The One Where We Compromise - August 2013 Pre-Trippy

[Guest]

The One Where We Compromise!
August 2013 Pre-Trip Report
Part 1 – Introductions and a close shave with a Winnebago!
40 days!

FULL INDEX FOUND HERE

Before I start, for anyone who wants to cut out on all the ‘chat’ (she says hopefully!) in between my posts, as with my last PTR, I will be starting a pre-trippy index over in the Index section, where you’ll be able to find all of my future posts and updates. This should hopefully make it easier for you all to follow along!

So, talk about cutting it fine! Here I am starting another pre-trippy, yet we leave in a mere 40 days! Panic stations!

Anyone who knows me on the Dibb, will appreciate that I love nothing more than the luxury of time to meticulously plan every last detail of our trips to Florida and then share them with you in a nice little, organised pre-trippy! Something along the lines of ‘This is what I’ve bought for the girls to wear to Animal Kingdom’ or ‘Here are the three hundred Mickey Heads that I’ve just printed out and cut round to decorate the house with as a surprise countdown!’

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m by no means complaining that we are off to WDW again so soon (quite the opposite!), it’s just with my October 2012 trip report finished only days ago, I don’t seem to have left myself a great deal of time to share any of our plans with you! I will, however, do my best.

This is my own entire fault, of course. I would have loved to have started this pre-trippy back in March when we booked, but I knew I couldn’t devote the time to finishing my TR as well as keeping a PTR up-to-date, and so this pre-trippy has had to remain on the back-burner for some time until I eventually typed up the final paragraphs in my somewhat-biblical-in-length trip report, which I must admit, I am quite proud to say I have finally completed – hurrah!

Speaking of which, if you haven’t done so already and fancy catching up on our previous escapades across Disney, here are the links to my last PTR and TR from our October 2012 trip – they’ll keep you going for some time!

If You Can Dream It, You Can Do It – The Pre-Trip Report

If You Can Dream It, You Can Do It – The Trip Report

I must just say that I’m not sure whether I have it in me to write another trip report for this holiday, quite like I did the last. I’m honestly not saying this to invite you all to post comments along the lines of “Oh please do”, although some replies, of course, could read “Phew! We were hoping you’d say that”! This isn’t just because it was so incredibly time-consuming, but I feel as though I’m turning into the type of dibber who only posts on my own threads these days! There are so many wonderful PTRs/TRs that I’m wanting to read/catch up on and I just don’t seem to have the hours in the day to get round to doing so.

That’s not to say that I won’t be doing anything at all, but I just didn’t want to make any promises of another War and Peace style sequel to the trippy that I’ve just completed. I do hope you all understand. I just feel so bad that I’ve received so many wonderful and generous comments on my trip report from people who have written their own TRs, but I haven’t, as yet, had the chance to read an awful lot of theirs!

Anyway, I digress...

So, who are we?

Well, I’m Kate, despite what my Dibb username implies! That’s a very long and boring story (which I won’t bore you with now, there’re only 40 days to go you know!), except I know it confuses some people, as Isabel is also my eldest daughter and so I think some Dibbers often think that when I talk about Isabel I’m speaking about myself in the third person! I’m not, it’ll only ever be me writing this trippy, trust me, my family have never read a word of my reports, so they’re highly unlikely to start contributing in any literary sense!

I’m 35 and have a Mary Poppins-style cheery disposition (hehe!), although I’m also one of life’s worriers. I try to compensate for constantly fretting about things by planning for any eventuality that may come my way (ridiculous, I know!). However the fact that I also love to plan, means that a Florida holiday is perfect for me, as there is just sooooo much to arrange and organise and I get to do all of it!

I got to enjoy many WDW holidays (and one DLC trip) as a teenager/young adult with my sister and parents back in the 90s, but it was actually discovering the Dibb in January 2011 (when my Dad, who knew that I loved to be put in charge of the planning, asked if I could look into arranging some plans for our May 2011 family holiday to WDW that he was taking all of our family on as a treat for his 60th birthday) when I truly started a real love affair with Disney. Returning that May as a parent with our two girls, I saw Disney in a whole new perspective and, since then, it’s been pretty much all I can think about.

We’ve always enjoyed our family holidays and the time that we get to re-connect and spend time away from the usual binds of school and work, but there is a certain something about Disney that keeps pulling me back and, certainly for the time being, I just can’t get it out of my system!

Cliff is my other half of 17 years (I told another dibber recently it was 18 years, but I’ve just realised that in fact ages me by another year, so I’m correcting myself quickly!). Neither of us will be going to heaven as we have been living in sin all those years, which is kind of a good thing, as I’ve always preferred a hotter climate anyway! Getting married has just never been something that either of us fancied doing, so we didn’t. We’ve always preferred to spend money on holidays instead! Maybe one day, we’ll surprise everyone and elope? But for now, we’re quite happy just the way we are, or at least that’s what I tell him anyway!

Cliff is 41 this July and, bless him, after a lifetime of working on building sites, he has that outside, weathered ‘rugged’ look shall we say? For about 23 years he worked for the family business (his, not mine!), then, a couple of years ago, we decided to go it alone and start up our own Building company. After an apprehensive, stressful first year, things honestly couldn’t be going better (touch wood, touch wood, touch wood!) and *cue cheesy moment* I honestly couldn’t be prouder of him! He works every hour under the sun at the moment and it seems we hardly ever get to see him, which is another reason why this holiday can’t come soon enough!

Like me, Cliff enjoyed a few WDW holidays as a teenager, although they were slightly swankier and involved Club Level at the Grand Floridian and The Contemporary! He’s one of four brothers and tells me that he remembers the four of them spending all of their holiday money hiring the different small boats and jet skis around the Seven Seas Lagoon!

Cliff is generally the antithesis to me – laid back, not fazed by much and just goes with the flow. However, running a business for the last year or two has meant that I’ve seen a slightly more stressed side of him on occasion. Our two girls and I normally have Cliff (shamelessly!) wrapped around our little fingers and we all know that just jutting our bottom lip out will usually mean Cliff will give in to most things, mostly for a quiet life. Our past two Disney holidays Cliff was happy for me to arrange everything and plan it just the way I wanted. He hates to organise, so was more than happy to leave all of that up to me. This year, however, as you’ll soon see, things were going to be a bit different!

Neither Cliff nor I are exactly oil paintings, nor do we photograph particularly well (another good reason why we’ve never thought getting married would be a particularly good idea!), so I’ll just pop in a couple of photos of us here, one from our 2011 trip and one from last October.





Isabel is our eldest daughter and just coming up to 11 ½, although now matching me in height, I’m sure she could often pass for a 15 year-old! Each time Cliff and I see that Walt Disney World advertisement on television (you know, the recent one with the young teenage daughter and her Dad?), I realise quite how clever Disney’s marketing team are! Despite the fact that Isabel doesn’t yet ‘live on her phone’ and couldn’t be less interested in boys (or so I’m led to believe!), the advertisement could still be written for Isabel and, I’m sure so many thousands of other pre-teen/teenage girls!

She’s a typical teenager
Lives on her phone
Likes boys
And is growing up fast

But given the right location
She’s still happy to be seen with her parents

Make family memories that will last a lifetime

Disney certainly know how to lure us back, don’t they?

I’ve been looking back at some of our photos from 2011 and it’s astonishing how much Isabel changed in the 17 months from May 2011 to October 2012, and also how much she has changed since! I don’t know where my baby’s gone?!

2011







Just look at the height of Isabel here.



Now compare it to how tall she was next to me 17 months later when we went last October!



One of my favourites from last year, ‘coz she still looks like a baby to me!



She’s a real daydreamer is Isabel!



Isabel is just like her father – laid-back, goes with the flow and lets life wash over her (a lovely way to be really!). She has a lovely, kind soul and the patience of a saint (probably has to, being the older sister!). Having said that, she is very occasionally prone to the odd pre-teen sulk and on our last holiday didn’t want her photo taken at times. These occasions are incredibly rare however and I count my blessings that life with Isabel is generally good fun and easy-going. I’m well-aware that the teenage years are just around the corner, so I’m making the most of having a daughter who still wants to be seen with me while I can!

Isabel loves Florida and Disney almost as much as I do and cannot wait to return. There is no ride that she won’t try, the bigger the better in her opinion, and she certainly gets value for money from the park tickets!

As I type, Isabel is under three weeks away from completing Primary School and has spent this whole school year working so hard towards her SATs exams (not because we’ve been pushing her, quite the opposite, but because the school the girls attend are striving for Outstanding in their next OFSTED report and so each week since September has been non-stop SATs papers!). She went away for the week on her Year 6 Residential at the beginning of June and had the best time ever, coming back saying that she wished that it had been for two weeks! I’m feeling quite emotional at the moment, with her Primary years coming to an end and, attending the Parent’s Evening at her Secondary School last week (the same one that I went to actually, which was strange in itself!), made everything seem very real. Whereas before, I’d been eagerly counting down the weeks until the summer holidays and the time when we’d get to go away, now I’d be quite happy to hit pause and keep her at Primary School for a little longer.

Anyway, enough blubbing, on to the youngest member of our family.

Amelia is 9 (she’ll be 9 ½ when we go away) and is a real character, as anyone who read my last trippy will probably remember! To most people that know Amelia, she is a shy, quiet little girl who wouldn’t say boo to a goose (unless you’re smoking of course – see last trippy! ). All of her school reports have always expressed what exceptional behaviour she displays in school, but how she should try and come out of herself a little more. Those of us that know Amelia best, know she has a wicked sense of humour, with sarcasm well beyond her years and a mischievous glint in her eye. She honestly comes out with the funniest things, some of them unintentional, but a lot of them pre-planned and delivered with deadpan humour that has us all in stitches.

She’s currently going through a growth-spurt, but only upwards, so is skinny as a rake and, despite the fact that she never stops eating, she presently looks as though she could snap in half! She’s always on the go and never sits still; she watches television on her back whilst throwing her legs over her neck in some awful contortionist-like position. She’s one funny kid, I tell you. Saying that, she is the most lovable and affectionate little girl you could ever meet, especially because Isabel is growing up so quickly at the moment and spends an ever-increasing amount of time FaceTiming friends in her bedroom, Cliff and I are probably a little guilty of babying Amelia and making the most of having a little girl who still wants to jump up in a monkey hug (Isabel would probably kill me if she did that!).

Amelia is just as excited about returning to Disney as her sister and equally as impressive when it comes to the big rides as Isabel. Last year she was thrilled to discover that she was finally tall enough to ride the ‘biggies’ at Universal and IOA – so it was Hollywood Rip Ride Rock-It all the way and The Hulk three times in a row (front seats no less!).

Here are a few photos of Amelia from our last two trips to show you how much she’s changed.

2011.





One of my favourites of the two of them!



Continued below... (please don't post yet!)

[Guest]

... Continued



And some 2012 ones!





Without wanting to make you throw up into a bucket, both the girls make me tremendously proud of them every single day! They are such kind, lovely people to be around and, as a family we have such good fun together. The two of them get along really well, so we’ve never had to endure much sibling bickering or fighting, although I think this is mainly thanks to Isabel’s laid-back approach to life and, had we had two girls with Amelia’s personalities, life could have been somewhat different!

Neither of the girls have ever been your typical ‘princess’ type girly-girls! They love adventure and most of the time can be found either up a tree, dangling from some high-rope or playing cricket with their (boy) cousins. Their hair is endlessly knotty and their nails constantly have dirt up them! But life is for living right? Not for looking pretty in taffeta dresses, and a bit of dirt never hurt anyone!

This is how the girls are usually found!




About 2 seconds after I took this photo, Amelia went face-down in the dirt! She’d been playing ‘It’ with Cliff and purposely walking in front of him to annoy him, so he stuck his foot out and it accidently tripped her up – she went down so fast she didn’t have time to put her hands out and I was sure it was a broken nose at the very least! Honestly, those two will be the death of me! Just look at the glint in her eye!

So anyway, hopefully I’ve wittered on for long enough now that you all feel like you know us a little! I could probably have just said “See previous pre-trippy for info on us all” but where would be the fun in that eh?!

You’re probably wanting to know some actual holiday details and how this August trip actually came about. Well, for that I need to take you back to last year, when we’d just returned from our October 2012 holiday...

So, picture the scene if you will. It was October half term and we’d been back from Florida only a matter of days. Cliff hadn’t long been in from work and we’d all just finished dinner round the table together. It was already pitch black outside and we could hear the rain lashing down outside and the wind howling round the house. The perfect weather that we’d left behind in Florida just a couple of days before, now seemed like an eternity ago and, with the winter stretched before us like a threatening, mocking perpetuity (although, at that time, we didn’t realise that winter was set to last for a miserable seven months!), we all agreed that we needed to book our next holiday as soon as possible to give us something to look forward to.

Cliff brought an iPad to the table and I thought to myself “Oh my goodness, we’re really going to start looking at flights for Florida for next year?! ” I couldn’t believe my luck!

No, this was not to be. Apparently Cliff had other plans and none of them involved Florida or Disney!



He explained that, whilst he’d had the most incredible time on our last two holidays to Florida, he really wanted to travel somewhere different and didn’t just want a repeat of our last holiday. My face must have fallen and I told him that a bit of my heart had just broken (lol not that I’m dramatic or anything!). The girls, who were still on just as much of a Disney high as I was, also said that the only place they wanted to go back to was Florida, but Cliff was adamant, we were going to try somewhere else for our next holiday!

He started by saying that we could visit the West Coast of America and threw in Disneyland to try and get our attention. Both Cliff and I visited San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Hawaii many years ago (well before the girls arrived on the scene!) and, with the exception of LA, we’ve both chatted about how we’re keen to go back and explore this part of America in the future (although I didn’t know he was thinking so soon!). He then said how did we all fancy white water rafting through the Grand Canyon and showed us photos like these!





This did actually get the girls attention for a moment as they thought this looked reasonably dangerous to warrant it being awesome enough! I said it looked absolutely terrifying and couldn’t we get a similar thrill on Kali River Rapids or Team Boat Springs? Apparently Not. Cliff said that this time, he wanted to experience some proper thrills on real rivers, not ‘pretend ride rivers’.

He carried on searching and then his face lit up like a child’s on Christmas morning and he turned the iPad round to face us all. “How about we hire one of these for a couple of weeks and travel across America?” he asked excitedly.



“Ohh yeaahh” Came the response from the girls. “That looks well cool!”

Cliff looked over at me.

“Do you even know me at all?” I replied.

“But look at some of these beasts” Cliff continued. And he spent the next few minutes trying to lure me into the idea that a flat screen television and a leatherette Lazyboy would convince me that two weeks driving around in a motor home, where we would be cooking, sleeping and eating in close quarters together, was actually something that I would enjoy! I think my face probably said it all.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not adverse to the idea of adventure and Cliff and I have always talked about, one day, driving Route 66. But my idea of doing this would be to stop off in luxury hotels along the way, not bedding down in the same vehicle that we’ve been driving in each and every day! Let’s be honest, the four of us can’t even share a hotel room together and get a good night’s sleep, so I can’t see the Winnebago idea working.

So, despite Cliff and the girls thinking this was a fabulous idea, I did kind of veto it straight off. Cliff does still daydream about hiring an RV though and this ideal wasn’t quashed when we sat down to watch one of our favourite shows, Modern Family, last Friday to see Phil Dunphy take his family out on a road trip in one! Don’t tell Cliff, but even I had to admit, it did look pretty cool!





With the Winnebago idea vetoed, Cliff was still going on about the West Coast. He was particularly keen to re-visit Las Vegas and San Francisco and kept trying to keep us happy by saying that we could visit Disneyland California while we were there. Realising that he was obviously quite serious about wanting a year off Florida, I reluctantly tried to get on board and tried to push thoughts of WDW out of my head.

We started looking at what sort of holiday we could plan and soon realised that two weeks in LV and SFO was going to be too much. With children (who are obviously too young to appreciate any of the legal aspects of Vegas’ offerings!), we thought that three nights and four days would be enough in Las Vegas. Cliff wanted to definitely include a Grand Canyon Helicopter Tour and White Water Rafting, but we thought three nights would probably be enough there.

We then looked at flying internally to SFO and spending a further 5 nights there. Personally, I adore this city and would move there tomorrow, but we thought on a first visit with children a 5 night stay might be more than adequate. It was then that Cliff said “Well, how about we compromise? We could do the first part of the holiday on the West Coast and then fly back for a week in Orlando?”

Now you’re talking!



With the promise of WDW at the end of a holiday, I didn’t mind where we went first! Cliff even said that we could go for a bit longer than two weeks to make up for all the travelling that we’d be doing, this was looking better by the day!

So, I started looking at multi-city flights first from London to Vegas and then Orlando to London. I figured I’d sort out the transatlantic flights first and arrange the internal flights at a later date. I started with Virgin, as we’ve always been happy with them in the past. I knew that the prices were going to be high as, having just used the girls’ authorised absence for the school year for our October holiday and not wanting to go with the crowds at Easter, we were now left with the summer holidays or nothing. I knew that the end of August was always far quieter in Disney World, due to the American children returning to school mid-August, so thought that this would be a good time to consider.

With flights looking doable, albeit expensive, I then started looking into accommodation. Now, we’ve always been villa people, we love the space, we love having our own pool, but clearly, staying in Vegas is all about being on The Strip and staying in one of the fab hotels! Similarly, SFO is more of a hotel city break type of holiday, so we’d be saving our villa search for Orlando. However, we would have to book two hotel rooms because there was NO WAY that the four of us were going to ever consider sharing a hotel room again (see previous trippy for details!), so this could possibly prove to be somewhat pricey!

Surprisingly, the hotel rooms in Vegas are incredibly reasonable! I guess this is because they want to fleece you of all your money downstairs on the roulette tables? Many years ago I’d had a fabulous stay at the (then) recently opened MGM Grand and, with a little research, saw that the hotel now has the MGM Signature which looked to be quite promising?



What was more promising was the price though – we could definitely afford to have two rooms for a few nights. Even looking at the rates for places like The Venetian and The Bellagio I was surprised at how affordable they were.

It all went a bit pear-shaped when we started looking at accommodation for SFO. It’s our (read: my!) own fault really; we’ve been spoilt with previous holidays and really do like home from home comfort. Yet, with Frisco, it’s all about the location and, as we all know, with location comes price, a high price in this instance. I was desperate to stay where I’d stayed in the past, on Fisherman’s Wharf and found the most perfect, beautiful little boutique hotel, The Argonaut. Except one room at The Argonaut for our five night stay kind of exceeded our budget, never mind two rooms, so that was out of the question. If you fancy splashing the cash though, check out their website, it’s beautiful, and so perfectly located!



We searched and searched and searched and, whilst we did find slightly more affordable accommodation, it was still fairly hefty. Also, I discovered that SFO appears to charge huge sums to park in their hotels overnight and, being a family that likes to drive, this was certainly a cost to bear in mind.

So far, this holiday was adding up to an awful lot of money, we hadn’t even reached Orlando yet or added on the internal flights. Plus, my heart just wasn’t in it. All I kept thinking was how much time we’d be spending on holiday at airports or travelling on planes and how it would be me who would be the one that would end up packing everyone’s cases at every stop! Cliff said that the girls were old enough to sort themselves out, but I knew that would just mean that they wouldn’t unpack at all (and nor would he), so they’d all likely spend two weeks walking around looking like a bunch of hobos in creased, worn clothes!

My idea of a holiday is arriving somewhere, unpacking and then staying put for the next couple of weeks, not constantly packing up and moving around and, the more I thought about this holiday, the more I just didn’t like the idea of it. Maybe when the girls are a bit older, then carting them from state to state and cross-country is definitely something I think they’d love but, at the moment, whilst they’re still young (and especially while they still love Disney!) I think it sounds like an awful lot of work to be honest!

I put all of my concerns to Cliff and, whilst he understood, he was still adamant that he didn’t want to do two whole weeks in Orlando again so soon. I spent months looking at dozens of other options, where we could maybe do just two stops on just the East coast but, the thing is, as much as there are so many states in America that I want to visit, there aren’t an awful lot like Florida, that offer a good week’s worth of things to do to keep a family entertained (in my opinion, anyway!). I adore Boston and NYC, but again not for a whole week’s stay, but equally I didn’t want to keep packing up and moving around and hopping on and off planes all holiday.

My multi-city planning came to a bit of a halt and I kept returning to dreams of Florida instead. With our October holiday seeming more of a distant memory, the girls and I would talk about it more and more and reminisce about how we would love to go back more than ever. Some days it looked as though we were wearing Cliff down but then others he’d say “We’re not going back there this year” and it would seem like he really meant it. The girls would even bring down every single Disney stuffed toy that they could find at the weekend, pairs of Minnie Ears, light-up Tinkerbelle spinners, Harry Potter wands and put on performances for Cliff to try and pull at his heart-strings.

February came around and I decided to make a few ADRs on the very slim off-chance that we’d be getting to go six months later! I know you’re probably thinking I’m absolutely crazy, but I did mention this to Cliff and I figured at the very worst I could cancel them and not lose any money if we didn’t get to go at all! Surprisingly, Cliff didn’t find this notion too bonkers, and so I started to think I might be on to a winning streak.

Finally, one day at the beginning of March, I said to Cliff “I’ve been thinking about how I could maybe convince you to return to Orlando”

“Go on” he grinned.

“Weeelllll... how about if we went for three weeks instead of two and we didn’t do the parks so much but travelled around Florida a bit more instead?” (Yeah, I know, this isn’t exactly fulfilling Cliff’s dreams of visiting the West Coast, but he’s always happy to get in a car and pop out for a drive so I thought I’d throw that in and, at this point I was desperate! )

He looked at me and just smiled, paused for a bit and then said

“Oh go on then, just book it”

“Huh? What?” I spluttered “Don’t start saying things you don’t mean!”

“No really” He replied “You actually all wore me down a couple of weeks ago, so go on, just book it before I change my mind”

“Oh my god!” I shrieked in a non-shriek whisper, as the girls were in the other room “You really mean it?” And then it was pretty much a repeat of when he told me the year before that we could book our October 2012 holiday, and I threw my arms around him and desperately tried not to cry so I wouldn’t let on to the girls what was going on!

“But I don’t want to bully you into going back to somewhere you don’t want to go” I said “I want you to want to go back as well!”

“Of course I want to go back” He said “But on one condition, we are NOT going back to Florida in 2014”

“Course not!” I trilled, thinking I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. For now, I couldn’t believe that we were actually about to get to return to Florida for the second time in a year!

So, that’s how Cliff’s West Coast/Winnebago/White Water Rafting dreams have once again turned into a return to Walt Disney World! Isabel will be starting Secondary School this September and I truly believe that this might be one of the last opportunities that we’ll have to see her rushing up to Disney characters, before she becomes too cool for that sort of thing. I know that you’re never too old for Disney, but I also know that Secondary School is bound to change her and I just want to make the most of this one last trip whilst she still wants to queue up to meet Tigger or get her autograph book signed by Belle. Plus, this will be the last year that Amelia is considered a ‘child’ by Disney standards – on any future trips we will be paying for four Adults, not just for park tickets but in all of the restaurants. When I put that notion to Cliff, I think that kind of helped my cause!

The West Coast will still be there next year and the year after and I think we’ll benefit from the girls being a year or two older for those sorts of holidays. I’m well aware that there’s a whole huge world out there to explore and, as much as my heart lies with Disney, I do want to take them on different adventures as well.

For now though, we had another Florida holiday to book and plan and the small matter of how to tell the girls!

Join me in Part 2 (which will be up as soon as I can write it!), which I promise will be far shorter and more interesting, for The Big Reveal and some actual planning!

Oh, and you’re probably wondering why this trippy is called ‘The One Where We Compromise’? So far it’s not looking like I’ve done a lot of compromising (if any!), right? Bear with me; I’ve hopefully got time to reveal all!

Thank you for reading!

Kate xx

[CazP]

Loved reading your report Kate, not long to go now

Don't worry about Isabel not wanting to see characters on future visits - my daughters are 13 & 16 and can't wait for character meets, already had the younger one talking about autograph books

[Guest]

Originally Posted by CazP

Loved reading your report Kate, not long to go now

Don't worry about Isabel not wanting to see characters on future visits - my daughters are 13 & 16 and can't wait for character meets, already had the younger one talking about autograph books

See more...

Hi Carol

Aww that's nice to hear! Isabel is certainly as excited this year about meeting the characters as she was on the previous two trips. I think some of it may have been to guilt-trip Cliff into thinking that this was our last shot at getting to see our 'baby' in Disney with the characters before she turned all grown up at 'big school'! It worked!

Might see you out there!

Thanks for reading along!

Kate xx

[OutbackAddict]

Looking forward to reading all your plans for August. Can't believe how much your children have grown up in such a short space of time, I think you have some lovely photo's there.

[CazP]

Originally Posted by isabel

Hi Carol

Aww that's nice to hear! Isabel is certainly as excited this year about meeting the characters as she was on the previous two trips. I think some of it may have been to guilt-trip Cliff into thinking that this was our last shot at getting to see our 'baby' in Disney with the characters before she turned all grown up at 'big school'! It worked!

Might see you out there!

Thanks for reading along!

Kate xx

See more...

We may well do
Reading your report made me inspired to do a proper update on mine too. Been commenting on it here and there, but I think now that it's NEXT month, a proper update was overdue

[Guest]

Originally Posted by OutbackAddict

Looking forward to reading all your plans for August. Can't believe how much your children have grown up in such a short space of time, I think you have some lovely photo's there.

See more...

Awww thanks Paul! I know, it's only when I look back to our 2011 photos that I realise how young they both look. - what on earth am I feeding them?!

Take care and thanks for joining me on another trippy!

Kate x

[Guest]

Originally Posted by CazP

We may well do
Reading your report made me inspired to do a proper update on mine too. Been commenting on it here and there, but I think now that it's NEXT month, a proper update was overdue

See more...

Aggghhhh! See, this is what I meant in my pre-trippy! There are like a billion PTR/TRs that I just can't get round to reading! I keep trying to start/catch-up, then realise that I have about a hundred comments to reply to on all my posts! I spent two hours replying to my highs and lows comments the other evening and then ended up going to bed! This is why I should never have started a new one! x

[Lisa29]

Yay, you have started!

So pleased you managed to convince Cliff that Orlando was the way to go.

I love Modern Family, it is one of the best shows on TV, and liked the look of that winnebago.

Can't wait to read more of your plans and find out how you surprised the girls.

[Twin mummy]

Hi Kate,
Loved your last report. Great pictures and well done on convincing Cliff.

We keep looking at other trips but Florida just suits us so well at the moment, I'm sure we too will do other things as the girls get older but I'm with you that no whereelse gives quite the same combination.