Adventures in Big Family Vacation Planning (part 9)

So, we traveled to Walt Disney World with 23 people over 10 days. And survived! Lots of planning went into this trip and we had an amazing time.

What did we end up doing? Well, it was a lot and we never got bored! Here is a brief overview (more for me than anyone else) walking through the trip, day by day.

 

We are here! Gotta take a picture at our resort, this time is All Star Sports.

 A bit cold and rainy this time around, but still really fun. We watched the Fantasy in the Sky fireworks show on the 30th from Tomorrowland, which is our traditional spot. Ponchos came out that night but that's ok! 

 This was the night that we got stuck on Pirates of the Caribbean ride with all 18 of Husband's family -all in our own boat! Something was definitely wrong with the ride, because we got stuck multiple times. Then, they had to evacuate us from the ride RIGHT before the drop. Who knew those ropes on the other side of the boat from this guy were practical? They had to tie our boat down and then help us out, one by one. We got a great shot of this guy from our boat while stuck, so that's a positive!

Late that night, on the 30th, during Extra Magic Hours, the line for Anna and Elsa were crazy short. So I convinced Husband to hop in line and wait for this awesome meet and greet! 

 The next day was Epcot, and we managed to get a big family picture with the Big Cheese.

 Aww, c'mon! Nephew giving Mickey a kiss just stole the show.

 It was the nuttiest time at Epcot I have ever seen.

 We were told later that it was an estimated 92,000 people in the park that day.

 So we went to get pizza in Italy.

The four cheese pizza is "forget your husband's name" good. Oh my.

 We were there when Italy celebrated the New Year in the old country, so there was a huge celebration at the restaurant, with singing and ringing of bells. So much fun!

 Test Track from back stage.

 We ended up taking a bypass out of the park once the 6 pm fireworks went off, because there were just too many people to have any fun. Especially when walking around with 18 people. We decided to head for the resort.

 Nephew enjoyed the hat and the noisemaker first, though!

Happy 2015, everyone!

Adventures in an Unplugged Vacation?

I love the time of year when I'm planning a Disney trip plus getting ready to visit friends on a totally different vacation. DH and I truly enjoy spending money on experiences and trips are one of our love languages. I love traveling!

I also love sharing my travels on social media. I totally believe the studies that show a dopamine spike when you get a "like" or a comment on Facebook from a photo you just posted. I love the comments I get here when I post trip reviews. I love Twitter and Instagram for the same reasons. Being connected to people through my phone is my favorite reason for having one.

But I'm wondering if it's gone too far. I truly love my friends in person and I'm wondering if spending too much time in my phone is hurting those relationships. My husband would say it is.

We're getting ready to visit friends in Seattle this weekend and I was preparing my packing list. I put in my iPhone, our two DSLRs (his and hers) and the point and shoot, plus my Macbook (in case I have to work) and my iPad and my nook for the flight. Oh yeah, and my Fitbit. That is a ton of electronics to take for a five day trip with friends.

I was wondering how I can decrease the technology for this trip. I can put a book on my iPad and leave the nook at home. And I can make a concerted effort not to "live blog" our trip.

I mean, I'll take pictures with both the iPhone and the DSLR and maybe even the point and shoot camera. But maybe this is a trip to enjoy being with friends and not worrying about updating my Facebook by "checking in" at every different spot along the trip. Or maybe holding off on posting every sweet treat that we get in Seattle.

You know why I think that it's a good time to try an unplugged vacation? Because even writing the paragraph above makes me nervous. Not checking in? How will I know where we were each day? Not adding a photo of a funny sign? How will I get someone else's approval on that particular funny joke? I think it might time to try enjoying the trip as I take it, remembering the good parts and have fun with friends. Then when I get home, I'll update those pictures and tell the story here of our trip.

But I think this might be for the best this time around....

Have you ever had an "unplugged" vacation?

Adventures in Big Family Vacation Planning (part 2)

So we're going to Disney. And we know when.

Now, we had to decide who was coming.

This trip was going to turn into something big, I had a feeling. Some of my husband's cousins haven't been on a big vacation in a while, and we all love Disney, so I thought this might have a bunch of people add on.

I told my MIL that I was going to take care of the planning for this one, since she's worked on so many in the past. And while it's fun to plan, it's also stressful. I thought I'd take the stress for this particular trip which means corralling all the family and making sure everyone has everything they need. Given that I'm an event planner, I didn't think it would be too hard, but would require patience and organization. I'm only a few weeks into it, so we'll see how it goes!

So for this trip, we have upwards of 19 people joining us over the 11 nights. They include my MIL and FIL; my husband's brother and his girlfriend and their two year old nephew; a cousin and his wife and daughter who live in the Orlando area (they're staying at the hotel with all of us); another cousin and her brother and two daughters who live in George; another cousin with his wife and two sons who live in southern Missouri; and finally, a cousin who goes to school near us in St. Louis and will join us for the last part of the trip. There are 10 of us who will be there the entire time and the rest of the family comes and goes as their vacation schedule allows.

Planning for this big group of people won't be easy! But that's who is coming with us on this crazy adventure.

Adventures in Big Family Vacation Planning (part 1)

And here we are again. It's time to plan another Disney trip!

We are planning a very long trip to Walt Disney World in Florida to celebrate the New Year with a big old family trip this year. Our last Disney trip was in December 2013 with just me and my husband, to celebrate the craziness of law school and him passing the bar in 2013 and starting his new big job after graduating law school.

This upcoming trip would make my 11th to the World - I've had to start a spreadsheet with a list of the times that we have gone to keep track! It goes back to my first trip in (about) 1993 with my family. I really started to fall in love with the Mouse when I went with my husband's family in 2007 for New Year's. My mother-in-law and father-in-law went for their honeymoon in the early 1980s and have been every year since. The boys have grown up at Walt Disney World and they have so many memories from all the parks and resorts. A few years ago, they purchased a piece of the magic and now we can stay at the Disney Vacation Club when we go. It's becoming a bigger and bigger piece of our lives!

After seeing Sonya's planning of her Disney trip, I thought I'd start a not-so-regular blog series of our planning of our big trip coming up in December.

So first thing up, when to go?

When you're planning any kind of vacation, whether you have a location in mind or not, the first step is to determine WHEN to go. Do you brave the crowds on the busiest weekend of the year or do you save some money by going on an off-week?

We are the crazy people who throw in our lot with the unwashed masses for New Year's Eve. Out of all the 365 days on the calendar, this one would rank the top in their crowd calendars. Imagine the most packed outdoor festival you have ever been to, and add 10% and you're getting close to what it seems like. I mean, even the bathroom gets a half hour wait on this night. Everything is busy. Everyone is hot. EVERYWHERE you go there is a line.

But that's half the fun! Seeing all those people in one spot getting to experience a shared moment during the fireworks is pretty amazing. There are always tears in my eye when I ring in the new year at the parks. We love it and that makes it worth all the stress.

So, we knew New Year's was going to be the one for us this year - the in-laws went in March without us and we've been planning since our December trip for a big one with the whole family. Husband and I wanted to the day before New Year's, December 30. Disney has two nights of New Year's fireworks (as they do for the Fourth of July). If we saw these fireworks on the 30th, that allows us the 31st to spend in Epcot. This park isn't as family friendly but they celebrate the new year with the different countries around World Showcase Lagoon. You get to see one of the evening spectaculars in the early part of the evening and then another huge fireworks show at midnight. We haven't ever experienced that, so going down a day early allows us to accommodate both shows. It's a win-win, even though we do have an extra night in the hotel at the most expensive rate.

We had our arrival date - Tuesday, December 30. Now, how long to stay?

Traditionally, we stay in the World for one week. That would be checking out on Tuesday, January 6. When we started talking as a family, my husband and I floated the idea that we would stay an extra night, to leave on the 7th. When my MIL heard that, she thought they could do that as well. So now we're leaving on the 7th.

When we looked at the calendar, we realized that it was two days before my MIL's birthday. We've never celebrated her birthday in the World before and she thought it would be fun to do so this year. So since we couldn't leave ON her birthday (where's the fun in that?), that meant our check out date would be January 10th. Yikes, 11 nights?!

With lots of activities coming in the next year or so with jobs and other vacations, there may not be another time for a good long trip so we are going to seize the opportunity and make this happen! 11 nights in Walt Disney World, here we come!

Adventures in Colorado

In May, Mom and I traveled to Colorado for a few celebrations with my cousin's family. We had such a good time seeing family members and hanging out for a birthday and then a First Communion.

Since we didn't let the family know that we were staying through Monday for some strange reason, we were left with a Monday without family and without plans (since they had to work).

So Mom and I decided to take a trip up into the mountains and see some fun tourist-y stuff. Without a lot of time and since both of us wanted to see the scenery, we bought a package tour on Grey Line for the morning. It worked out great!

 

The first stop on the tour was up in the mountains, to Red Rocks. This is an amphitheater from the 1930s that has hosted concerts and other presentations since then. In the mornings, lots of locals come to work on the rows and rows that have been built into the side of the mountain.

It was such a beautiful morning to be outside, I can totally understand why these locals wanted to work out in the sunshine!

 

After we spent a bit of time enjoying Red Rocks, it was time to set off for the next stop.

This is postcard point, or something like that. All the postcards in the Denver area that have the mountain range on them were supposedly taken from this overpass on the way out of town. Not sure how true that is but my goodness, it is pretty!

The next stop on the trip was Buffalo's Bill grave.

Buffalo Bill had a simply amazing life story. He had such grand adventures! There's a museum at this site that documents everything he had accomplished and then some. His grave is on Lookout Mountain along with his wife, in Golden, CO. It's a gorgeous view.

It's awesome to note that there is also a fake buffalo on the grounds, but like the signs says, we couldn't get on it. :(

You can see all of Denver and the suburbs from up there.

That was the last of the big stops on the Grey Line tour, so they took us back to the mall where we had started. Since Mom and I had a few more hours to kill before our flight left Denver, we did some quick googling of other fun things to do in the area.

We found out that Hammonds Candy Factory gives free tours frequently! Done and done.

 This is a family-owned candy company (until very recently) that's been making candy canes and other yummy things since the early 1920s.

They make everything by hand in this factory and it shows. They give samples at the end of the tour and it is quite good!

Of course, you finish the tour by entering a gift shop. There were so many sweets to try it was almost impossible to choose! We ended up with some truffles for the flight home, and of course some of their famous candy canes for the family we were going home to.

I love trying out little local gems when we travel. Going around Denver with my mom for the day was so much fun - I hope I can vacation with her again sometime soon!

A Crazy Fortnight

Today begins a bit of a crazy fortnight.

Tomorrow is the internment of Husband's grandpa and grandma who passed 7 years ago and 3 years ago respectively. They were cremated and never interned. My MIL secured a site for them at Jefferson Barracks in South County, as Peepaw served in the military for many years. The Husband's cousins are coming in for Thanksgiving and it was a good time to have the ceremony when most everyone is here.

We have a luncheon scheduled afterwards so we can spend some time with his extended family since we won't be here for the holiday.

Because after the luncheon, we head to the airport for a flight to DFW! I am so excited to see my family for Thanksgiving even if we may end up eating out instead of cooking a big fancy dinner. I still want to stuff my face with desserts when I get the opportunity.

Not sure about the Black Friday shopping - lounging on the couch in my PJs with a hot cider and shopping via my iPad sounds like it might be more my speed this year for some reason. {Side note: who AM I that I'm not psyched for shopping?! I am getting old.}

We come back home on Sunday evening and spend three days doing laundry, cleaning my house, setting up Christmas decorations (I hope) and then head to Walt Disney World on Thursday morning!

Yup, it's another trip to the House of the Mouse with only me and Husband. We're staying in one of our favorite resorts, Port Orleans French Quarter and have tickets for the Christmas party and the Candlelight Processional, neither of which we've done before. It's five days and four nights of a vacation that we've been looking forward to since April - he passed the bar and we decided this would be our celebration.

So for those keeping score, that's December 10 when we are finally back in town and ready for Christmas. We are hosting our first holiday in the house - with my mom and brother and his family - and there's some major decorating, tree buying and setting up, plus menu planning and executing to do.

How's your next fortnight shaping up?

Adventure to the Emerald City

In the spirit of awesome ideas, right in the middle of buying a house, Husband and I decided to go on vacation.

Well, we had been planning this vacation since February. And I say "planning" with many air quotes. Because other than picking the time and booking the flights, he and I did nothing but get on the plane to go visit our friends in Seattle.

M and D moved to Seattle in February after D got his dream job. D is Husband's college roommate and best friend, and M is a good friend of mine. They bought a house in South County and we spent many a night of law school, and then the boys' MBA school, over there. We grilled, we watched silly television (see: the Asylum movies [http://www.theasylum.cc/] and FAIL videos), we watched the boys build things. You know, the usual.

So when D got the awesome job that was perfect for him, we were so disappointed they were moving away. Who would we spend our Sunday nights with? Who would build random things with Husband? How could we get along without them?

We are getting along, spending time on our new house of course, but we knew when they moved we would want to go visit them in Seattle. Neither of us had been out there and it seemed like a perfect way to celebrate Husband's 29th birthday in July. We had no idea that it was going to be such a crazy month in our life.

Four days, and we accomplished a ton! M did an amazing job planning out our trip... we didn't lack for any activities! We even did things that other friends who used to live in Seattle said they had never done. This was so much of a success, we are already planning on next trip. There will be whale-watching on the next go-around!

But seriously, this is all we did in four days, with some pictures thrown in for good measure!

-Seattle Underground Tour

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-Theo’s Chocolate Factory Tour

 

-Visit to the Fremont Troll

-Tour of D’s office

-Dinner at Din Tai Fung (dumplings house) to celebrate Husband’s birthday

-Top Pot Doughnuts

-Boeing Tour

-Visit to the Flagship REI store

-Shopping in Bellevue

-Sunset on Alki Beach and view of Seattle skyline at night

 

-Space Needle

 

-Pike’s Market (Flying fish, first Starbuck’s, gum wall, etc.)

-Dinner with family friends

-Cascade Pass day hike (7 mile round trip, 1800 ft elevation gain)

Before…

During…

At the top…

 

 

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Insanity. But so, so, so much fun. :) We already miss M and D... when can we get that next trip planned?!