Difficult

5 theme parks, 4 tired people, 3 days, 2 ten dollar balloons, 1 dollar left and ZERO sightings of Mickey Mouse in person. Really, who goes to the Magic Kingdom and does NOT see Mickey Mouse - we do, that's who.

We had a great time in Orlando, but I can say that we did not see Mickey Mouse in character the entire trip. Granted, we only did Disney parks on one of our 3 days. We were on a tight schedule and we were completely focused on cramming in every ride we wanted to, so doing character meetings was not important to my kids. In fact, we skipped A LOT of the Magic Kingdom. They would have stayed in Frontierland the entire time if we would have let them - it was Splash Mountain and Thunder Railroad that were the big tickets.

We started our trip with Sea World which they loved, and they were really only interested in seeing the animals, not riding anything. We had to drag them on to the Atlantis ride, upon which I got completely soaked from head to toe. I was one of those people coming off the ride that people laugh and point at for getting SO WET. We stayed until the park closed and we finished it off with the Miracles Killer Whale show in the Shamu theater - it was awesome.

Day two took us to the Magic Kingdom where we went straight to Splash Mountain. The park had been open for 2 hours prior and oddly enough the ride was not yet open. It opened just as we walked up and we were able to get right on. The best part is that upon exiting we were "winners" of Dream Fastpasses for the day. We were able to Fastpass 10 rides, many of them were the most popular rides, so this made for a great day for us. I feel kind of like a slug passing people who are standing in line for hours, but this really helped us fit this park into a half day trip. We were then able to go to Epcot for the rest of the early evening. Lines at Epcot were horribly long and we only rode Test Track and then wandered around the World Showcase. The kids loved Japan the most and we spent most of our time there.

Day three took us to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. This was a very cold day, which made it hard to really enjoy Islands - they have a lot of water rides and at 40 degrees there was no way we were doing it. There were plenty of crazy people willing to get drenched, and we laughed and pointed! We really wanted to ride the Hulk coaster, it has always been our favorite, but HUNK was afraid that we would end up with SNOTCICLES it was so cold. We ended up skipping it. In fact, we did not really do much at all by the time we got to Islands, it was really cold and we were all just pooped.

We tried to cram too much into a short time, and while we thought the kids were big enough to handle the all day time frame we were wrong. They just couldn't take the 14 hour days were were pushing. We will do it differently next time, but we did have fun.

We came home and had a great holiday with family - some came into town and some we took a road trip to visit. The kids had a fun, but small Christmas morning (the trip was THE GIFT). And now we look forward.

Monday morning my youngest will have surgery, yet AGAIN. A proceedure we had done in May of this year just isn't cutting it, so we are trying something new. While I hated to use her school break for surgery, this recovery is two weeks, so this way she will only truly miss one week of school......but it sucks for her. Luckily (I think) we are pet sitting for our friend's hamsters and guinea pig. This should keep her occupied once she gets home, something new and she can hold them and they will run around on her!

Think of us on Monday and send some good vibes. She is excited to go back because Children's Healthcare of Atlanta makes her feel like a rockstar. She doesn't even remember the pain, just the awesome staff and all the fun distractions that are there. I, however, will be on the verge of mental breakdown. It's difficult - to watch your child's body go limp as they put her to sleep. To know that her little body needs help and that you have no control over any of it. But I do realize that we are lucky, that this is our only problem, that there are so many kids that have so many more difficulties. And we are blessed with near perfect bodies and so many opportunities....it is still difficult.

Not out of the woods....

Just when I thought we were on the mend, we woke up with another sick kid today. The madness continues!!


But I'm fine, so I have no excuse not to blog. The latest news around here is CHRISTMAS! We are realizing that we have virtually no time left to finish our shopping. We have committments (aka..jobs!) and then we leave for Orlando on Friday. We won't return until Dec. 23rd, late. WOW, I'm actually going to be one of those insane parents scrambling around on Christmas Eve in search of something better than incense sticks to give my kids. I did get a number of things on Black Friday, so all is not lost, but this is the first time I've been this far behind. It has really snuck up on me.


I am excited that this year the Hunk and myself decided to finally not give each other gifts, and no cheating allowed. We always say it, and it never works, someone always gives in and buys stuff - usually both of us cheat. But this year, first of all we are both out of time and we know it, secondly we are very blessed and we just don't need to buy each other more stuff. Besides, the only thing that I really want is a BIG ASS chaise lounge which is a) not cheap, b) BIG ASS, c) WAY too hip for our house and d) did I mention HUGE and EXPENSIVE?? It is a furniture piece that I will have to only dream about. At least until we can get these kids out of this house, and the cats....Kids and cats = ruined furniture. My house is not exactly a decorators paradise, it is clear that children and animals reside here and so really, a high end chaise lounge would be sooooo out of place. I'm living someone else's life in my head. We gave a nice chunk of change to a charity and so I'm hoping that since I made Hunk write the check, he will realize that we donated the money we would normally spend on one another. He's a tight wad, so I think it will work.


We are leaving for Orlando on Friday. I'm so excited I can't stand it. The kids have no clue that we are going anywhere. We are going to pick them up from school on Friday with the car packed up and just leave. They are going to flip out. Better still, we are meeting up with Hunk's brother and their 6 month old who are also going to be at Disney. My kids go ape for babies, so this will be babies + Mickey Mouse which should cause my children to puddle into a grape kool-aid mess. We are only doing Disney for one day and then we will go to Universal for one day and then we will have one day left to decide what we want to do. I think I'm going to take my kids over to Adam's house for a swim, especially knowing that hates kids......oh, and he swims naked. Who needs to buy a calendar when you can get the whole enchilada in person!


Did I mention that we have a family elf? His name is Bobby and he lives at our house from Dec. 1 until the 24th. He watches to see if we are behaving ourselves and reports to Santa each night. He also likes to make a mess while we sleep. He makes coke can pyramids in the living room, he hides all the stockings and he dresses up the cat. He has also been known to dump out an entire bag of powdered sugar all over the kitchen floor. Can I tell you how much I love our elf? And his ideas for messes.....some of which a MOTHER could NEVER come up with. Seriously, our elf thinks like a MAN, and MAN who DOES NOT CLEAN. Are you getting my drift? I'll be happy on Friday when we take our elf to the hotel with us and there is a MAID!! I believe the best gift I could possibly have is to spend the 5 days leading up to Christmas in a place where I do not have to COOK or CLEAN! It's a wonderful life!

PS...still no word on the kitten situation.

Sick

We have a stomach bug in our house.....can someone come kill it, and then put me out of my misery???

Blah

Hermit

So......does a feed reader drop you if you fail to post, for like, a month! I can't believe it! Time is just flying by and I wonder if I will end up in anyone's feed after such an absence. Hey, anyone, can I get a shout out?

We just arrived home from the beach for our Thanksgiving holiday. It was great, low 70 temperatures and sunny all but one day. The kids even got in the ocean, but I'll admit that the water was freezing. They didn't seem to care.

We built a sand snowman - which is a lot harder than one might think. I don't know what else I could do, but he turned out to look like total crap. Kind of a sad, melting sand snowman.....a bit freaky, too. I had a snowman kit and the eyes are so big, kind of possessed looking.

We came home and decorated the house and are now ready for Christmas. We even have a mischeivous elf visiting our home this month. He tends to go nuts at night a make messes - what fun. I wonder what genius came up with this idea.

We also came home with two hermit crabs. Yipee, they do absolutely nothing and the whole set up cost $25. They stay in their shell unless it is the middle of the night. The only way I know that they are not dead is because I poke the little prick and he reaches out and pinches the crap out of my finger.

That's the latest from this hood......and we are trying to decide whether or not to get the kids a kitten for Christmas. Anyone want to weigh in on it? We've got two really old ass cats, I think a kitten would totally rock the house, and would really piss off los gatos en la casa.......might be kind of fun. Hunk thinks we should wait until one of the others dies - you know, nothing like planning someone's death. Harsh!