Wish Trippers...Unite!! Volume One

[hotmamac]

Oh, I wish we were going to be there at the same time.
I really think that we ought to come up with a giant Wish trippers convention at Disney World sometime. I'm a huggy-touchy kind of gal and I've never felt closer to a group of people that I've never met. These little "emoticons" hugs are not going to cut it!!
I have to get caught up on everyone's trip reports (and my own!).
We've been so busy here, I'm not on here as much as I'd like to be.
Sending out good vibes and love to everyone!
Misty

 

[twinmum]

Fairy Grandma Linda:

Thank you so much for sending the lovely cards to Mark and Douglas. They are pinned up on our bulletin board in a place of honour (see, we add that "u" here in Canada 'cuz we are honouring "you"). I was happy to see the Epcot postcard because I have made reservations for lunch there on 1 of our Epcot days. I am considering trying to arrange for a sign being shown by one of the divers - in fact, I am toying with this being a message more for Douglas than for Mark. I gather that our family will be met at the airport by a GKTW volunteer with a sign with Mark's name, so I thought a sign that says "Coral Reef welcomes Douglas Bowen and his family" might be a tongue in cheek way to acknowledge that Douglas is a very special part of this wish too. What to you think?

The cards arrived not long after the start of the school and they were a wonderful reminder that we have something great coming up soon! When we received them, I thought that the signature was actually "BigDisGrandma", but she has corrected us now!

And so, I am very glad to be able to thank you properly here. I'm sorry we didn't take any pictures...must get better at that.

Blessings,
Alison

 

[ibdamamma]

OH SO IT WAS YOU LINDA!!!

The girls got their postcards and have them hanging over their beds! Thank you so much for thinking of us. The girls truly enjoyed getting mail!

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

 

[AmberGreenawalt]

At Linda's request I sent her everyone's addresses. Most of the 2008 wish trippers have sent me their snail mail addresses for Pixie Packets so I had them all and it was easier (and more magical) for her to get them from me
I have a spread sheet I've made of all the familes, the Moms Dads, siblings, everyone's favorite characters and trip dates etc. I hope no one minds that I passed the info along to our Fairy Grandma

I need to get crackin' on filling out our form for the Big Give. I'm really excited to see what kind of pixie dust makes its ways to Greenawaltville.

Misty, I'm up for a wish trippers trip! We overlap in Orlando by a day...maybe we can meet up?

Linda, We'll be there at the same time as you!!

Much Love,
Amber

 

[bigdisgrandma]

At Linda's request I sent her everyone's addresses. Most of the 2008 wish trippers have sent me their snail mail addresses for Pixie Packets so I had them all and it was easier (and more magical) for her to get them from me
I have a spread sheet I've made of all the familes, the Moms Dads, siblings, everyone's favorite characters and trip dates etc. I hope no one minds that I passed the info along to our Fairy Grandma

I need to get crackin' on filling out our form for the Big Give. I'm really excited to see what kind of pixie dust makes its ways to Greenawaltville.

Misty, I'm up for a wish trippers trip! We overlap in Orlando by a day...maybe we can meet up?

Linda, We'll be there at the same time as you!!

Much Love,
Amber

Hooray for Linda!!!

I am so glad we can give credit where credit is due. I only wish I had been that thoughtful and organized. Brody, Karlyn and Gabby were so excited to get that "added bonus" mail when we got home! Thank you, Linda!

Thanks to you Amber as well for helping with the Pixie dust surprise.


Denise

 

[LindaBabe]

OOps! I never intended any of you (except Amber, of course) to know who it was. Just signed that post that way so the mom would know i'm not some internet weirdo!

Amber, when we get closer to the trip - because if we do it now, I won't remember til December - let's exchange itineraries - maybe we can meet, however briefly!

I met a mom and little lad from Alaska from this thread when I was volunteering at GKTW in January. He was so cute - he thought the Florida morning sun was WAY to bright (because in winter the sun barely comes up in Alaska).

 

[Best2boysmom]

We are going to GKTW on Oct. 9th. They said to pack an empty duffle as there is lots of goodies to go home with you.
Do you get gifts while at the village? Like what?
I am trying to figure out what to pack and what to suprise my kids with.
Thanks and God Bless!

 

[iu97alum]

Wow! I leave for DD's surgery for a week and ya'll are chatting up a storm! Just a quick note to say hi! DD had her surgery (it was sucessful after having to go BACK to the OR twice after the surgery Wed) and now we wait to see how she recovers and then hopefully we can then give our granters dates when we can go on our cruise! Though I'm still stumped on when Any suggestions???

And ya'll the coolest thing happened. Her wish granters visited her in the HOSPITAL! DD was SO excited!!! Other than her inital Port surgery, all her other surgeries/procedures (the other 6!) were done in NY where we didn't have friends or family able to come see us (we live in TX). This was quite the experience having her surgery this time around in our home area AND having folks visit! I think it helped her with the recovery!!!

Off to read the pages I missed while I was gone!

 

[Khalana]

We are going to GKTW on Oct. 9th. They said to pack an empty duffle as there is lots of goodies to go home with you.
Do you get gifts while at the village? Like what?
I am trying to figure out what to pack and what to suprise my kids with.
Thanks and God Bless!

Hi and welcome! I am quite new here too and we're leaving for our Wish Trip on December 5th. So I don't have first-hand knowledge yet but from reading all these Trip Reports I've heard that you'll get a little something every night!!! So there's a good idea to make room for extra stuff. I know the WIsh child recieves a Mickey plush when they arrive and siblings little Shamus. Otherwise I don't know what you'll all recieve. There's probably not too much of a need to bring your own surprises but if you want to I'm sure that would be great too. I hope you guys have an awesome time!!! Let us know how it went when you come back home again.

Linda, mom to Lydia

 

[Robin+5]

Thanks Fairy Grandma (Linda) for the postcards.
All 5 of my kids enjoyed the surprise. You are so sweet Kim had already left for school, so I brought it down to her on our first visit.

There is not really any need to bring surprises for the kids. GKTW gives enough surprises for all the kids

 

[bigdisgrandma]

We are going to GKTW on Oct. 9th. They said to pack an empty duffle as there is lots of goodies to go home with you.
Do you get gifts while at the village? Like what?
I am trying to figure out what to pack and what to suprise my kids with.
Thanks and God Bless!

Trust them when they tell you to bring an empty duffle bag. They will give you a GKTW duffle bag but they also give your family lots of fun treats and something every night as well. We wound up filling up almost every spare inch of space we had and we had brought extra luggage to take things home. Unless you have very specific traditions about treats for your kids, I would not worry about it at all. We only did the Christmas party at GKTW (just didn't have enough time) but each child got to pick a toy at that party and I am sure that they probably have treats at the other parties as well. You are pretty much treated to death, just kidding!

Have a wonderful time. I know you will.


Denise

 

[Khalana]

I was just wondering if you have any suggestions for things we should bring with us aside from the usual clothes and such? We're going shopping tomorrow and I'm going to try and find ponchos and an umbrella. I'm also planning on buying a small pen light for dark rides, some safety pins to fasten blankets to the stroller canopy and.... hm.... what else?
Any ideas?

 

[twinmum]

(Also posted on my pre-trip report)

Hello! NEWSFLASH!!! We saw (from a distance) Mickey and Goofy today!!! Today the "What will you celebrate?" Disney park tour came to Toronto. I had read about this elsewhere, and learned that there was going to be some kind of Disney event happening downtown, but we had no plans to participate.

However, we did have tickets for tonight's Blue Jays/Yankees game, courtesy of our wish-granting organization, Starlight Starbright. The boys and I took the bus and subway (and a lot of walking...great job Mark!), as we were going to meet Peter at the Rogers Centre. And what did we see just outside the stadium? The Disney Parks tour vehicle, where they had obviously been ginving out freebies, signing up people for free park admission on your birthday and so on. And rats, we had missed it. We could see as we walked into the Rogers Centre that quite a lot of people were sporting Mickey Ears - they looked like the "Year of a Million Dreams" ears, but may have been different.

The first pitch was thrown by a Make a Wish child! He was driven out in aN SUV, out he popped with Mickey and Goofy too! There were a number of promotions for the "What will you Celebrate?" campaign, lots of Disney on the sign boards and so on. Mickey and Goofy were on hand to celebrate the 75 Millionth fan attending a Blue Jays game - he and his family won a trip to WDW and season tickets for next year!

All in all, it made a fairly dull game quite a bit more excited and certainly had the boys jazzed up about our upcoming Wish Trip. The boys made a point of snuggling with their Disney stuffies (Goofy for Mark, Mickey for Douglas) which makes me very happy...first, that at age almost 10, I love that they still snuggle their stuffies some, and second, that they're excited as I am about this trip!!!

Have a great night!
Alison

 

[AmberGreenawalt]

What a neat story Alison! Thanks so much for sharing

I also have some cool news to report...

#1 Make A Wish here in Charlotte is giving us tickets to go see Disney on Ice at the Bob Cats arena. Last time we took Sebastian to the Library Uptown we saw advertisments on the big electronic bill-boards for the show. (The Children's Library Uptown is across from the arena). As we stood waiting for the train to go home I remember thinking, "Gee, it would be really neat if we could take Sebastian to go see that show as a way to get pumped for our trip that's still two months away." But then I forgot about it...UNTIL...MAW called and offered us tickets for Opening Night. We have to be there at 4:00 for the opening ceremonies and then the show starts at 7:00.

#2 We also found a place to have Sebastian's send off party in November. It's at a Mall called Plaza Fiesta. The mall has a HUGE 7 level indoor playground. I had taken the kids to a birthday party for my friend Colleen’s kids at Plaza Fiesta. I asked Colleen how much they charged her and she said she paid $2.00 per child (this is just the normal rate for any day) When the manager came over and was talking to her about some fans they were installing I asked him about the playground. I started to tell him about how we'd been looking for a place that could accomodate Sebastian’s Make A Wish party and my friend Colleen who is very forth-right (she could sell you a bikini in a snow storm) came right out and said to him something like, “since it’s for Make A Wish” could you do it for free?” …He smiled and said “I’m sure we could work something out.” YAY! He gave me his contact info to pass along to our wish granters. So now they are in the process of getting it set up. I can't wait to hear back. He is going to LOVE having a party there!

#3 I saved the best for last...Tonight we stopped over at our good friend's house. They live just behind us. Their names are Frank and Kelly and they have two precious girls Emma and Abbie. Abbie was born with Spinabifida (sp?) This past year Brian and I started a Relay for Life Team called the Cancer Commandos. We thought it would be a way to stay positive and do something to fight back. Frank and Kelly were amazing team members!They even camped out ALL night long as we walked laps around the track. Emma and Abbie painted faces into the wee small hours of the morning as part of fundraising...they were awesome! It was the day of Relay that we got the news that Sebastian's tumor in his head had returned and that he would need a second more radical surgery. Abbie has had several surgeries in her six years-- the first when she was still in utero. I found myself leaning on Kelly because I knew she "got it" when it came to the hard emotions that go along with disease in your child. Flash forward to the Relay for Life Awards banquet (which by the way we did awesome at...raising 7k!) We had just found out that Sebastian was going to have a wish granted by Make A Wish. I had gotten on these DIS boards and read about other kids who had faced all types of life threatening medical conditions. I was certain that Abbie would qualify too and that night Brian and I told Frank and Kelly about it. So I was over the moon when tonight at their house they told us the exciting news that Abbie had just met her wish granters. I asked what she wished for and Kellie said that "the apple doesn't fall far from the neighbor's tree." Abbie wished to go to Disney and meet Cinderella. Tears just came to my eyes. I am so happy for them! I told Kellie all about this wonderful community on this thread and I can't wait for her to jump in and "meet" ya'll and start planning away

Don't forget tomorrow the 25th is Make A Wish night at Cold Stone Creamery!

 

[Iluvmickeymouse!]

Hello to all of you!!!! My goodness it has been tooooooo long since I have been on. Welcome to all the new trippers and I love seeing all the familiar trippers as well. Seems like Bill has gone MIA also.... Anywho, life around here has been crazy. Our landlord sold the house so we decided to buy a house in town (we live in the country right now). We close on Monday and move in next weekend. I don't know if I am ready for the transission from country to town living. But, we'll adjust!!!! I can't wait to catch up on all the tr's, but that will have to wait until I move in to my new place....cause I'm finally getting high speed internet....no more dial-up...

to all and I hope to keep up better in the future. (it took me all night just to catch up on the Wish trippers thread!!!!)

Karla

 

[ibdamamma]

Amber, it's so awesome that you are handling everything so well. That was such an amazing update. Please send sebastian my love! And coldstone is a stop on my list today!

Karla! Congrats on the house! I can't wait for the day that we too can own a home. We have some time for that though.

I wanted to let everyone know about Monday Sept 29th. Chili's Grill and Bar will be hosting "The BIG Day" 100% of all profit made on Monday will go directly to St. Judes Childrens Hospital! It is chain wide and an all day event. So go have some lunch or dinner or even drink

 

[LindaBabe]

TwinMom, What a FUN day! How nice you were in the right place at the right time!

Amber, your post brought tears to my eyes!

What you receive for surprises at GKTW depends on what has been donated. "Something" is delivered to the villa every day. Could be as simple as autograph books or lanyards, or as complex as a giftbag with dozens of small items in it. The ones I packed had candy, note pad, lanyards, comicbooks, small car, stuffed animal, hand knitted cap or scarf, malificent ears for a pet, and some other small toys and 'stuff' (the old lady's memory is dim - we're talking January here, that's the dark ages)

You'll probably receive a book about how GKTW came to be - it's an AMAZING story - if you don't already believe in Miracles, you will, after you read this book. Then at the Christmas party, each child will receive a gift. There's also a birthday party for Mayor Clayton, but I don't remember if you get a gift for that, too.

Before you go, you have NO IDEA how wonderful GKTW village really is - it's a magical place for a child. There's a closet full of dress-up clothes, a train, a carousel, a model railroad and model boats, an ice cream parlor where you just walk up and ask for what you want - a WONDERFUL pool, a movie theatre, there are parties and character visits. You could really stay there and never even go to a park and have a wonderful time.

 

[Khalana]

I also have some cool news to report...

How cool Amber!! How fun that you're friends are going too!!

Alison, that sounds like so much fun!

Linda

 

[zeppy68]

What a neat story Alison! Thanks so much for sharing

I also have some cool news to report...

#1 Make A Wish here in Charlotte is giving us tickets to go see Disney on Ice at the Bob Cats arena. Last time we took Sebastian to the Library Uptown we saw advertisments on the big electronic bill-boards for the show. (The Children's Library Uptown is across from the arena). As we stood waiting for the train to go home I remember thinking, "Gee, it would be really neat if we could take Sebastian to go see that show as a way to get pumped for our trip that's still two months away." But then I forgot about it...UNTIL...MAW called and offered us tickets for Opening Night. We have to be there at 4:00 for the opening ceremonies and then the show starts at 7:00.

#2 We also found a place to have Sebastian's send off party in November. It's at a Mall called Plaza Fiesta. The mall has a HUGE 7 level indoor playground. I had taken the kids to a birthday party for my friend Colleen’s kids at Plaza Fiesta. I asked Colleen how much they charged her and she said she paid $2.00 per child (this is just the normal rate for any day) When the manager came over and was talking to her about some fans they were installing I asked him about the playground. I started to tell him about how we'd been looking for a place that could accomodate Sebastian’s Make A Wish party and my friend Colleen who is very forth-right (she could sell you a bikini in a snow storm) came right out and said to him something like, “since it’s for Make A Wish” could you do it for free?” …He smiled and said “I’m sure we could work something out.” YAY! He gave me his contact info to pass along to our wish granters. So now they are in the process of getting it set up. I can't wait to hear back. He is going to LOVE having a party there!

#3 I saved the best for last...Tonight we stopped over at our good friend's house. They live just behind us. Their names are Frank and Kelly and they have two precious girls Emma and Abbie. Abbie was born with Spinabifida (sp?) This past year Brian and I started a Relay for Life Team called the Cancer Commandos. We thought it would be a way to stay positive and do something to fight back. Frank and Kelly were amazing team members!They even camped out ALL night long as we walked laps around the track. Emma and Abbie painted faces into the wee small hours of the morning as part of fundraising...they were awesome! It was the day of Relay that we got the news that Sebastian's tumor in his head had returned and that he would need a second more radical surgery. Abbie has had several surgeries in her six years-- the first when she was still in utero. I found myself leaning on Kelly because I knew she "got it" when it came to the hard emotions that go along with disease in your child. Flash forward to the Relay for Life Awards banquet (which by the way we did awesome at...raising 7k!) We had just found out that Sebastian was going to have a wish granted by Make A Wish. I had gotten on these DIS boards and read about other kids who had faced all types of life threatening medical conditions. I was certain that Abbie would qualify too and that night Brian and I told Frank and Kelly about it. So I was over the moon when tonight at their house they told us the exciting news that Abbie had just met her wish granters. I asked what she wished for and Kellie said that "the apple doesn't fall far from the neighbor's tree." Abbie wished to go to Disney and meet Cinderella. Tears just came to my eyes. I am so happy for them! I told Kellie all about this wonderful community on this thread and I can't wait for her to jump in and "meet" ya'll and start planning away

Don't forget tomorrow the 25th is Make A Wish night at Cold Stone Creamery!

What is the send off party and do most people have send off party?

 

[maroo]

We leave in a few days!! WHOO HOO!! If you want to see the updated pre-trip report, you can click the link below...

BUT...I have a question for all of you guys...

Lauren and her mom are going to the Castle for lunch. It should take a couple of hours for them to eat. Meanwhile, Rick, William and I will be out riding rides...

We figure we will try to catch Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain and/or Splash Mountain while they are eating. But...I am not sure how to schedule that. I know that other families have taken the GKTW button and gone to ride a ride real quick...but Lauren will have her button with her (and I definitely want her to keep it with her to get that special attention at the Castle)...so, should we get FASTPASSES for those rides to use later? Or take her GAC with us? Will that be enough, or will we need her button. I definitely want William to try to get those kinds of rides "out of the way" so that Lauren can participate in everything...

I don't want to run to Space Mountain or Thunder/Splash at rope drop because Lauren can't ride those...

Does that make sense? Any thoughts on that?