TheNeverEndingPTR! Sept2010...no, November...WAIT! January?Ugh. maybe September 2011!

[Twoboysnmygirl]

Today we are preparing for a MAD TEA PARTY!!! Monday, our usual movie day, is Jace's birthday, so we are doing movie day tomorrow instead! In honor of the new Alice movie coming out on Friday (which we will be going to see!!!) we are watching Alice In Wonderland and having a mad tea party! :

Savannah & I are making paper lanterns today to hang and finding things to decorate our table with.

 

[-Hope-]

I am sooooo excited for this mad tea party!! It is going to be a blast!

 

[Poohbear77]

Cool idea!! I can't wait for the movie to come out, although my 5 year old is a little nervous about the Mad Hatter being too scary. I have to admit he does look a little scary... but I love Johnny Depp

 

[Charlefours]

It's not a good day here, found out Rey was only getting a 31$ check. To be honest, I can't even fathom how we are going to get out of the hole we are in and afford this trip, so I'm just down and out today b/c I can't even cheer myself up with Disney. The thought of it just makes me feel like this trip isn't going to happen.

Hang in there Karen! I know we just lost our second income (our rental income replaced my income when we move to Michigan) and it is scary trying to figure out everything! I pray that you are able to get through the situation like we have been. Tax returns from all accounts I have read have been higher than everyone expected.

I am so completely ready for Spring!! We have about 15 inches of snow in our backyard still--yuck!!

If you decide to drive, can you pack coolers with snacks and sandwiches? We are definitely snacks for our drive and I will probably pack peanut butter and jelly fixings too. We will probably get out and have picnics at the rest areas instead of eating all our meals at restaurants/fast food on the way down.

Looking forward to reading about and seeing pictures from the mad hatter tea party!

 

[Victoriasmom98]

I'm anxious to see pics from the tea party!!!!!!

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

We're so excited! The table is set and decorated, I think we'll have trouble outdoing this Movie Day! I'll post pics late this afternoon!

 

[3princesses+aprince]

Hi Karen! The Mad Tea Party sounds like so much fun! I gotta do that one! I can't wait to see your decorations.

And I believe we are driving to Disney as well. I do not plan on eating at restaurants at all. We are spending so much money on this trip with food galore all week that PBJ sandwiches and ham and cheese will be fine foods for the drive down and back. We are planning on packing a cooler with lunchmeat, soda, juice jugs, water etc.. and of course lots of snacks and getting out at rest stops and having little picnics. I figured the kids would enjoy that even more than getting out of the truck and sitting in a booth. If we can grab a picnic table or even just the grass I think they will feel much better being out of the truck like that, and they can run around a little too!
Mapquest says our drive will be 19 hours, so figuring on 24-25 with stops and traffic. Right now our plan would be to leave home around 5pm, right after we eat dinner. So for the first night we will just need some snacks. We are not planning on stopping. Me and Manny are going to take turns driving. We'll drive through saturday, so we'll need some cereal bars or something similar for breakfast and then lunch, of course some more snacks and then we'll be in Disney for supper for our first free dining meal We may be tired, but we'll relax at the pool and then go to bed early!

Good luck with making your decision!

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

I'm uploading pics now! We had fun and Hope and I were planning fiends the rest of the day, even blew off our walking!

Pam, driving will be a last resort for us b/c the 5 of us in a car, driving all night, would NOT be the way to start off a vacation! Rey and Dylan will drive though, so if for some reason we cannot afford the 3 tickets for Myself, Dallas, & Savannah, then we will have to bite the bullet and drive as well! C'mon Southwest, I want those cheap fares!

I'll also be posting my first days itinerary for everyone to look over and give me ideas. It's my MK day! I've had more trouble with my AK and DHS days, but I'm sure when we get to those, everyone can help me out!!!

lemme go see if the pics are ready!...

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

ALICE IN WONDERLAND MOVIE DAY/MAD TEA PARTY!!!

I have to admit, Savannah & I had a BLAST preparing for this day. To be honest, it might have even been more fun than the actual tea party! We made paper flowers, red and white, and PAINTED the white flowers red! We also made paper lanterns and strung them up with some lights from Savannah's room and some other "lantern like" lights I had.

We made little card men as well!

I used an old scrap piece of fabric for the tablecloth that was colorful, mismatched plates and bowls and a myriad of other things! For those of you who might do this in the future, here is a list of what I can remember:
chess boards & pieces
paper flamingo's (Hope brought these)
card-men (we made these, so fun!)
tiny mirrors
dice
tea pot with minnie (mouse) in it!
Rey's top hat
one of the shoes from my queen of hearts costume with flowers in it
bench w/stuffed flamingos
candelabra (Hope brought this, finished off the table perfectly!)
mismatched tea cups (Hope brought)
playing cards
trinket boxes
trivets
cake plate
ribbon
little cards that said "EAT ME" and "DRINK ME"
and of course food!

I also printed out an activity book and some activities for them to do.

The table really was beautiful and I think I enjoyed it more than the girls actually enjoyed the tea party! It was a photographers dream and even though I took over 400 pictures over the course of the last 2 days, I still didn't get some that I wish I had gotten!

So, I won't make you wait longer, here are the 16 pics I chose from the hundreds to show you.

Yours truely! Self portrait here, perfect for my facebook pic this week as we are ending the week on my Birthday, Friday, by going to see the new Alice movie!

Before Hope and Kya arrived, Savannah was happy to have us take a pic together...good thing b/c she refused after Hope arrived!

being silly

and just a MAD tea party pic

Here's the activity book and one of the activities (a door sign) that I printed out for them:

And here is the table, the girls were checking out the lanterns:

finger sandwiches

they were putting their pinkies in the air.

It was great fun! The girls did their activity books and went into Savannah's room to watch Alice in Wonderland. Hope and I scoured over maps and racked our brains for probably 2 hours over her AK itinerary and after finally coming up with something realized that she could do another morning there and then it was like the clouds parted and the angels sang! PERFECT itinerary! Then we moved on to mine!

Great day, but we won't put off walking again b/c we learned that once you get us seated with our itineraries, you are unlikely to get us back up and out walking!

 

[PixieDustPrincess05]

Holy cow that is awesome!!!!

Karen- I really feel for you if you braved wearing those clunky (but awesome) looking shoes around MK!!!!!!

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

Janine (where have you been?!?!?! *running to check your PTR right after this post*) I totally WIMPED OUT when these shoes arrived and knew there was NO WAY I was wearing these around MK! Rey wanted me to get them... so I did, but I didn't even bring them on the trip! I wore my Teva Mush flip-flops with my costume!

 

[3princesses+aprince]

Wow, you guys go all out! That looks great. I love yours and Savannah's mad tea party picture! That's neat! Great job! Can't wait to see your first day plans.

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

Wow, you guys go all out! That looks great. I love yours and Savannah's mad tea party picture! That's neat! Great job! Can't wait to see your first day plans.

Thanks Pam! And what's great is that we had EVERYTHING that we used on the table! I didn't buy anything except the .99 red paint that we had run out of and a couple of the things that I made for food!

 

[Charlefours]

Great event--love the decorations and that table scape was out of this world!!

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

Great event--love the decorations and that table scape was out of this world!!

Thanks Stephanie!!

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

So, I have delayed posting each days touring plan b/c I didn't want to change them over and over...but lets face it folks, you know I'm going to anyway!

MK is our first day! This was a must for Savannah, so I'm biting the bullet and going on Sunday, Sept. 26. It's an evening EMH, so I'm hoping hitting rope drop, having GAD fastpasses, taking a break mid-day, and having already seen Spectro/MSEP the previous night (arrival day) will help.

Since I was trying to save money and go without hoppers, I added a day to our tickets so we could go to Spectro/MSEP on Saturday night after we arrive. It's the only way to see it without hoppers since Spectro/MSEP is not showing on Sunday.

My plan seems a little "blah" to me? I think it's b/c I'm so used to planning around regular Fastpasses and having the Give a Day, Get a Day instand FP's will allow for no backtracking at all! Enough rambling, here is the plan!:

MK touring plan

Crystal Palace ADR 8:05 (if we have the funds, if not, breakfast in room)
Rope Drop
Dumbo Dash!
Peter Pan
Cinderella's Carousel (we didn't do this last time, I don't want to miss it)
Pooh or Snow White

Tea Cups

Barnstormer (if still open!)

Tomorrowland:
GAD FP-Space Mountain, ride immediately
grab regular FP if we like it for PM
Astro-Orbiter
GAD FP-Buzz Lightyear
I was going to put more things here like Laugh Floor and CoP, but not sure what the time will be??? I want to get over to Columbia HH for lunch.

walk through hub get photopass pics (if we didn't get them earlier)

Columbia Harbor House lunch 11:30ish (later if we had ADR for breakfast)
Haunted Mansion
GAD Philharmagic (I've never seen this but both times haven't made it priority? Can someone talk me into it?)

GAD Big Thunder Mountain
grab FP for PM
GAD Splash Mountain

Head back to ASMU to swim and rest...

Dinner Contempo Cafe, monorail to MK

Adventureland:
Pirates
Alladin
GAD Jungle Cruise
Big Thunder Mountain w/FP (from AM)
Wishes 8pm
Space Mountain w/FP (from AM)
anything else we want to do (EMH 8pm-11pm)

So how's it look? Any suggestions? I can't really tell with the GAD FP's how long stuff will take and when we will do lunch, but if we aren't ready for lunch, we can do HM, Hall of Presidents, or walk around the corner and do Philharmagic before eating. Maybe I should do Philharmagic in the morning when we are in Fantasyland? It seems silly since I'll have the GAD FP and can go anytime.

 

[BabyEeyore]

I LOVE your Mad Tea Party pics!!! It looks fabulous!

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

Thanks Christina! We had a lot of fun!

 

[-Hope-]

I think this looks great- if anything you're going to have too much time on your hands. I think you'll have time for Laugh Floor or CoP- maybe both. Of course this is going completely from advice you've given me about times so really this is you advising yourself.

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

I think this looks great- if anything you're going to have too much time on your hands. I think you'll have time for Laugh Floor or CoP- maybe both. Of course this is going completely from advice you've given me about times so really this is you advising yourself.