Tim and Lesley Year of Million Compromises/TONS pics- 8/5 help me pg. 164!!!

[vassar36]

Can't wait for your next installment!!!!

 

[arizonacolbys]

Another great installment!! Thanks for the tip...we may just have to ride the GMR around 9:30 in August.

Can't wait to hear more!!

 

[LauraAnn630]

arizonacolbys, We just moved from Mentor to Parma.
We miss Mentor soooo much!


Wheres Lesley with her trip report!? LOL

 

[timandlesley]

Yipee your back, now on with more TR! I've got to get moving with my own as well, been slacking...lol.

Hey Darlene! I will be typing it up tonight as usual, the days are just to gorgeous to be sitting inside typing (sorry guys) we hit Kings Island this morning and as soon as Lauren gets up from her nap it's off to the pool. I'll post next installment later tonight.
Lesley

Heard what from you? Thanks for the tip!

Nikki

I hope you had a great time camping, we are waiting until next summer to camp my youngest is a hyper one.. But I love to camp out, glad you are back and ready for a next installment. Reading your trip report is like being at Disney right now..

So glad you are enjoying it!

Can't wait for your next installment!!!!

Thanks, coming tonight!

Another great installment!! Thanks for the tip...we may just have to ride the GMR around 9:30 in August.

Can't wait to hear more!!

Might as well give it a try!!!! Seems like the popular place for them.
Lesley

 

[Hendoendo]

Welcome back from your Camping adventure. My wife and I went camping last week in the mountains of PA. We had a very rainy day and we kept hearing Emergency Broadcast Warning coming from the campsite next to us. I guess the guy there saw no reason to tell us that there were Tornadoes sighted in the area. Hey you forgot to mention the Dessert at O Hanas, it is the bomb diggity. I wanted to lick the plate. I am lovin your trip report and that you put it up so quickly, unlike some other posters on this site. Congrats on the Dream Fastpasses.

 

[DreaGirl]

That really stinks about your air mattress! The first time we went camping together neither one of us had camped in years, so we had no idea that people brought air mattresses. We were very uncomfortable!

That really bites that your e-mail account was hacked. I hope you get everything taken care of quickly.

Can't wait for the next installment, but good weather trumps a TR in my book!

 

[timandlesley]

O.K., so where was I, oh yes, everyone was sound asleep and Tim was at the arcade and logging onto Disboards without my knowledge teasing everyone about the dream he won that day. The phone rings for my wake up call and I jump in the shower to get ready. As I get out of the shower I decide to call down to the front desk to check on room charges, YIKES they were like 200 more than I had expected. I get the money out of the safe, count it and begin to panic, this is when Tim walks in. Long story short we don’t know what happened here, we were really feeling stressed because we had like 200 less than we thought we had brought with us, don’t really know what happened here but we decided we better watch our spending from here on out- which we did do and ended up with around 200 coming home with us – go figure. ANYWAY. So we are now in a rush getting ready for dinner because I wasted the time I was supposed to be getting ready counting money, which stunk because now we were kind of in a stressful mood heading off to dinner, my fault, should have let it go until after Father’s day.
So we get down to the bus stop right as the bus we needed to Magic Kingdom was leaving. We are sitting there at the bus stop and Tim looks at me and says “where is the camera?” AUGH!!!! I had left it in the room. Now people. . . .I AM NOT a runner, but I SPRINTEd, yes SPRINTED back to building seven, I knew if I didn’t make it back in time for the next bus we were totally screwed with our ADR window for dinner, I gotta tell you, I impressed myself, to building 7 and back (and it was QUITE a jog) in less than 3 minutes camera in hand- OH YEAH and we made the MK bus!!!! By the time the bus arrived at MK it was 5 minutes before our reservation and with our monorail luck the other night we figured we better walk from MK to the Contemporary which is a SURPRISINGLY short walk (makes me want to stay at Contemporary even more). We got there just in time and checked in for dinner.
Had a great dinner at Concourse, by far not my favorite meal of the trip, atmosphere is a bit lacking compared to others we ate and and our server wasn’t personable at all, we called him “Mr NO personality”
Here is Lauren sneaking under the table to sit by mommy:

here is what we ate (food was great as always):
My Prime Rib:

Tim’s Steak:

Luke’s Kids Meal:

Lauren’s Kids Meal: (Kids meals here stunk, same boring fare)

Luke’s build your own Sundae:

My yummy Butterfinger cheesecake:

Tim surprised me by ordering Carrot Cake, he said it was awesome:

It really was a good meal, but again the server had zero personality and the food came FAST and furious, just wasn’t as enjoyable as the other meals this trip.

We decided not to do a park tonight, it was Tim’s Father’s Day pick and he wanted to hit DownTown Disney, so off we went. We waited FOREVER (like almost 30 minutes) for the bus to arrive at Contemporary to take us to DTD, it was dark out by the time we got there, close to 9:30 already I believe.
Here are the kids posing by Pooh and Tigger in DTD:

Kids and I hit the everything under 10 dollar store, nothing worth buying in my opinion. Tim headed to the ESPN store and was totally bummed they had no Yankee stuff over a size Large and most of fit was womens stuff- he really wanted a new shirt from that store, variety was slim pickins.
After that we went to the Wide World of Disney. On our way in I was pushing Lauren and saying, “look at Stitch Lauren” and she said “he squirts water at you mommy” I didn’t understand but I soon found out, he squirts water at everyone walking into the store, very cute. Here is a pic:

Here is Luke having fun being squirted:

Inside the store Lauren fell in love with the princess stations they have this year. VERY cool build your own magic wand station where you pick your own wand, filler, ribbons, topper, princess ribbon, etc. all for only 13, unbelievable. Then they had this station:

You fill the box with all the jewelry you can stuff inside and get the box and the jewels for 16.00, this is what Lauren decided to spend her remaining money on, here she is very proud of her stuffed box:

How can you not love this store, I could spend all day in there, just wish I had a million dollars!!!!
After shopping there we headed over to Once Upon a Toy, another FAVORITE of mine. Luke had money burning a hole in his pocket, especially knowing Lauren had spent hers (weird I know, but they compete like that). He was immediately drawn to the build your own light saber section. OH MY GOSH, this station is intimidating, I’ve never seen so many teenie pieces that I had absolutely no clue what to do with. There was this very nice CM there and I said “can you help us build this please” she immediately said SURE and asked Luke his name and addressed him by Luke for the next 10 minutes as she helped him pick out each piece and assemble his monstrosity of a double edged Light Saber. It is only 19.00 for the entire Light Saber you build, no matter how you build it, IT COMES WITH BATTERIES, huge plus in my book and he got to pick out a Jedi or Sith trading pin at checkout. Here is Luke with his pride and joy (this baby was two sided, lights up and makes two different sounds that Luke got to choose :

After that Lauren found the My Little Pony Station, she played and played and played with the ponies and all of the princess outfits:

This station is amazing, it has every princess you could imagine and an outfit and every accessory for the pony to wear. She decided she really wanted to buy this and as a mom I knew she would get more play time out of this than the jewels so as she was playing I took her jewelry box back over to Wide World of Disney to get her money back and instructed Tim to start stuffing the My Little Pony Box with every outfit imaginable. I returned to the store and thought it was great that Tim was super into making sure he had every accessory in the box for her, he turned to me and said “we still have a lot of room, what else can we put in here?” He had the brilliant idea to put in another pony, so for 16 dollars Lauren now had two ponies and every pony princess outfit known to man. When we dumped it out at the hotel that night it easily filled a huge gallon size baggie, she played with them every day the rest of the trip and still plays with them, GREAT purchase!
By this point it was now around 10:30, the nap had given us energy so we weren’t tired. We went outside and it was again a beautiful night they have those fountains in front of Earl of Sandwich and I let the kids get soaked, who cares, we are on vacation, we’re headed back to the room and they can get changed (there were so many parents staring at us thinking we were crazy for letting our kids do this, one parent even said within earshot “you ever do that son I WILL KILL YOU) come on, geez!!! Here are OUR children having the time of their lives:

By this point it is close to 11:00, we know the boat stops running at 11:30 so we headed down to the boat dock to catch the boat, the boat was just pulling out and I guess they run them about every 20 minutes, we waited for what seemed like forever for the boat to get there,it pulled up at 11:25, there was a HUGE line by now, meanwhile the boats for the nearby resorts kept pulling up and leaving. Anyway, we were finally on a boat at 11:30-11:40 and pulling out, got back to to POFQ around midnight, we were so tired, the ride was enjoyable but we couldn’t see much at night, the treehouse villas are really cool going by those (we asked and found out it is for the Disney employees from foreign countries who are not in the college program who live there, very cool). We went back to the room, exhausted and hit the sack immediately (after getting the kids into dry clothes of course). Kids were face to face with not even an inch apart sound asleep in their beds, my precious babies!
Coming up tomorrow, relaxing day by the pool (lots of great POFQ pics), room change at POFQ, Downtown Disney for Lauren’s Bippety Boppety Botique, GOTTA see these pics, my princess is beautiful!!!!

 

[Stargazer]

Gotta love those My Little Pony souvenirs! My DD wanted one too and we had that baby stuffed to the max!

Lovin' your TR so far and a big for your dream!

 

[dreamsofdisney]

I will be typing it up tonight as usual, the days are just to gorgeous to be sitting inside typing (sorry guys) we hit Kings Island this morning and as soon as Lauren gets up from her nap it's off to the pool. I'll post next installment later tonight.
Lesley

Take your time and enjoy the beautiful weather! We 've been breaking in our season passes to Six Flags New England. Of course, on our last visit I wore this T-shirt:

Got a lot of laughs and people saying "I LOVE Disney World!" Funny thing is, I kept looking around at people who were wearing LIME GREEN and saying to my DS, "Do you think they DIS?"
Anyway, we'll all be here when you're ready to post the next installment. It's worth the wait!

EDIT: While I was posting, your posted your installment. Guess we didn't have to wait that long after all!!!

 

[jbmom]

Great update! Can I ask if the light saber came apart? I know my boys will have to have these and I want to be able to get them home on the plane! Thanks!

 

[disneyaddicted]

I really like downtown Disney, I could spends days just browsing. I think you're a cool mom for letting the kids play in the fountains. I would always let my kids out after a rain to play in the puddles, (that's what tide is for right?) I miss those days. I bet the kids had a blast that night.

 

[daisy_77]

Great update, Lesley!
Lauren is just a little angel! I am going to have to check out the My Little Pony section at Once Upon A Toy on our next trip. It sounds like a great deal!
I love the play fountain at DTD! Me and DD had fun splashing around!
Can't wait for the next update! This is fun to read!

OH! I hope your everything turns out ok with you email getting hacked into. I am so sorry that happened to you.

 

[ProudMommyof2]

I am so excited to read your trip report! Reading last years report made me so excited for our family's trip to WL this past May. I got so many great ideas.
I was feeling sad that our next trip isn't for another 16 months and went to the trip report page specifically to see if you had started one for this years trip! Reading it has totally made my day!!
Waiting with great anticipation for the next installment. I am also interested in how you feel about staying at POFQ for 10 days rather than WL for 7?

 

[shannon47142]

Great update!!! I agree with letting the kids play. You are at Disney with dry clothes at the resort! Wonderful pictures--thanks for sharing
Shannon

 

[2angelsinheaven]

Yes! More TR, I'm sooooo excited. Love the pics, you guys are such a fun family, John and I can only aspire to be as "cool" as you too when we've got mini me's running around...lol. Tell Luke his light saber is super cool, didn't know they were that big, it's huge!

Can't wait for the BBB pictures, we updated our TR a few ago, enjoy!

 

[Lesprivate]

Sounds like a great night, can't wait to see the POFQ pictures. Unfortunately when we stay there in November it was too cold to go swimming.

 

[3DisneyBuggs]

Now I know where we'll be spending our $$ in DTD. My sons will make light sabers- hope there's a small size for my 2 yo. My DD is into her Little Ponies lately and I never noticed the dress up for My Little Ponies before. You learn so much from these trip reports, I tell you!

 

[SmallWorld71]

Still loving your trip report!
My daughter was thrilled with the pictures of Lauren and the toys at World of Disney and Once Upon A Toy Store.
As for letting your kids splash in a fountain......do you know what could happen to them?! They could get wet! Do you really think DisneyWorld in the summer is an appropriate climate for having fun and getting wet? Some people need to lighten up, huh?

 

[timandlesley]

Gotta love those My Little Pony souvenirs! My DD wanted one too and we had that baby stuffed to the max!

Lovin' your TR so far and a big for your dream!

Oh yes, there were so many parents sitting there STUFFING the boxes, when Tim decided to stuff the added pony the other mom's were all over it
Lesley

Take your time and enjoy the beautiful weather! We 've been breaking in our season passes to Six Flags New England. Of course, on our last visit I wore this T-shirt:

Got a lot of laughs and people saying "I LOVE Disney World!" Funny thing is, I kept looking around at people who were wearing LIME GREEN and saying to my DS, "Do you think they DIS?"
Anyway, we'll all be here when you're ready to post the next installment. It's worth the wait!

EDIT: While I was posting, your posted your installment. Guess we didn't have to wait that long after all!!!

LOVE that shirt, I need one!!!! Boy, Kings Island was CROWDED today, guess everyone had the same idea, the beauty of Season Passes, we were in and out in two hours.
Lesley

Great update! Can I ask if the light saber came apart? I know my boys will have to have these and I want to be able to get them home on the plane! Thanks!

The Light saber does come apart, but it would take time to reassemble, those things are tricky, even with as large as Luke's was the ends collapsed and it was able to fit into the suitcase no problem. You don't HAVE to get double sided by the way.
Lesley

I really like downtown Disney, I could spends days just browsing. I think you're a cool mom for letting the kids play in the fountains. I would always let my kids out after a rain to play in the puddles, (that's what tide is for right?) I miss those days. I bet the kids had a blast that night.

Downtown Disney is the best!! Gotta let your kids live life, right!?!
Lesley

Great update, Lesley!
Lauren is just a little angel! I am going to have to check out the My Little Pony section at Once Upon A Toy on our next trip. It sounds like a great deal!
I love the play fountain at DTD! Me and DD had fun splashing around!
Can't wait for the next update! This is fun to read!

OH! I hope your everything turns out ok with you email getting hacked into. I am so sorry that happened to you.

Thanks, wait til' you see Lauren's pictures from Bippety Boppety Botique tomorrow ! The My Little Pony Section is awesome!!! Glad you are enjoying the TR
Lesley

I am so excited to read your trip report! Reading last years report made me so excited for our family's trip to WL this past May. I got so many great ideas.
I was feeling sad that our next trip isn't for another 16 months and went to the trip report page specifically to see if you had started one for this years trip! Reading it has totally made my day!!
Waiting with great anticipation for the next installment. I am also interested in how you feel about staying at POFQ for 10 days rather than WL for 7?

So glad you stumbled upon us again this year and we are able to help your time fly by for you. You know, with the savings I would do POFQ over WL again I believe, I want to try another deluxe next July though, maybe Contemporary since it is value season in July but then we'll definitely be back to POFQ, WL will always be "home" to me though, but POFQ really left nothing lacking for us at all!!!! (other than that awesome boat ride back and forth to the Contemporary and Mk, we really missed that especially at night time trying to get to OHana's, Concourse Steak House, etc.)
Lesley

Great update!!! I agree with letting the kids play. You are at Disney with dry clothes at the resort! Wonderful pictures--thanks for sharing
Shannon

So true! Glad you are enjoying it.
Lesley

Yes! More TR, I'm sooooo excited. Love the pics, you guys are such a fun family, John and I can only aspire to be as "cool" as you too when we've got mini me's running around...lol. Tell Luke his light saber is super cool, didn't know they were that big, it's huge!

Can't wait for the BBB pictures, we updated our TR a few ago, enjoy!

Oh, you guys will be "cool" too! BBB pictures coming up tomorrow.
Lesley

Sounds like a great night, can't wait to see the POFQ pictures. Unfortunately when we stay there in November it was too cold to go swimming.

More POFQ pics coming tomorrow as well as Lauren's BBB pictures.
Lesley

Now I know where we'll be spending our $$ in DTD. My sons will make light sabers- hope there's a small size for my 2 yo. My DD is into her Little Ponies lately and I never noticed the dress up for My Little Ponies before. You learn so much from these trip reports, I tell you!

Oh yes, they have all sizes of the light sabers, they get to choose every last detail, it can be single or double sided, when Luke found out it was the same price either way though it was a no brainer for him to go big baby !!!
Lesley

 

[timandlesley]

Still loving your trip report!
My daughter was thrilled with the pictures of Lauren and the toys at World of Disney and Once Upon A Toy Store.
As for letting your kids splash in a fountain......do you know what could happen to them?! They could get wet! Do you really think DisneyWorld in the summer is an appropriate climate for having fun and getting wet? Some people need to lighten up, huh?

Lighten up indeed, I couldn't agree more
Lesley