PrincessNana

Can you still hand out beads and candy at the 4th of July golf cart parade? I know they don't want you to throw anything but wasn't sure if they had cut out all parade treasures.

We stayed at the KOA west in Tallahassee . It was ok, but we would probably not stay there again unless it was an emergency. If you can push on for about an hour, you can stay at the Jellystone park in Madison. Much nicer place.

Oh, wow, good to know.  I was thinking about mounting one of those wall mount hair dryers in my camper kitchen, but I may have to reconsider.

 

How about running a heavy duty extension cord directly to 110 on the campsite pole for the hair dryer?

 

Up until about 6 months ago my hairstyle didn't require a hair dryer, but now I do.

The extension cord would work at one of the 110 outlets on the pole and we even did that a few times. The last time, before I bought the new hair dryer, it was raining, the extra outlets didn't work and I was so mad that i couldn't even

get my code to work on the comfort station. Needless to say, we had a dressy banquet to go to and my hair looked like s***. I was so upset my husband even put in a 20 amp breaker but I don't trust it. My little dryer works fine and I have thick hair.

Welcome to this crazy but loving group.   :welcrowd:  You will meet all kinds of folks here.   We have found one thing

we have to remember to tell our visiting granddaughters is that if they try to use a hairdryer in the RV it will blow a fuse.  This happens every time.  So they now go to the comfort station for that.

I had to switch over to a hair dryer that pulled fewer amps. It actually works just as good and doesn't take much longer to dry my hair. My granddaughter still prefers her own hair dryer and goes to the comfort station. Makes more room in the bathroom for the rest of us.

Update: we took Nikki off the supplement for a day because we didn't think it was helping as much anymore and she wasn't sleeping at night. After watching her for a dy, my husband and I decided she had definitely been doing better while on the supplement. We put her back on it, but cut the recommended dosage in half. She's still walking better and now she's sleeping at night again. My vet wasn't overly thrilled about the supplement, but he could also see the improvement in her ability to hold herself up and walk. Unfortunately, she is like someone in the latter stages of Alzheimer's but she still has a strong heart. We think she can make one more trip to Fort Wilderness before she crosses the bridge.

sending you some love and hugs!!

Thanks Nicki. Where are you now?

Well, the honeymoon is over with our new supplement. None of the dogs are itchy, so that's a plus. But, although Nikki is still walking, she is losing her balance and her feet are starting to slide out again. At least we had a couple of "better" days....we're still hoping she gets to make one last trip to Fort Wilderness. Thank you for all your good thoughts.

Nikki is still able to hold herself up and walk( not like healthy dogs, but good for her), but it hasn't helped any of her other symptoms . If this improves the quality of her life, even for a little bit, well...we can live with that.

For the other dogs: it hasn't helped the old Labs arthritis at all , but it has helped with all the dogs on their itchy skin. The itchy skin usually gets progressively worse as the weather warms up so it will be interesting to see if it continues to help.

I'll keep you posted if I notice any other benefits.

Have you tried the Jellystone park in Madison, Florida? It's not the Fort, but it is very kid and family oriented with lots of things to do. We usually make that one of our stops on the way to Disney World. We haven't stayed at any of the state parks in Florida, but many of our friends have and they give them high marks. It does seem like many of the parks in Florida are 50 plus communities.

Right now we just want Nikki to be as comfortable as possible. She hasn't had any feeling in her back feet for about six months now so we're just trying to give her a little better quality of life at this point. She's still holding herself up and walking so if she's having a good day, maybe she'll have a few more. This supplement is supposed to be good for the itching also....I'll keep you posted if it helps. All of my dogs are very itchy right, so I'm giving all of them this supplement. I have been using Derma-form liquid (fish oil) and it has helped with the itching, but they still itch. I tried the capsules, but I have five dogs and I smelled like fish oil all the time.

My little NIkki, yorkie, has been sick since 2007. After many specialists and lots of money they decided she had an autoimmune form of spinal meningitis  with a possible brain tumor at the base of her brain stem. Long story short, she would slowly lose feeling in her legs and hind quarters along with the blindness and dementia like behavior. She has been getting worse and we have been discussing the dreaded topic, but we can't quite get to the decision yet.

 

I found this supplement online called NuVet Plus and we started her on it yesterday. I realize that this is probably too soon, but today she is able to walk around the house without her feet sliding out from underneath her. I don't expect any responses, just felt the need to share...I think I'll keep a journal to note any changes. Maybe if this helps, it might help someone elses pet also.

Sea World is not my favorite place and Fiesta Texas is a Six Flags type of park, thrill rides but no magic.

I haven't been to Morgan's Wonderland, but they've done several news stories on it and it has been getting good reviews from special needs families. If you decided to bring your kids to experience it, you could probably also do Sea World and Fiesta Texas if you wanted to do more things after coming that distance.

I think that was on Discovery Island.

Wow...I hope you already have Garner SP booked...I just tried like 3 different sets of dates for the summer and they were all booked already :banghead:

You have to book Garner at least a year in advance.. If you can't get in, you could try Seven Bluffs campground, Neal's campground or Magers campground. There's actually quite a few places to camp on the Frio if Garner is full, but all the campgrounds are usually booked solid from Memorial Day to Labor Day. It's a great family destination. Hope you find a spot.

TGIF (Thank God It's Frio)

4th of Juy is so much fun at the Fort. We go every year at this time (we don't go to any parks on the 4th) and its a great time to go. The golf cart parade, the fireworks, the fiends......plan your trip around the 4th of July if you can.

OK, park tickets. a four day or 3 day ticket would be good. However, once you look at pricing you'll notice that the more days you add, the less per day. So if you did have a 5-day ticket, and you got set up, maybe you could enjoy dinner in a park that first night and wander around just soaking a couple things in. The last morning, you might want to have a getaway breakfast at a park.

(We often do that, get totally hitched up the night before, drive the camper to Hollywood Studios the next morning, have breakfast at 8am at Hollywood & Vine, then we are ready for the mad dash to Toy Story Mania, ride the attraction with no waite, then are out of the park and on the road by 9:30 am).

If you do go 4 days or 3 days, then I would recommend park hoppers. That way if you find a park is way too crowded, or in the case of Animal Kingdom, closes early, you could go to a different park in the afternoon.

I agree with Carol that a five day ticket would be a good option for your family. Since this will be your first trip, you will want to see everything and your girls will want more than one day at Magic Kingdom. Plus, by staying at Fort Wilderness you can go to the parks for a few hours, return to your campsite to rest or swim and go back to the park in the evening to catch the night parades and fireworks.

All I know is no matter which you choose. Go with the raised ones. Much more comfortable than the regular ones.

I agree, go with the raised ones. If you have the space, and wanted two mattresses, I would go with a full over a twin. Our company is never as comfortable on the twin blow up (roll off at night, etc.) but they love the full size and the queen.

If you want to wait until next year, your oldest daughter won't be too old yet. But, if you wait too long, then she might be. Four and Six will be so cute as princesses...they will definetly need princess hair and make up at the Bippity Bop Boutique! There are several different Princess activities that your girls would enjoy, starting with breakfast at the castle with the princesses. We also did a princess tea at the Grand Floridian, it was a perfect mother daughter event. If you can't get a reservation at the castle, there is also a good princess breakfast, etc. at Akerhaus in Epcot. We will only have the one granddaughter, so we went all out. Although we love the character meals, they take up alot of your Disney time....but its easier to get autographs at a meal than standing in line at the parks.

Your girls are the perfect age to experience everything "princess " at Disney World. I miss the Princess days. I would suggest checking the areas you plan to stop to make sure they have a campground and that it is nice and that they have pull thrus. From Temple, you could stop at Cajun Palms, henderson, la (close to Baton Rouge ) about 8 hours. Nice big pull thru sites, easy on and off, plenty of things for the kids to do while you rest. They even have food and food delivery to your site if no one feels like cooking. they have a nice website if you would like to check them out. The next day you could make it to Madison, fl ( about 8 hrs) and spend the night at the Jellystone park. Again, easy on/ easy off, pull thru sites and lots of things for the kids to do while you rest. ( this was actually too long for us so we ended up stopping at the KOA west in Tallahassee,It's ok but nothing special.) The next day is an easy 4 hour drive to the Fort...you arrive rested and you still have most of the day to set up and enjoy the fort on your first day. We make the drive twice a year with our grand kids. For us, we prefer driving hard the first two days and rolling into Disney ready to have fun. We always look for campgrounds that are easy on-eay off, with something fun for the kids to do. Stop every couple of hours and let everyone, including you, walk around a little. I would also suggest picking up a book such as "The Next Exit" or "Exit Now" to help you find fuel stops your rig will fit into.

We learned this the hard way. We've done the trip in several different time configurations (depending on where our starting point is) and have stayed at quite a few of the campgrounds along the route, so if you need any help please let me know.

You're going to have a great time on your first trip to Disney!

Are there plenty of boats available or do you need to make a reservation during late June and early July? We're not interested in the Boston Whalers or Searacers, just the pontoon boats. We've never paid attention to how many boats, if any, were sitting around unused at this time of the year. Thanks!

When we went to this last year, we bought the dinner package but I don't think it's necessary. They were able to seat everyone who was wanting to sit down. The people who didn't stand in line didn't get the best seats, but they were seated or stood at the back and still got to enjoy the whole show. It is definitely worth watching...what a wonderful way to start the holiday season!

We had a raccoon problem in my mil attic. They were much smarter than us and our trap, but we finally learned a few things about their homing techniques and how to bait the trap to outsmart them. (Old farmers and ranchers have some pretty good tips!) first thing they told us was: raccoons always go back to the place they were born to have their babies, therefore you have to get rid of the entire line. Might be the same with squirrels. We used hardware cloth to cover every opening we could find. Ours were coming in through a vent fan on the roof that wasn't working.

Baiting the trap: First tip- hang the bait from that bar thing in the back of the cage. That way they have to come all the way into the trap to get the bait.

Second tip - put peanut butter on the bar in the back of the trap. Same reason.

The coons really liked cat food the best.

We caught two coons in two days and shot two.(they actually tried to attack us)

So far we haven't found anymore coons, but they destroyed all the duct work in the attic before we got rid of them.

There are a lot of squirrels at the fort, but we never see any raccoons there. Since they're trapping the squirrels now, I guess that's what they did to the raccoons? Wildlife Management?

We saw Casey jones rv park in lake city, Florida on our way out. We've never stayed there, but it looked nice from the road and it looked easy on and eay off.

I put the sour cream on before I bake it. I put the toppings on in layers ending with the cheese. And yes, I make mashed potatoes and then add the toppings. I also use regular bacon not bacon bits.

This isn't anything special, but our friends like it. I boil my potatoes and then cream them with butter, milk and salt & pepper. I put them in a casserole and top it with sour cream, green onions, bacon and sharp cheddar cheese. I bake it at 350 until the cheese melts.