McKeeFamily3
Knee deep in snow
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2000
- Messages
- 133
Part 2- Getting there is half the fun, well sort of.
****Starring****
Valerie-me age 30. Stay at home Mom. Trip planner, lover of Disney. I can't believe I got to go to Disney World!
George-DH age 30. Works at a Frozen food plant. Worlds biggest pessimist. Convinced that we'd never make it to Disney World and if by some off chance that we did, eveything would go wrong and it would be a horrible waste of money. Boy, was he wrong. He's really a great guy!
Hannah-Dd age 6. Lover of everything Disney. Self described scardey cat chicken! Cluck, meow. Made me promiss not to make her ride Dumbo because it looked like it went to high.
Angus-DS age 2. Stoller monkey. Loved Donald Duck and Tigger.
Andrew-DN(nephew) age 8. The boy who could do no wrong.
You'll see what I mean as the story goes on. A great kid.
Amber-DC(cousin) age 17. Built in babysitter
Well, as you know this trip was a secret from the kids. We hadn't planned on telling them until the day we were leaving. I cracked though. By the end of October I decided to tell them. I just couldn't keep it in any longer. When I did tell them, you would have thought I told them that grass was green and the sky was blue. They were that unenthusiastic! I was crushed. Well, it turns out that they thought we were playing some kind of joke on them Kids, go figure! Well it finally sunk in that we were actually going and by the time departure day arrived they were ready to burst! Ok, now on with it....
We left on December 13th to drive down to Florida. We weren't planning on leaving until noon because DH had worked the night before. He works third shift. Being the mean Mom that I am, I sent Hannah to school for the first half of the day. I used the morning to pack the car and finish up some last minuet things. 12 o'clock rolled around and we were ready to roll. We picked Hannah up from school and hit the road. Our first stop was Pittsburgh to pick up Andrew, a 2 hour drive from home. As soon as Andrew got home from school we were back on the road, our final destination for the day, Beckley West Virginia. This was to be a 5 hour drive. We stopped about half way for dinner and to let the kids run around and burn off some excess energy. This is a must when taking long car trips with children! After dinner the weather turned on us. We hit VERY HIGH winds and freezing rain. We had to slow our pace for saftey sake and didn't make it to our hotel until around 10 pm. As soon as I stepped out of the car I slipped and hit my head and arm on the cement. The parking lot was coated with about an inch of solid ice! We all, very carefully made our way into the hotel lobby without any further injuries. Now, let me tell you, if you are ever in Beckley WV, do not stay at the Ramada Inn! It was awful! I requested 2 connecting non smoking rooms. We got niether and were told they didn't have either available. The rooms stunk to high heaven! The hotel was very run down too. This was to be a reoccuring theme for the rest of the trip. After getting a semi-good nights rest we were on the road again at 8 am. Our destination today, Jacksonville Florida! We were going happily along for about 40 miles before we realized that we missed a turn and were heading the wrong way. No big deal. We got to see some beautiful mountain scenery and we were excited to be going to warmer parts of the country today! We stopped for a picnic lunch at a rest stop in the mountains. We were so high in the mountains that the rest stop was actually in a bank of clouds! What a great experience that was! The kids are still talking about that one.
We made good time to Jacksonville. We pulled up to another Ramada Inn. Another bad Ramada Inn
Once again we ended up with smoking rooms. On the up side they were connecting rooms. They told us the only connecting rooms they had were smoking rooms. The outside of the hotel and the lobby looked like it had just been remodled but the rooms themselves were in dire need of a face lift! We didn't mind too much though because we were only a day away from our goal, Disney World! After dinner we were all exausted and hit the hay with visions of Mickey and Minnie dancing in our heads!
Tune in tommorow for part 3-Holy cow, we're here!!!!
<font color=red>FIRST TIME TO WDW!Port Orleans December 15-16!! OKW DECEMBER 17-22!!</font>
[This message was edited by McKeeFamily3 on 01-04-01 at 10:54 PM.]
****Starring****
Valerie-me age 30. Stay at home Mom. Trip planner, lover of Disney. I can't believe I got to go to Disney World!
George-DH age 30. Works at a Frozen food plant. Worlds biggest pessimist. Convinced that we'd never make it to Disney World and if by some off chance that we did, eveything would go wrong and it would be a horrible waste of money. Boy, was he wrong. He's really a great guy!
Hannah-Dd age 6. Lover of everything Disney. Self described scardey cat chicken! Cluck, meow. Made me promiss not to make her ride Dumbo because it looked like it went to high.
Angus-DS age 2. Stoller monkey. Loved Donald Duck and Tigger.
Andrew-DN(nephew) age 8. The boy who could do no wrong.
You'll see what I mean as the story goes on. A great kid.Amber-DC(cousin) age 17. Built in babysitter
Well, as you know this trip was a secret from the kids. We hadn't planned on telling them until the day we were leaving. I cracked though. By the end of October I decided to tell them. I just couldn't keep it in any longer. When I did tell them, you would have thought I told them that grass was green and the sky was blue. They were that unenthusiastic! I was crushed. Well, it turns out that they thought we were playing some kind of joke on them
Kids, go figure! Well it finally sunk in that we were actually going and by the time departure day arrived they were ready to burst! Ok, now on with it....We left on December 13th to drive down to Florida. We weren't planning on leaving until noon because DH had worked the night before. He works third shift. Being the mean Mom that I am, I sent Hannah to school for the first half of the day. I used the morning to pack the car and finish up some last minuet things. 12 o'clock rolled around and we were ready to roll. We picked Hannah up from school and hit the road. Our first stop was Pittsburgh to pick up Andrew, a 2 hour drive from home. As soon as Andrew got home from school we were back on the road, our final destination for the day, Beckley West Virginia. This was to be a 5 hour drive. We stopped about half way for dinner and to let the kids run around and burn off some excess energy. This is a must when taking long car trips with children! After dinner the weather turned on us. We hit VERY HIGH winds and freezing rain. We had to slow our pace for saftey sake and didn't make it to our hotel until around 10 pm. As soon as I stepped out of the car I slipped and hit my head and arm on the cement. The parking lot was coated with about an inch of solid ice! We all, very carefully made our way into the hotel lobby without any further injuries. Now, let me tell you, if you are ever in Beckley WV, do not stay at the Ramada Inn! It was awful! I requested 2 connecting non smoking rooms. We got niether and were told they didn't have either available. The rooms stunk to high heaven! The hotel was very run down too. This was to be a reoccuring theme for the rest of the trip. After getting a semi-good nights rest we were on the road again at 8 am. Our destination today, Jacksonville Florida! We were going happily along for about 40 miles before we realized that we missed a turn and were heading the wrong way. No big deal. We got to see some beautiful mountain scenery and we were excited to be going to warmer parts of the country today! We stopped for a picnic lunch at a rest stop in the mountains. We were so high in the mountains that the rest stop was actually in a bank of clouds! What a great experience that was! The kids are still talking about that one.
We made good time to Jacksonville. We pulled up to another Ramada Inn. Another bad Ramada Inn
Once again we ended up with smoking rooms. On the up side they were connecting rooms. They told us the only connecting rooms they had were smoking rooms. The outside of the hotel and the lobby looked like it had just been remodled but the rooms themselves were in dire need of a face lift! We didn't mind too much though because we were only a day away from our goal, Disney World! After dinner we were all exausted and hit the hay with visions of Mickey and Minnie dancing in our heads!
Tune in tommorow for part 3-Holy cow, we're here!!!!
<font color=red>FIRST TIME TO WDW!Port Orleans December 15-16!! OKW DECEMBER 17-22!!</font>
[This message was edited by McKeeFamily3 on 01-04-01 at 10:54 PM.]
