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June 8, 2003
6/9/03
Before I post part one of our vacation adventures I feel that I must put in a quick update on how the zoo~ I mean family is holding up! :o)
Autumn is doing a great job with keeping her room clean and has been spending her days playing in the backyard and at the parks. We are still battling with the “princess” attitude a bit but she is getting better with each day. The moment she starts in she is sent to her room, so she is leaning the attitude will get her know where but sitting in her room.
Jt is doing wonderful. It has officially been a week with no meds and I am happy to report that I have not had one single moment where I have thought of giving into temptation and giving him a pill. He has done remarkably well with not having his meds and we seem to be doing wonderful with communicating our feelings before he feels the need to let his behaviors take over. He is able to get all his excess energy out by going outside and playing. Most of his days are spent fishing with the boys out back in the pond. He knows to come in and check in and we have not had any incidents of him running off without telling me. He has even come in when I ask him too!
Alec is chugging along slowly with potty training. He is now wearing underwear during the day and no pull-ups or diapers. There are several accidents and I am wiping up many piddles, however he is trying and getting used to the potty. He now likes to sit on the potty (unlike before when he would SCREAM when he just looked at a pair of training pants) and he is proud to show you he is wearing big boy pants. On Saturday as he was sitting down to eat his happy meal I saw his start to grunt. I quickly grabbed the new Nemo toy and put him on the pot. I gave him his privacy and then heard him say “mommmmeeeeee coooommmeee heeeewaaaaa (here). I go in an he said “Mommy Poops comin”I went out in the living room and told everyone to be really excited when I called to the bathroom. When I went in the bathroom again he was all done and I called everyone in. Of course we all jumped around and praised him. He was so proud of himself. Ahhhh, the joys of getting excited over a child going poop is just too much. LOL
That is all for now.
FAMILY VACATION PART ONE~
May 20~ Day One
Joe and I tossed and turned the entire night. Every 15 minutes I was sneaking peaks at the clock and waiting ever so patiently (yeah right) for the alarm to sound off. As soon as the alarm did sound off its annoying squawk I was on my feet and in the shower. I could not help but hum “It’s a small world” and think of all the fun we were going to have on this trip. While I was in the shower Alec had snuck by the door and fell back asleep. I almost tripped over him. Autumn was sitting on the toilet and watching me get ready while half asleep. We chatted about all the fun we were going to have and the characters we were going to see as I did my hair and makeup. As I got Autumn dressed Joe jumped in the shower and I had to giggle at the smirk he had on his face from the time he woke up. He NEVER smiles in the morning. After Autumn was dressed Alec was the next in line and seemed a bit confused about getting up at such an early hour and I had to smother that cute sleepy face in kisses. Jt was like a limp rag as I got him ready and he just wanted to go back to sleep. We were in the van on our way at 5:30 am to pick up my dad whom was driving us to the airport. I remember the ride to the airport being very long and my stomach was knotted and I felt nauseas. As we neared the airport terminal I felt the need to throw up and was extremely nervous. Weirdly enough, after we checked our bags in at the curb, I felt a wave of calmness come over me and that was the end of my panic. I breathed a sigh of relief that none of our bags were over 50 pounds (the new limit) and we walked to the other side of the airport, sat down and waited for our plane. The kids were very excited and could not sit still. Cross that with a very tired mommy and daddy it was not a very pleasurable 20 minutes. I tried to remove myself from the chaos for a moment, and flipped through my people magazine as I nibbled on my slim-fast bar. My attempt failed within 5 minutes, and I was then busy with walking children to and from the bathroom and constantly telling them to “Settle down, don’t step on that persons feet, don’t stand on the seat.”. LOL, I was actually looking forward to getting on that plane and having them confined in a seat. We were finally called to board the plane and I had to chuckle at all the people scampering around like they would be left behind if they did not shove their way onto the plane. Complete ignorance I swear. It was a challenge to get all of the kids situated and sitting where they were supposed to be. Joe sat with Jt and Alec while I sat across the isle with Autumn and a man who looked like I had spit in his face when he saw that I was sitting next to him with a child. The flight was very uneventful and the kids slept almost the entire time. I was able to get through my entire people magazine and half of another one. The plane landed in sunny Florida and I could not wait to get this vacation started. I resisted the urge to join in the stampede to get out of the plane, and we waited for most of the people to leave before we lugged ourselves, three kids, a backpack and a car seat off the plane. Again the man seated next to me was disgusted that he had to wait even though I had offered to let him go around us. ~Oh well~. Our stroller was waiting for us as we left and we headed to get our luggage. I will admit that I had feared we would be left without our luggage in Florida and would have to waste our budget on buying clothes. Yes, I worry too much. Lol. We found our luggage with no problem and loaded it up onto a cart. I would have paid a $100.00 (Okay, a slight exaggeration there.) to rent one of those things. Then it was time to find the Meads bus to get transportation to our resort. The kids were all behaving very nicely at this point and I had a permanent grin on my face. As we helped the man put our luggage into the bottom of the bus we had no idea that would be the last time we would have to touch any of our luggage until we picked it up from O’hare when our vacation was over! As we took off to Disney World I had a slight doubt at first about the man driving the bus as he seemed more involved with fishing sunflower seeds out of a little Dixie cup and getting his sunglasses, then driving the bus safely. After about 5 minutes he seemed more “situated” and I was more at ease. It was weird to look at all the houses we passed and to see almost every backyard had a pool and the entire back yard seemed to be screened it. I almost chocked when I saw what houses in new developments went for. I nudged Joe and told him to get a job out there. We finally arrived at our destination for the day. “All Star Sports Resort” Upon arriving there was someone there to take our luggage off the bus and to our room. The lobby of All Star was all it took to put the kids over the top and get them excited. All the sports Memorabilia kept J.t. occupied while Joe checked in and the other two sat in the stroller just taking everything in. We walked to our room to take a peak and then decided what we would do from there. The room was nice. Not great, not bad, but nice. We went to look around a bit more at the pools and see what else there was to do. After our walk we decided to grab lunch and then go swimming. The food was not bad, I had a really good pasta salad and the pool was relaxing. After spending the entire afternoon in the pool we decided to head over the Downtown Disney and do a little shopping. We looked around at several of the shops and dreamed about all the stuff we would love to buy.(Several prints and snow globes I would LOVE to decorate a future playroom with.) I saw several scrap booking things that I am kicking myself now for not buying. :o( The merchandise they have is just amazing, and at times a bit overwhelming. We ended up making only three small purchases. Autumn got a purple hat with Tinkerbelle on it that says “spoiled rotten.” Alec got a stuffed Nemo after we made him choose between that and a stuffed Mickey Mouse. It was a tough decision for him, let me tell you. I then bought a hat for myself, in preparation for the hot sunny days ahead of me. After our little shopping gig, we headed over to Lego land to let the kids play and blow off some energy. After about 20 minutes the hunger started to creep up on the kids so we decided to check out the restaurants. My favorite restaurant in Downtown Disney is Portabellas and I really had a craving for their stuffed mushrooms, but after talking it over with Joe we decided it was not a very “kid-friendly” restaurant. *sigh* We walked over to Rainforest Cafe and the minute we saw the line it was a no-go. The decision to go back to the hotel and order a pizza was enough to please the kids so we headed back.
Back at the room J.T. and Autumn were content with eating Pizza and bread sticks in the room and going to bed early. We had a HUGE day ahead of us and had to get up bright and early. Alec, on the other hand was a little stinker and did not want to go to sleep. He thought it was great he could get in and out of his bed and talk to us on the other bed. By 11:00 he went to sleep.
May 21st ~ Day Two
5:00 a.m. Rise and shine. Joe and I again, could not sleep and ended up giving up at 5:00 and took our showers before the kids woke up. I have to mention that I was very much grossed out when I opened the soap box and saw that the soap had been USED!Eeewwww.
While Joe was in the shower I packed up our bags to be taken to the other resort we were staying at. The previous evening the people at the front desk told us that if we had all our luggage packed up and ready to go by 7a.m. they would pick it up for us and transfer it over to the resort we were to continue our stay at. We were extremely happy about being dismissed from the duty of lugging our entire set of luggage onto two buses to get to the Caribbean Beach Resort.
The backpack was packed with snacks, kids were loaded up with suntan lotion and had full tummies. I had Autumn’s antibiotic in a baby cooler bag full of ice and all this done by 6:45 am. At 7:00 sharp the women arrived to retrieve our bags and we were on our way. On the way out, we stopped for some pictures with the kids and looked at several of the pictures they had in the lobby. Overall I would say the hotel was ~Okay~ despite the soap incident. The people who worked there were wonderful and very accommodating. The rooms were a little small, but who spends a ton of time in their room at Disney world? LOL The restaurants were nice and the pools were so-so. Okay, enough with the hotel review,lol.
Now it was time for us to catch a bus to one of the water parks and then turn around and get on the Caribbean Beach Resort bus from there. Sounds easy enough right? Well, we sat and waited for about 45 minutes for the water park bus to come. Once we loaded up on this bus and took it to the water park we noticed that it was very deserted? Well DUH!? It was 8:00 in the morning, it was closed! I wondered why the buses were taking people to parks knowing there were closed? There was not much we could do but sit at the terminal for the Caribbean beach resort bus and wait for it to come. After about 5 minutes, we were given a sample of Disney Customer Service :o) .A women walked up to us and started talking to the kids. She then asked us where we were headed. When we told her our situation she said “The buses won’t be here until about 8:30, why don’t I see if I can get a special bus to take you over there, and if they can’t, I will take you in my own van.” A little leery at first I watched as she motioned over for one of the buses to come over to us. She asked if they could take us over to our resort. After a reply “Why, of course” we loaded up onto the bus and felt great relief that our plan was still on schedule. We thanked the women who had helped us (Later found out she was head in charge of the buses) and then engaged in conversation with the women who was driving the bus. When we arrived at Caribbean Beach I instantly knew I would like it better then the All Sport. It was just more my type of environment and seemed much more relaxed. We were checked in quickly and told to just call them when we arrived in our room that evening and they would deliver our bags.
We were then on a bus, headed to MAGIC KINGDOM. I felt like a child myself as I watched out the window for signs of Mickey Mouse and thought to myself, Geeesh are we there yet? Finally, we walked off the bus steps into the world of fun. We could not believe that we had checked out of a hotel, had a bus mix-up, checked into a new hotel and still arrived at the park BEFORE it was open. The kids eyes just lit up as we walked towards the entrance gates. After getting our bags checked and checking in we headed straight to our first ride~ The Buzz Light-year ride! We just knew that Alec would go crazy about this ride and we were right on the money. He got so excited when he saw buzz and on the ride he had the biggest grin from ear to ear. Jt and Autumn acted as if they were pros and jumped right into their own car as we stepped into the one behind them. After the Buzz light-year ride we walked around a bit and Joe took Jt on a ride. Afterwards, we headed over to the Dumbo ride. This was the one time the entire trip that I got FUMING mad and upset about something. We left our stroller under a Canopy picnic area while we went on the ride. There were about 50 strollers all put over there and a couple people sitting on benches. We went on the ride, which was very cute because Alec kept saying “ I’m Fwing(flying) mommy I am FWIIINNNGG” We get off the ride and head back to get our stroller. There were now about a 100 strollers and the same amount of people sitting on benches. Joe goes to pull our stroller out and I see that the one that was behind ours had a blanket thrown over the top of it. As Joe plays around to wiggle our stroller out I see a foot moving under the canopy. Oh my gosh! There was a SLEEPING BABY in that stroller. I told Joe immediately and then started to look around to see if anyone was watching this child. I peaked again to make sure I was not imagining things. Nope, there was a baby I would say about 5 months old sound asleep. UGH! I did not know what to do. I could not believe that anyone would leave a baby in the middle of this place to go on a ride!? I looked around and noticed someone in the Dumbo line (About 15 -20 feet away) looking over. Then pointing to someone on the other side of ride (About 30 feet away) to go over where we were. I walked away Disgusted. I regretted not saying anything for the entire day and secretly wished we would bump into them again.,
Well, enough of my griping in our vacation journal that is supposed to be happy and upbeat. :o) After the Dumbo ride we did all the Most do rides such as It’s a small world, Peter Pan, Aladdin, Snow white etc. We were blessed with beautiful warm weather and the lines were all short. We took the kids on The Haunted Mansion and thought they would love it because J.t had loved it when went three years ago. Boy, where we wrong. All three of the kids were terrified and cried the entire time. We decided to take a break after that ride and get some lunch. We headed over to Harbour House for a quick lunch. The kids were getting a little cranky by this time and needed to cool off. As we were eating I glanced over and thought I recognized someone sitting over in the corner. Then I dismissed the thought, because it seemed Crazy and the chances slim. About 10 minutes later my old friend Lisa came walking over with her year old daughter. We could not believe the chances of us bumping into each other at Magic Kingdom. We chatted for about 10 minutes and then I noticed poor Autumn had fallen asleep in her chair. We said our Goodbyes and headed off. Joes favorite ride, Pirates of the Caribbean was next and it was a Huge hit with the kids as well. Then it was off to visit Mickey at his house. This had to be the best part of the day for me. I had thought Alec would not go to Mickey. He hates Santa, Easter bunny, Chuckie Cheese. He never goes near any of them and cries. As we waited in line we tried to prepare Alec to see Mickey and get him excited about it. Well, it worked because he ran right up to Mickey and was chattering away to him about everything. It was so sweet to watch and there were even a couple “aawwwweeee’s”’ from people behind us in line. As we went to leave Alec waved and said “ Bye Bye Mimeee Mouse, I wuv you.” That just melted my heart. After that we went on a couple more rides and before we knew it , it was time to head over the Polynesian to change and meet my parents for the show and dinner. We took the ferry over to Polynesian and enjoyed the nice breeze we got on the water. I could tell Jt and Autumn were tired but all the excitement was keeping them awake. Jt, kept thanking Joe and I over and over again for bringing him to Disney and Autumn kept asking what we were doing next. When we arrived in the lobby of the hotel we took turns taking the kids in the bathroom and getting them changed ( yes I was carrying around an extra set of nice clothes in the backpack all day lol) and washed up. I must say that we all looked very nice in our Hawaiian gear and I was glad we changed. We met my parents and headed over to the area you are supposed to go for the Polynesian Luau. The kids were dragging behind us and getting a tad bit cranky at this point. Everyone perked up when we sat down at our table and were served drinks along with bread, a wonderful salad and fresh pineapple. The show was wonderful and the food was amazing. We were served baked chicken, a really good rice, ribs, and delicious steamed vegetables. Autumn went up on stage and learned some Hawaiian dances (got pictures). The fire dancing at the end was beautiful and you could not turn away for a moment. At about 11:00 we arrived to our room and the kids took a bath as they had some second or third wind of energy overcome them. Our bags were delivered and I did some unpacking. The room at Caribbean beach was twice as large and very nice. We were very pleased and happy with it and I checked out the boxes of soap right away *wink*. As everyone went to sleep I opened up the book “Nanny Diaries” and could not put it down. I don’t remember what time I finally fell asleep, I just know that I was already on Chapter 5. I looked over and saw smiled on my little Angels faces as they all sleep. I smoothed back the tangles and gave them each a kiss on their already sun kissed flushed cheeks. ~God Bless them~
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