Disney Diary - Day 5

Sundae and Cirque

August 27, 2008

This was our rope drop day for Disney Studios. Since we missed out on Toy Story Mania when we were here earlier in the week, we headed right for the FastPass machines for Toy Story Mania. Even with getting in line as soon as we could, our Fastpass return time was still 12:40p! And I waited in line for something like 25 minutes just to get the Fastpass! Ugh! Considering that was the longest wait we had for anything for the whole vacation though, I can hardly complain. While waiting in line though, I had to snicker smugly a bit at the two women in front of me. They were complaining to each other about how they were unable to get reservations for any good meals this week. “And they tried getting reservations a whole two weeks out – how could they be booked up?” Since I researched our trip ad nasauem, I knew that your best bet is to make reservations up to 6 months out. I even scored a most sought after ressie for Cinderella’s Royal Table for breakfast on our last day, but I’ll leave that description for when I come to it.

After securing our fastpasses for Toy Story Mania, Alex and I had decided we had enough courage to try out Rock n’ Roller coaster. Unfortunately though, the wait was already 60 min. and since we had just gotten fastpasses for Toy Story Mania, we couldn’t get another one for 2 hours. *sigh* No RnR coaster for us this trip. Nice to leave something for next time though, right? So instead we did some of the lesser known attractions, having done all the other major headliners the last time we were there. I wanted to see the Beauty and the Beast show, but it didn’t start showing until after 11am and we had reservations for 11:30am at Sci Fi for lunch, so we couldn’t see it. We did ride Star Tours again and we did the Narnia attraction and “One Man’s Dream”. I think we must have done a few other things too – but they are slipping my mind right now.

As I mentioned we had lunch at Sci-Fi. We had eaten here last time, and Sean really liked the atmosphere. You sit in “cars” and watch old-time drive in movies while you eat. The food was only so-so last time, so we weren’t expecting much, but boy were we pleasantly surprised! Last time we ate at dinner time, so when we ordered the hamburgers (which are normally only on the lunch menu) we got basically the kids burgers. What a difference to have the adult burgers at lunch time! They were big and juicy and came with all the fixin’s. Great burgers. Also I had a hot-fudge sundae for dessert. Just your simple hot fudge sundae – nothing different, but with real ice cream, very rich hot fudge and real whip cream and a cherry. Very tasty. Also, instead of fries, Sean and I ordered a cucumber-melon salad that was surprisingly good too. I had just ordered it because I was sick of fries and figured if I didn’t like it the burger was big enough to fill me up anyway. Don’t know how I did it, but I’m embarrassed to admit I ate the whole burger, all the salad, and the large sundae too. I was very full, but it was so worth it.

After lunch we headed back to Toy Story Mania to use our fastpasses. What a fun ride! Sort of arcade like, if you’ve done the Pirates of the Caribbean simulation at DisneyQuest where you use your cannon to shoot at ships, this is very similar, only instead of shooting at ships you shoot at lots of different targets to try to rack up a high score. If the wait was not so long, we’d have done it multiple times – it was a lot of fun. Both Sean and Alex got higher scores than I did, but then I had to keep trying to help Katie figure out how to shoot. I probably shouldn’t have bothered, she was having fun just watching all the Toy Story characters go buy. I have to mention though, there was this family about two families in front of us with a newborn. That baby was literally DAYS old, and they took him/her on the ride. I was really surprised. Now the ride is far from being a roller coaster, but you do get jerked around a lot and I can just not imagine taking a baby that young. Even an older infant (say 6 months) would have been fine, but a newborn?? Even one of the cast members was shaking his head saying the baby was too young, but since the ride does not have any rules about height, he had to let them take the baby. One would think common sense would prevail with the mother, but not so. She looked to be in her mid-40s too, so it isn’t as though you could say she was young and foolish or anything, she ought to have known better. Anyway, after Toy Story Mania, we just went back to our hotel for our usual afternoon rest/pool time.

After our rest we went to Downtown Disney, this dragon is outside the Lego store and is made out of Legos! Our plan was to eat at Earl of Sandwich, which I’d heard lots of good things about. Katie was acting up a bit and cranky and didn’t want to eat anything – at all. I remember being pretty annoyed with her, she was just generally misbehaving/not listening to directions, but no real meltdown. I have to say that this was the one unpleasant meal we had at Disney World. The sandwiches were good, but the service wasn’t the best. The staff seemed to be annoyed with me when I tried to ask questions about what they had, and what I could get using my dining plan. I asked politely, and got snappiness back. Then I was told to “go stand over there” with a general gesture to wait for my order. I wasn’t sure what “over there” meant, so I asked “right here?” and got an eyeroll and a “YES!” It wasn’t as if they did anything really awful, but I think we got sort of spoiled from all the good service everywhere else at Disney, so it stuck out more. Katie ate exactly two potato chips from Sean’s bag and nothing else. Alex and I were full from lunch at Sci-Fi still, so we split a ham and cheese sandwich, which was very good. I didn’t enjoy it much though because of Katie’s general crankiness and unwillingness to just sit while the rest of us ate. She wanted to run around the restaurant, which I was absolutely not going to allow, so she was whining and just generally unpleasant to be around.

After dinner was Cirque de Soleil! I had heard lots of good things about this show and I was really excited for it. I was also nervous that Katie would not behave during the performance based on how fussy she was at dinner. Turned out I needn’t have worried at all. She loved it and except for the time while we were waiting for the show to start, she behaved perfectly. I kept her busy during that time by walking her around a bit and taking her to get popcorn, so that she didn’t have to sit still for very long. Also, even though popcorn is not the best of dinners, I did want her to have something in her stomach because I didn’t want to interrupt the show with cries about “I’m hungry.” At home I would have just made her go without since she had the opportunity to eat a perfectly good dinner, but I didn’t want her to ruin the experience for everyone else.

We had the perfect seats too – section 207 AA seats 1-4 if you ever want “the best cheap seats”. This section is category 3 I think, but abuts Category 2 and is pretty close to the front, but it is on the side, rather than the center of the stage. What was best about it though is that at the beginning of the show all the performers come out from the sides of the theater and pass right in front of these seats. Katie was thrilled and thought they were smiling and performing just for her since they were after all – right in front of her. I had been worried that Sean and Alex would not care for a cirque type acrobatic show, but they really enjoyed it. We all really enjoyed it.
After the show, we discovered a “short-cut” back to the bus stop and were back to our hotel within about 30 min. We just took it easy the rest of the night and Katie and I even managed to catch the Water pageant out on the lake at about 9:30pm

Wanna buy a house?

Whew! After months of talking about it and doing various updates, we finally decided we are ready and put the house up for sale. I know the market is pretty soft right now, so although I'm trying to be optomistic, I know it might not sell quickly.

Here is the link to our listing.

Disney Diary - Day 4

Dream a Little Dream :)
August 26, 2008

This was our first Magic Kingdom day. Our routine was to eat breakfast in the room (cereal brought from home plus milk and granola bars) and get to the boat/bus stop by 8:15am. We did that on this day, and it worked perfectly. I love rope drop at the Magic Kingdom because they do a little show with Mickey and Minnie and some other characters. They arrive at the front of the park on the train and dance and sing and sprinkle confetti on the crowd waiting to enter. Not a huge deal really, but sort of fun to be a part of and makes you really feel that the excitement is about to start.

Since we were returning to Magic Kingdom on Thursday morning for the early extra magic hours (park opens at 8am instead of 9am for resort guests), we decided we would do the Fantasyland stuff during morning EMH on Thursday and do Tomorrowland now. Although Alex and I had already ridden Space Mountain on Sunday night during the EMH, it is our favorite ride and we had to head there first. Since the ride had only a 10 min. wait when we got there we didn’t use Fastpass but just hopped in line. Fun ride as always – I joked to Alex that I had broke my “screambone” on that ride. Yes, yes, I’m a screamer, and now I was feeling a little bit horse.

We decided to do Buzz Lightyear next before the lines got very long and also because we wanted to do something all of us could ride together (Sean and Katie did not do Space Mountain). Standby for Buzz was listed at 15 min. which isn’t much, but Sean almost did not want to ride – we don’t do long lines – we passed on anything more than 20 min. I reminded him though that Buzz is one of the more popular rides and it is likely we won’t have a shorter wait the rest of the day. So we get in line. About 10 min. later we are approaching the front of the line when we see guys in white jackets with blue wording – “The Year of a Million Dreams” written in a nice script. Silly me in my glazed over “Waitin’ in the line” zone out didn’t even register what this could mean. Then I notice they are counting each person in line. They stop at Katie, whose hand I was holding. The man looks up at me and asks, “How many in your party ma’am?” Stupid me is still not really registering and thinking he means how many are going to ride together I say “just two” because Alex and Sean planned to ride in one cart and Katie and I were going to ride in another. He says, “Really, just two?” and I say, “Well, those two are with us too (pointing at Sean and Alex), but just she and I are going to ride together.” He says okay, and then starts talking to the person behind us for a minute or two – I’m starting to wake up to the fact of who this cast member is and why he’s asking questions and start to wonder if we missed out based on my cluelessness. A minute or two goes by and then he just starts passing out DREAM FASTPASSES! I guess he was asking how many in each party to be sure that he had enough passes and didn’t have to give some to only part of one party. Here is Alex holding up his:

Alex was completely thrilled. I think if he had won a sticker he would have been pretty excited. Just to win something at all was a big thrill for him. Once we explained what it actually was, he was that much more happy! In case you aren’t familiar, a dream fastpass is a fastpass to all rides that take fastpasses in the entire park! So in Magic Kingdom that was all 3 mountains, jungle cruise, Peter Pan, Winnie Pooh, Mickey’s Philharmagic, Stitch, and Buzz.

We ditched our touring plan for the day and did rides as we came to them – which was so nice! It wasn’t a very busy day to begin with that day, so anything that didn’t have fastpass was a pretty short line anyway. We got so much done that day. We did the Indy Cars next since we it was one of the few rides that sometimes has a longer line but does not have a fastpass. Then we just meandered around Tomorrowland and did everything as we came to it. Laugh Floor comedy, Tomorrowland Transit Authority, Carousel of Progress, and Space Mountain one more time since we had the Fastpasses. We skipped Stitch even though we had the fastpasses because Alex and I had done it when we were there for the EMH and didn’t care for it and I know it would have scared Katie to death anyway (too much dark). We did not do Astro Orbitor either because Sean is scared of the height.

It was still pretty early, so we did Mad Tea Party, Winnie Pooh, Peter Pan, Mickey’s Philharmagic and It’s a Small World (using our Fastpasses where necessary) before heading to lunch at Cosmic Ray’s. All day, people kept noticing our Dream fastpasses around our necks and asking how we got them. Alex loved to tell the story – you could tell he felt like a real celebrity. I don’t remember exactly what we ordered at Cosmic Ray’s but I know that by this time we had fallen in the habit of ordering 3 meals for the 4 of us. Since we were on the dining plan, a dessert came with each meal, and all that food was just so much – and trust me I like to eat, but just couldn’t justify eating all that. It also helped that Katie is pretty picky, and wouldn’t eat much if we got her a separate meal anyway. Sean, Alex, and I would each just order a meal each, and I made sure that somewhere in there was something Katie could share. Worked out perfectly and nobody went hungry and we still had to throw some food out a few times (mostly too many fries, or an extra dessert). We saved her counter service credit each time this way and it worked out so that we had an extra counter service meal on the day we didn’t have a table service because we had used up 2 table service credits for a special dinner.

After lunch we decided to just try to make the most of our dream fastpasses and then go back to the hotel before we got burned out. We did Jungle Cruise – which we all really liked. We didn’t get the chance to do it last time, so it was fun being on it for the first time. Then Alex and I did Big Thunder Mountain before we headed out of the park. We had done Splash Mountain last time we went to Disney, and although neither of us hated it, we didn’t really like it either, so we skipped it. We rode the boat back to Wilderness Lodge all happy and content and feeling so lucky to have won the dream fastpasses. It really made our day. Sean suggested we pass on the fastpasses we hadn’t been able to use to someone else, so that is what we did. We saved Alex’s for a souvenir and gave the other three to some people at Wilderness Lodge waiting to get on the boat to go to Magic Kingdom. I looked for a party with no small children as we had used up all the Fantasyland stuff, and there were still fastpasses for the mountains on 2 of the 3 badges. It was fun to pass on the magic – we gave the passes to a mom and dad and their teenage son – looked like we made their day too.

The rest of the day was not nearly as exciting, but we were happy and enjoyed it anyway. We did our usual rest/pool time and then went to Coral Reef for dinner. Here is a pic of the inside of the restaurant:

I had a new york strip steak that was really good, so were the accompanying potatos. Sean had some sort of fish dish – the mahi mahi I think, which he also enjoyed. It was a nice meal, but we’ll probably pick someplace different next time. No complaints, just not so great we’d keep coming back with all the other great choices at Disney World. I think this was the night we rode Spaceship Earth at Epcot. It was closed for refurnishment on our last trip, so this was our first time riding it. Definitely another family favorite for us. We didn’t know about the pictures they take of you and put into the video at the end, so that was pretty fun/funny for us. I did manage to hold Katie up so her head was in the shot on the ride, even though I didn’t know I was doing it at the time. Hilarious apprehensive expression on her face! She was probably feeling a little nervous about some of the ride being a little dark, but she calmed down and enjoyed it well enough with no problem.
Alex and I also tried to ride Test Track sometime that night, but were thwarted once again by long lines. We rode Ellen and the Universe of Energy and then headed back to the hotel for a little more swimming and of course watched Wishes from our balcony again.

Disney Diary - Day 3

Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot!
August 25, 2008
Luckily for me, it was in "the plan" for us to have a sleep in day. After the EMH (which lasted til 1am) I never would have made another rope drop. :) So we slept until 8:30 (late for us) and had reservations at Chef Mickey's! Great breakfast, and I'm sure the character interaction would have been better had our kids been willing to cooperate. Katie did take this one picture with Minnie Mouse before she decided she was afraid of the characters, and while we coaxed Alex into posing for a few pics, he was less than thrilled with having his picture taken with a bunch of cartoon characters. Ah well. It was good breakfast fare and Katie did really enjoy seeing the characters (from afar) and the songs and antics they did. They also do something where they twirl napkins in the air for Mickey and the other characters and she really enjoyed that. Sean and I really liked the Contemporary resort too - and if we go back to Disney again, we're definitely going to consider staying there (its on the monorail, which was the one and only thing we missed being at Wilderness Lodge). One note though - we found it really strange that sitting in Chef Mickey's you could look up and see birds perched on these sort of panels that hung from the ceiling - right inside the restaurant! It was near the end of the meal before we noticed them, and they didn't seem to be causing any trouble, but I couldn't help but wonder what might happen if - ah, one of them needed a bathroom break. Icky thought there! Since we were on the dining plan and we used the Table Service credit for this character breakfast, we ate this late breakfast and filled up good and then we used our Counter service credit for dinner (skipped lunch with no problem cause we were still full from breakfast).

So we left right for Disney Studios from the Contempory. We wandered down to the lobby where we asked a cast member for directions to the bus stop. He replied that we'd probably have to wait for a good half hour, but pointed us in the direction. We got to the bus stop and less than 5 min. later a bus pulled up for Disney Studios. Luck? maybe, but we found our experience with the busess to be far better than the pessimisstic attitude that seems to abound regarding them. I think I mentioned before that we never waited more than 10 - 15 min. for a bus all week.

It was probably close to 11am when we got to Disney Studios, so we knew riding the big headliners without a fastpass wasn't going to happen. We wandered over to the new Toy Story Mania ride first, hoping to be able to get a fastpass for late in the day - we were trying to stay the whole day and watch Fantasmic! Unfortunately, all the fastpasses for the day were already gone, and the wait was 70 min. We just don't do waiting for more than 20 min. - even when it is something we really like, so Toy Story Mania was out for us. I did notice that the wait time for the ride fluctuated between 70 - 120 min. throughout the day.

Since no one in our family had any interest in Tower of Terror, and Alex and I weren't sure we wanted to try Rock n' Roller Coaster or not (we decided not for now), we did not have the need to do any fastpasses for the rest of the day. We did most everything in the park and had a great time, but it was HOT. Like melting in the shade right into your shoes HOT. I have never been so hot for so long in all my life. We coped pretty well though - Disney Studios is a good park to be at on an inclement weather day because most everything is indoors and air-conditioned. We did not do Lights! Motor! Action! though because it was outside in the sun and during the hotest part of the day (I think the shows were at 1:30 and 4pm). We did do Backlot Tour which was somewhat warm and in the sun for portions, but it was also on a moving tram for part of it so that was okay. The Muppet 3-D show was great and although Katie saw it last year she didn't remember it at all and thought it was pretty funny this time. This time though she wore the 3D glasses and it freaked her out a bit having stuff seemingly fly out at her. She did pretty okay though and didn't cry or anything.


We also saw the Indiana Jones show which was also outside but in a covered stage area out of the sun. Hot, but not as unbearably so. Alex and Sean are big Indy Jones fans so they really enjoyed the show. Katie was just as excited about the Mermaid show which she absolutely loved. This show also had some special effects that involved simulating cool sea breezes in the theater - very welcome on a hot day! Sean said if I'd let him, he'd watch Little Mermaid over and over again all day! We missed the Beauty and the Beast show - just never lined up with a time it was playing I guess.

One of the best parts of the day was that we got both Katie and Sean to ride Star Tours. AND they both liked it! In fact we did it twice! Sean is a big chicken on anything more than the most basic of rides and this was the first time Katie was tall enough for Star Tours. The pic above is Alex on the rider outside the Star Tours ride. I have to admit to getting the idea for this pic from Erin! Also Alex just wanted to sit on it and of course it was a natural photo moment.

Somewhere in there we had Pizza Planet for dinner, which was okay, but nothing special. Alex really enjoyed the arcade type games they had there though (think Chuck E. Cheese) Toward the end of the day we went in to see the Little Einstein show much to Alex's chagrin. Katie loved it, and sang along and danced and had a blast. Sometime during the show the skies opened up and POURED. When the show ended, everyone just sort of hung out in the theater waiting for the storm to blow over before venturing back out - it was coming down in buckets. We just let Katie run around with a few other kids her age in the theater (they weren't being roudy or disruptive or anything) while we relaxed and regrouped. I really wanted to stay for the night-time laser show Fantasmic! so I was hoping the break would give everyone the motivation to stay for the few hours til the show.

After we had hung out for about 20 min, Katie decided she needed to go potty. She usually never volunteers this information when we are out doing "fun stuff" and I have to make her go every few hours so that there are no accidents. (Remember last year's meltdown - yeah that was at least in part cause I made her go potty) So, I was not going to discourage her even if it was raining buckets. Our ponchos were very inconveniently located in the stroller, which was in the middle of the pouring down rain outside. Luckily the bathrooms were just across the courtyard from Little Einsteins, so I took Katie by the hand, ran to the stroller and pushed it under an awning with my one free hand. I left the stroller there then took Katie to the bathroom. We were both somewhat wet, but not soaked. The important thing though - she went, no meltdown, no accident. Yay! When we were finished I saw Alex and Sean now outside huddled under the Little Einstein awning - we were under the awning on the other side of the courtyard near the stroller. I motioned for them to come over and they did and we broke out the ponchos for the rest of the evening. They were in thier own plastic cases so even though the stroller (a Disney rental - which I loved by the way) was soaking, the ponchos were still dry.

We saw the Disney Animation film after that and wandered though some exihibits. By this time it was getting close to time for Fantasmic! So we walked up there amid announcements that the show MIGHT be cancelled due to the weather. I had a mild heat headache from earlier in the day and remembered that I had a couple advil in my fanny pack (yes I'm one of those nerds!) and I took them. In the end they had the show while it drizzled just a little bit. We watched it on wet bleachers in our ponchos, but honestly I think we were just all glad to be cool for the first time all day. My headache broke just in time for the start of the show, and it was fantastic, um I mean Fantasmic! The foggy drizzle did make some of the special lighting effects hard to see, but I still throughly enjoyed the show and was so glad we stayed for it. The whole family really liked it too and were glad in the end that I nagged everyone to stay for it. No pictures of it cause of the weather though. It was only 9pm when it finished, but we were bushed and got right on a bus back to Wilderness Lodge (again hardly any wait). We didn't do anything else that night but watch Wishes from the balcony again - our nightly ritual while there.

Disney Diary - Day 2 Continued

Extra magic? What magic?

After the Hoop Dee Doo Sean and I had planned to take the kids back to Magic Kingdom and ride a few of the less popular rides before going back to the hotel. Sean didn't want to be "done" for the day just yet, it was only about 6:30p. I agreed to this seeminly reasonable plan earlier in the day and in fact had even written it into my "obsessive itenirary" before we even left for the vacation. However, I was dead. tired. I had a glass of Rose at the Hoop Dee Doo from which I was no longer tipsy, but I think the post buzz added to my overall feeling of sleepiness/fatique. (Yes, even one drink has an effect on me - likely because I almost never have one.) I hadn't had a lot of sleep the week before we left, and got up earlier than everyone else to re-check in. I was just beat and standing there waiting for the boat I just knew I couldn't do it - couldnt' go to MK now AND take Alex to the Extra magic hours later in the evening. Since I knew the EMH were a big, big deal to Alex, I just couldn't tell him no. Sooo I said to Sean I think we should go back to the hotel for a rest. Sean, to his credit saw how tired I was and reluctantly agreed to go back to Wilderness Lodge.

We rested maybe half an hour before Sean was complaining he wanted to do something, anything not to be trapped in the hotel for the night. Alex went to the pool and I told Sean he should go with, but he didn't want to do something with the kids - had to be something with me. I didn't really get to rest - I ended up going with Sean later after Katie cluncked out. We went down to the jacuzzi tub and sat for awhile while Alex stayed with a sleeping Katie. At least it was semi-relaxing, but I was really just annoyed that he wouldnt' let me sleep a little and was forcing me to choose between keeping everyone happy and about killing myself and dissapointing someone (which by the way was not going to be him without a major fight). I was so exhausted I was just trying not to cry. We didn't stay long though, I think Sean could see how much I just wanted to rest and we headed back to the room. Sean said he just needed "something" to do for a bit. I understood that, but I just wish I didn't have to be responsible for making that happen for him. He would have been fine with me dissapointing Alex (the EMH were the most looked forward thing for Alex), but leave Sean hi and dry for an evening and all hell would have broken loose. *sigh* sorry about the vent there, but this is a common thread in our relationship and although it is always minor stuff like this is really, really gets old.

Anyway, Alex and I did go to the Extra Magic hours, and we had a reasonably good time. One of the reasons it is so important to Alex (and me too really!) is that it is the one of the few times he does not have to worry about what Katie can/can't do, or what Dad does/doesn't want to do. Katie is still too young for lots of the bigger rides, and Sean does not do the bigger rides either. This is our chance to have one on one time without little sister butting in, and he gets to pretty much pick whatever he wants to do (within reason of course). It wasn't as nice as the EMH were on our last trip. Last time we were able to get on Big Thunder Mountain twice in a row, followed by Splash Mountain with no wait at all! The park was nearly empty and we didn't wait in line for anything more than 5 - 10 min. all night! This time was more crowded and we had to use Fastpass in order to ride both Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain. We still had a good time though and we got in several other rides we hadn't ever done before like Haunted Mansion (which gave me a chance to preview it for Sean and Katie). We also ate our traditional cookie ice cream sandwich from Sleepy Hollow. Boy those things are big - I think one a year is all I can handle without gaining like 50 lbs. I didn't even finish mine - and I love ice cream and cookies!

Next up: Disney Studios (formerly MGM)

Disney Diary - Day 2

Nemo is Scary? Who Knew?
August 24, 2008

When I made our reservations for Disney, I had to make two reservations because of the free Dining promotion. Disney has a dining plan that can be purchased with your vacation that entitles each member of your party to 1 table service ( a sit-down restaurant), 1 counter service (like fast food), and one snack (like a pretzel, popcorn, or ice-cream treat) for every night of your stay. I don't remember the exact price per person right now and I'm too lazy to go look it up, but I know it would have added $990 to the cost of our vacation if we had to pay for it ourselves. Anyway, I had to make 2 reservations because the dining promotion didn't begin until Aug 24th and we wanted to arrive on the 23rd. This is also why we did DisneyQuest on our arrival day because our park tickets for the 4 major parks were tied to the reservation with the dining plan and we couldn't use them until the 24th.


So I set my alarm for 5:45a to check back into the hotel - I knew there would be a lot of people doing just what I was doing, and there would be a higher number of people checking in for this date because of the dining promotion. I also wanted to be early to check in because I wanted to stay in the same room we were already in before they assigned it to someone else. I got down to the lobby right at 6am, which is when the cast member told me I could recheck in. The line was 4 people ahead of me, but the line went quickly and I got us rechecked in and our tickets activated with our dining plan etc. There was one small mixup with my credit card that I had tied to our reservation and my Key to the World card, but it turned out to be that my credit card had expired and then renewed between the time I made the reservation and the time we checked in - so she just had to update the info. Somewhere in that mess though she gave charging privledges to Alex and me rather than Sean and me, but I was too tired to care - and since I handle EVERYTHING anyway, it didn't matter that Sean didn't have charging privledges on his card. In fact it actually came in handy that Alex could charge on his - I let him go down in the mornings to get milk and breakfast items from the Roaring Fork (counter service place in our resort).



A word on the dining plan - I would not pay for this out-of-pocket. It was way more food than we needed and way more sit-down eating than we would have otherwise done. We would not have spent $990 on food if we did not have the dining plan. That said, it was very convenient and we used it well to our advantage - since it was "free" I'm glad we had it - just wouldn't be willing to cough up the extra $$$ to buy it. YMMV of course.





So this was Epcot day - the plan was to ride Soarin', Mission Space, and Test Track first and then do Living with the Land, Nemo and Crush and then see if we had time to do anything else before lunch. That went pretty well, but the park was pretty busy and our fastpasses for Soarin were for 11:30am (we went to get them pretty much right when the park opened at 9am). I had thought that Katie would be able to ride Mission Space with us this time, but the height requirement is actually 44 in. - not the 40 in. I was thinking. (Katie is 42 in.) In the end it was good she didn't ride as it was actually a little more intense than I remembered it. We do the green version, which is the less intense version of the ride, with no actual spinning, but it is still a simulator and she might have been afraid. Basically the ride has you as part of a team aboard a space craft to Mars and you get to "help" land the spacecraft on the planet. The ride makes it seem you are going to crash, but just in time you save the day (of course!). I was more disappointed that this meant Sean didn't ride either. We know about the "kid swap" option, and the cast member tried to talk him into doing it, but when he heard Katie couldn't ride he lost his nerve to go. Sean is a big chicken when it comes to rides - in fact he was pretty annoyed with me last year for taking him on the Peter Pan ride because you are sort of up in the sky looking down on the (fake minature) city below. It never occured to me that a kid ride like that would scare him, but I guess it was the heights thing - although to be fair the heights was more perceived than real.



We didn't get to do Test Track because we already had a fastpass for Soarin and the wait was already 40 min. when we finished with Mission Space. We decided to do it later in the week - we were coming back to Epcot more than once and we did Nemo and Crush instead. Crush was a fabulous hit with Katie, just as he was last year - though she doesn't remember him from last year. Crush is an interactive attraction and he holds a real conversation with members of the audience - very cool. Katie kept asking to go back to see Crush again. I thought she'd love Nemo too - and she was very excited to ride Nemo, until we actually got on the ride. First, she was scared because it was dark. This was our first dark ride this year and since she had done fine on it last year I didnt' think we'd have any issues. Now it wasn't really dark - just movie theater dark if you know what I mean. I held her close and tried to tell her it was fine, we are going to see Nemo, etc. and just when she was starting to relax and point to the fish and say - "Look there's Nemo - there's Dory" and get all excited, the big shark came out with teeth barred and roaring and it totally *freaked* her out. She was inconsolable for the rest of the ride and needless to say there was no convincing her to ride "Scary Nemo" again. Of course that didn't stop her putting her head in this fake fish outside Crush to have her picture taken, but I digress.





During our stay we developed a routine of going to a park at rope drop and staying until shortly after lunch, then resting at the hotel before going out again around dinner time. We did this on our last trip too and I highly recommend this stratagy. It gave us built-in pool time and a break from the parks at the hottest and busiest part of the day. It was also intended to give Katie a nap, but that never really happened.

For dinner that night we went to Hoop Dee Doo. Not as much fun as the first time we saw it last year cause the show is pretty much exactly the same. We still had a good time, but we'll probably skip it the next time we go. Funny thing - we ended up in the exact same seats we had last time in the balcony toward the back on the left-hand side. We were happy there and just like the last time it was good fun and good food. This is a pic from my seat of the stage and the floor below.



This was a very long day - and there is still more to come - Alex and I went to Extra Magic Hours. I'll have to continue tomorrow though - cause this is all the time I have to write for tonight.

Disney Diary 2008 - Day 1

Getting There is Half the Battle

August 23, 2008


We woke up at 5am, and I think everyone was actually able to sleep the night before. I was worried that we'd all be too exicted to sleep - and we were excited, but somehow we all dropped off pretty easily - everyone was asleep before me of course though as I was still doing the mental checklist after everyone else was asleep. Even I fell asleep relatively easily though once I finally settled into bed.


We loaded everything into the car and had just started our 30 min. ride to the airport when I started to feel I'd forgotten something. Did I have my folder with all our plans/tickets/reservation info?? I couldn't be sure, so I pulled over and pulled out one of the carryons to check. Whew! It was there, with everything in it, so we were good. We got checked into the airport relatively easily after reciting our parking area over and over to ourselves - 2H Blue - to make sure we would know where we parked when we returned in 9 days. The plan was to write this info down when we had the chance, but we never did get around to it. Luckily we did remember for the return! Everything went smoothly - Katie was relatively good on the plane - I had brought some fruit snacks for her to chew on during take off and landing and books and small puzzles to keep her busy and entertained. It worked really well and she was pretty well-behaved.


We took Magical Express to our hotel, Disney's Wilderness Lodge. For those of you not familiar, if you are staying at a Disney resort on property, they will pull your luggage right off your flight and deliver it for you to your hotel room, and they take you on a bus right to the hotel. The luggage arrives at your hotel after you do - up to 3 hours later - but we packed everything we needed for that day in the carryons. Taking the Magical Express didn't take much extra time either. We did have to wait in line to "check in" for a bus, but once that was done (took about 20 min.) we walked right on a bus that left for our hotel within about another 10 min. The bus did also make stops at other hotels, but I still felt the system was pretty efficient and I was happy with our arrival time. Depending on how long it would take you to claim your own baggage and then rent a car, I'd say the Magical Express doesn't take much longer and it is really nice not to have to worry about doing the other stuff. I know a lot of people would rather rent their own car and be in control, but we have had two good experiences with Magical Express, and will definitely use the service again if we ever go back to Disney (I should say when, not if!)




We were pleasantly surprised with our room. We had reserved a "Woods View" bunk bed room because it was the cheapest room that had the bunk beds - we really needed 3 separate beds as Alex (DS13) sleeping with Katie (DD4) just seems totally unacceptable to both of them (and to us). We were on the 6th floor (room 6012) and this was our view! You might have to click the image to view the larger one to really see what I mean - but we could see the Magic Kingdom castle from our room and at night we could see Wishes and the castle changing colors. It was really cool, since staying in the park until Wishes is still tough with a 4yr old who often refuses to nap on vacation.




Once we got settled in our room, we decided to go to the pool for a swim. I think this kiddy pool was one of Katie's favorite parts of the vacation - I myself prefered the jacuzzi tub. I should mention here that TS Faye had rained out the parks for a day or two prior to our arrival and all the guests seemed to be really weary from the rain. Before we left we were stressed that our vacation would be ruined by the rainy aftermath of the storm. We were surprised and relieved when we landed in Orlando to partly cloudy skies. We got in about 30 min. at the pool before we started to hear rumbling in the sky and the lifeguards cleared everybody out. It was fine with us, good excuse to get the kids to come out without an argument! Everyone around us was really annoyed though - probably because they had seen plenty of rain in the last week.


We needed to get in anyway as we were heading to DisneyQuest for the evening and dropping Katie at the Cub's Den, which is a babysitting service for kids 4 - 12. Our luggage had arrived from Magical Express already when we returned to our room. We got everyone ready and headed out. Katie had a blast at the Cub's Den, coloring and playing house with another little girl there. She called it her "kid's club" and really seemed to enjoy it there. Sean, Alex and I went to DisneyQuest where we did pretty much everything of interest within about 3 hours. Don't get me wrong, Alex really enjoyed it, and he would definitely go again if you gave him the chance. Sean didn't care for it much except that he liked that they had the "old time" video games like Q-bert and Pac-Man that you could play. I really could take it or leave it. To me it wasn't worth the $37 to get in (although I did manage to get discount tickets from Ticket Mania for $29), but I'm glad we did it and gave it a try. This also gave us our first view of Downtown Disney, which we visited for Cirque de Soleil. We stayed at Disney Quest from about 5:30p to about 9:30p and we were dead tired from all the travel by that time. We used the Disney buses to get to and from DisneyQuest and despite all we heard about how bad it was going to be waiting for buses (we were on the monorail last time) we didn't wait long for buses much all week we were there. There was also some light rain as we were walking to Disney Quest from the stop where the bus lets you off, but not too bad.

We picked up Katie from the Cub's Den and got back to our room just in time to see Wishes from our balcony! A perfect end to our first day!

Alhambra Garden progress

This picture is from about a week ago, but with the trip getting so close I haven't had much time to blog. Not as much progress as I'd like to show either, but there is some believe it or not.

I'm still finding a little time to stitch and now I'm working on replacement sections for the Mira RR. Unfortunately one of the members didn't follow through and hasn't mailed on some pieces so the rest of the group is trying to replace the lost RRs. So I'll have some pics to show of two more pieces at some point. Won't be before we get back from the trip though! :)

Just 2 1/2 days til we leave, so I'm in that stage where everytime I think I'm on top of everything, I think of something else that has to be done before we leave. ARGH. Today's additions to the list are have the mail stopped for while we are away, and get ponchos for the family to take along. Thanks to TS Fay, although we are missing all the dangerous part of the storm, it is likely there will still be a fair amount of rain during our visit. DH is pretty bummed about the rainy forecast, but Alex and I are determined to go and have fun anyway, and hopefully the inclement weather will keep the crowds down some. Katie is oblivious either way - she just knows she'll be meeting some princesses in the castle for breakfast. We were lucky enough to score an early morning reservation for Cinderella's Castle, so she's pretty hyped up for that. As long as she gets to do that and ride Dumbo once I think the trip will be a success in her mind.

I'm hopeful that we'll avoid another of the great Katie meltdown incidents, but I'm sure we won't have perfection in her behavior, after all Disney is one of the most stimulating places in the world for kids! She is however doing much better the last few months with her behavior. Not sure if that is a result of getting older and therefore she understand rules and consequences better - or if the discipline we've tried to enforce is actually working - or both. In any case she is still a work in progress on that front, but getting better all the time. She is a good girl, mostly. ;)

Don't know if I'll have time to post again before we return from the trip, but we'll be gone 8/23 - 8/31 - so if I haven't posted by Sat. don't expect anything til we return as I don't think there will be any internet access, and if there is I'm not looking for it. :) Full trip report when I return.

Disney Itinerary

I’ve been in a bit of a stitching slump lately, mostly because I’ve been obsessed with two other things – Disney, and getting my house ready to put it on the market. I’m not sure whether I mentioned it here before or not, but Sean and I are thinking of moving sometime in the next year. Originally we were planning for spring of 2009, but we are toying with the idea of just going ahead with it as soon as we can get our act together.

So over the last two weeks or so I’ve repainted Alex’s room, bought new furniture to stage our house better (and we sorely needed new furniture anyway), shopped for and picked out new carpet, repainted our front steps and entryway outside, and planned a schedule for Disney.

So, I don’t have much to show in the way of stitching. I haven’t stopped altogether, it’s just that a half hour here and there doesn’t add up to a whole lot of progress. I’m still plugging along on Alhambra Garden and will post pics when I get sick of it and move on to something else. I’m hoping I’ll get a few good hours in on it over this weekend – we’ll see.

What I do have to show for the last few weeks is a newly painted room – maybe I’ll post pics when I get the new carpet installed, and a high level schedule for our trip to Disney – which is (Yikes) coming up in 15 days!!

Here’s our general plan. I figured I’d go ahead and post it here because it will give me a rough outline to work from when I come back and want to post a trip report here. It’ll also give me a good gauge of how well I did planning when I compare it against what we actually ended up doing and how it went.

Day 1 – Saturday 23
· Wake at 5am
· Leave house by 6am
· Airport at 6:30 – 6:45am
· Flight leaves 7:55am
· Flight lands at 11:30am
· Take airtram to other side of airport, go down side B to Magical Express desk
· Ride Magical Express to Wilderness Lodge
· Check in at WL, remember to ask CM about re-checking in and keeping same room
· Go to room if available, or go to Roaring Fork for lunch if not available yet
· Eat lunch
· Rest/pool/explore resort
· Leave room 4:15p
· Drop Katie at Cub’s Den at 4:30p
· Ride bus to DTD – Disney Quest
· Disney Quest and dinner for as long as we like.
· Pick up Katie from Cub’s Den
· Go to bed

Day 2 – Sunday 24
· Up at 7am (maybe earlier for mom?)
· Mom rechecks us in for free dining
· Leave room by 8:15
· Ride bus Rope drop at Epcot
· Rides til we get tired/cranky
· Rest/nap/pool
· Leave room by 4:30p
· Ride boat to Hoop Dee Doo at 5pm
· Magic Kingdom after HDD if group mood allows
· Wishes at 10p?
· Extra Magic Hours @ MK for Mom and Alex til 1am

Day 3 – Monday 25
· Sleep in til 8am
· Ride boat to breakfast at Chef Mickey’s at 9:30am
· Take bus from Contemporary to DHS
· Fast pass for Toy Story Mania
· Rides til we get hungry
· Counter service lunch/dinner – maybe Pizza Planet?
· Fantasmic! At 8:30p
· Extra Magic Hours at DHS?
· Ft. Wilderness movie? (Ella Enchanted)
Day 4 – Tuesday 26
· Wake up at 7am
· Leave room by 8:15am
· Ride boat to rope drop at MK
· Tomorrowland attractions
· Toontown at 10am
· Lunch at Cosmic Rays?
· More rides til ready for break
· Rest/nap/pool
· Leave room by 4pm
· Bus to Epcot
· Dinner at Coral Reef at 4:50p
· Rides at Epcot
· Illuminations?
· Movie at Ft. Wilderness? (Home on the Range)

Day 5 – Wednesday 27
· Up at 7am
· Leave room by 8am
· Ride bus to Disney Hollywood Studios for rope drop
· FP for Toy Story Mania
· Rides til lunch
· 11:30am lunch at Sci-Fi (get the hot fudge sundae!)
· Nap/rest/pool
· Leave room by 3:30pm
· Ride bus to Downtown Disney
· Dinner at Earl of Sandwich
· Cirque de Soleil at 6pm
· Ice cream at Ghiaradelli’s
· Shop in Downtown Disney? Goofy’s Candy?

Day 6 – Thursday 28
· Wake up at 6am
· Leave room by 7:15am
· Ride boat to rope drop at MK (8am Extra Magic Hours)
· Fantasyland attractions
· Ariel at 10am
· Lunch at Columbia Harbor House?
· Rest back at hotel if needed – if not this is a good day to go “all out” and stay the whole day – if staying do relaxing stuff during hot part of day “Hall of Pres, Liberty Boat, Country Bears, Tom Sawyer Island, shop
· If leaving get a Fast Pass before going back to hotel to use later
· Parade at 3pm
· Dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern at MK (check time)
· More rides
· Wishes?
· Ft Wilderness movie? (Underdog)
· Water Pageant on Seven Seas Lagoon?

Day 7 – Friday 29
· Wake at 7am
· Leave room at 8am
· Bus to rope drop at Animal Kingdom
· Tour/rides til lunch
· Lunch at FlameTree?
· Rest/nap/pool
· Epcot in the evening
· Extra Magic Hours at Epcot in the evening
· Ft Wilderness movie? (Enchanted)

Day 8 – Saturday 30
· Sleep in late (no time limit)
· Go to Beaches and Cream for opening at 11am – have ice cream for lunch!
· Walk to Epcot and tour World Showcase & Innoventions if time
· Leave park for WL by 4pm
· Drop Katie at Cub’s Den by 5:30p
· Alex to do pool and/or arcade at the hotel?
· Mom and Dad have Narcoosee’s at 6:30p (Grand Floridian)
· Spectro and Wishes after dinner?
· Pack L

Day 9 – Sunday 31
· Up at 6am
· Check out at front desk, leave luggage with bell services
· Ride boat to MK for character breakfast
· Breakfast in the castle at 8:05am
· Try to wake Tink?
· Do Fantasyland and any other favorites we can fit in.
· Lunch at counter service in park – wing it
· Return to WL by 3:30pm
· Take Magical Express back to airport at 4:20
· Board plane at 7:20pm
· Arrive back in MKE 9:55pm
· Drive home, unload car
· crash

Heritage Sampler progress

This one has been calling to me recently and after working only on Silkwood Manor for so long I decided to just stitch what I felt like stitching! I finished the border around the center tree design and started the tree itself. Fun working with the silks!

Those are Katie's pink fingernails holding up the picture. Freshly painted so I had to be really sure they were all dry before I'd let her near this piece! :)

I think for now I'm just going to try to work a little bit on each piece before trying to get back to any sort of really organized rotation. After I've visited with each piece maybe I'll pick another focus piece and try to finish something again. Not sure what I'm going to work on next, but Alhambra Garden and Inspiration are calling the loudest right now - we'll see which wins. :)

Fair Results

Well, Silkwood Manor did not place. When I picked it up after the judging the woman who took my claim check and had to fetch it and bring it to me asked me if the judge commented why she didn't place it. The judge hadn't said anything about it (though she spent a great deal of time pouring over it - at least it seemed to me!) and I said so to the woman. The woman said, "Well, if you want to know what I think, I think it is gorgeous and you did a beautiful job." I thought that was really nice of her to say. Even if she was just being nice, it was encouraging and part of the reason I like going to the fair judging every year. Mixed in with all the crazies that take winning way too seriously, are the gems like this woman. You could tell that she geniuely enjoyed seeing everyone's work, and it was so kind of her to take the time to comment to someone with a non-willing entry.

I did not get "skunked" though - my Enchanted Alphabet, which I figured probably would not place, got a fourth place ribbon in its category. That was a pleasant surprise.

The best part of the day though was that I had a friend there this time! Kelly decided to make the drive over for the day from Monticello and it was really nice to have a friendly face to share the day with. We watched the crazies and admired all the cool stuff people entered this year. The woman who usually has her yearly temper tantrum (okay that is an exagerration but not much) and claims she isn't entering anymore was pretty well behaved this year, but then she placed in almost all her categories, so she didn't have much to complain about this year. She was still fun to watch though, as she was as serious as ever.

I don't know if I mentioned in years past that the judging isn't just needlework items, but all sorts of crafts, we also watched judging for jewelry making, yarn spinning, rug hooking, teddy bear making, pencil drawing, and lots of other stuff that isn't coming to mind right now. It was a fun day, and I'm glad I entered, and will keep entering each year, even when I've had a dry year for finishes (like this year). Now to get some work in on my WIPs so I'll have more to enter next year!!

Silkwood Manor HD

Finished it just in time for the Fair! Not a moment too soon, put the last bead on at 8:30p last night, finished the framing at 10:15p and dropped it at the fair on my way home from work today - Whew!

I'm also entering my Enchanted Alphabet that I finished a few years back. Don't have much finished this year to enter, and Enchanted Alphabet was completed in a year where there were more finishes and wasn't entered in favor of something else that year. I don't expect either entry to win any blue ribbons, but a second or third is possible, depending on the other entries, we'll see.

Most of the fun is the people watching and seeing what everyone else entered. :) I suspect I'll have just as much fun this year as I have in the past even though I haven't entered much myself. Judging is on Friday, so I'll likely post that evening or on Saturday with the results.

I'm back!

So after a few frustrating days of trying to repair the old computer and not getting anywhere with it and then going back and forth with DH over what to get for a new PC - I'm finally back online at home. We ended up with a new hp. We had good luck with the one hp we owned a few years back, so we were pretty happy with our selection. When it came down to going to the store and actually getting it, we were able to make a major purchase without a lot of angst and arguing, which is a big deal for us! :)

Anyway, I've been doing some more stitching on Silkwood Manor and it is coming, but not nearly as quickly as I'd like it too. Here's a pic. I have to have it in the frame by the end of the night July 15th in order to drop at the fair for judging, so it is gonna be real close even with doing the framing myself.

ARGH! Computer issues

Our computer has gone on the fritz and I'm unable to get to my home email. If you need to contact me about anything, please either send me a Yuku message, or comment here to my blog and I will email you from work. I have limited time to check on things from work, but I'll at least try to check my Yuku messages and here for messages until things are up and running again at home.

Chicago GTG

From left to right: Eva (frauevi), Anita (Anita in Iowa), Chris (ncrichards)
Kelly (marissasmom), Melissa (MissyCor)

Annie (annieadams), Holly (Indystitch), Susan (SusaninIndiana), & Jen (U9icorn Angel)

Susan graciously agreed to let us all invade her home for about 7-8 hours on Saturday and it was a great time. Good pizza, good desserts, good friends, good conversation, and good stitching! We also spent some time showing off out WIPs and finished stuff and rifling through some stash. Can't think of a better way to spend a Saturday. :)

Progress on Silkwood Manor

As you can see, my Silkwood Manor is coming along pretty well - just need to stay disciplined enough to stitch everyday and I should have no problem finishing it in time for the fair. Now, whether I'll have time to also stitch another reindeer is still up in the air - but I'm going to give it a try. I've chosen Cupid to do next, mainly because I have all the "extras" for him and I think he will stitch up the quickest! :)

A new kitchen sink!

I know this isn't a big deal to anyone but me, but I'm so excited about my new kitchen sink! This old stainless steel sink you see in the first picture has been a thorn in my side since we bought this house. The sink just looked cheap and junky to begin with and on top of that whoever installed it did a crappy job and didn't seal the drain basket on the right side properly. The water would pool around the seam and if you weren't careful to rinse and dry it constantly some really stinky black mold would begin to grow. I was forever after Sean and Alex to not leave any dishes in that side because it would cause mold to grow faster - seriously yucky. I put up with that since late 2001! I don't know why we didn't replace it right away, just always something else to put the money into I guess.

Since we are now thinking of selling our house, we're finally getting around to all those random household maintenance projects, and this was definitely on the list. I bought this sink from Home Depot online, the faucet set from the actual Home Depot brick and mortar and called a local handyman to come install for us. Part of what took us so long (besides some admitted laziness) was we weren't sure how to get someone to install it for us and we were too nervous to attempt putting it in ourselves. I should say Sean was too nervous - I generally try to do stuff myself when I can, and this didn't look too complicated, so I was game to try. I think Sean had visions of water spraying everywhere and us not having the know-how to turn it off. I knew that while I could probably figure out how to turn the water on/off and glue in a sink and connect it back up to the water lines and drainage pipes, it would probably take way more effort and stress than I wanted to put forth.

In the end it was good I called a handyman because the drainage system had old PVC and when he tried to connect it back together, one of the plastic rings broke. That wouldn't have been so bad - buy a new one right? But the new one was the same size and the threads still didn't match up correctly. Sooo he had to rip out the connecting PVC and replace with new. That would have been too much for me I think, although I might have been able to flounder through it would have been very stressful and I'm glad someone who knew what they were doing had the experience rather than me!

Anyway, here is the new sink all installed - icing on the cake is that the hoses for the dishwasher and aerator also got cleaned out (since we were taking apart anyway) and now there is no more leaking down from the air gap into the sink (see white calcium deposits from our hard water on the gap in the first pic) and that won't mess up my new brushed nickel finish on my new faucet.

The new sink is acrylic which looks like ceramic tile, but is more durable. This is probably too nice for the rest of the house - but was really only about $100 more than having another stainless one put in (the whole thing material and labor was still less than $500). We wanted something really nice to show off our big, but otherwise unremarkable kitchen for potential buyers.

The new sink is deeper than the old one too! The old one was only about 7 inches deep! This is 9 inches. Also the new faucet is an arced one, so I can get my big chilli pot under the faucet now with no problem. I told DH that if we build we are putting this sink in our new house too! :)

Katie's first Recital & Silkwood Manor progress

*Shameless mom brag ahead* Katie just finished her first recital today. She is in a Turn n' Tumble class at the Y which is half ballet and half gymnastics. She's been doing that class for about 6 months and seems to really enjoy it - especially the gymnastics. All the dance classes at the Y give a recital every June and they include the Turn n' Tumble class since they do ballet too. Katie's class was one of the youngest and they danced some very basic ballet moves to "A Whole New World" from Alladin - hence the Jasmine like outfit. All the little girls (ages 3 - 5) did really well - we were hoping just that they wouldn't all stand there and do nothing and luckily they didn't. I cannot say any of them is ready for a professional academy, but they did quite well for their age. There was one minor hiccup where the girls were suppposed to toe-walk around the stage and the little girl in front of Katie didn't realize that is what was happening and just stood there - Katie gave her a little shove to get her going and the audience just roared with laughter. I was pretty impressed though that they all even got there little ending pose right. *End of shameless mom brag* :)

I've been working on my Silkwood Manor and it is coming along pretty well - Since my last progress photo I did two flowers on each side of the border and worked on filling in the house. I'll finish filling in the house and do the two trees on either side next.

More Mirabilia RR finishes!

Sorry for the long abscense! Things were really busy at work for awhile there as we were meeting a deadline for the end of March that turned into mid-May and I was putting in a lot of extra hours. By the time I got home, I didn't want to even look at the PC anymore. I did manage to get in a bit of stitching though, so I have some pics to share. :) I am on a new assignment now too - so hopefully I can get back to a more regular posting schedule.



I managed to finish all the beading for my finished Mira RR - I also took MissyAnn's advice and stitched the last mermaid myself and signed her 'Nora' for the designer.

After that I received Diane's RR in the mail and stitched Ashley's Roses to finish hers.

That finishes up all my stitching for the Mira RR - so I'll quit boring you with the pics of them. State Fair is my next big stitching goal and I'll be trying to finish Silkwood Manor - Just Nan, one of the Nora Corbet Christmas Couriers (haven't decided or started which one it will be yet), and a small scissorcase by Cat's Whiskers. I will also enter my Enchanted Alphabet by L&L in the large catagory. Probably too ambitious to finish all of that by mid to late July when the judging is, but I'm going to try to do as much as possible - so the next few months will probably be updates on those.

On the personal front, the job is going well - I got a very nice raise back in Feb and everyone seems to be happy with my work. I don't know about the current assignment just yet. I've only been doing it about a week and I'm still feeling out how it is going to go.

Home is going well - DH and I are getting along pretty well these days, guess we were just going through a bit of a rough patch awhile back when I posted about some of the arguing we were doing. I think I have a tendency to over-react a bit when we are fighting because of how things were *years* ago - it always feels like we are right back there. In realilty we have both learned a lot and while old habits still slip in now and again we are much better at righting things and getting back on track.

On another note DH and I are looking into buying or building a new home for spring 2009. I really want to build, but the more we look into it the more confusing/hard it seems. I know we could just buy a home/lot package from a builder and eliminate a lot of the befuddling hoops and such, but we really don't want to move into one of those cookie cutter new neighborhoods. We have been interested in a few single lots, but then there is all the issues of trying to figure out if we could get an exposure, if there will be drainage problems, what the setbacks are, whether there are utilities already there or not, and how much it will cost if there aren't, yadda, yadda, yadda...

Last but not least, we are going back to Disney in late August. We are so excited. Good thing the summer is getting so packed lately - the busyiness will make it go by more quickly. Oh, and I almost forgot Katis is 4 tomorrow! Can you believe it? Well, I can't! She is growing up so quickly!

Another Mira RR finish

This one is Stacey's and it is really pretty. Love the fabric. I stitched April's Blue Diamond. :)

Angel of Summer progress

Here is my progress on Angel of Summer. She is coming along, but not as quickly as I'd like. I worked on the yellow sashes this time.

I decided to take Melissa's advice and stitch the last section on my RR myself and sign it Nora. I'm about half way through stitching the other mermaid from Mermaids of the Deep Blue in the empty section. (Enchanted Mermaid is not really proportionate to the other mermaids, that is why I left her off.) I have an order in for all the beads too - so we'll see how long it takes me to get all those beads on! :)

My Mirabilia RR is home :)

I love how it turned out! Every bit as gorgeous as I imagined. Now to find someone to stitch the last section, and then get it all beaded and framed. :)

Hardanger Runner Progress

I'm having the hardest time staying motivated for this piece. Lately, I've been working on each piece for a week's rotation before moving on, but I just couldn't do it with this piece. I made a deal with myself to finish the hearts on each end at least, and I did manage that. I really like how it is turning out, but some reason I just don't like working on it right now. *sigh* For me, those feelings usually come and go with a project, so maybe I'll be more enthused to work on it next time. For now, I've moved on to my "Angel of Summer", which is also a piece that isn't a big favorite. I'm doing her for my mom who always really appreciates my stitching though, so I guess I'll keep slogging on for her. At least I'm starting to feel like I might one day finish AOS, so that helps my motivation. With the Hardanger runner I just feel it will never end!

A few WIP pics

I finished a rotation on Mother's Tree, and unfortunately I'm not really feeling like it was a lot of progress. The tree just seems endless right now. I worked on filling in the left side. I thought about trying to work on some of the names for a bit to break up the monotony, but I was too afraid to try to count out that far. I just know I'd mess it up. Maybe next time I'll at least do the trunk of the tree so that I'm closer to where the names will go and I can start them before finishing all of that dang ole tree. :)

Since I had the camera out to take the pic of Mother's Tree, I went ahead and took a quick progress pic of Silkwood Manor too. Mother's Tree is on 36ct Peaceful Waters Endinbourgh from Silkweaver, stitched with Dinky Dyes Evergreen? silk floss. Silkwood Manor is on 28ct Joblean, I forget the color name, but it is a light blue if you cannot tell from the pic.

ARGH

Really, maybe it is just me, but last time I checked most people generally try to be nice to the person they are trying to have sex with. Right? Or did the whole world just go upside down on me or something?

We had a really nice Valentine's day until bedtime. Dinner at a local chain pizza place with the kids, cards and chocolates, watched LOST together, one of our better nights. Once we are in bed, he makes his move and I'm pretty much inclined to oblige. Until he touches me with his really, really cold hands. I jumped sky high - did not say anything mean - just startled. I was completely planning on continuing. He goes off about how negative I am, and blames me for everything under the sun. Yeah - instant aphrodisiac. I said a few not-so-nice words myself about how he could finish his evening (sans me) and that was the end of that. He hung around a bit not saying anything I guess waiting for me to re-initiate things, but when it was clear I wasn't about to - he went and slept on the couch, and I was relieved to be rid of his toxicity.

The strange thing is that stuff like this happens a lot, and usually I'm really hurt by it. This time it just seemed so absurd. Just felt sort of outside myself like I was watching this really interesting movie/situation, and the absurdity of it all just made me want to cry/laugh/scream/explode, but yet I didn't really feel overly emotional. I dunno, I'm probably not explaining that very well.

Of course we haven't spoken since mostly because we get up to go to work at different times, but we did pass in the hallway right before I left and as he was just getting up. He seemed to make a point of talking to Alex and not to me, but this was really only a 30 sec. timeframe. Now I'm wondering if he is going to act like he did after our fight on Sunday and not talk to me for a few days and claim that I was the one to go off the deep end. Usually this is his attitude when things aren't going well. I just hate all the tension it creates and I know the kids pick up on it too, even though we are both pretty good about not really fighting in front of them.

Inspiration

This photo is a little darker than I'd like, but darn I cannot for the life of me figure out how to take better lit shots close up with my new camera. My old 2megapixel seemed to do much better than the new 8mp. *sigh* It takes great snapshots though, just not good needlework shots.

I also have some recent progress on Silkwood Manor, but I was too lazy to take a new pic so you'll have to wait until next time I work on it to see a new picture. Seems lately life has been really busy and I don't get enough time to stitch or post! The good part of that is that my work is being recognized at work and I got a nice fat raise at my review a few weeks back. Can always appreciate that, right?

Since I did get a nice raise at work, and DH got a nice raise too (not as nice as mine though!), DH could no longer ignore my pleas to make a return trip to Disney this summer. So we are going 8/23/08 thru 8/31/08. I know it will be really hot in Florida that time of year, but I just don't want to take Alex out of school again. He is doing really well, but he is a kid that has to work really hard to do well - it doesn't come easy to him - and I don't want to stress him out trying to make up a week's worth of work.

Things with DH are still a bit rocky right now. We had a huge fight on Sunday about pretty much nothing, but I blew up at him because I couldn't take the constant criticism anymore. Of course as soon as I've blown my stack, the fight is only about that and not about all the millions of jabs and nasty things he's done/said in the time leading up to it. Drives me bonkers. I always end up apologizing for the things I've done wrong (and I know I should be able to control my temper better sometimes) while he just withdraws and refuses to talk to me claiming he is 'scared' of me - yeah, right whatever. (He says he is scared because I threw my car keys on the ground and somehow that is violent - I could understand a bit if I threw them at him, but I digress.)

We did make up though finally, after 2 days of him being "afraid", and generally emotionally unavailable and passive agressive, and me crying my eyes out wondering how after 13 years of building my life around this sap, that a few harsh words have me 'unworthy' of his love/attention/understanding.

He did finally admit to his part in it and also admitted that my "outbursts" (which is really just me yelling at him for 30 seconds about how I hate being critisized) are fewer and farther between than they have been in years past. He thinks things are all roses now - but every time we have one of these experiences I'm just left feeling really resentful at all the pain I just went through for what would have been a very minor incident to any normal person. I make up with him because he'll stop being nasty and rubbing salt in the wound when I do, but I don't feel close to him or like I love him. And it is just so hard to get him to admit that yeah, maybe he was being mean/unreasonable when he was sarcastic and nasty about me not getting the doors open fast enough, or not getting in the left turn lane fast enough to make the green arrow in traffic. (Don't get me started on how I have to drive everywhere cause he is too "stressed".)

*sigh* I guess I just needed to vent that all out somewhere - feel free to ignore.

Alhambra Garden WIP

I think I've finally found a rhythm that works for me with this piece. When I first started past the center box I found this piece so difficult because of all the color changes. Now though, I've figured out that if I do the yellow outlines of the columns and lattice work and then fill in, it goes more smoothly because the pattern is more obvious and I make fewer counting errors. This time I worked on from the top left corner across the top, and I enjoyed working on it very much.

Next up though, is Silkwood Manor - I like that piece because I always seem to make good progress on it when I work on it. I'll work on it for at least a few days - until I'm satisfied with how much I get done and am ready to move on in the rotation. I think I've finally sucumbed to a screaming rotation. I may go back to a more structured one at some point, but for now I'm just working on what I feel like for as long as I feel like. The only rule I have for right now is no new starts (at least until I finish something!)

Heritage Sampler WIP pics

I spent about a week of my stitching time working on this, and although I had a few boughts of the frogs come up, I think I made some decent progress. While I was working on the cherries band I kept thinking the colors just weren't working together, but once it was done and I stepped back a little I was glad I had kept going - I really like how they turned out. The only lingering doubt is the orange underneath each flower, but even that isn't really bothering me.

I'll be working on Alhambra Garden for the next little bit, so we''ll see if I get enough done to warrent posting any new pics. :)

White Christmas for the Mira RR

Still trying to figure out the settings for taking close up pictures on my new camera. The picture of the whole piece is much truer to the real colors. I picked "White Christmas" to stitch for this one cause I always imagined her on Christmas Eve night watching the snowflakes fall. And since I stitched on it during the weeks right after Christmas she seemed appropriate.

Catch Up

I know I haven't posted in awhile - but gosh things got busy there for awhile. Really the last few months have been quite busy at work, but with the added holdiay busyiness, I just didn't have the time (or energy frankly) to post anything.

Stitching
I'm this < > close to finishing another section for the Mira RR. I've been stitching on it forever it seems. Should finish it sometime over the weekend, so I'll post a pic then. Ever get close to finishing something and you keep thinking it is almost done, but the more you stitch and stitch the more you are sort of in the same place as before?... that is how this is going for me. I am determined to finish this weekend though cause my Heritage Sampler piece (and all my other WIPs too) is calling me name - loudly!

Work
Things have really been busy, but also really good. I try not to talk about work too much in a public forum such as this, but suffice it to say that my career is starting to advance a bit and I'm being rewarded for my hard work and ability. I finally work for a boss that really wants to help me do well and succeed. Of course his good attitude makes me want to work even harder and do better, so that creates a little stress - but it is a good stress and has really improved my overall self-esteem and outlook on life.

Kids
Despite having never-ending colds/flu/ear infections this winter they seem to be doing really well at school and in their other activities. Alex is doing intramural basketball at the middle school and Katie is taking preschool gymnastics.

DH
This is one area where things could be going better. *sigh* Not that things are awful and terrible, just not where I want them to be, and considering how far we've come in years past, I'm not sure there is any more room for improvement. Don't know if I can be okay with things as is or not. That is probably all I should say about that.