Tales From the Minivan

Living in Saint John, NB definitely has it’s fair share of positives and negatives, but by far the worst has to be the FOG!  Saint John is the 3rd Foggiest City in Canada  with 98.29 foggy days per year. Second place goes to Halifax, NS with 99.53, and first place goes to St. John’s, NL with a whopping 118.96 days per year!!

I am 35 years old, and for the majority of my 35 years I have lived in Saint John, NB.  In those 35 years, I can honestly count on both hands the number of times that our Canada Day Fireworks have actually gone off on Canada Day.  “Why didn’t they go off?”, you ask.  They were fogged out, and this year was no different!  It was looking optimistic in the afternoon, then that late afternoon breeze brought the fog back in from the Bay of Fundy.  Living close to the harbour, also has it’s advantages and disadvantages too. One disadvantage being the Saint John Harbour’s foghorn, it could easily wake the dead!

Canada Day started off nicely, I got the whole crew dressed in denim and red shirts and we sauntered our way uptown.  Saint John does not have a “downtown”, only and uptown.  I never really understood this, but this is the way it’s always been.  Maybe I’ll have to look into the history of this some day!

  Finn rode on my back for the entire afternoon in my Ergo Carrier.  I can not say enough positive things about this carrier.  It really is amazingly comfortable even carrying a 25lb toddler for hours!  My favorite part is the extra padding in the waist band and the shoulder straps.  My only wish is that they’d come out with some more colourful designs or fabrics.  So ErgoBaby Inc. if you’re listening, you need to “pimp your carriers” as CPO’s Moderator of our Baby Wearing Board would say!

After walking around uptown and looking through all of the JUNK at the Giant Uptown Flea Market, we spotted a sign near the foot of King Street that said “Free Trolley Rides- 1pm, 2:30pm & 4pm”.  I instantly looked at my watch and got excited it was 2:25pm and then realized we must have just missed it as no one was waiting. I asked a gentleman sitting there and he confirmed it.  He did mention though that the driver was ahead of schedule and would most likely be back around 3:30pm instead of 4pm.  So we walked over to Market Square’s Boardwalk area to kill some time.

I’ve wanted to take one of these Trolley rides for a while now and actually mentioned wanting to take the kids on a tour in our latest episode of Momtalk Podcast called Your Perfect Staycation.  Here’s a little history on Saint John’s Trolley’s- one of the tour agencies in the city bought them a few years ago.  They are the San Francisco style ones made to look like street cars, incidentally Saint John, NB was actually the first city in Canada to have a Street Car. Well as you can see by the photo to the right we arrived back just in time to get the last free tour!  Ciaran fell asleep 3/4 of the way through, but I think the kids really enjoyed it and learned a few cool facts about Saint John, I know I did!

Our Canada Day Fireworks were postponed 3 nights in a row, then finally on the 4th of July, us Saint Johner’s got to witness a great show!

Earlier in the evening I hauled out my camera’s manual and looked up what setting would be the best for fireworks. I have to admit as much as I love my digital SLR, the amount of different settings are overwhelming, I really need to take a course!  We parked the minivan down by the waterfront and flipped the rear bench seat over so the kids could sit there and watch. This is one of the cool features I like in our van! Here’s a few shots from the evening:

Andrew has been off for the past few days, and we thought we’d take a little day trip to Maine.  This isn’t a new thing for us, we go down about once every six weeks or so.  I refuse to pay over $6 a box for the cereal like, and milk and butter are half the price, so I always pick up a gallon of milk and enough butter to get me to my next visit.  Before crossing back over into Canada will fill up our gas tank and save 35 cents a litre. I once overheard a man telling his grown son to “Fill ‘er ’til she spills!”  There’s also a conspiracy that this US gas lasts longer.  One man that lives on the Canadian side of the border actually did some stats on it over a year and consistently he got almost an extra 75km more to a tank on the US side.  I don’t know just how true it is, as this gas is the same stuff that gets refined right here in our city and trucked down to Maine.  I do find though after a trip down to Maine my tank stays full longer, I think it may be more that I do less driving after a trip down, I tend to stick closer to home.

So while in Calais we did our regular stops.  First we tracked down a parcel a friend had shipped, that was an adventure but not overly hard as the town only has 3 main streets!  Next we went to Marden’s- this place is great!  It’s a salvage and surplus store.  You never know what you’re going to find there, hence their jingle” You shudda bought it, when ya saw it…at Marrrr-dens!”   We have found so many really great deals there over the years.  Just last month before we went to Florida, they had a huge shipment of brandname swimsuits.  I got a Nike one that had a MRSP of $80 for $14.99 and two seperate JAG pieces for $5.99 each that were regularly priced at $48 and $50!  We’ve been hoping to do some camping this summer, and headed to the sporting goods section and spotted an Eddie Bauer 8 man 2 room tent for $130, needless to say we picked it up along with two of the all-in-one inflatable sleeping bags for $12 each.

Next on our stops was Walmart. Here Andrew was quickly drawn to his favourite spot in the store…”The Chip Aisle”. Andrew loves his chips.  He has them every evening, his normal snack is nachos and salsa, but has a soft spot for Doritos and the different flavours they carry stateside.  As he was drooling browsing down the aisle, he spotted this immediately:

Doritos!  These Doritos came with a little gimmick though, something to lure you into to buying them…”The Quest: Guessing the Flavor is Just the Beginning…”.  These were mystery Doritos!  Even I was a little excited I will admit.  So this evening we decided to pull out some of my childhood photo albums, and have a fun time laughing at “70’s home decor”, as Mackenzie put it then decided to crack open the bag of “QUEST- Doritos”.  The photo albums were quickly shuffled aside, and everyone started tasting the chips trying to figure out what the flavour was.  My first taste sensed a definite lime, yet salty flavor and perhaps cheesy?  After we all had a try we decided to check out the website listed on the bag:  www.snackstrongproductions.com to see what this was all about and figure out what the actual flavour was.  Well as soon as we found out, we started laughing and realized that the familiar taste was something we all had tried before at least once.  If you don’t want to know I’ll write the answer in pig latin below

The Mystery Doritos Flavour was: OUNTAIN-MAY EW-DAY !!

Too funny, eh?  You have to give praise to Doritos and PepsiCo their parent company. They are always coming up with innovative ways to advertise.  They were one of the first to embed advertising into a reality TV show (remember Survivor and the Doritos and Mountain Dew reward), which has started a trend.  Maybe we’ll see less and less commercials this way if it’s subtly put into shows.  I don’t mind.  Well I just want to say Kudos to Doritos for keeping us entertained this evening, and this mystery flavor?…Well the jury is still out!

Once again, life has gotten in the way of me updating my blog. Here’s a few paragraphs (well maybe more than a few) to keep everyone up to date of what’s been going on since we got back from our trip. (I know I still haven’t added Part 2 of our trip yet!)

So as some of you are aware, we were having some issues with Mackenzie and school. She was having a hard time, and this was one of the reasons we decided to take the trip. When we got home, these issues did not get any better, if anything things were escalating and hit the boiling point of her getting suspended from school. I’m not going to get into the details of the suspension, but when I actually got the call from the Principal last week a sense of relief came over me. We met with the school district later in the week and I’m happy that our concerns were listened to and they will hopefully be resolved so no other child will have to suffer like she did this year. I just wish I had listened to my own instincts and took her out of school after we returned from Florida, but as they say..”hind sight is 20-20″.

The second issue that’s been looming over our family has been EarlyFrench Immersion, you may have read a previous post called A Sad Day in NB for Education. If not, to sum it up- Early French Immersion was eliminated as an option in NB. IN our province it starts at the grade 1 level, and Liam was registered to start this coming fall. On Feb 29, a report was released regarding French Second Language (FSL) (the Friday before March Break) and parents were told to send comments and concerns regarding the report to the GNB website. There was no mention of when the Minister would make his final decision. Two weeks later on March 14th, Education Minister Kelly Lamrock made the announcement that Early French Immersion would no longer be an option for FSL. Instead all French instruction would be eliminated from Grades 1-4 and in Grade 5, ALL children would then take an Intensive French course, where half the year would be taught in French, and the entire Grade 5 curriculum would be crammed into the other half the year.

After the decision was made, many FSL experts came out against this decision even the designers of the Intensive French Course said it was never meant to be used this way, it was never meant to replace Early French Immersion. You can hear a CBC Radio Documentary on this here: http://www.cbc.ca/nb/features/ scroll down to Sunday Edition: Scrapping the Cadillac. I soon joined a group of concerned parents upset that the choice was no longer an option for our children, and we decided to sue the Province, and we felt that the whole process leading up to this decision was flawed. A 2 week period one of which being the March Break, was unacceptable, after the Minister stated this past summer, that there would be “a full debate on this issue”. Is 2 weeks and an online submission form, really a full debate?

On June 11th, Justice Hugh McLellan of the Court of Queen’s Bench, deemed that “the decision of the
Minister was unfair and unreasonable” and that “the Minister’s decision to phase-out Early French Immersion is removed into the Court and quashed.” This meant that Early French Immersion was back on! I took the four kids with me to the Court room to hear the verdict, and managed to get myself on TV again, I guess I was a good photo-op.

Later that day, our hopes that this would be over and our children who were enrolled in EFI for the fall of 2008 would be allowed to resume, were dashed when Minister Lamrock stated, that he would now follow the Judges ruling and allow for a full debate and have a 6 week consultation. Comments and ideas could be submitted once again to the GNB website up to July 25, and the Minister would make his final decision on August 5th, 4 weeks before the start of the school year.

Could this cause anymore turmoil for families, teachers and school administrators, who now have to come up with staffing plans for 3 possible scenarios? Once again the Minister of Education is showing his “unfairness and unreasonableness”, it’s time to admit you’ve made a mistake rushing this through and put a one year hold on this plan. Furthermore I believe that Minister Lamrock as a parent of a child enrolled in Kindergarten this year (and an older one in EFI) needs to take a step back from this decision, it is clear that this has gotten too personal for him. Designate an independent panel that can weigh the pros and cons of this. Not have someone that has a predetermined outcome already conceived.

Many parents have been deceived into believing that EFI is the root of all of the problems in NB ) Education System, and if you’ve only heard Lamrock’s side of things or read their Glossy inserts in our newspapers http://www.gnb.ca/0000/publications/ProgressReportEnglish.pdf he makes a great argument, but there is another side to this, last month this article was published in the Telegraph Journal with outlines a lot of the misconceptions and myths the Government had been feeding the public, The Other Side on Education.

So if I’ve been a little preoccupied it’s because I have a lot on my mind. I want all of my children to have the opportunity to become fluently bilingual, and under this new plan, that is questionable, unless they opt for the Late French Immersion program in 6th grade. We won’t know how successful that will be either, as anyone currently who is in LFI, has had previous French instruction prior to entry and there are plans to offer less courses in French in the future. It’s a big gamble that the Government is taking on, I don’t want my children to become lab rats in the “educational experiment” that has not been proven.

I hope my children will get the opportunity to wear this symbol in the future. If the government’s plan goes through, it will truly be a rarity to see it in the future.

I have to say, I had a pretty amazing childhood when I think back to growing up.  There’s a lot of reasons but number 1&2 have to be my parents.  Were we spoiled, maybe just a little, but I know that I was always appreciative of everything my parents did for me and my brother.  They instilled many values that I hope to pass down to my kids.

Geographically the place where I grew up Bradley Lake, was the absolute best.  My parents built our home on a small private road on the lake’s waterfront back in 1978.  My maternal grandparents summer vacationed here every year and with it’s close proximity to the city it was the perfect place to get away from the FOG in Saint John.  On our little road (of 8 houses) that my father unofficially named Cedar Brook Cresent there was 20 kids no more than 6 years apart. There was always games of baseball, soccer and water fights, canoe & kayak races and plenty of swimming!  We were often in the water from just before lunch to just before bed.  I can’t remember ever being bored and always felt very safe.  We always had strict rules about water safety and all of the parents were united on this front, which was why I think there was never any close calls around the water.

Today we spent time out at Dad’s for Father’s Day. My brother Curtis and his girlfriend Sam joined us as well as my little brothers Nathan and Jonathan (almost 11 & 13).  We had a nice BBQ and were going to take a swim in the pool but the overcast skies made it a bit cool for it.  Instead we took out the Kayaks.  It was really cool, and once again brought back many memories of kayaking in the wooden kayaks that my nextdoor neighbour made back in the 80’s.  I took ythe boys out for their first official Kayak ride and Mackenzie took off like a pro by herself in the other.

I hope to get out to the lake a lot this summer, and hopefully my love of the water will rub off on the kids.  I feel at peace when I around a body of water.  I loved waking up on a summer morning with calmness in the air and the lake as smooth as glass without a ripple to be seen.  Occasionally you’d hear loons calling each other, or the Andrew’s brothers calling the loons.  It really was a childhood I would never trade.

On Dad’s deck with the lake in the background:

Future Kayakers?

Monday was spent doing a little park hopping. We started out at Disney Hollywood Studios (aka MGM Studios as I’m used to it being called). Disney now has professional photographers all over the place that take photos for you. They give you a little credit card size card with a bar code and each time you get your photo taken by them they scan your card and you can look at the photos online. There you can crop, edit, add borders and other fun things to the photos. Here’s a few from when we first arrived at Hollywood Studios:

Yes we’re all in tie-dyes, and we weren’t the only ones either!

I love that last shot. The photographer told us all to point at that one spot and when told is there’d be a surprise in the pic!

We decided to go grab some Fast Passes for some of the more popular bigger rides like the Tower of Terror and Areosmith’s Rockin’ Rollercoaster. You may be asking, “What is a Fast Pass?” At the majority of the bigger rides, Disney has set up a FastPass Distribution. You put in your Park Pass, and out pops a ticket telling you when to come back to the ride. They normally give you a timeframe of an hour. What this allows you to do and pass by the longer line up and only wait for a few minutes! It was great, I highly recommend using this feature. The most we had to wait for any ride was about 15 minutes, but the wait times listed on the rides were much longer.

After getting our Fast Passes we knew we had about an hour to explore some other parts of the part and happened upon the Star Wars ride called Star Tours. The boys were very excited about this. Ciaran just made the height restriction of 40 inches. I was a little worried about this as I had been reading online that some kids were being turned away when they got to the ride even though they were measuring fine at the first part of the line. Star Tours is a flight simulator ride, where you flying through space and a silly robot, with not a lot of flying skills is at the helm. Ciaran wasn’t too sure about this one! As with most Disney rides, the exit to the ride flies you into a themed giftshop, here’s the boys with there Star Wars Helmets on.

I figured the kids would love the Honey I Shrunk the Kids Play area. On the way there we manged to spot Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable!

Liam was only concerned with getting to the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground, so wouldn’t get in the photo. Who could blame him, it’s a huge play structure that’s made to look like the movieset, ie. all of the toys, insects and other objects are giant. We figured this would be a good place for them to play, while we decided to utilize our Fast Passes.

Here’s a shot of my Mom and Ciaran

The HUGE Super Soaker

A cool slide that’s a roll of Kodak Film

Ant riding

Worlds Largest Playdough Container

For the majority of the bigger Disney Rides, they also allow you to Baby Swap. Baby Swapping allows both parents and the rest of their party to wait in line together. When it’s their turn to ride, one parents stays back with the baby and rides. When the ride is over they swap the baby to the other parent and their part rides again. We figured that we would take Finn with us and then Katelyn the little daredevil could get to ride twice! In theory this was great but did not work so well. Both the Tower of Terror and Rockin’ Roller Coaster would not let Finn into the lines, so I had to wait back until they were of the ride then get back in line again. It took twice as long to ride because of this! Very frustrating! We did manage to take some photos of the monitors displaying photos taken of us on the ride. Notice my look of sheer panic!

Andrew and Katelyn in the front row

Yes that’s me in the back on the right!

After taking a lot longer than we expected we rushed back to the Kids playset to find out that it was just closed due to a quick shower. We found the rest of the gang just getting ready to have lunch. While we were eating Andrew noticed a co-worker! It was so funny, of all places to run into someone! It really is too small of a world sometimes! We then did the Movie Backlot Tour which really hasn’t changed a bit since I worked there in 1992. Finn decided this would be a great place (and so did I) for him to have a nice little nursing session while on the Backlot Tram.

We then decided to take the boys to see the Playhouse Disney Show and take the bigger girls to the Animation expo. Mackenzie is really interested in computerized animation, so I decided this would be fun to do with her and Katelyn and brought Finn with me. Andrew and the two Nannies took Liam and Ciaran, just as they were looking for the entrance my mom decided to ask a Cast Member (Disney’s name for employee) where it was and he said to them, “Don’t worry about that you guys come right with me!” He made them the Playhouse Disney Family of the show and they got front row seats and a cute little certificate!

Finn the girls and I also had our own little magical moment when we came out of the Animation Presentation. We got to meet Fantasia Mickey! This was Finn’s first Muckey Meeting and the Disney Photographer captures it so well! Here’s a few shots:

That’s it for Part one, I’ll update soon with Part two !!!

Just kidding! Today we spent the day at Disney’s Blizzard Beach! One of the 2 great water parks on site. I don’t have any photos of the girls as they spent most of the day tubing on the Cross Country Creek, Blizzard Beach’s version of a lazy river and playing in Melt Away Bay a huge wave pool as well as the Ski Patrol Training Camp. We spent most of the day with the boys in Tikes Peak an area just the right size for them.

Here’s a few photos:

Finn’s favorite thing to do was climb the chairs! We’d put him down and he’d head straight for them!

Here he is agan and guess what we’re pointing at? Yes a chair! He was totally enamored with these chairs!

Today is one of those days where I really wished I have a waterproof cover for my little digital camera, as we didn’t get to capture too many photos. I would have loved to have got some while we were all on the Cross Country Creek together. I think tomorrow will be a down day, with a little shopping and back to one of the Disney Parks on Monday!

They’re the ones sporting a Sobey’s bag as a fashion accessory! (You may recognize this knee slapper of a joke…I think the older version was “How do you spot a Maritimer in the Toronto Airport? They’re the ones with a Sobey’s bag as their carry-on luggage!)

I know…GROAN! I just had to do it! This bag has come in so handy today! I’ve used it to carry all of our frozen water bottles, and it’s fits perfect in the basket of our Joovy Caboose. I was a little panicked as I realized this morning that I forgot the canopy to the stroller, but there is so many shaded areas at Disney, I made sure when Finn was in the stroller he was in a shaded spot. Otherwise he rode on my back in the Ergo.

We had a fabulous time at the Magic Kingdom! The boys got to meet a couple of characters, but it seemed like we were always arriving just as the characters were leaving. We did manage to get a few shots of the boys with Jiminy Cricket. He was always my favourite to get my photo taken with, since he was always around my size.

We split up a few times as Katelyn and Andrew wanted to ride some of the bigger rides, one being Space Mountain. Liam was adamant that he was going to ride it too and did to my amazement! While they were on Space Mountain we took a back pathway to Mickey’s Toontown Fair. I was hoping that the boys would get to meet Mickey Mouse. Ciaran went into his house, but didn’t want to wait in line, and once the others got back from Space Mountain everyone was hungry, so we forgot to go back and get that Mickey shot! I’m still really disappointed, and I’m hoping we’ll get to see him on our next day at the parks! Finn got to play in a nice little area for toddlers and made friends with a little girl from Ohio.

We grabbed some Fast Passes for Peter’s Pan’s Flight then headed to the Columbia Harbour House for some lunch. Chicken and Fish & Chips were on the menu and hit the spot! We refilled our water bottles before heading back out to Liberty Square to the Haunted Mansion. Just as we were about to park the stroller, we were told that the Haunted Mansion was temporarily unavailable. Liam had a bit of a meltdown, but it was quickly diverted with a duck outside “It’s a Small World” back in Fantasyland. No Disney trip would be complete without a ride on It’s a Small World, so off we went! The kids loved it, but I think Andrew’s Mom loved it the most! Once we got off, we went back to Liberty Square and The Haunted Mansion just reopened as we arrived, so we had no wait at all!! Liam wasn’t impressed and Ciaran held my hand tightly for the entire ride. Supposedly it’s “New and Enhanced”, but it’s the same old HM that I remember! Finn didn’t let the ghosts bother him and he took advantage of the lack of light and fell fast asleep.

We still had a few minutes left before it was time to use our Fast Passes for Peter Pan, so we stopped for a cool treat. I was a little excited to use our Drip Stiks! These things are so great! I really don’t like the mess that icecream and popsicles make, so normally I avoid them at all costs. If anyone watches the show on TLC, “John & Kate plus Eight” last season they took all of the kids to Disney for the first time, there was a scene in the episode where Kate kind of freaks out when the little kids are getting all sticky and the icecream was melting all over them. I could totally relate with her, and probably have reacted the same way. Anyway after seeing that, I said, I will definitely bring our Drip Stiks with us on vacation. They are really lightweight and fit into our backpack, so when it was time to have an icecream, or popsicle, I would be prepared!

Here’s a shot of the boys enjoying their cool treats, mess free, and a shot of the rest of us with our icecream (you can see Finn asleep on my back).

After a few more rides including Splash Mountain for Andrew and Katelyn and Big Thunder Railroad with myself Liam and Ciaran, and Pirates of the Caribbean for all of us we were off to Epcot and a Monorail ride.

Epcot Center is my old stomping ground. I worked in this “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow” for over a year in 1992-1992. Epcot is divided into 2 separate sections, Future World and the World Showcase represented by 11 different countries including Canada. This is where I worked and it was great to be able to bring my kids to see this. Ciaran however fell asleep on the way over and missed the new version of the “O Canada 360 circle vision” movie. It was finally updated last fall, well overdue, seeing it was outdated back when I worked there! We then walked around the World Showcase Lagoon and got to watch the nightly Fireworks and laser light show called “Illuminations”. I sat down and nursed Finn during the show, and munched on a Turkey Leg, while the kids enjoyed some popcorn and smoothies. We took our time leaving the park, knowing that traffic can be quite heavy and it worked out perfectly as our cars were easy to spot when we arrived at “Daisy row 28″.

Here’s a shot of a sleepy Ciaran and Epcot’s infamous “Spaceship Earth”.

Yes, you read that right, not 4 kids, 5 kids! We also picked up another Nannie since my last post! Andrew’s mom decided to come with us as well, and our 5th kid is Mackenzie’s friend and our next-door neighbour Katelyn. Her mother and I conspired on the morning we were leaving and managed to get things pulled together in 4 hours to bring her with us! Mackenzie is just thrilled! Once the girls arrived home from school we broke the news to them then, and headed off to Maine shortly after to stay the night in Bangor.

Travelling with this many is no small feat, there are a lot of logistics that come into play. Car seats for one are very important to me. I knew we were going to be renting a van once we arrived, so I decided to take our own car seats on the plane with us. Finn had his own paid seat so I wouldn’t have to check any of the seats. Everyone was asking, “Why don’t you just check them with your luggage?” There are a few reasons for this, the number one is safety. Kids are much safer in a harnessed seat on the plane. The other reason was that airlines are notorious for not being so gentle with items. I have heard of car seats having a broken base, and I’ve seen things with my own eyes after working for an airline in the past, so checking my $300 car seats was just not an option for me. I had been looking at a special carrier made for car seats and travelling called the GoGo Babyz, but for over $100, I did not think it was a wise investment. Instead I went to a local luggage store and bought 2 rolling luggage racks from the clearance section for $7.99 each (regular $49.99). They worked great! Here’s a photo of me hauling 2 of the 3 carseats behind me outside the Bangor International Airport.

We had a great flight direct flight from Bangor, ME to Sanford (Orlando) FL on Allegiant Air. This is a newer airline servicing Bangor with great flight prices, especially booking a few days in advance. The staff in Bangor were really accommodating to our large group. (Lets hope the return goes as smoothly)

Finn was awake for the first part of the flight and just loved looking out the window, his seat was set-up rear facing so needed to be placed by the window, so he loved the view.

Liam and Ciaran happily sat in their seats for the most part, they were fairly easy to install, Liam was in his Sunshine Kids Radian which folds (the flight attendants that that was just great!), Ciaran was in his Britax Marathon. The only hitch was that I forgot to flip the seatbelt buckle over to make it easy to unbuckle. I panicked for a moment when we landed, that I was never going to get the seat unbuckled!

The girls sat directly in front of me, and drew pictures and read magazines. Here’s a shot of them i

We arrived into Sanford and picked up our rental cars, I love how they do it down here! You check in at the counter, then it’s a u-pick lot. They’ll tell you what rows you can pick from and you choose your vehicle. I choose a white Grand Caravan with the Flexfuel option (E85 ethanol blend). The van only has about 4500 miles on it, so I think it’s still in the “breaking-in phase”. The jury is still out whether I like it or not.

We stopped for supper before heading to our resort community called Windsor Palms in Kissimmee. We rented a 3bd/3ba townhouse for the week, in this little gated community about 3 miles from Disney’s main gates. Here’s a shot of the exterior. It has it own little private pool, and another large one on site.

I know I probably need my head examined, but I just booked airfare for the 6 of us and my mom to fly to Orlando 5 days from now!

Why so last minute you ask?  Well, it’s been a really hectic school year for Mackenzie, she’s really had a hard time this year with one of her teachers and really needs a break.  We’re at the point where we may move her to another school because of this conflict, it’s really affecting the overall mood of our house.  My mom really wanted to have some time away too, she’s been missing the kids lately, so I thought what a great Mother’s Day gift! With the long weekend falling next week the kids will only miss 3 days of school so no biggie!

The funny thing is, I’m 75% packed!  When I put away some of the summer clothes last fall, I took out some of the things that Andrew and I wear and the kids wear and packed them in our suitcases!  Just need to throw in our swimsuits and underwear and we should be all set!

I personally prefer to travel more last minute, not only can you save money, but save the over analyzing and stressing over the trip.  The one things I want to accomplish before we go and getting the rest of the house organized, thank goodness for the Clutter Control Club! It has really helped me put things into perspective. For so long I would start one area of the house but never get it completed, then start another only to go back to the first area that was completely destroyed again.  I now have a task that I can complete and love seeing the before and after pics to show what I’ve accomplished!  Check out the CCC Smilebox Gallery for some motivation!

Well I better get busy, I’m off to www.disboards.com to get some tips from the fanatics over there!  Only 6 sleeps to go!

Make a Smilebox postcard

So you just saw my (not so small) dirty little secret!  I’m not sure just how things can get this out of control in the house, but it happens WAY TOO OFTEN!!  The first step they say is admitting you have a problem.  My problem, I hate cleaning, but I hate even more having a mess!  This is not a good combination, because as soon as I see the mess I want to tackle I get frustrated and overwhelmed.  I start the job, but it never gets completed the way I want it to.  Yes, I will admit I have a few distractions in the house (well four of them ) and that doesn’t help, but it doesn’t take long for things to get out of control like that. This needs to stop, I need to start good habits of taking 5 minutes after a meal rather than dealing with the crisis that ensues when I “leave it for later”.  Upbeat music really helps me, and I tackled the kitchen mess to one of my all time favourites, Bob Marley’s- Legend.  This music is truly timeless and I never get sick of these songs, even the kids love them!

One thing I’ve decided to do is to reward myself.   After watching the Kitchen Inspiration Slideshow it has really given me some motivation. I have hated these kitchen counters since we moved into our house almost 6 years ago.  They are an awful dark shade of dusty rose (just like the awful carpet on the entire second floor), I’ve decided I want to reward myself with a mini-kitchen makeover if I can maintain the kitchen until my birthday in June (the 23rd).  I want to replace the countertops and stain the cabinets and island a darker colour.   Wish me luck, and I’ll be sure to post photos, if I reach my goal!