momof3kids-Yvonne

:facepalm: oh sure... now you think of me...

or was it those bundt cakes??? :cupcake:

Note to self - don't forget the camera there's gonna be table dancing... :wine:

Pam, You will be doing a live trip report won't you?

We will be in Franklin next Thursday! :banana:

So, is DAFIT on Friday or Saturday?

No child experience to pass on.

But I do have a question about the topic title. Do you plan to travel home with said 7 month old too? Or just to the Fort? :rofl2: :heart:

:rofl2:

My kids will be 12, 7 and 7 months for our next FORT trip (probably - still thinking about switching to Thanksgiving instead of April) - We are traveling from CT with 1 - 2 stops - Do you think that kind of journey is too much on a young baby? I told my husband I thought it would be better if I flew with the baby but if I fly - he says all the kids are comming with me - he doesnt want to be the sole caregiver for the kids while handling the camper. Three airline tickets adds up. I flew down with the kids for our last camping trip at the Fort - It worked out Ok - We all drove back though - with no stops - and everyone was miserable. This time we will definately stop - once perhaps twice - still planning. Any thoughts or advice?

Right now I think it's too hard to say. It all depends on the baby. My son (now 15) was always a good traveler for both plane trips and car trips. My daughter (10 years old) not so much :argh:. Did find that she liked traveling better in the day when she could see things than at night. We would try to get her to go to sleep, but she just fussed. Even now she is more "pleasant" during the day when we travel. DH has gotten to the point that if we are traveling to somewhere and it's more than 10 hours than he breaks it into 2 days just to give everyone a break. My youngest (9) is a go with the flow kinda child. She has always been that way. As long as she has her bags of toys then she is happy. :rofl2:

I will tell you that the one thing I noticed with my own children and others who have the age gap that my youngest and oldest have is that the baby tends to very flexible. By this I mean unlike the oldest one, who basically we only had to worry about his schedule when we planned things, the youngest was getting toted around to baseball, football, and basketball practices and games pretty much as soon as she was born. She could sleep anywhere and eat anywhere at anytime.

If you do decide to fly could maybe the baby and the 7 year old fly with you and the 12 year old go with dad? They might enjoy that bonding time.

That's okay, it isn't real obvious until you get closer, I sell American Girl dolls & accessories, along with assorted girly type things. In the midst of all those manly tractors and such, there needs to be an island of pink somewhere just to keep it all in prespective.

I love it when the dads come in to sneak a purchase back to surprise their daughters. This year there was a grandfather who came by early Sunday morning and quietly looked at my tables. I was just getting ready to ask if I could help with anything when he picked up a Bitty Baby outfit for his DGD. Turns out he knew exactly what he was looking for after all. It was a simple little thing but it made me smile and my morning was instantly brighter...:heart:

If you have an online store could you PM it to me? Those simple little gestures are the ones that are remembered the most. :heart:

:rofl2:

You and I are gonna get along just fine.. :rofl2:

Want to know where I learned about this type of fundraiser?

Many years ago someone mentioned it in a church young adult group when we were talking about fundraising ideas.

No, we didn't have it. :rofl2:

Did we remember to assign someone to be in charge of bail and legal fees? Maybe we need to have a fund raising bake sale so we have a defense fund.

No, bake sales don't make any money (got consider the cost that goes into it. We should advertise a topless car wash.

You wash the bottom of the car for free and then if they want the top washed they have to pay.

What were you thinking?:popo:

I'm doing the Gingerbread 5K to support Give Kids the World! Please support the organization! My fundraiser page!

Thanks, I am going to to send this on to my friends here.

You need to start a thread so everyone will see this.

I agree!

I'm game to do a 5K - solo or part of a team. They ask for supporters to raise $ for either solo or a team. Registration is limited, so I need a quick response if I can get it ...

I'll support you and will spread the word to my local friends here that you are participating. Just let me know what you decide and send me a PM link with the information.

What I would like to know is...Will the Fort Fiends Flash Mob be occurring during this mission as well? :popcorn:

This is a great TR!! Makes me want to go on a cruise right now!!

Me too and I have never really cared to much whether I went on one or not. My thought has always been if I did decide to go on a cruise I would want it to be an Alaskan cruise. Neither hubby nor I are huge beach lovers. The pictures on this trip report though are making me rethink things. I would still love to take an Alaskan cruise, but a cruise to the Bahamas on the Dream looks mighty tempting as well.

On a DISNEY cruise you can bring your own booze/beer aboard (rooms have a small fridge) and they supply endless coke, sprite etc. If you run out of booze you can get some in port I imagine, but it's only a 4 day cruise so plan ahead. Disney does sell a cruise pack of rum, 5 small bottles but I don't know whether you can take that to your room right away or not

If you are on most other cruise lines you cannot bring booze on board, you have to buy theirs and coke etc costs as well. On both if you buy bottles from the duty free store you don't get it delivered to your room until your last night at sea. Both also have a corkage fee if you bring your own wine to the table

That alone would be a good selling point to DH!

I got you covered ! :)

Thank You!:heart:

It is truly miraculous how much Anna has blossomed from the love and care your family has given her!! She finally looks like a healthy child without a care in the world - which is far cry from the child you brought home.

I had a young, Down's man in my church choir in Sarasota. He couldn't sing a note, couldn't read the music or lyrics, but he had to sing in the choir because God loves singing. This man was terrified of heights and as luck would have it, our church had a choir loft. That didn't deter Stephen. He would climb the stairs on his hands and knees, very carefully work his way to his chair, and watched for my every command to the choir. He often "stood out" from the rest of the choir but hey, his music came straight from his heart to God's ear. I never stopped him and actually came up with a special phrase between the two of us when I needed him to quiet down a little. The phrase was "milkshake".

You see, Stephen's dad told me that Stephen was the official milkshake maker of the family so, one day I asked Stephen how he made milkshakes. Here is his recipe in his own words: "1 scoop vanilla ice cream, just enough milk, and a BIG squirt of hershey's syrup, hit the switch until it's mixed up good. Good recipe, huh?"

So, I used that recipe to my advantage. I asked him if he could see the ice cream, milk and syrup as separate pieces of the milkshake before he hit the switch. Answer, yes. Then I asked him if he could see them as separate pieces after he hit the switch. Answer: "No, silly! The switch made the stuff a milkshake!" "Okay, Stephen. The switch "blended" the three things you put in the blender and you ended up with one milkshake, right?" "That's how you do it!", says he!

I then went on to tell him that all the people in the choir were like the ice cream, milk, and syrup, and I, as the choir director, was the switch that blended everything together, and when the choir sang we did not want any one part of the milkshake to stand out. So if I heard he was standing out I would mouth the word "milkshake" to him and that meant he needed to sing softer. I told him it was our secret choir language and he was delighted that I had special instructions just for him!

As in every volunteer choir, you have a couple of prima donna's who are looking for perfection out of the group and they would comment to me that I should find a way to discourage Stephen from singing in the choir. There was no way I would ever do anything like that and would take 50 Stephen's, who had a true delight and overwhelming joy singing praises to God, than 1 perfect voice who thought he/she was God's gift to the choir.

I have since moved away from the Sarasota area, Stephen's family moved to a small town outside of Nashville, and Stephen still sings in the choir. He taught his new director the "milkshake" trick!

Stephen also has an older brother, Peter, who is also Down's. Stephen is now 37 years old and his brother is 46. They hold full time jobs and are contributing citizens of not only their church, but their community and country.

Moral of the story? Never think because someone has a disability they can't do things!

God bless Dave, Christy, and their other 4 daughters for rescuing this precious Anna; nurturing and guiding her to reach her full potential in life. You are a remarkable family in my eyes, and certainly in God's eyes!

Reading this brought a huge smile to my face. One thing I thought of when you mentioned about the milkshake recipe and how you used it to explain the choir having different parts is that I could use this same concept when talking about the Trinity with my girls. They would clearly be able to see the three separate entities (milk, ice cream, chocolate syrup) (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) then when it was mixed together as one everything is still there (1 God). Gonna need to go buy some milk, ice cream and chocolate syrup. I love homeschooling! :dance:

I will have copies for anyone who wants one. Just ask for your Halloween "gift".

Trick or DVD! :rofl2:

Can I get the DVD even if I am not there? Could it maybe be sent home with someone who lives closer to me and I get it from one of them? Carol? or Judy? Please!

Alright, Allison. Looks like it's just us for TITWIT.

Maybe we should save some hassle and just do this after you move to Franklin. Drinks Around Franklin Intoxication Tour.

DAFIT?

Actually, that would be pretty much any night in Franklin.

I could make it to that one! The drive is much closer than the one to Disney so, I could probably get hubby to agree to it.

My kids all liked the movie. Not very origianl, but there is nothing new under the sun, so i hear.

As an aside, my children have decided they don't want to date. They are choosing to go the courtship route, like Joshua harris (author of I Kissed Dating Good-bye). They are excited to wait for the spouse God has chosen for them.

I love the courtship idea to and hope my children choose to go that route as well.

I dont mean to get back on topic, but this whole Lemonade Head or Mouth or Ass or whatever is a curiousity to me, so I did a search and this is what I found:

Check out Lemonade Mouth, the hottest high school band with enormous talent and a never-say-die attitude that takes them to the top.

So I don't understand what everyone hates about this. It would appear to be a movie about something that would appeal to the masses.

Actually I didn't find the movie too bad. My girls liked it and I was glad the relationship factor in it focused more on friendships rather than couples. I am finding too much of the shows my girls (9 & 10) want to watch are having to much emphasis on "dating" and I want them to stay little girls a bit longer before I have to deal with all of that.

Gonna need some help convincing DH that we NEED to be there again at Thanksgiving.. are you above torture??

I thought you used beer, bribery and other means to accomplish this. :rofl2:

Giving this a bit of a bump in case anyone's got any new details to add... or change...

HALLOWEEN FIEND GG EVENTS:

Saturday, Oct 29th

Wine Party/Exchange (time/location?)

Coordinator: Loretta?

Sunday, Oct 30th

BATWIT (time?)

Coordinator: ??

Monday, Oct 31st

ToT (time?)

Coordinator: Starla

Potluck (confirm time/location?)

Coordinator: wdwpoohbear?

Tuesday, Nov 1st

MNSSHP (unofficial, but several Fiends already have tix)

Should you all need a way to work off the extra goodies you will be consuming you could sign up to do this on November 5th. Maybe even set up a Fort Fiends team?

http://www.gingerbreadrun.org/

OK, time for another installment.

After lunch, it's finally time for us to head for our cabin.

We made the mistake of going straight down to deck 5 in the aft elevator. There are only a few decks on the dream that go all the way from front to back without many obstacles. On Deck 5 are all of the Kids Clubs and the Port Excursions Desk. So it was a windy maze to get from the back of the ship to our cabin with lots of folks in the hallways checking their kids in the clubs for the first time.

We finally made it to our cabin door and was surprised to find we entered facing foward instead of facing to the side of the ship. We were assigned Cabin 5552, Category 5E Accessible. The lowest category Verandah cabin with plexiglass walls on the verandah.

I knew our cabin was bigger than normal, but NOTHING prepared me for what awaited us inside!!

Once again some of these pics are from later in the cruise once we got organistic, but here we go!!!

Oh, and the first neat trick is our door is automatic!!! We pass our key over the lock and it opens by itself!! There is also a button on the inside that opens the door for you!!

Right as you enter you see the bathroom

Then further in the room is the closets with a nice storage bench.

Then in the middle of the room is a nice queen sized bed. And on the far wall is the desk.

Out the doors is our Verandah

Our Verandah is HUGE!!

Room on the left side of the bed

Room on the right side of the bed

The view from the door

Bathroom Details

Closet

Safe

Left Closet

Right Closet

Accessible Closet Rod

Sofa

Desk

Fridge

Pull Down Bunk

Most folks said there was only one regular plug in the entire cabin, but we found a 2nd one under the nightstand on the left side of the bed.

More Verandah Pics

Another corner to corner room pic

Coming Next, the Fiends come to Visit and we Sail Away!!!!

What I like best about this room (well besides the awesome balcony) is that it truly is an handicap accessible. I have a cousin who has cerebral palsy and is in a wheelchair. I can't tell you how many times she has gone places and my uncle and aunt will call the hotel and ask a question such as, "Do you have roll in showers in your handicap rooms?" When told they do and book the room only to get there and find out nope no roll in showers. :argh: So, they have to find a different hotel. Every detail in this room goes to show that it was truly made to be an accessible room. Way to go Disney!

Boo!

You probably already know my thoughts on the HDDR even before these changes, as I created a venting thread on the matter.

It used to be my favorite thing at Disney...a magical evening I loved sharing with my family.

And then while planning our next trip, I got angry about the price I was quoted, and along with the rumored cast changes (such as our Six Bits being canned) I decided not to go back on this next trip.

And now THIS??

Boo!!!

I agree. When we went back in January 2010, it was our first trip to Disney as a family (actually still is hoping to change that though) and my dh and ds were not as excited as I was about the whole trip. DH's biggest thing was the entire cost of the trip. So, I crunched numbers and was able to get us a trip that would fit a price he found acceptable. We would stay at the cabins and be able to eat meals here saving money( in theory it was a good idea, but only works if you stick to the plan :rofl2:) The only request I made for the entire trip was that I wanted us to go to eat at Hoop Dee Doo. I had heard wonderful reviews from friends. So, we ended up going one night. The only one truly looking forward to it was me. Afterwards everyone agreed it was well worth it. Now, as I watch the video I am thankful that we did get the opportunity to see the show before these changes.

I just like to practice TTC.. but it's all just in theory.. :rofl2:

As a friend once said to someone who asked her, "Don't you know how that happens?" "Yes, I do and apparently I am really good at it." :rofl2:

On Voldemort a new member was replying to many of the responses that people had left about renting from Steve saying that he is no longer employed there and then putting in a number to call (see golf cart information pages for number) for rental information. I am not sure if this was the original number of the company Steve worked for or not. However, some on that board felt the person was only "promoting her business" and now it seems like she is gone as people were tagging her response as being a spammer.

Congratulations!