Who knew choking each other would earn us fastpasses?

[mickeystoontown]

"A way down yonder on a Chatahoochee!"

Ok you said that river and that song immediately came to mind.
Take your time with the updates. I'm still behind. We are having so many problems with Skips hip, and the Dr is being such a big turd, I don't know how we will make it over the weekend. Skip is not a good patient and calls the Dr constantly. He even just called the emergency number. The Dr is off till Monday now. How wil lI live? LOL!

On a good note, I took Claire and friend to see Toy Story 3 today. It was really good and a bit of a tear jerker at times. I had to get away for a bit and that was a good way to do it.

Thats a bummer that Lacy won't be home. Is it because of her job (I forget where, but wasn't she taking over something) or does she have more school this summer?

I sing that song every time I think about Helen. The river goes right through the middle of town. So pretty.

No more news about Skip from the doctor? I hate the waiting and not knowing!

We went to see Toy Story 3 this weekend and I cried. I just couldn't help it.

Lacey has several trips planned starting next week. The mission will be going to Washington, D.C., then back to Georgia for graduation and two other somethings during the Summer. She does get a break though and will be going with her former Mission leaders to Florida. This was planned well before the oil spill so they will have to think of other things to do besides just the beach. I think they are supposed to stay a week. After that, college classes will start back up.

Congrats to Lacey. Enjoy your time with her. I am sorry it will be so long until you see eachother again!

I fully intend to!

Yeah!! You're at Epcot!! I love love love Soarin'!! Did I mention I love it?? I've never had the privelege of being in row 1...we always get 2 or 3. Your trip report is getting me all fired up about our trip in August...I've been thinking all day about the little things I need to start grabbing at the store!!

I love Epcot too! Maybe you'll get assigned to Row 1 when you ride Soarin' this trip.

 

[Kathy Jetson]

I live about 30 minutes from Grand Isle, Louisiana. We are getting bad news each day. My husband, Shannon also works right out of Port Fourchon in the oilfield. He is in shallow waters and they are getting a lot of oil these past couple of days with this weather system we are getting. Hopefully the weather clears up and the tides turn to have the oil back offshore. Hopefully we can get the oil spill stopped soon.

I hope for the best for you and your family and that the storm does not make it any worse!

 

[KELLY]

I'm all caught up again. I think I was back at page 17 or so. Can hardly wait for my burger from Electiric Umbrella now. I think we will hit sunshine seasons this year also. Since we are doing the QSDP.

We also do 2 days at Epcot I hate rushing.

 

[MissLiz]

Amicalola Falls State Park is gorgeous! Check out the link below.

http://www.gastateparks.org/Amicalola


I believe it's about an hour from Helen. We love going up there to check out the falls and walk the trails. There is also a town not far from there called Dahlonega where you can mine for gold. (Okay, not super amounts of gold, but it might be fun) We've never done it, but some friends of ours have gone and like it a lot. It's a very small town.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Sounds like you have some very good reasons to be MIA Lisa! Congrats to Lacey!!

Sorry she won't be coming home this summer but I'm sure it will make that November visit even more special. Have fun in the garden and on your upcoming trip. We'll be waiting here for you!

It's been so busy around the house. I thought it was called "the lazy days of Summer"?

When the garden gets rolling you just have to jump in, but it can really use up all your spare time! That is really tough about Lacey not coming home. Y'all seem to be really close, so it leaves a big hole in your family as well as your heart. Glad you can go to graduation and visit a little bit, though. Hope she has been feeling better.

I put up even more peas and squash last night. I also made some homemade salsa with the tomatos from the garden. Yum! Oh and I made some refrigerator pickles too.

Lacey hasn't had any more medical problems, thank goodness. She got a sore throat the other day and I told her to immediately go get something for it.

Congrats to Lacey! Have fun in Georgia...I'm sure it's tough to watch her grow up. Bittersweet, I'm sure! I remember the first summer I didn't come home. Seems like forever ago now.

I so wish I could do a successful garden! I love all the fresh veggies. But, sadly, I can't grow anything at all without killing it! We tried gardens in the past and for what we got out of them, it just wasn't worth the hard work. I'm sure if I enjoyed being IN the garden more, we'd have done better. Oh well. Yours sounds fabulous!

I am so looking forward to seeing my baby. It's tough knowing she's far away from home. I thought it'd get better after three years.

I wish you could grow a garden too. The garden is in the same spot it was for years and years and years. That may have something to do with the fact that it produces well.

Congratulations to Lacey!

I think I've had that shade of purple fingernails/fingertips before!

Got two purple fingernails again today!

Congrats to Lacy! I hope you can pack in lots of time to spend with her in July!

Thanks! I am a proud Mama that's for sure.

Take your time......we're here....

I've been trying my best to get caught up but I just can't seem to get there. Thanks for sticking with me.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Yeah! for Lacey graduating! Yeah! for getting to see her in July! So sad for her not coming home this summer

Thanks! I can't wait to see her!

"It gets hotter than a hoochie coochie"!


Congrats to Lacey!

Oh, Lisa...I'm just going to watch you handling this and take notes for when my baby girl goes to college.

Sounds like you've got a great garden!

I sing that song every time I think about going to see Lacey. They float the river all the time.

Girl, it was hard when we left her in Georgia. I thought it was supposed to get easier with time but it hasn't!

The garden has done remarkably well even in the 100 degree temps.

Congrats to Lacey!!! Your garden sounds like it's doing great!! We're still patiently waiting for ours.........

Thanks for the congrats! The garden is still going strong. We have had a couple of squash plants that are pretty wilted from the super hot weather but they haven't died completely yet and are still trying to hang on.

Congrats to Lacey! I hope you have a wonderful time during your visit to Georgia!

I am looking forward to seeing Lacey. We have a half day that we'll get to spend with her after the graduation and then all day long on Sunday. We're being bad and skipping church so that we can have some one-on-one with her.

Congrats Lacey!!

I'll pass along the congrats!

 

[mickeystoontown]

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Living With the Land. I went on the Behind the Seeds tour a few years ago, it was super interesting and I really enjoyed it. Can't wait to read more!

Me too! There's nothing extraordinary about it but it's really cool. We did Behind the Seeds twice but it was several years ago. We want to take mama on it next year.

This looks like one of the exact rest areas that we stopped at on our trip in April. Is this the one that you drive a ways once you take the exit to get to the rest stop?

I think it is!

 

[MEK]

Wow - I just read your last update and I am laughing about the run away tooth! Holy Cow! Talk about bad timing. I am glad you took matters into your own hands and fixed the problem.

I am reading at work (I needed a break from paperwork) and everyone is drooling over your food pics. "Where's that????....ummmmm, that looks good?) Nothing like a disney burger!

 

[mickeystoontown]

What is it with grandkids that get away with everything? I know mine sure does! Whatever they want, their Grandma gives it!!!!

Your stories always crack me up!!!!!!

My two kids can get away with anything with my Mama. Glad that I was able to provide you with a little laughter.

Lisa, if ever there was a day that I needed a laugh, today was it. And you, in your usual fashion, presented it to me. I have tears rolling down my cheeks, my legs are crossed under my desk for fear of an accident and I'm still laughing.

Shame on John and Hunter for laughing at you. They should be ashamed of themselves.

And I love how your Mom is with Hunter. My mom was the same way with Andy when he was younger (not Markie...Markie was always the "troublemaker" in her eyes).

Wasn't that the dangest story ever? And, it was all true. Right down to the tushy sprinkles. John and Hunter laughed so hard. They were literally crying.

Mama is totally in love with both of my kids. I think it's because we live right next door and she was able to see them every day.

I agree with KatMark, my child is not the "chosen" grandchild in my parents' eyes, either. But I think it is wonderful that Hunter has such a close relationship with his grandmother. Every kid should be so blessed!

And what a hoot you are! I wasn't on the boards for any of your previous TR's, but let me just say, I think I missed out! That story of your tooth falling out was priceless. Your boys shouldn't have laughed at you, but I can totally see the hilarity in the moment. And hey, you can laugh about it now AND you have a funny story to share!

I simply cannot wait to hear more!

I agree with you..."every kid should be so blessed".

The tooth story....every little bitty bit of it....was the complete and honest truth. And, now that I look back on it, I can laugh. It is one of the funniest vacation memories we've ever made.

I always pack krazy glue myself...not for teeth though..

Electric Umbrella is a trusty standby. Even though it's not my favorite CS, it's exactly as you stated...Hot. We always sit upstairs.

Well, if your tooth ever pops out, you've got the trusty krazy glue handy!

 

[mickeystoontown]

Oh Lisa, I'm sorry to laugh at your experience, but you are a really funny writer and I needed a good laugh!!

Glad that I was able to give you a laugh or two. Sometimes the most embarassing stories are those that make you smile.

I remember the tooth story! It's even funnier the second time around!

Oh Hunter...use the batting eyelashes to your advantage as long as it works! Someday it won't! (namely when you have a wife who won't put up with your silliness!)

Those burgers look tasty....I could eat one right now!

It was fun reliving the tooth moment.

I always tell Hunter that the batting eyelashes don't work at our house. He knows it works every time with his Mamaaw though.

The Electric Umbrella burger have always been pretty tasty.

Great update Lisa . I think you're right, that Dana woman must have been following you around . I don't think I took that many food pictures this trip. I know I didn't get any of our food at EU. Can't wait to hear about the meet and find out if the Dana person was still following you.......

At least the Dana woman and her family were nice! I took pictures of every meal but I can't find some of the pictures. By day two, even Mama was reminding me to take pictures of our food.

That was a fun flashback - I can just imagine my family treating me the same way! What a relief to get it back in safe and sound, though.

I guess I am that doting grandmother who pampers her grandkids! Mine always want to come to Mimi's house, and my daughter laughs when I wait on them which she definitely doesn't do at home! That's okay, they are great kids and they won't be kids much longer so I will pamper them as much as I can while I can.

When I told the dentist the story, he called in some of his staff and made me retell it. It was pretty funny.

It's totally okay to be a doting grandmother. I know for a fact that I'm going to dote on mine and spoil them until they stink!

My mother does the same thing with my kids...it drives my dad completely nuts! (me too, sometimes...) The things she lets these kids do..."no" is simply not in her vocabulary!

I can sympathize with the picky eater, too...except I think my older two are worse than Hunter. They won't eat burgers, and only eat pizza from a few places (none of which are on Disney property). We had a food meltdown or two on our trip...and Mommy was involved in all of them, I'm sorry to say. The little guy, on the other hand, will eat almost anything off of anyone's plate. Finally, a good eater!

Every once in a while, Mama may say something to Hunter about manners or something similar but it's definitely not a scolding. Just a little whisper.

I so wish Hunter wouldn't be such a picky eater. When he was little, he would eat just about anything. It wasn't until he turned 3 or 4 that he started getting picky.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Great update, Lisa!!! Thanks for the flashback story. It is a classic!!!!

You're welcome! I thought everybody could use a laugh.

OMG.. I soo needed that laugh this morning!! That was the best flash back evah!!! I don't know what it is about Grandparents, Gabby does not have them completely wrapped around her finger but she def. gets away with a bunch of stuff-more than I could ever think about when I was younger!

Glad that you had a good laugh. I really should go back and find the one where we got stuck on Test Track and I had to pee. It was pretty funny too.

So Gabby gets away with stuff too? What is up with kids and grandparents? Seriously, I have already said I will be spoiling my grandkids. I just know I will.

Great update Lisa!! My mom does the same thing with my boys...all they have to do is bat their eyes and they can get away with anything!!

That tooth story is just what I needed this morning!! I couldn't stop laughing!! I remember it the first time around....and reacted the same way! Aww...thanks for sharing!!

Your boys are so cute I am sure they could get away with anything with your mother.

I'm glad that you were able to get a laugh or two over the tooth story.

I think that's part of being a Grandma, spoiling your grandkids silly! I know my parents do things for our kids that they never never did for me & my brother!

I'm surprised you've had an uneventful meal at Electric Umbrella. Perhaps something will happen?

I don't remember being deprived as a kid but I also don't remember my parents spoiling me rotten.

Oh, no, I got out of the Electric Umbrella before anything major happened!

 

[dismagiclover]

I know I'm super late to the party, but I'm here now. I'm going to go back and try to get caught up!

 

[mickeystoontown]

Thanks! Oh yes it was! That is a must do everytime we go now!

For sure!

The tooth fiasco was as funny this time as the first time I read it. Super Glue to the rescue. My 15yr old DD is as spoiled as Hunter by her Grandma. She has been on more vactions in her short life than I have or ever will. EU is our lunch spot at EPCOT. Seems to appeal to all picky eaters one way or the other.

I never ever go anywhere without super glue!

John and I always say at least our kids are spoiled by their grandparents and they know them. Some grandkids aren't so lucky.

They have no idea! We moved back to the states in late February and told them that we would get them to Disney as soon as we could. Later we let them know that we just couldn't afford it because we are saving for a house and a big trip to Hawaii next year. Last weekend we surprised them with a weekend trip to Great Wolf Lodge (for my birthday and Father's day) and we told them that that was their summer vacation.

Right now they are in Phx with their grandparents so I have all my Disney planning stuff out. My poor husband is so ready for this trip to get here. He's the only one I can talk to about it. LOL I can't wait to see my kids faces when they figure it out.

Keeping the secret is sooooo hard! Tell your husband that John can certainly relate. John was sick and tired of me talking to him about WDW!

Glad your mom is having time! Hunter is so adorable, it's no wonder your mom lets him do anything! He's gonna be a heartbreaker someday that's for sure!

Love all the details in your report...never worry your giving us too much!!!

Awww that was sweet. Lacey and my niece are always saying Hunter is going to have all the girls running after him.

Glad that you aren't bored by the details.

I live about 30 minutes from Grand Isle, Louisiana. We are getting bad news each day. My husband, Shannon also works right out of Port Fourchon in the oilfield. He is in shallow waters and they are getting a lot of oil these past couple of days with this weather system we are getting. Hopefully the weather clears up and the tides turn to have the oil back offshore. Hopefully we can get the oil spill stopped soon.

That just breaks my heart! I sure hope that Shannon's job is not at jeopardy.

 

[mickeystoontown]

I'm all caught up again. I think I was back at page 17 or so. Can hardly wait for my burger from Electiric Umbrella now. I think we will hit sunshine seasons this year also. Since we are doing the QSDP.

We also do 2 days at Epcot I hate rushing.

I am so behind in all of my subscriptions. I think you should definitely check out both Electric Umbrella and Sunshine Seasons since you are on the quick service plan.

Amicalola Falls State Park is gorgeous! Check out the link below.

http://www.gastateparks.org/Amicalola


I believe it's about an hour from Helen. We love going up there to check out the falls and walk the trails. There is also a town not far from there called Dahlonega where you can mine for gold. (Okay, not super amounts of gold, but it might be fun) We've never done it, but some friends of ours have gone and like it a lot. It's a very small town.

Thanks for the link! We just don't know for sure what we want to do on Sunday. Dollywood is still in the picture. We mined for gold one year in Helen. It was a lot of fun!

Wow - I just read your last update and I am laughing about the run away tooth! Holy Cow! Talk about bad timing. I am glad you took matters into your own hands and fixed the problem.

I am reading at work (I needed a break from paperwork) and everyone is drooling over your food pics. "Where's that????....ummmmm, that looks good?) Nothing like a disney burger!

So very glad that I could give you a laugh or two. I was seriously ready to pour the backpack contents on the floor and scramble around on my hands and knees to find that super glue!

Tell your friends at work that I will have more food pictures coming up.

I know I'm super late to the party, but I'm here now. I'm going to go back and try to get caught up!

Hello! Better late than never!

 

[mickeystoontown]

Well, I gave you all a little longer to dry your eyes and stop laughing than I originally intended. Still busy at the office and at home. Let's get back to this thing we affectionately call a Disney trip report. Sounds funny to say "affectionally call" when the name of the trip report is "Who knew choking each other would earn us fastpasses?" Moving on.........

We were just about finished with our burgers and desserts when I had a thought. I do have a thought every once in a while but not too often because it makes my head hurt. Anywhooooo, I thought why don't I run over to Test Track and get Fastpasses to use later on. Yeah! Why not?

I left everybody sitting in the nice cool air conditioned restaurant and stepped out into the stiffling heat. Have I mentioned that it was starting to get a little hot and humid out? Well, it was. I walked on over to Test Track and got everybody a Fastpass and then walked back. By the time I made it back to the restaurant, I was getting sticky sweaty. I don't normally sweat but today I was sweatin' like a call girl in church! It was hot!

Oh, and here's what the Electric Umbrella looked like when I met back up with the family:

Yikes! Looks like we got there before it got really busy.

Since we had a little time to kill before the 2:30 Dis Meet, we figured we'd backtrack once again and go to The Seas With Nemo and Friends. Anybody else have trouble calling it that? I always want to call it The Living Seas. I took a few pictures as we approached the pavilion:

And one just as we were walking in:

As we entered the building, we could see that there were quite a few people in line for the clam mobiles but it wasn't too terribly bad. I know it moved fairly fast because I was only able to stop long enough to take one picture:

Ooops, make that two pictures. I think I caught Hunter talking. Imagine that?

I don't remember how long it took us to reach the clam mobiles but it wasn't too long. Here's a picture of Hunter and Mama:

Again, Mama did really good with stepping onto the moving belt thingie and getting into the clam mobile. She did well getting off too. It was looking like all of our worries were for naught. Oooh, that sounded all smart-like huh.....naught.

Some pictures of the fishies. These eels are so very very ugly. They had little yellow things sticking out of their nostrils that looked like mini-straws. Weirdo-b-deirdo!

We stayed in that same room and continued looking at other fish:

And then it happened.............................................dun, dun, dun........................................


















































.................................................:

The second phone call of the trip. As you can see, John went to an out of the way spot to talk so he wouldn't interrupt the other guests.


***Continued in next post

 

[mickeystoontown]

We continued looking:

We saw the seahorse and this other really cool fish. I think it was called grass fish or maybe blade fish. Anyway, they looked like blades of brown grass and they swam straight up and down. It was the neatest thing. Maybe you can see them in this video:



By this time, John was off the phone and we had to make another round through to show him all of the stuff we had seen and he had missed because HE WAS ON THE PHONE!

Here's Mama's pointing out something to Hunter. I love how the two of them are always together:

It started getting pretty crowded in the room so we moved on to the other parts of the building. We saw all sorts of sharks, sting rays and other fish. John spotted a hidden Mickey and he was so proud of himself.

It took me forever to figure out how to turn off the flash on my camera and the pictures kept turning out blurry. So, I took a video. If you keep watching it, you'll see a shark swim by.



Hunter took the camera from me and figured out how to turn off the flash. Should have just handed it to him in the first place.

We stayed in The Seas for a while longer. I had already checked to see how long the wait for Turtle Talk With Crush was and it was ridiculously long. We decided to skip it thinking we'd see it on our second day in Epcot.

***Up next: Do we make the 2:30 Dis Meet?

 

[shelbys mommy]

I love the Nemo ride & when we went we had no wait time at all! And on the phone again! I think the next title for your TR or your PTR is "Let's see if we can do Disney with no phone calls!"

 

[dismagiclover]

Fun time in the Seas! (I also always want to call it the Living Seas.) Sorry about the phone call. Quite often I just wish we would just all throw away our cell phones. Especially on vacation!

 

[Kathy Jetson]

I thought your dun dun dun... would be that you had to pee!

 

[rndmr2]

Great Update! I will always call it the Living seas at least some of the tinme, I tend to just call it "The Sea" sometimes too. I have a couple of pics of the seahorses on my TR too, I don't think I ever saw one in real life before, I know I never noticed them at The Living Seas.