BrerMama
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2000
Come join me, my friend, as we sit crooked and talk straight...
Any Murderinos out there?
No, just me. I'm OK with that.
First, let me introduce myself. I'm Kim. I'm in my mid-40s. I teach preschool for children with low incidence disabilities such as non-verbal autism and severe developmental delays. Most of my students don't talk yet, and one of the best parts of my job is hearing those first words. Until that happens (and just in case it doesn't), we use a lot of pictures to teach communication. So yeah... I sing and play all day and get paid to do it. I love my job.
Ah yes. That's me. School bathroom mirror selfie. I have been visiting Disney every 5-10 years or so since I was 5ish and my parents moved my sister and I to Florida, the land of everlasting sunshine. Except it didn't last forever because they were there for a year before they moved back to Kansas.
I married my husband when I was 20 and when I was 22, we went to Disneyland for a belated honeymoon. It was super fun. We stayed at the then Jolly Roger at the corner of Katella and Harbor, which I think is now gone. Maybe replaced by a Springhill Suites? Anyway, we were young and didn't mind the long walk to the parks and we took a bus tour to Tijuana and it was my husband's first vacation across the country. He'd been to Nebraska and Colorado on the only two vacations he took as a child. His parents were farmers. Vacations were pretty low on the list of things they did.
A couple years after our Disneyland trip, we started a family. We have 3 children. Our oldest son went to WDW before he turned a year old and is now applying to PhD programs so he can get a doctorate in Information Sciences. Yeah, not sure how we did that. Our middle is a senior at a state university, finishing up her last semester for her BSN (nursing). She's engaged and will be married in 2019.
And our baby girl is a senior in high school. When my oldest graduated from high school, we took the whole family to WDW for 2 weeks. When my middle graduated, we took the family to Wisconsin Dells for a week or so. My baby wants to go to Disneyland, so we're taking her to Disneyland a week after her graduation.
The other two weren't really invited. It's a LOT cheaper to just take one child to Disney.
So here we all are on Thanksgiving...
They're in age order, oldest on the left, middle in the middle, youngest on the right.
So I wanted to make this installment about me and there I go posting a picture of my family. (PS-- I'm holding Jake, our 2.5 year old dachshund. He's our baby.)
I am a frustrated writer. I had a blog for at least a decade, but let it go a couple years ago when it stopped bringing me joy and started feeling like a chore. I've written a couple of (really bad) romance novels since then, but lately I've been wanting to document my planning for this trip. And no blog, so I decided to start a PreTrip Report, which will probably become a dumping ground for every random thought I have in the next few months.
More about me -- I love true crime. The ID channel and My Favorite Murder podcast are my jams. I read. A lot. 200 books last year. I tend to alternate between reading a really deep thriller and a couple of fluffy romances that I can read in a day. But I pretty much read my day away. Get up in the morning, read while I eat breakfast, go to work, teach my AM class, read through lunch, teach my PM class, come home, make dinner, lose an hour on the internet, read until I fall asleep.
I'm a lapsed scrapbooker (first paper, then digital, then Project Life). I will likely do an album of our Disneyland trip. I scrapbooked faithfully from 2000-2015 and then I just stopped. Actually, I have all of 2016 done except December (when I had my gallbladder removed and spent the month high on opiods). I'm telling you this because documenting is pretty much in my blood. I documented every thing my family did for 15 years. Thus this need I have to tell our planning story, write a trip report, and some how get it all into an album so we have those memories.
And that's one of my favorite photos of me at Disney. First, that shirt was a Large. I was at my lowest weight ever there. I'm probably 20 pounds over that right now. That gallbladder thing really helped me lose weight last year because it was more like 40. I'm also wearing my very favorite pair of shorts ever. I wore those things until they got so old and thin they ripped right up the rear. And Ches, my youngest, is probably 7 there and we had a very magical morning that day, complete with her opening the castle breakfast with a magic wand.
I'm an overorganized, over thinking planner. From the minute we booked this trip, I have been keeping a list in a very cute notebook of things I want to do, not to forget, what to pack, etc. I don't like surprises, so I sort of think of every possibility and plan for it.
I think that's pretty much me in a nutshell. I'm writing this for my own entertainment, but I'd be thrilled to have you read along. My rough plan right now is to introduce my fellow travelers, talk a little bit about how we ended up with this trip and the decisions we've made so far, and then update weekly with any changes to plans. I'm pretty much going to tell stories. It's what I do. I would love to have you read them.
And one final picture... this is us in 2009 at California Adventure. World of Color was being built at the time, so behind us in this picture is a bunch of dirt. But dang... we've really aged well.
Chapter One: Sit Crooked and Talk Straight
Chapter Two: Caution Crazy Disney Family Inside
Chapter Three: Where It All Began
Chapter 4: I’ve Got the Magic On Me
Chapter 5: I Want Adventure in the Great Wide Somewhere
Chapter Six Story of My Life
Chapter Seven And A Voice Keeps Saying This Is Where I'm Meant To Be
Chapter 8 Thinking Out Loud
Chapter 9: The Land of In Excess
Chapter 10 I'm All About Self Care
Chapter 11 There Is Moonlight And Moss In The Trees
Chapter 12 This Is The Greatest Show!
Chapter 13 I'm Not A Stranger To The Dark
Chapter 14 I'm Not Scared To Be Seen
Chapter 15 Where You Think You're Going Baby?
Chapter 16 A Random Jurrasic Park Quote
Chapter 17 It Takes Ten Times A Long
Any Murderinos out there?
No, just me. I'm OK with that.
First, let me introduce myself. I'm Kim. I'm in my mid-40s. I teach preschool for children with low incidence disabilities such as non-verbal autism and severe developmental delays. Most of my students don't talk yet, and one of the best parts of my job is hearing those first words. Until that happens (and just in case it doesn't), we use a lot of pictures to teach communication. So yeah... I sing and play all day and get paid to do it. I love my job.
Ah yes. That's me. School bathroom mirror selfie. I have been visiting Disney every 5-10 years or so since I was 5ish and my parents moved my sister and I to Florida, the land of everlasting sunshine. Except it didn't last forever because they were there for a year before they moved back to Kansas.
I married my husband when I was 20 and when I was 22, we went to Disneyland for a belated honeymoon. It was super fun. We stayed at the then Jolly Roger at the corner of Katella and Harbor, which I think is now gone. Maybe replaced by a Springhill Suites? Anyway, we were young and didn't mind the long walk to the parks and we took a bus tour to Tijuana and it was my husband's first vacation across the country. He'd been to Nebraska and Colorado on the only two vacations he took as a child. His parents were farmers. Vacations were pretty low on the list of things they did.
A couple years after our Disneyland trip, we started a family. We have 3 children. Our oldest son went to WDW before he turned a year old and is now applying to PhD programs so he can get a doctorate in Information Sciences. Yeah, not sure how we did that. Our middle is a senior at a state university, finishing up her last semester for her BSN (nursing). She's engaged and will be married in 2019.
And our baby girl is a senior in high school. When my oldest graduated from high school, we took the whole family to WDW for 2 weeks. When my middle graduated, we took the family to Wisconsin Dells for a week or so. My baby wants to go to Disneyland, so we're taking her to Disneyland a week after her graduation.
The other two weren't really invited. It's a LOT cheaper to just take one child to Disney.
So here we all are on Thanksgiving...
They're in age order, oldest on the left, middle in the middle, youngest on the right.
So I wanted to make this installment about me and there I go posting a picture of my family. (PS-- I'm holding Jake, our 2.5 year old dachshund. He's our baby.)
I am a frustrated writer. I had a blog for at least a decade, but let it go a couple years ago when it stopped bringing me joy and started feeling like a chore. I've written a couple of (really bad) romance novels since then, but lately I've been wanting to document my planning for this trip. And no blog, so I decided to start a PreTrip Report, which will probably become a dumping ground for every random thought I have in the next few months.
More about me -- I love true crime. The ID channel and My Favorite Murder podcast are my jams. I read. A lot. 200 books last year. I tend to alternate between reading a really deep thriller and a couple of fluffy romances that I can read in a day. But I pretty much read my day away. Get up in the morning, read while I eat breakfast, go to work, teach my AM class, read through lunch, teach my PM class, come home, make dinner, lose an hour on the internet, read until I fall asleep.
I'm a lapsed scrapbooker (first paper, then digital, then Project Life). I will likely do an album of our Disneyland trip. I scrapbooked faithfully from 2000-2015 and then I just stopped. Actually, I have all of 2016 done except December (when I had my gallbladder removed and spent the month high on opiods). I'm telling you this because documenting is pretty much in my blood. I documented every thing my family did for 15 years. Thus this need I have to tell our planning story, write a trip report, and some how get it all into an album so we have those memories.
And that's one of my favorite photos of me at Disney. First, that shirt was a Large. I was at my lowest weight ever there. I'm probably 20 pounds over that right now. That gallbladder thing really helped me lose weight last year because it was more like 40. I'm also wearing my very favorite pair of shorts ever. I wore those things until they got so old and thin they ripped right up the rear. And Ches, my youngest, is probably 7 there and we had a very magical morning that day, complete with her opening the castle breakfast with a magic wand.
I'm an overorganized, over thinking planner. From the minute we booked this trip, I have been keeping a list in a very cute notebook of things I want to do, not to forget, what to pack, etc. I don't like surprises, so I sort of think of every possibility and plan for it.
I think that's pretty much me in a nutshell. I'm writing this for my own entertainment, but I'd be thrilled to have you read along. My rough plan right now is to introduce my fellow travelers, talk a little bit about how we ended up with this trip and the decisions we've made so far, and then update weekly with any changes to plans. I'm pretty much going to tell stories. It's what I do. I would love to have you read them.
And one final picture... this is us in 2009 at California Adventure. World of Color was being built at the time, so behind us in this picture is a bunch of dirt. But dang... we've really aged well.
Chapter One: Sit Crooked and Talk Straight
Chapter Two: Caution Crazy Disney Family Inside
Chapter Three: Where It All Began
Chapter 4: I’ve Got the Magic On Me
Chapter 5: I Want Adventure in the Great Wide Somewhere
Chapter Six Story of My Life
Chapter Seven And A Voice Keeps Saying This Is Where I'm Meant To Be
Chapter 8 Thinking Out Loud
Chapter 9: The Land of In Excess
Chapter 10 I'm All About Self Care
Chapter 11 There Is Moonlight And Moss In The Trees
Chapter 12 This Is The Greatest Show!
Chapter 13 I'm Not A Stranger To The Dark
Chapter 14 I'm Not Scared To Be Seen
Chapter 15 Where You Think You're Going Baby?
Chapter 16 A Random Jurrasic Park Quote
Chapter 17 It Takes Ten Times A Long
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