ependydad...Doug

We've surprised my daughter twice now. The first time we told her that we were taking Grandma and Grandpa to the airport (we live near BWI and are everyone's hotel/shuttle before and after trips). When we got there, we got our bags out and told her curbside. She was pretty low key. Maybe you'll be able to see this Facebook video: https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10150182207744939&set=vb.782344938&type=3&theater The second time, we decided to go to Disney with another couple and their daughter (our daughter's "BFF"). My wife made up cards that said "Happy Valentine's Day" on

It's very very close (ok, not at all- though I do love Soarin') Me: http://youtu.be/eafDCV0s1aw My wife: http://youtu.be/YStOS3c7XfA

If any of you make it out to DL you can still ride in the front out there. I read that out loud to my wife and she got that gleam in her eye. I wouldn't be surprised if we see DL in 2016 or '17.

I got dunked in New Jersey when we went parasailing . It actually cooked me down nicely and it made my family laugh. I was the only one who they dipped, though. Pro tip: don't go parasailing 2-3 weeks after hang gliding. It ended up being boring.

As Jim Gaffigan says, "Pigs are magical creatures. They eat apples and turn it into BACON." I think these people have the right idea- it's a pet AND a meal!

Two drivers? Or, how often do you plan on going off property- can you rent a car the day that you want to run to the mall?

First, thank you all for the kind words. I can't bring myself to respond individually. It's a huge and wonderful milestone, but also extremely "heavy". It's hard to describe; so I won't. :) Now, we left off after Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party. I think I forgot to mention that we went on the Jingle Cruise, but came away with very few pictures. It was just too dark to even try. I'll check my camera for pics, but I don't know what we'll have. I do imagine that this trip report will have a follow-on pictures report once I'm finally able to go through it. Should be good and never ending.

Yep, that's exactly it!

Taking a quick break from the trip report... As mentioned, the 10 year mark is officially today. We met a doctor at Hopkins who broke the news to us that our daughter had a brain tumor and that they took her for surgery about an hour later. We later found out it was a cancerous brain tumor called an ependymoma. She had a couple of more surgeries and had 6-weeks of radiation treatments. Today Paige is a beautiful and vibrant young lady. She is an exceptional daughter, big sister, friend, student, and goofy kid. We're eternally blessed that she's free of side-effects, long-term effects, and phy

I think if I was going to tow a long trailer with a shorter wheelbased vehicle, I'd pony up for the super expensive Hensley or ProRide. They're spendy but are supposed to be the cat's meow. BUT- I'm also uneducated enough to know where the cutoff is for needing it.

That's my understanding.

Fortunately she's not like this often yet. She has a face that looks like she's annoyed or perturbed or even just sad when she's at rest, there's a non-forum-friendly term for it :) I check with her often to make sure she's ok and usually she is. But that evening, she was in a mood. But, it turned out wonderfully! We enjoy it. We had season passes in 2014 to it and really made good use out of it. Thanks! It was a fun night. Felt rushed and we didn't get to do nearly as much as we wanted (for instance- the Mine Train that you all keep posting about!). But, we're going back for a week

I have never used a WDH and have only read about them (I'm a geek, what can I say?); but it's my understanding that these end up only being good for smaller trailers because they have a hard time pushing enough weight back to the tow vehicle's front axle. It can push some weight back up there, but not a lot. OOOOORRRRRR... I'm confusing it with another. :)

I thought there was some kind of Crystal Palace buffet that was a character meal, too? I feel like we met Winnie the Pooh there.

And this is the kind of thing why I want to live within a day's drive of Disney..

The video of his squeal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhwU_602NsU As I said- the first time we went on the ride, the hands and squeal were unprovoked. :D

Ok, we left off with finished up our evening at the Hoop-Dee-Doo-Revue. As I mentioned, the Sabre warranty manager (Gary) kept helping me with my slide out issues. The plan was for a mobile RV tech from Leisure Time RV to come out to our camp site on Friday morning. Gary had a motor overnighted to them - we thought it was going to be as simple as just replacing the motor and all would be well. The RV tech arrived promptly at his scheduled time and we worked together to get the motor swapped out. My wife and I chuckled as he had to run home to get a ladder as these motors are at the top of the

Thanks! She's doing amazingly- it's hard to believe that it has been 10 years. Thanks and thanks and thanks! Thanks for the kind words! I had never heard the bear thing before and in fact, didn't hear it this time. The first mate (or whatever he's called on the boat) had to repeat it to us. She was EXTREMELY excited. She was a little sheepish at first putting her hand up but finally went whole hog with the arm raised and all but lifting out of her seat. Thanks! Congrats on the 7 years. 10 years sort of snuck up on us but it's so awesome that it's here. Ha! Yeah,

In my super-uneducated opinion, the 80% cap is to keep people within their payload. If you are able to look at all of the numbers and stay under them all- I have no issue running right up to 100% and know plenty of people who tow over one or more. If you do it knowingly and within reason, lots of people do it safely. The reason that both are listed is people are going to look at towing in 2 different ways. One is going to look at the gross weight and compare that against their vehicles towing capacity. Simple, no fuss, no muss. The other person is going to want to find the tongue (hitch) wei

This is pretty accurate. The only problem is that until you get into 1-ton trucks and bigger, most people run out payload (aka carrying capacity) of their vehicle long before anything else in SUVs, 1/2-ton, and 3/4-ton trucks. This carrying capacity has to include the people in it, anything in or on the truck (hitch, camping stuff, food, supplies, car seats, electronics, etc) as well as the camper's tongue or pin weight called hitch weight. For travel trailers, you want that tongue weight to be in the range of 10-15% of the camper's total weight for best towing (usually higher is better). For

Sadly, my wife and I were just having that discussion last night. We're super excited for our AP's so that we don't have to worry about "doing everything" in our upcoming week trip. This time we get to scale back because we know we're coming back for 5-6 weeks this summer (staying offsite and I'll be working full time, but it'll give us time to go play). Usually we're run so ragged that the kids are tired, us parents are tired, and everyone ends up grumpy. I've been in the shoes of that screaming parent, "I spent a crap-ton of money to be here, enjoy it dang it!"

I shared the amazon link below it. $249 on there I believe it was. They've come down a lot in price. I looked at these a while back and feel like they were $150-200 more then. Still a premium, but I need a good screen porch.

I shared the amazon link below it. $249 on there I believe it was. They've come down a lot in price. I looked at these a while back and feel like they were $150-200 more then. Still a premium, but I need a good screen porch.

Daverene is correct. Dry/shipping weights shouldn't be used to compare against your tow vehicles capacity; you need to extrapolate "real world" estimates from them. I have a tool that helps with that: Estimate camper weights from dry weights

Knock on wood, we've never experienced a monorail issue while we were at Disney; that we know of, at least. There's still time...