Weighing the Pros and Cons

Dh and I have been obsessing over discussing a trip to Pennsylvania this fall. I'd love to see my family and mostly my Grandma. None of them have met Bella yet. It's been 4 years since we last saw anyone. The trip would cost quite a bit of dough though. Money we really shouldn't spend and would mean us dipping into our small savings account which is scary in this economy (and yes we did decide to wait on Disney passes). The costs of driving up there, food on the way, and hotels would probably be close to $2ooo from what I figured. Maybe more since we'll need to find stuff to do during the day while everyone else is working or maybe slightly less but still costly.

Our plan was to go the week of Thanksgiving but it's so freaking cold then! Average temp is like 46*. Brrr. I'm a Floridian, 70 is chilly! :) So I'd have to add in the cost of cold weather clothing as well. The last time we were up there we brought normal cold weather stuff (jeans, heavy jackets, etc) and the wind seemed to blow right thru it. I'm not so keen on that again! If there isn't snow, then what's the point? So then I started thinking maybe we could go in Sept/Oct. when fall is coming and maybe, just maybe the leaves will be starting to turn colors.

But it all comes back down to the green stuff, moolah, bread, bucks, whatever you want to call it. Oh and Logan and Ian would have to take time off from school. A no-no in my Aunt's eyes! I thought we were getting the entire week off at T-Day but I'm still not seeing it changed on our school board's website so that's 2 days and more if we went earlier this year.

Sigh...I know this trip should be important too. I'm sure my family would be thrilled to see us but I'm not close to them at all. I've seen them maybe 4 times in the past...25+ years? But I feel like I should go see them even though I'd feel awkward. Ugh! Too much stress. It's be cheaper to just do a Disney vacation! LOL Dh had the brilliant idea of just bringing Gran to FL for a week and we'd take her to Disney. haha I actually think it would be a great idea to do a Grand Gathering and have the entire family and all the cousins/cousins kids come down for just that. How much fun would a family reunion at WDW be?!

So even after writing this entire post I still have no clue what to do and now it's after midnight and I need to go to bed. I guess I'll obsess over this some more tomorrow.

Another Disney Dilemna

If we buy our passes by July 31st, we save 10% on passes. What to do...what to do? 10% is about $135 off a FL res pass. That's a good chunk of change.

If we wait until next year or after no doubt the price will have gone up as they always do. Ugh.

I want to go back

To Disney that is. I've been listening to Live365.com's Disney stations and dh was playing some of our home videos for the kids tonight. I still read the DISboards. Bella is getting to be at the right age to be fascinated by the rides and the fireworks and of course soon it will be the Princesses and other characters. She was watching some YouTube video with me and loved Mickey and Minnie Mouse and she always loves seeing the castle at the beginning of every Disney movie. It has only been a few months since we've been and yes, we've been 50x before if not more but unless you are a Disney nut like me you won't get this post. You won't understand the pull of Disney. We find something new each and every time we go. There are still rides the kid's haven't done and shows they haven't seen.

Anywho, dh came up with a good idea tonight. He said we should take our tax money next year and get passes again. Woohoo! I knew there was a reason I married him. ;) We would bring lunch though and do a lot of refilling water bottles or getting c/s free water. For this to come from him was a huge surprise as he's been the one so gung-ho on spending less. I know he loves Disney just as much as I do and I think he misses it too.

Then he said, well maybe we should get them in September and just pay ourselves back with the tax money. Hmm on one hand, I really, really, really want to go but then the practical side of me says just wait. It's so hard being a responsible adult sometimes. Either way I'm sure we'll be talking about it more before we make a decision. In the meantime I'll keep listening to the sounds and music of the park thru the Live365.com stations and remembering all that I love about Disney.

Happy Valentine's Day

What a day it was!! We had a party to attend this morning for my niece's 1st birthday. When I went outside to start loading the car I noticed egg shells on the ground. Looked over and there was dried egg on the back of dh's Civic. It had also splashed onto my truck so I called my mom to say we would be late. We couldn't just leave it there as it would ruin the paint. In the meantime I got the kids all buckled in and turned on my remote start and the A/C. Thinking dh was just about done I put the keys in the ignition just a few minutes later. That's where the fun began. He was spraying the OPPOSITE side of the car and decided to close my door (driver) not knowing my keys were in the ignition. When he did that my car locked. It automatically locks. And guess what? I don't have a spare key (I guess I need to spend the hundred+ $$ now for one) and the other remote won't work with the car on.

You'd think it wouldn't be so hard to fix. Logan was able to unbuckle his harness but apparently we never taught him how to manually unlock a door. Either that or my gifted student lacks common sense. It was really funny. Dh is yelling at him thru the window to unlock the door. Dh is pointing to where the button is. Logan keeps touching the window where dh is pointing. I really wish I had it on video. Over and over we tried. Next dh tells Logan to unbuckle Ian. Tried the same thing with Ian. Ian didn't get it either. All this could have been fine if my back window motors were working properly. They keep sticking. We had to finally tell Ian to climb to the passenger seat and roll the window down. That's how we finally got back in. That will teach me to never leave the keys in the car with the ignition on!

We did finally make it to the party about an hour late which was fine because some people didn't get there until even later and they hadn't even started cooking. The boys had fun and my niece's cake was adorable. Dh was none too happy that once again he was overlooked when it came to food. I think it's just rude not to accomodate certain dietary restrictions, especially when it comes to family. This would be twice this year too. Thankfully I found out about it right before we left and we made a pitstop at Subway.

After the party we headed back to Orlando and went to Epcot for a few hours. It was so busy! I hate that we are *forced* to use our passes this weekend. I say forced because it's our very last available time and being President's Day weekend, it's super busy. Afterwards we ran over to Downtown Disney where dh let them pick out some Legos as a Valentine's Day gift. I also grabbed a backpack for Logan to use for school if he wanted. It was a *really* good price and not something I wanted to pass up. And speaking of Valentines, dh got me a yummy box of Godiva dark chocolates and a stuffed Piglet (Ian picked it out). Ian also picked out a stuffed Squirt turtle from Finding Nemo for Bella. I got dh some Fudgie Wudgie and a couple of movies. Oh and unbeknowst to me until tonight, we got a new-to-us HD camcorder as well. Never used but the co-worker he got it from just bought a new one and sold dh this one. Yippee!!! We used it last night and today. It takes awesome video! So we had a good Valentine's Day. Hopefully all my friends and family did too!!

Wordless Wednesday

Whirlwind weekend

We have one planned! This is our very last Disney weekend and we plan on hitting it hard! We may head over to DHS on Friday night to see Fantasmic. Ian's never seen it. Or we may not because I possibly have a girl's night planned that night too. Saturday we have to go to a birthday party and afterwards we are hitting the road once again. Sunday will be an all day affair at Disney and if dh takes off on Monday (no school), we will brave the President's Day crowds and go then too. Phew. There's so much we want to do just one more time: Monsters Inc Laugh Floor, Philharmagic, Space Mt, BTMRR, Lights Motors Action, ToT, Figment, Buzz Lightyear, etc. I really want the boys to experience Splash Mt too. We've never gone on it because neither of us wants to get wet. LOL We think Logan may be tall enough for the Rock N Roller Coaster also so maybe we could get on it. So much to do and see!

Random Disney Pics

Asia- Animal Kingdom


Babywearing- Bella was asleep.


Outside the Muppets 3D show. The boys were all at Star Tours so Bella and I walked around taking pics while waiting.


Warning- Do not pull rope.


They love making the *person* in the mine fall down. If you're ever at DHS, try it! It's just outside of the Indiana Jones show.




This boy can make some goofy faces.

T-Rex Cafe pics! (pic heavy)

Saturday we went to Downtown Disney for a bit. We got there right around 12:30ish and decided to try to get into the T-Rex Cafe for lunch. Honestly, I thought they'd say no way or that there was a 45min wait or something but to my pleasant surprise they said it would be 5-10 minutes and we were seated within that time!

The service was excellent. Our waiter was great. When dh had a hard time finding something vegetarian on the menu that he wanted our waiter sent out the chef to talk to dh. Together they decided on the mushroom ravioli with marinara sauce. (FYI- the Alfredo sauce apparently has a chicken base. Who knew?! The chef was also willing to make it from scratch it we wanted.) We were starving so we started with onion rings (Artifact Stack) for our appetizer. While we were waiting on those, dh took the boys around the restaurant to take pictures. The onion rings got to our table before they made it back. They were hot and fresh and served with 2 different sauces. I don't like onions unless they are cooked just right and these were good! I ordered the Paleozoic Chicken Sandwich which was fried pizza dough (like a flatbread) with grilled chicken, avocado, tomato, lettuce, bacon, pepper jack cheese and a lemon aioli sauce. It was HUGE and sooo good! It also came with homemade hot and fresh potato chips. Yum. The boys got mac & cheese. How original. LOL For dessert (which I could barely eat I was so full), we ordered the Chocolate Extinction. You'll see a pic of it. It was 4 huge slabs of the most awesome brownie/cake with caramel and butterfinger pieces plus mounds of vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. OMG. It also had a *steaming* centerpiece. We took home most of the cake and dh has been eating it ever since. I would highly recommend the food here. It was expensive though. I think it cost us $84 without tip. We both think it was totally worth it. It won't be an every month occasion for sure though.

The atmosphere was great. There's a meteor shower every few minutes where the dinosaurs come alive. There's plenty to look at and it keeps the kids occupied for sure. I'll try uploading some video too.

Okay so here are just a *few* pics. ;) Fair warning...

AKL Pics (Picture Heavy)

You'll have to forgive the mess. I took pics the next day after sleeping there one night and dh put the privacy sign up so Mousekeeping never came.











This was our *view*. The bus pick up is to the left and the big piece of equipment to the right.




Yes, I took pics of the wallpaper. :) I liked the design! Swirls and scrolls, and diamonds and suns...


Lobby at night




These pics are actually from our Sept '07 trip but I'm sharing them again since it's pertinent. That's the lobby up those stairs.




Beautiful picture window.