Baseball is going again. Connor was drafted into the majors this year. I was a little concerned about how the older boys on his team would accept him since he is the only 4th grader. My worries were unfounded. He fits right in and is doing very well so far. But best of all, he is having so much fun. I love it. All are welcome to stop by the Dixie ball park and watch a game (he plays for the Rangers) while munching on a Dixie Burger.
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We are talking about planning a trip to Disney. If anyone knows a cheap way to pull that off I would love to hear it.
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A little buddy of mine had been asking when he might see a rattlesnake and it just happened that I crossed paths with a few yesterday. I threw them in the truck (by the way, stay out of the can in the back of my truck) and he stopped by today with his mom to see them. They were amazed at how they rattled very loudly but never struck. I pointed out that they did not want any trouble but would instead warn people to go away. Then I said if they got agitated they would strike to protect themselves. I picked one up with my stick at that point and he went crazy striking at everything he could reach. It had the desired effect and I think my little friend will remember that moment for a long time. He thought it was pretty cool.
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Michal Kate finally lost a tooth last night that has been loose for months. The Tooth Fairy visited her, but discussed with me how she thought about a late-payment penalty since it took so long. Michal Kate is sweet, but a bit of a chicken. It weird, too, since her brother is a turkey.
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Pray for Shane and Leah. They induce tomorrow.
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We are talking about planning a trip to Disney. If anyone knows a cheap way to pull that off I would love to hear it.
_ _ _
A little buddy of mine had been asking when he might see a rattlesnake and it just happened that I crossed paths with a few yesterday. I threw them in the truck (by the way, stay out of the can in the back of my truck) and he stopped by today with his mom to see them. They were amazed at how they rattled very loudly but never struck. I pointed out that they did not want any trouble but would instead warn people to go away. Then I said if they got agitated they would strike to protect themselves. I picked one up with my stick at that point and he went crazy striking at everything he could reach. It had the desired effect and I think my little friend will remember that moment for a long time. He thought it was pretty cool.
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Michal Kate finally lost a tooth last night that has been loose for months. The Tooth Fairy visited her, but discussed with me how she thought about a late-payment penalty since it took so long. Michal Kate is sweet, but a bit of a chicken. It weird, too, since her brother is a turkey.
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Pray for Shane and Leah. They induce tomorrow.
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6 Comments:
We've been to Disney three times as a family. We've always gotten the five-day passes and stayed on the grounds at one of the resort hotels. I recommend Dixie Landings. It was the best of the three. They have the lower priced ones as well, if you want to save a little bit more. Staying on the grounds is a great experience for many reasons, but one is that they have busses that take you to whichever park you want to go to, and each have restaraunt food court type areas that provide a variety of foods but aren't crazy expensive. The last time we went, we did the Disney Cruise which is really fun. Three or four days in the park, then three or four days on the ship. We always drove, so that saved some money, too. However, if you stayed at the park, you wouldn't have to drive since they have the shuttle service and busses. I totally recommend that for a family vacation!
We've been to Disney World and Disneyland, and quite frankly Disneyland was a bit more fun. In part, it's because it's a much smaller park and you don't get so wiped out trying to walk everywhere. Easier on the kiddoes, plus it's open from 8am to midnight, so you can go to the park for a few hours, come back to the hotel and nap, then go back to the park and not feel like you've missed so much. We had three-day passes and saw everything but the Peter Pan ride at Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure.
I can tell you how NOT to do Disney. We stayed at the Polynesian Resort in one of the lodges called 'Rapa Nui', which is apparently a Polynesian word for 'ten minutes' walk from every form of transportation'. We ate breakfast on the property ($$ - bring your own PopTarts or stay off-park and hit a BK or something). We were there for four days and had four-day passes, as a result we walked ourselves to death trying to see the Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom and Disney MGM all at once.
Don't bite off more than you can chew, nobody will have fun. If there's no significant price differential, consider Disneyland. There's some LA stuff to do, the beach -- but the water is COLD, Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, Dodger games, Universal if you have the time, a stop at the religious theme park (Saddleback), etc. We actually went to Saddleback for Sunday services, it's really impressive. It looks like a college campus, not a church. The children's building is HUGE, four stories/60 classrooms/3 auditoriums...for 1st-4th grades, mind you.
If you do go to Disney World, DON'T get on the bus to get from the airport to Disney. We were stuck on that thing for 90 minutes plus, it took us as long to get from the airport to Disney as it did to get from Dallas to Orlando. And the boo-boo we made in CA was landing in Burbank -- 34 miles on the GPS is a lot farther than it sounds when it's on I-5.
Last time we were at Disney World we were on our honeymoon. We loved staying in the park and being able to hop a ride anywhere anytime. We also had Park Hopper passes so we could come and go. Have no idea what we would do different with kids but I have an idea it would be a completely different experince! :)
We pulled off Disneyland very cheaply - free airline tickets from the husband's parents, free lodging & meals with the husband's grandparents. Transportation courtesy of the husband's aunt and uncle. Oh, and since I misplaced the free plane tickets and we had to buy full-price tickets at the last minute, the aunt & uncle felt sorry for us and paid all our expenses to Disneyland, etc. so, other than the tickets, it was really cheap. (To make it even better, I found the free tickets when we got home, and the airlines refunded our money). Well, it worked for us.
We went to Disney World last June and loved it. We stayed at one of the Disney hotels. The buses take you where you need to go and run regularly. It is great except late at night when you are dead tired and everyone in the park is trying to get on the buses. Even the Magical Express from the airport worked for us, no problems. Do get the park hopper passes, but would not really recommend the meal plans. There are several good books you can buy plus many on-line resources. Good luck.
We went to Disney in December 2004 and found GREAT deals on tickets by reading THE UNOFFICIAL GUIDE TO WALT DISNEY WORLD. They tell you all about a website where you can register as a member and then they'll send you links to bargain multi-day passes. Apparently they can't advertise them without you being a member of their site. We only needed a 3 day pass, but Disney doesn't offer it --- this website did and we didn't end up paying for more days than we needed. We did Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom, Epcot (about 3/4 due to weather), and MGM (2 times)with young kids in three days which means we skipped many rides that were too scarey or weren't age appropriate. Highly recommend following the tour plans and tweaking as needed. These people do WDW research for a living, so they are worth listening to! We followed the plans and rarely encountered lines (keep in mind that it was December though). Restaurant suggestions were inaccurate in our opinion, so we eventually called Orlando information to inquire about whether or not they had a P.F. Changs!!!! They did and we had a couple of evening meals there just for a change of pace. REMEMBER that no matter where you stay you'll do lots of walking --- think of it like hiking in Colorado --- who complains about that? We used a friend's timeshare week and stayed for literally nothing off site (got any friends with those?). We drove to each park (5-10 min commute from our hotel in Dec), arrived an hour early, and rode shuttles back and forth without any trouble (this was with a baby and stroller and we didn't have any issues). We packed backpacks with snacks (per the book's suggestions) and stayed from open til close on almost every day. FYI - you can park at one resort and shuttle back and forth between resorts. READ the book --- it'll be the best money you'll ever spend! I know it sounds obnoxious, but my husband was thanking me once we were through the first day --- prior to that he thought I was a little off my rocker for sticking to such a tight schedule since that's not normally my style!
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