Who Wants to Learn the Bacon Dance? – A May 2012 TR - 6/30 - 3 Updates

[Dugette]

Whew, you finally made it to Florida! That free orange juice at the welcome center always sounds so nice, but unfortunately the plane doesn't stop there. Maybe someday we'll drive and get to stop by.

Glad the kids enjoyed their night in Oakahlah. (I thought of you today at work. I'm in accounting and was preparing a sales tax return for Florida...guess what city came up for one of our sales? ) I haven't been to a Chuck E Cheese in forever...good idea for that night. Looking forward to your WDW arrival!

 

[MissLiz]

I was all excited when we were coming up on the Florida sign and I started a countdown from 5, thinking the girls would join in. Not so much. They really both just looked at me like I was nutso.

I agree that the sign should be bigger -- maybe my kids would get as excited as I do then!

I tried to get DH to stop at the welcome center, but he hates to stop anywhere when we get going, so that was not happening. Maybe someday I'll get my orange juice!

 

[katt789]

Wow, I don't know if I would be able to ever drive down to Disney (definitely not from Canada! haha) Although I do love road trips, so we'll see if that ever happens

How great that your stop had a chuck e cheese at it, that must have been a great way to burn off energy!

 

[mindystar]

I'm late. . .sorry!!!
Love that shirt you are wearing I was told by CMs that there was a new one when I wore mine. . .but I love how soft the one I have is
Love that Tifton water tower, but oh how sweet it is to see that Florida Welcome Sign
Can't wait to see the Bacon Dance!!!

 

[GaRain]

Yay! You made it through Georgia!!! And a treat of OJ is perfect. Now, I am not down with the Chuck E Cheese...but with kids, I guess it was good.
Ready for some DISNEY!!! Bring it on!

 

[amazingact21]

You survived the endless drive through GA!




The FL welcome sign is always exciting, and that's coming from someone who lives in the state.


I think Chuck E Cheese was a smart idea. Give the kids a chance to burn off some energy that was pent up from the long carride. But it's a bummer that it began raining as soon as you got to the hotel!

 

[cinderella crazy]

Whew, you finally made it to Florida! That free orange juice at the welcome center always sounds so nice, but unfortunately the plane doesn't stop there. Maybe someday we'll drive and get to stop by.

Glad the kids enjoyed their night in Oakahlah. (I thought of you today at work. I'm in accounting and was preparing a sales tax return for Florida...guess what city came up for one of our sales? ) I haven't been to a Chuck E Cheese in forever...good idea for that night. Looking forward to your WDW arrival!

This was the first time in many years that we got orange juice. It was nice to get some again.

I've said Ocala wrong for so long, whenever I see it written I just automatically think Oakahlah. Before the kids it had been years since I had been to a Chuck E Cheese. We go maybe two times a year now.

I was all excited when we were coming up on the Florida sign and I started a countdown from 5, thinking the girls would join in. Not so much. They really both just looked at me like I was nutso.

I agree that the sign should be bigger -- maybe my kids would get as excited as I do then!

I tried to get DH to stop at the welcome center, but he hates to stop anywhere when we get going, so that was not happening. Maybe someday I'll get my orange juice!

At least Florida's sign is a little big. Some states have tiny signs telling you that you've crossed over.

All us female types had to use facilities so that was another excuse we used to stop.

Wow, I don't know if I would be able to ever drive down to Disney (definitely not from Canada! haha) Although I do love road trips, so we'll see if that ever happens

How great that your stop had a chuck e cheese at it, that must have been a great way to burn off energy!

You would have a really, really long drive. It takes us about 11 hours to get there from East Tennessee. That's with many restroom breaks, one gas fill up, and a luch break.

When we were planning our trip, DH started looking at what was in Oakahlah and he found the Chuck E. Cheese. The kids have quite a few tokens from there so we just took them with us. Worked out pretty good!

I'm late. . .sorry!!!
Love that shirt you are wearing I was told by CMs that there was a new one when I wore mine. . .but I love how soft the one I have is
Love that Tifton water tower, but oh how sweet it is to see that Florida Welcome Sign
Can't wait to see the Bacon Dance!!!

Yay! Glad you made it! I never saw another shirt when we were there. Isn't it the best? It has lasted much longer than any of my other Disney shirts. I love mine too! Bacon dance will be revealed very soon.

Yay! You made it through Georgia!!! And a treat of OJ is perfect. Now, I am not down with the Chuck E Cheese...but with kids, I guess it was good.
Ready for some DISNEY!!! Bring it on!

I think Chuck E. Cheese is okay. I put up with it because the kids like it so much and it seems to burn off a lot of their energy.

Hopefully I'll find some time tomorrow to load pics onto Photobucket and type up the next day.

You survived the endless drive through GA!




The FL welcome sign is always exciting, and that's coming from someone who lives in the state.


I think Chuck E Cheese was a smart idea. Give the kids a chance to burn off some energy that was pent up from the long carride. But it's a bummer that it began raining as soon as you got to the hotel!

See, everyone loves the Florida welcome sign! The rain at the hotel should have been an omen of what was to come.

 

[cinderella crazy]

Summer Fun – Week 1

So sorry I haven’t posted an update in the last couple of days! I’m in the process of loading pictures into photobucket and typing the next days installments. I figured, while you wait for those, I’ll give you a look at what we’re up to this summer.

A couple of weeks before we left for Disney, I sat down and tried to figure out some fun things to do during the summer. I was on Pinterest and I saw a great idea! Everyday of the week has a theme. Ours goes a little something like this:

Make Something Monday (crafts)
Time to Read Tuesday (Library day)
What’s Cooking Wednesday
Travel Somewhere Thursday
Science Fun Friday (little science experiments)

Our week started off with Make Something Monday and us making bird treats. All it requires is cookie cutters, birdseed, flour, corn syrup, water, cooking spray, and cut up straws.

We first combined:
¾ cups of flour
½ cup of water
3 Tablespoons of corn syrup.

You then add that to 4 cups of bird seed (we got ours at Kroger)

Then you stir:

Place cookie cutters (that have been sprayed with cooking spray) onto a wax paper covered baking sheet, then fill them with bird seed mixture and place a cut straw into the shape:

Remove the cookie cutter very carefully and lastly, remove the straw:

Bake in an oven at 170 degrees for one hour (flipping each one after 30 minutes).

When they have cooled, place a string through the holes and hang in them from a tree, or, like we did, from the fence posts:

We went to the library on Time to Read Tuesday and the kids found a couple of neat books. Two of Alex’s I might have to sneak a read:

While the kids enjoyed looking at their books, I snuck over to the new book section and discovered this:

I wish y’all could have seen my face! I was so excited! It took me less than a second to snatch that sucker off the shelf! So far it’s a very interesting read.


On What’s Cooking Wednesday, we made chocolate covered strawberries. Not a lot of supplies required. Just strawberries, some kind of chocolate to melt (I like to use chocolate chips), and a wax paper lined cookie sheet.

I first had Alex pour water into a pot:

Then Lauren poured chocolate chips into a bowl (one that fits on top of the pot, but not in it. We’re making a double broiler):

Then I took over by putting the bowl on top of the pot. The hotness of the boiling water melts the chocolate. You do have to keep stirring it.

Once it’s melted, you dip the strawberries (cleaned ones), into the chocolate and place them onto the wax paper.

You then place the cookie sheet into the fridge so the chocolate hardens. This is what our strawberries looked like:

Thursday we didn’t get to travel anywhere. Why? Well, a couple of months ago I started realizing that part of the reason I was getting migraines was do to me eating chocolate. I was devastated. And apparently I still haven’t learned my lesson. So Wednesday, I decided that a little old chocolate on those strawberries wasn’t going to hurt anything! Wrong! So apparently even just a tiny bit gives me a raging headache (Guess I won’t be doing the dessert viewing of Wishes). So, unfortunately we didn’t get to go to the zoo. We’ll make that up later.


Today, for our Science Fun Friday we filled glasses up with Sprite, put a couple of raisins in them, and watched the raisins bob up and down. The kids were mesmerized:

And last, but certainly not least, we had one activity that we have done almost everyday this week. This activity I can blame on the BC. You see, the kids loved the pool at the BC sooooo much, that after we arrived back home we started thinking about getting a pool. At the end of last week Mike went out and bought a metal framed pool. The kids love it (I must admit I’m enjoying it too)! We go swimming and then have a yummy snack while drying off in the sun:

So there’s our week of summer fun and partially the reason there hasn’t been an update for several days. What has everyone else been doing so far this summer? I'll be back in a bit with a trip update!

 

[StitchIsOurHero]

LOVE the summer update!!!! Looks like lots of fun! On the trip side, we got one of those "Mickey in a poncho" 's too!

 

[PixieMama]

Can I come to your house for the rest of the summer?

 

[MHTeacher]

Looks like so much fun! I've almost forgotten about having younger kids in the house during the summer. They do tend to get bored easily, unless you've got a fun line-up of events to keep them occupied. Once they're older, they are so busy with cheer camps, show choir camps, orientations, and the such like. If I tried to plan something, they'd look at me like I had two heads, and ask, "When am I supposed to do that, mother?"

 

[mindystar]

Bummer about the chocolate
Fun, fun, fun about the pool
Great ideas about themed days for the week!

 

[cinderella crazy]

LOVE the summer update!!!! Looks like lots of fun! On the trip side, we got one of those "Mickey in a poncho" 's too!

Isn't Mickey cute wearing his poncho? We are having quite a bit of fun! The kids haven't complained about being bored and that's a good thing!

Can I come to your house for the rest of the summer?

Sure! Come on over!

Looks like so much fun! I've almost forgotten about having younger kids in the house during the summer. They do tend to get bored easily, unless you've got a fun line-up of events to keep them occupied. Once they're older, they are so busy with cheer camps, show choir camps, orientations, and the such like. If I tried to plan something, they'd look at me like I had two heads, and ask, "When am I supposed to do that, mother?"

It's hard for me to imagine them keeping themselves occupied. Someday it'll happen, but for right now they seem content watching raisins float in sprite.

Bummer about the chocolate
Fun, fun, fun about the pool
Great ideas about themed days for the week!

I know. I'm so sad about the chocolate. Thanks! We're really enjoying the pool!

 

[cinderella crazy]

The Beautiful Sign

Friday, May 25th

I wish I could say I slept well at our one night stay at Comfort Suites. Don’t get me wrong, it was a nice enough hotel: clean room, comfortable bed, Direct TV. Very nice hotel. But you see, I slept with a certain little girl and she fidgets when she sleeps, and kicks, and flings her arms around. She is all over the place when she sleeps. She also talked a little bit. This is one reason we requested a room with a daybed for the BC. That way one of the kids could sleep there, one in a bed, and Mike and I wouldn’t have to sleep with either child. Cause Alex also moves around a lot and if he’s really tired will talk in his sleep too.

Anyway, so when Mike’s cell phone alarm went off at 6:00 the next morning, I was pretty sleepy. Thankfully my sweet honeybunny got up and ready while I remained in bed being a lazy sack of potatoes. Once he was done, he came over to get me up.

“Honey, it’s time to get up.”

“Uh-uh.”

“Honey, it’s time to get up so we can go to Disney World.”

“Uh-uh.”

“Would you like me to help you up?”

“Mmm-hmm”

So my sweetie pulled me out of bed. This is a normal occurrence at our house. I am so not a morning person. I can be but I need about three cups of coffee to convince my body that it can stay awake. So once I finally got out of bed, I got cleaned up, put some make-up on and fixed my hair.

When I stepped out of the bathroom, I saw that the kids were dressed and ready to head down to the lobby for some breakfast. Mom met us at our room and we took the elevator down to the lobby. The kids and I waited in the lobby while Mom and Mike took the overnight bags to the van. Once they came back in, we walked over to the part of the lobby where the breakfast was.

I was really impressed with the items they had for the continental breakfast. They had cereal, doughnuts, bread for toast, yogurt, bagels, milk, orange juice, coffee (which was decent, not horrible but not great), make your own waffles, eggs, and bacon. Alex really, really wanted bacon, and he almost did a dance for it, but we convinced him that he could have bacon at Chef Mickey’s so he really didn’t need any before then. We ate a pretty light breakfast since we knew we were going to stuff ourselves silly later.


After we ate, Mom and I refilled our coffee cups and of course, us female types headed to the restroom. We walked out of the lobby and I spotted the vehicle from Blount County again and another from a different county (can’t remember which one) and I wished my fellow Tennesseean vehicles good travels.


It was around this time that I noticed that the air smelled funny. I started looking around and the air seemed smoky. What in the world was going on? Was something on fire. We later found out that there was a brush fire north of Oakahlah. I guess the wind was pushing it down to the town. So with that, we piled into the van and rushed out of Oakahlah. We were scheduled to leave at 8:00 and we left the parking lot right at 8:00. Woohoo!


I opted to drive since I didn’t do much driving the previous day. I just love driving in Florida. Palm trees, flat roads, Disney signs. I even like the tolls. Yup. That’s right folks. I like paying the state of Florida so I can have the opportunity to drive on their roads. It’s the least I do for the wonderful state that houses Disney.

It wasn’t long before we hit the turnpike. This is when everyone starts getting excited. We all start looking around more. Mike starts looking for the Western Way exit. And eventually we see it! And usually, we take a picture of it. Why? Because on our 2009 trip a CM told Mike that it didn’t exist. So from that point forward, when we get off the turnpike onto Western Way, we chuckle and I usually say

“Boy this non-existent road sure is smooth!”

Here’s a pic we took of it from a previous trip.

Good ole Western Way.


And then, it wasn’t long before we saw this beautiful sign:

We had made it! We had arrived! Woohoo! We were in Disney World!!!


Coming up: Our arrival at the BC!!!

 

[awfullybigadventure]

WooHooo! I'm so excited!!!

 

[Dugette]

Yay, the sign! Good job getting out on time in the morning too.

Looks like a fun summer at your house!

 

[katt789]

Yay! You made it to Disney! I definitely feel ya on the morning thing, I can't function without coffee, even in Disney!! I'm excited to read all about beach club!

 

[mindystar]

Hurray, you made it!!!
I remember when my sisters and I were younger and sleeping with my baby sister. Whoo, if she had swam before bed, she would kick and be all over the bed. I guess I just thought the whole bed should be mine and would take covers and flap my arms on them. Oh yeah. . .I guess I talk in my sleep too. . .nothing coherent, but still
Can't wait to see your room!!!

 

[MHTeacher]

No feeling in the world like seeing "the sign" at the beginning of your trip!

Can't wait to see your BC room.

 

[PixieMama]

I am not a morning person, either. Though I think I'd be the first out of bed if it was to get to Disney World!