony. But there I was, having just landed in Orlando, not sure about our dessert party and all of a sudden, after one year of planning the ceremony at the Isola, I had no idea where our ceremony would be.

From the time we landed till the time we got to the baggage claim things got a little stressful. Jim’s family were going to a different hotel then us and they were taking Magic Express, so we kind of said “hi and bye” to them as my phone kept ringing and some of our guests and family kept calling me to ask me questions, and my mom kept calling me and asking where we were, finally I snapped at my mom to just hang on and I would call her when we got to baggage claim!! We finally got to the train that takes you to the center of the airport where baggage claim is, and I decided to put my Winnie-the-pooh ears back on to help me de-stress. People were looking at me like I was crazy and I didn’t care! I love those ears!

My family was at carousal 23 and we were at 5. I called and told them and it took them a while to make it down. Meanwhile we waited for our luggage which wasn’t coming. I turn around and see my mom walk by in a different direction. I almost didn’t recognize her, I was stunned! I hadn’t seen her in a few months and I knew she was dieting, but she’d always tell me she wasn’t losing anything, but man did she look a lot thinner!! I don’t know where she was headed though, then Jenny and Kevin (jenny = sister, maid of honor.. Kevin = her husband) sneak up behind us. I knew Jenny was pregnant, but I hadn’t seen her since in so long, so I was like “oh my god you’re pregnant!!” Like I didn’t know, I couldn’t believe it!! And was surprised to see Kevin too, even he had lost a weight. Everyone looked so different!! Jenny and Kevin looked pretty stressed out from traveling with my parents. She said dad was having a hard time walking/breathing when they got off the plane so had to wait for a wheelchair and said he was embarrassed and they were both being stressful about everything. I could sympathize. It was so nice to see everyone.

It’s jenny & Kevin, omg!

My mom was by the exit talking to a luggage porter and I could tell by the look on her face that she was in a “crucial moment” stage. (Ever since we were little, me and my sisters called it a “crucial moment” – that time when there’s no time for silliness or jokes, because she’s trying to figure something out and gets really stressed out). So I go over and say hi, she says something like “hi! Hang on a few minutes…” and goes back to talking with the porter, I go back to the carousal and we wait for our luggage. It is taking forever to come out. Meanwhile, to the side of us we see a guy sitting by his luggage which obviously has a lot of musical instruments in it, and his bags say “matthew nelson” we all think it sounds familiar but we can’t figure it out. Jim jokingly says “maybe he’s one of the nelson brothers”, but we kind of laugh it off and forget about it.

It literally took an hour for all of our bags to come out, it really set my schedule behind darnit!! We get our bags and go outside. My mom had hired a limo from happylimo and they came with a huge Limo navigator, it was really cool looking!!! My dad elects to sit upfront with the driver, and everyone else piles into the back. Inside the limo they had free cold drinks for us and started playing spongebob square pants on their LCD screens. It took me a little while to figure out how to turn off the TV’s. We all try to catch up while in the limo and I was in a complete daze. It was so weird finally being there, seeing my family for the first time in a long time and seeing how different everyone looked, it was just so much to take in and process!!

My dad sitting up front in the limo

My mother being attacked by the luggage:

me with my crazy eyes that I had in all the pictures that day from lack of sleep & excitement

We start to see the Disney buses and the purple signs, and I’m frantically trying to get everything on video and am just so excited! What feels like two minutes after getting into the limo, we pull into the yacht club, jenny says “wow it looks really small”, and I had to tell her that that was the convention center. Then we pull up in front of the lobby and everyone gets out of the limo. I’m still half recording, half just being excited, I step out of the limo but my feet slide off of the little step and I trip and jar my ankles and wrists as I tried to brace for impact. Ouch. My mom’s like “careful mary, you’re the bride you can’t break your ankles!” I laugh it off and say I’m okay but it actually hurt quite a bit!! I figure it will go away in a few minutes.

We’re at the Yacht club, I am just too excited, I don’t know what to take pictures of first or what to look at first! We give our bags to the bellhop and go in the lobby.