Two Chicks and...a Mouse!~ADRs, a wedding, and Property Virgins? 9.25.09

[stacikristine]

Hi Courtney! I'm still not over the fact that you know Jane! So fun. Anyway...WOW!!! Europe will be welcoming you in less than two weeks! That book looks really fun--I might just have to invest in it

 

[jewels1916]

Hi Courtney! I'm still not over the fact that you know Jane! So fun. Anyway...WOW!!! Europe will be welcoming you in less than two weeks! That book looks really fun--I might just have to invest in it

I know! Small world! Actually, if you look at our "friends in common" on facebook, you'll notice that we have another friend in common that isn't a Dis friend. I am curious to know how you know Megan, formerly Williams, now same last name as me. She just married my cousin a few weeks ago! The bridal shower photos I posted a while back, with the big hats? That was her shower!

I can't believe you are leaving in less than 2 weeks!!! That came so fast.

I think I will have to check that book out. So many people say that to me too..."Cheryl your going there again?!" Some people just don't get it!

Anway I'm excited to hear about this trip in the planning ! Hope you are doing well.


Ohhhh and I'm sending my thoughts to your fam and grandmother. I'm so glad she is doing well!

Yes, definitely check out the book and share it with those people who just don't "get it!"

Thanks for thinking of us and my Gma - she's doing much better now!

I was starting to wonder what had happened to you. I'm so sorry to hear about your grandmother's health problems but thank God she was at the hospital when she had her heart attack. I'm glad to hear she is improving.

Yay for your cruise being so close! and yay for summer trips with friends. Sounds like you're having a fun summer. Glad to hear it.

I've seen that book Mousejunkies and passed it up a few times. Now I think just based on your review I might have to go and pick up a copy. Thanks girl.

Yay for another Disney trip to plan

Yes, I am back. I was absentee for a while because of the family stuff and all the traveling, but now I can get back to enjoying Dis the way it was meant to be enjoyed! A week from tomorrow we leave for Spain! I can't believe it's already here!

And the book is fabulous. Two thumbs up from me! More, if I had more thumbs.

Get excited!!!!

Yay! You're back. I was wondering how things were going. So glad for the timing with your Grandmother, already being at the hospital. Glad to hear that recovery is progressign well. Very excited to hear about your Europe trip...I might have to check out that book...I wonder if it's in my library? Money's been a little tight since our trip to WDW! LOL!

It was good timing, we were lucky. Well. Lucky in the situation. She really is doing much better! Europe in a week. I am missing one of my memory cards, so I need to get on that. See if the library has the book. It is definitely worth the trip!

Welcome back Courtney! Sorry to hear about your grandmother, but glad that she's okay. Looking forward to pictures!

Thanks! And there are pics coming up soon!

Welcome back, Court! I am so excited to see you back!

Thank goodness your grandmother is okay! How scary that must have been!

I was just pondering buying Mousejunkies from Amazon -- now I definitely will!

Hey CP! It definitely was scary, but everything is better now, so we are thankful for that.
Let me know what you think of the book, if you decide to get it!!

 

[jewels1916]

Ok, the next few posts are going to be slightly out of order, because I can't find the memory card with my San Antonio trip on it.

So, I mentioned the deal with the Grandma (Nana) in my last post. Well, she's been being tested because she has something called a carcenoid in one of her lungs. It is so deep in her lung that they have been unable to get a piece of it to determine if it is cancerous or not. So they were planning on starting chemotherapy to treat it pretty quick after the 4th of July. Hence the reason she was in the hospital. Well, after the heartattack, they ran some more tests, and found out that the carcenoid had not grown, so they want to wait 3 months, and see if it does grow, but for now, not subject her to the chemo.

Anyway, before we found out that she wasn't going to have chemo, we decided that we should take my grandparents out of town for a weekend, because once she started chemo she probably wasn't going to feel like doing anything. So my mom planned this trip to Ruidoso, New Mexico over the 4th of July.

We got up around 4:30 on Thursday morning (July 2nd) and left the house by 5:10. We were in two cars, because all 7 of us plus luggage just wouldn't fit in any one of our cars.

Nothing rather interesting happened on the roadtrip. I road with my GPs and slept a good part of the trip.

About 10 hours later, we pull up to this:

This cute cabin that we had rented for the weekend. I don't have pics from inside, but there were beds to go around (well, brother had to sleep on the couch).
And it was in the 70s. Now, when we had left Texas, it was in the triple digits. And now we were in the 70s. Amazing!

After getting out of the car and stretching our legs and checking out the cabin, we got back in the car and drove up into the mountains. At the highest point, the elevations was around 9600ft, so we were pretty high up!

The view!

Kelsey

Mom and Kelsey climbing on the rocks!

Headed up to the lookout tower! Did I mention that it was now 58 degrees? Yep, me in my trusty WDW sweatshirt.
By the time we got back to the cabin, everyone was pretty well exhausted from spending all day in the car, so we ate dinner and fell asleep.
The next day we got up and wandered around downtown for a bit.

Then we decided to drive out to Alamogordo, New Mexico (about an hour or so from Ruidoso) to go the White Sands National Park.
Let me tell you. If you haven’t been, you should try to go sometime. This place was awesome. Miles and miles of white sand dunes with little interruption of vegetation. We had such a good time!

My parents

My GPs (Nana and Gran)

Me and Mom

Burying Nana’s feet in the sand.
They had these sled-type things that you could buy, and sled down the dunes in, so we bought a few. This was so much fun, we all got into it!

Racing Mom!

Giving Kelsey a push! <- this doesn’t work, by the way

It was deep in some places!

The Dunes

Needless to say, it was a pretty fun day. It was in the 90s while we were doing this, which was still like a vacation for us, but wouldn’t you think that sand would get hot? It wasn’t at all! I was worried that if I took my flipflops off I would burn my feet, but the sand was actually cool.

I’m out of picture space, so continued in the next post!

 

[Leger13]

Love the pictures of your trip so far. That sand dune sledding looks like a ton of fun

 

[Charleston Princess]

I have never heard of sand dune sledding -- how fun!

 

[redlight]

Love the pictures Courtney! It looks like you had so much fun. Excited for you about one week to Spain!

 

[jewels1916]

When last we left off, we had just left White Sands National Park. I'll say again, it was amazing. Driving towards Ruidoso, we decided to drive up into Cloudcroft, a ski resort area.

I can't say much about it, because Ryan was driving, and he drove straight through it. Didn't stop, didn't slow down, nothing. And Cloudcroft is, at least from the vantage point of the main thoroughfare, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it kinda town.

We did finally stop at a lookout, and took some pics, since we were up in the mountains again.

This kid, I swear. He is standing out on a ledge. If there is something to climb, he will climb it.

When we got back to Ruidoso, we headed back to the cabin to change, since we were all sandy. After we changed we all sat out on the porch to talk about what to do next. While we were there, we were visited by these little guys.

We did a little bit more exploring of the town, and then it was time for dinner.

We went to this restaurant called Lucy's, a Mexican food restaurant that my grandmother had found online. She talked about wanting to go there so much that we finally gave in. Well, you know how some restaurants have stories about the place on the back of the menu? So we get there and we are reading the menus, and it turns out that Lucy's is so popular because of their 27 different types of margaritas. So, we harassed Nana about that for a while, and tried to convince her to have a margarita. She did not imbibe, but my Dad and I both tried one. I had a midori margarita, and Dad had an amaretto margarita. They salted my rim, which just didn't really go with the sweet, melony taste of the midori, so I wasn't a big fan. It would have been better if they had sugared the rim. Dad said his was ok. I don't think anyone was impressed with the restaurant, the food, or the service, so I don't think we'll be back, should we return to Ruidoso.
Back to the cabin, we mostly watched the news and read, and then went to sleep.

Day 3 of the New Mexico Trip – The 4th
This was our last day before we were leaving. Mom was determined to take some “family photos.” She’d asked us to all pack khaki and black to take a few pics. So after getting up in the morning and having breakfast, we all dressed in our khaki and black and traipsed outside to take some pics.

Kelsey

Ryan

Me

All three of us

That was fun. Well, Ryan doesn’t particularly like having his picture made, but we survived. We took a ton, but that’s enough to share.
After the photoshoot, we decided we wanted to see if we could find a place to cook out for lunch. We loaded up the car with supplies, and drove into the mountains once again. And drove. And drove. And drove. Around one, we stumbled across a campsite where we could build a campfire and cook out.

Lil’ boy scout knows his stuff!

Ryan, Nana and Gran

More cooking out!

My parents!

Mom and Gran

Smores!!

Kelsey's marshmallows are well done.

They’re so cute!

Oh. Wait….

Ha ha. We were out here for hours. It is really a toss-up between if this was my favorite, or the dune sledding was my favorite.
After we left, Kelsey, Mom and I went to play putt-putt – Mom has these pics somewhere – and everyone else went up to the casino on the reservation (Inn of the Mountain Gods) is the resort where the casino was. Ryan was old enough to gamble on the reservation, so he wanted to go.
After our putt-putt game (I won, by 1 point) we went to dinner, and then drove to a town called Capitan for fireworks. Again, I don’t have pics of them.
And that’s pretty much it for the Ruidoso trip. The next morning, we got up, loaded the car and hit the road for that long haul back to Dallas.
We had a great time though, especially my grandparents. We had really planned this trip for them, so I’m glad they enjoyed themselves.

Next up, hopefully San Antonio - I thought I had found the memory card, but it turns out, I have not. I think Mom stole it. I need to get it back from her!

Hope you all have a great day!

 

[jewels1916]

Love the pictures Courtney! It looks like you had so much fun. Excited for you about one week to Spain!

We did, we had a blast! One week from today, at 11am, we will be on a plane, bound for Spain!!

I have never heard of sand dune sledding -- how fun!

I hadn't heard of it either until we got there and we saw people doing it. It was so much fun!

Love the pictures of your trip so far. That sand dune sledding looks like a ton of fun

The sand dune sledding was definitely one of the highlights of the trip!

 

[Leger13]

Sounds like you guys really had a great trip. Bummer on the "famous" margaritas being not so fabulous. Loved the family pictures and the camp fire/smore making looks like so much fun. Thanks for sharing with us

 

[TxRabbit]

Those pictures of White Sands are incredible! I can't believe all that white sand! I'm thinking that would be so fun to do. We are headed up to Pagosa Springs, CO in December. It's been so long since DS saw snow, he doesn't remember it anymore. Sledding down the sand might be a great start to getting him in that speedy spirit for downhill!

How long of a drive was it? We have that RCI timeshare and Ruidosa is usually available.

Those well cooked smores? My DS calls those Asteroids!

 

[Charleston Princess]

Too bad about Lucy's, but the photoshoot pics are great. Lunch looks like a lot of fun even though it took you awhile to find a spot.

 

[redlight]

Smores! I haven't had one in a long time. Thanks for all the great photos, Courtney!

 

[pipermae]

Your cookout only consisted of S'mores? That's my kindda cook out!!!

 

[jewels1916]

The San Antonio Float Trip - there isn't so much a TR for this trip, because it consisted of us driving to San Antonio after work on Friday, falling asleep as soon as we got there, getting up and going to the river on Saturday morning, floating on the river for six hours, going back to Brad's house and showering, going to dinner, then going back to Brad's and sleeping. Then we were up and on the road back to Dallas by 10am.
I have the pics from floating the river, which was the main point of the trip anyway, so I will just kinda let them speak for themselves.
Anyway, without further adieu...

We had three coolers, because, for 8 people and 6 hours on the water, we needed lots of stuff. Drinks, food….

We had taken goldfish crackers, and were throwing them at each other trying to catch them in our mouths. We had a nice little trail of goldfish following us down the river after a while.

Incase y’all haven’t seen a pic of Kelly’s fiancé, that’s him. Brad.

As you can see, we had a great time. We had signed up for a 4 hour float – which lasted 6 hours. I think everyone was pretty ready to get out of the water by the time we got to our stop. It’s definitely something I hope we get to do again though!
Oh, and something cool – I had a digital underwater camera (Walmart). It was kinda clunky but the fact that I could just hang it around my wrist and it dragged through the water was awesome. And then when I got home, I could just plug it into my computer and upload the pics. It was a good purchase, as my family and friends partake in a lot of water activities.
Geez….I need to start packing for the cruise….

 

[jewels1916]

Sounds like you guys really had a great trip. Bummer on the "famous" margaritas being not so fabulous. Loved the family pictures and the camp fire/smore making looks like so much fun. Thanks for sharing with us

It was fun! I hope we do it again sometime. Sans margaritas!

Those pictures of White Sands are incredible! I can't believe all that white sand! I'm thinking that would be so fun to do. We are headed up to Pagosa Springs, CO in December. It's been so long since DS saw snow, he doesn't remember it anymore. Sledding down the sand might be a great start to getting him in that speedy spirit for downhill!

How long of a drive was it? We have that RCI timeshare and Ruidosa is usually available.

Those well cooked smores? My DS calls those Asteroids!

Ha ha! We just call those smores "well-done" or "Dad's style." The White Sands were fun! We drove through Abilene instead of through El Paso, so it shaved a good hour off of our drive time. I think we made it in about 8 hours to Ruidoso. We left around five, and arrived around 2. Then the drive to Alamogordo was about another hour to see the dunes. I bet your DS would love sledding down the dunes! It would be a great way to get him all pumped up for the slopes!

Too bad about Lucy's, but the photoshoot pics are great. Lunch looks like a lot of fun even though it took you awhile to find a spot.

We did have a great time. I think my Gma said that was her favorite thing we did while we were gone.

Smores! I haven't had one in a long time. Thanks for all the great photos, Courtney!

You should fix that quickly! Smores are soooo yummy. I want one now!

Your cookout only consisted of S'mores? That's my kindda cook out!!!

Haha, no, it may have looked like it only consisted of smores, but we had hotdogs too. Those just aren't nearly as fun to catch on fire.
PS, Kadye! Get to work on your TR! Come on! There can't be any new PTRs until you have done your TR!

 

[stacikristine]

Wow! What fun trips!!! I think I posted earlier about the sand dunes...but the DIS must have eaten it.. Anyway...it looks SOOO fun!!! I've never seen sand dunes, but I'd love to. It's awesome that you were able to spend that special time with your family and grandparents. Special memories. The cookout looks great too!! I just love smores Where did you sign up to float on the river? My DH's parents live there...and that'd be something fun to do sometime. Looks like a blast! I can't believe you're leaving sooooo soon! Good luck packing

 

[jenelope]

It's called Mousejunkies!, and the author is Bill Burke. I found it in the travel section (while I was perusing, hoping the new UG was out, which is ridiculous, cause I know the new UGs usually come out in August!). This book was amazing. I picked it up because...well, I'll read anything about Disney World, and I've called myself a Mousejunkie for years. Everyone should read this book. For my fellow Mousejunkies, Bill and his friends have articulately (and humorously, and a whole other host of flattering adverbs) described what Disney World is through the eyes of someone who loves it as much as we do. I've been asked for years "Really Court? Disney World...again? I could get anyone whose ever asked me that question to read this book, and finally they would GET IT. I've already decided that my parents, particularly my mother, needs to read it. I am trying to plug this book, because I thought it was so wonderful. I don't think I am doing a very good job, so let me just tell you what I told Bill when I emailed him. (Yes, I emailed him. It's rare a book compels me to do that, but this one did!). This is the book I've always wanted to write. That may not sound like a compliment, but trust me, coming from me, it's huge. So. Check out the book. And share it with your husbands, boyfriends, family members, friends....those folks who give you "the look" when you bring up WDW. At least get them to read the first chapter. They shouldn't ever have to question your relationship with the Mouse again.

FYI, Court, Bill is a longtime DIS-er (ChefBilly). I'm sure he loved your e-mail! I know he's enjoying the whole "Mousejunkies" ride. Thank you for your great review! It looks like your New Mexico vacation was fantastic!

 

[TxRabbit]

I can't believe I lived in San Antonio for 5 YEARS and I never went tubing. DH can't believe it either. He thought for sure that I had gone with him...It looks like so much fun! Was the river low? I've been wondering about that since we've had so little rain this year...

Looks like you had a great time! I totally want to go tubing now!

 

[redlight]

I love the pictures. If you don't mind me asking how much did the underwater camera cost?

 

[jewels1916]

I love the pictures. If you don't mind me asking how much did the underwater camera cost?

Thanks! The underwater camera was $99 at Walmart. But it wasn't one of those disposable ones. My family is always doing water activities, so with how much we usually spend on underwater cameras, plus paying to get those developed, the camera will have basically paid for itself after a few trips! We took over 90 pics while we were tubing on the river. That would have been, what, 3 or 4 disposable waterproof cameras? Totally worth it for us!

I can't believe I lived in San Antonio for 5 YEARS and I never went tubing. DH can't believe it either. He thought for sure that I had gone with him...It looks like so much fun! Was the river low? I've been wondering about that since we've had so little rain this year...

Looks like you had a great time! I totally want to go tubing now!

It was a lot of fun! The water was a little low, I have a few bruises that are still working on healing... But I would definitely do it again.

FYI, Court, Bill is a longtime DIS-er (ChefBilly). I'm sure he loved your e-mail! I know he's enjoying the whole "Mousejunkies" ride. Thank you for your great review! It looks like your New Mexico vacation was fantastic!

Hi Jenna! Like I said before, you guys all did a great job on the book! I really enjoyed reading about everyone's different perspectives. Thanks for stopping in on my ptr! (subliminally messages Jenna..."Mousejunkies 2, Mousejunkies 2....)

Wow! What fun trips!!! I think I posted earlier about the sand dunes...but the DIS must have eaten it.. Anyway...it looks SOOO fun!!! I've never seen sand dunes, but I'd love to. It's awesome that you were able to spend that special time with your family and grandparents. Special memories. The cookout looks great too!! I just love smores Where did you sign up to float on the river? My DH's parents live there...and that'd be something fun to do sometime. Looks like a blast! I can't believe you're leaving sooooo soon! Good luck packing

I thought I commented on your post on the sand dunes. Maybe I didn't...
We floated with River Sports Tubes (riversportstubes.com) and they were great. They even had coolers in tubes that we could rent to put stuff in. I would definitely check them out if you are thinking about floating!