We took our first trip in almost 11 years that didn’t involve a stroller.

I just don’t know what to think about that.  For the first time since child rearing began for us in 1999, everyone in our group could feed, dress, wipe, and cart themselves around.

Our littlest daughter, Lady Bug, age 3 ½ , has gone from being a toddler to being a kid.  In a blur, of course.  Over the past year or so, each trip has seen the loss of a ‘baby item’ off her packing list.  No more diapers, baby monitor, binky, potty seat, toddler utensils, sippy cups.  We’ve even stopped worrying about a change of clothes.  And now, the stroller.

Oh, the places we’ve gone with a stroller in the last 11 years—walks around the neighborhood, vacations to see family, the beach, the mountains, all things Disney, the museum, the zoo.  Even trips just to the grocery store were made easier (for our kids and us) by having a familiar place to contain and transport babies.  And then there are the other millions of things our strollers have held besides little kids—shopping bags, diaper bags, all the family’s coats shoved into the little basket or draped over the top.  Oftentimes, little ones have used it much less on an outing than our family’s paraphernalia has. 

As I packed the car this last time, I pulled the stroller out and thought, `I don’t think we’ll need the stroller.’  At first, it was just a space necessity.  But as I tucked it into a spot in the garage I thought, `Huh, we haven’t used it in a long time.  Maybe we’re done with it.’

What a sad thought that was, in a way, to not need a stroller any more.  ‘Cause that means that there aren’t any babies or toddlers at our house.  It means the tiny sweet humans who have occupied those stroller seats for so many years are, well, growing up.

It’s the end of an era.  We’re putting babyish things behind us.  Oh, I’m not quite ready to give that stroller away yet, but it’s not because anyone here needs it.  Well, maybe I need to see it—not to mourn the loss of babyhood so much, but as a monument to what has transpired in our lives.  Eleven years is a long time to need one piece of gear.  And, really, negotiating any outing without a stroller is much easier.  I think of all the doors, stairs, small spaces, and crowds that have been frustrating with a stroller.

But, oh, what stories our strollers could tell.

© 2010, melissa caddell. All rights reserved. If you steal my stuff, I will also be really, really mad.

Looking for a list of restaurants where ‘Kids Eat Free in Denver’?  You’ve come to the right place! (Hey, Goooglers!) (The list is located below all the important blah, blah, blah stuff–just scroll down.)

*Disclaimer:  Even though I have spent many hours scouring the internet and made lots of phone calls to puzzled restaurant staff to verify this info, PLEASE save yourself the frustration of a deal not working out like you planned and CALL the SPECIFIC LOCATION you are going to.  They all have rules and regulations and fine print.  Tell your server that you are there for the kids eat free night and they should make sure you don’t go wrong with whatever the qualifications are for it.

To get the most out of your night, don’t forget to look for coupons (remember those Entertainment books and Gold C books your kids were selling)!  We had a BYGO meal at Lodo’s and we fed our family of 5 for $15! Woot!  Many, many restaurants will have coupons on their website, too, so check online before you dine! (Wasn’t I nice to inlude the website links?)

*See below for a link to an iPhone app called ‘Kids Eat For’. While the info is not as extensive as mine, it is mostly up-to-date and you can have a mobile list and check for other cities when you’re away from Denver!

**Oh, and while I love this info getting to as many people as possible, please honor my time and effort on your behalf and send people the link to the site, versus copying it.  ‘Cause that’s kinda mean.  And violates the copyright.  Which bums me out.

Enjoy!

Get the iPhone app “Kids eat for”
by Kokopelli Software, LLC on iTunes

Resturant	Day
Via Baci (9 and under)	Sunday
Rox Bar & Grill	Sunday
Darcy's Bistro & Pub	Sunday
Jordan's Bistro & Pub	Sunday
McCabe's Pub & Bistro	Sunday
Casey's Bistro & Pub	Sunday
The Melting Pot	Sunday
Lansdowne Arms (11am-4pm)	Sunday
Dickey's Barbeque Pit	Sunday
IHOP (participating resturants)	Sunday
LoDo's ($1.99)	Sunday
Bono's Pit BBQ	Sunday
Landry's Seafood House	Sunday
Garcia's Mexican Restaurant	Sunday
Souper Salad (0-3 free, 4-10 $2.49)	Sunday
Fuddrucker's	Monday
Rox Bar & Grill	Monday
Costa Vida	Monday
Cinzetti's	Monday
Rio Grand Mexican Restaurant	Monday
Texas Roadhouse	Monday
Brother's BBQ	Monday
Buffalo Wild Wings	Monday
Gunther Toody's Diner	Monday
IHOP (participating resturants)	Monday
La Estrellita	Monday
The Yard House	Monday
The Melting Pot	Tuesday
3 Margaritas	Tuesday
Mikuni Sushi	Tuesday
Lil Ricci's Pizza/Off Broadway Lounge	Tuesday
Black Eyed Pea	Tuesday
Denny's	Tuesday
Dewey's American Grill	Tuesday
Cinzetti's	Tuesday
Champps	Tuesday
Fazoli's (99 cents)	Tuesday
Brother's BBQ	Tuesday
Perkins Restaurant & Bakery	Tuesday
Pasquini's Pizzeria	Tuesday
Lone Star Steakhouse & Saloon	Tuesday
IHOP (participating resturants)	Tuesday
Joe's Crab Shack ($2)	Tuesday
Atlanta Bread Company	Tuesday
Beau Jo's Pizza (HR location, only)	Tuesday
Fuddrucker's	Tuesday
La Estrellita	Tuesday
Applebee's (99 cents)	Wednesday
Fish City Grill	Wednesday
IHOP (participating resturants)	Wednesday
Woody's Wood-Fired Pizza	Wednesday
C.B. & Pots (3 locations) ($1)	Thursday
IHOP (participating resturants)	Thursday
IHOP (participating resturants)	Friday
Texas Roadhouse	Saturday
Denny's	Saturday
Perkins Restaurant & Bakery	Saturday
IHOP (participating resturants)	Saturday
LoDo's ($1.99)	Saturday
Bono's Pit BBQ	Saturday
Lone Star Steakhouse & Saloon	Saturday

© 2009, melissa caddell. All rights reserved. If you steal my stuff, I will also be really, really mad.

It would add about 80 miles to our trip, but we decided to head the southern route home, through Louisiana and Texas. (Seriously, what’s 80 miles in a trip of 4000?)

We packed up that night and hit the road about 9ish the next morning. I always dream we will be out earlier, but fail to take into account the DH’s methodical packing process. Not to sound critical, but for heaven’ sake, just get the crap in the car so we can go! Grr. My Darling Husband would take this moment to say that he could do that, but then we couldn’t get to anything. I told him that I could only entertain the kids in a hotel room for SO LONG before I was thinking any number of uncharitable thoughts about his LOLLY-GAGGING and packing! It takes him between 30-45 minutes to get things settled, and this process isn’t started until everything is packed up and sitting ready by the car. Is this normal?? I do confess that my Darling Husband is a master packer. He can get any quantity of stuff into a vehicle. But there has GOT to be a faster way to do this. I will percolate on it….

We really wanted to see New Orleans. We have never been before and wondered how much evidence of Katrina still existed. It was about 9pm when we drove into town and we were surprised at the number of entire neighborhoods that were dark. Where was everyone?

We stayed in the French Quarter. Some buildings looked newly refurbished, and others were abandoned, a very weird sort of dissonance. We asked around for where a good spot for breakfast was the next morning, and we were directed to Cafe Du Monde. It is world-famous for it’s yummy beignets and cafe au laits. We finished off a couple of orders of fresh, hot beignets and the cafe au lait was, in fact, wonderful. It is supposed to be a famous spot to sit and people watch, but we wouldn’t know, as Ms. Wiggle Buns was pretty much done with sitting still after we stuffed her with sugar-coated, deep-fried treats.

We wandered around the square and took in some of the interesting architecture before dragging ourselves to the car for a long day of driving. We had nothing to look forward to on this day of travel, so we just hunkered down and got as far as we could.

There was a sweet highlight in the form of Lindy’s restaurant, outside of Dallas, TX where we stopped for dinner. The kids were a *tad* wound up from being in the car all day, so the very kind waitstaff put us in a banquet room where they could run around. Then, the Pixie Child had her usual affect on people, and they were totally smitten. The server kept bringing out plates of food for her and even scrounged up special things (fresh watermelon and strawberries). It was pretty cute. They were all so, so nice to us that I told Darling I wanted to move there. It was a little piece of small-town America, so simple and sweet. Sigh. Oh, and the fried chicken was fab.u.lous.

We drove to someplace in Oklahoma that night (apparently unremarkable as I can’t remember a thing about it) and had a very uneventful trip home the next day. It was such a great vacation. The kids did really well and we got to experience some neat things. We are a road-trippin‘ kinda family and this was definitely one of our best trips! Our ending mileage was:

Now, the return to real life. Sigh. Maybe we just should’ve just stopped in Texas…

© 2008 – 2009, melissa caddell. All rights reserved. If you steal my stuff, I will also be really, really mad.

We reserved our last day for a little bit of time at Magic Kingdom, Epcot and then Hollywood Studios. The girls rode Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain one more time and then we had a character breakfast with Winnie the Pooh. Toddler LOVED all the characters and they very patiently allowed her to grab their faces and give them kisses. Repeatedly. We got the girls silhouettes done (one of my favorite things) and they were amazed to watch the artist cut their likenesses. It is a little bit like magic, if you ask me.

(Oh, and you may know that this is Disney’s “Year of a Million Dream” where they have Dream Team members roaming the parks to make your stay more magical (you could get a night in the Cinderella castle, all-day FastPass tickets, front row seats at shows, etc. Well, we had been watching for and attempting to make eye-contact with Dream Team members all week. As we were gathering our where-with-all after the silhouettes, a Dream Team member approaches us. This is it! (I think.) Let it be the FastPass for the day thing! He chats with the girls for a minute, asking if they had had a chance to meet the princesses. Pixie and Sunshine are just not that into princesses right now, but I was willing them to lie to this nice man to see what we would get. Sadly, their lack of enthusiasm won out over my attempt to mind-meld with them, so he just chatted with us for a minute and left. Darn!)

About now, it was getting hot. Did I mention that it was hot? The parents-in-law called to let us know they were going to take a day to relax and did we want to send the (cranky) Toddler back to the hotel with them? YAY!! Toddler was clearly “all done” with Disney at this point and the prospect of dragging her through our final, ambitious day was daunting.

I drove Toddler back to the condo and then met DH and the girls at Epcot. Sunshine wanted to see Japan and we wanted to ride the new Soarin’ ride. Sadly, they were out of FastPasses already and the wait was 2 hours. Ugh. We declined that and wandered Around the World. At one point, we passed an area where kids were painting. Well, that is totally up Pixie’s alley, so even though we were paying a skazillion dollars a minute to color, we stopped. Much crying ensued when they wouldn’t set up another easel for her as the painting time was done. While I typically would tell her to suck it up, I felt they were in the wrong here. There were about 6 other kids still working, so it wasn’t saving them any time not to let her paint. They had a little area on a giant picture she could color, but it was already partially colored and this offended her to no end. They almost caved and set her up to paint (I could see it in their eyes–she is really cute and was totally pathetic looking as she sobbed her little heart out). Since she disdained the idea of coloring where others already had, we moved on. Oh.the.drama.

We had ice cream in France as we trudged on. I think I might have mentioned that it was hot…

We finally got to Japan (the furthest point from the entrance) and Sunshine got to watch a drum ceremony thingy and Pixie found the Sharpie craft spot. She actually did a lovely job on her mask, so it made the blog. It took her for.ev.uh. to finish it, but I felt that she had earned a bit of artistic down time due to the sad painting episode.

We were heading to Hollywood Studios next and I was excited as I figured this was where Sunshine and Pixie would have the most fun. As with every other girl aged 5-11 in America, they are into Hannah Montana and High School Musical. We were walking briskly through Epcot toward the monorail and I realized that the children were dragging major tail behind us. They said they were tired and wanted to go back to the hotel. ! Huh?? Uh…..okay. Well, I wasn’t done with Disney yet, so we called the ‘rents-in-law to see if they wanted two more tired, slightly cranky children so that DH and I could go play by ourselves. :)

Yes, folks, that is why I have no more pictures from our last day at Disney. We didn’t carry nothin’ with us, except a credit card. Whoo hooo! Oh, the freedom to dart amongst the crowd, unencumbered of small children and all their stuff! We had a great time, though we were a little sad the kids were missing it.

We rode Tower of Terror (which I totally love, even though I am sure I am going to die), did Star Tours (which is exactly the same as when I rode it almost 10 years ago–it could do with some updating, and a scenty-thingy–pu!), a very weird Drew Carey show (a complete waste of time, even though it did get us out of a torrential downpour), the Walt Disney story, dinner at the Sci Fi Drive-in theater (which was totally fun), and then the Movies through the Years tour (also fun, though we were standing in line with about a zillion teenagers on Spring Break).

We ended our wonderful day/date by grabbing some last minute souvenirs for the children. This day and Kennedy Space Center were definitely the highlights of our stay in Florida.

(oh, and the kids and grandparents fared well together, too! :)
Thank you, grandparent fairies, wherever you are!)

Next up: travelling home

© 2008 – 2009, melissa caddell. All rights reserved. If you steal my stuff, I will also be really, really mad.

As mentioned before, we are geeks. Like, the kind of people who watch the Sci Fi channel (well, not me, the DH, but only because the acting is usually horrible and I can’t stand it.) I am a scientist by training, the Darling Husband an engineer. Geeky, geeky, geeky. But, I love it, as it makes life so interesting.

We spent Thursday at the Kennedy Space Center. It was cooler then Orlando and uncrowded. There is a bus tour that takes you through much of the island and visitor sites. My absolute favorite view is of the Vehicle Assembly Building, where they put the “orbiter” (space shuttle) on to the rockets and the big orange fuel tank. (Note–did you know that the stripes on the American flag are big enough for buses to drive on?)

Being where there is so much history–the horrible tragedies, and the amazing triumphs–it is truly awe-inspiring. We put people on the moon! Amazing! I picked up a print of an astronaut’s boot-print on the moon to remind myself of just how incredible it is.

The girls had a great time running around and looking at everything. We got to visit the historic mission control room that was used in the 50’s and 60’s. It was exactly as it was when the moon landing occurred and they had a video and voice recordings of the room during the landing, so it was like peeking over the shoulders of the people at Mission Control. It was just amazing. (We did have to tell Sunshine what a tape recorder was. I think my new cell phone has more technology then we had available for the moon landings.)

We also got to see the Saturn V rocket–the largest rocket ever built. It was HUGE. These were the rockets that got us to the moon.

We all got to touch a moon rock, which was totally fun (see, we are geeks).

As a bit of an aside, Sunshine is doing a Girl Scout thingy on space and as I poked around the NASA website with her, I discovered that applications for astronauts are open. Hmmm….I am considering applying, though I’m pretty sure I only have a fraction of the qualifications. (I was all about being an astronaut when I was 12 or so.) When I exclaimed excitedly that I might apply, Sunshine responded with, “But then you won’t be home as much!”. Um….true. But your mom would be an astronaut, baby!

© 2008 – 2009, melissa caddell. All rights reserved. If you steal my stuff, I will also be really, really mad.

Animal Kingdom is a smaller park and easy to do in a day, so it was a good break from the mad sprinting about we had been doing.

Did I mention it was hot?

We got to the park and by the time we had figured out a plan of attack, we were starving. We headed to what we thought was a McDonald’s restaurant inside the park and wasted almost an hour of valuable park time there on a horrible meal. It took 45 from when we stepped into the fairly short lines to when we got our food. I guess they call it a McDonald’s as they served McD’s fries, but the cheeseburgers were among the worst I have ever eaten. Ick.

After that disappointing experience, we headed out into the heat to find something to do while we waited for the Nemo show. The Toddler feel asleep about now (thankfully, as she was a total wreck) so I took the older two over to the dinosaur Boneyard to play. But, not before Sunshine had some weird emotional meltdown about missing school. ? I think she is tired.

The girls played happily for a bit, the Darling Husband sat in the shade with the stroller, and we just relaxed.

They have a new Nemo show that has all kinds of hype about it, so they recommended that we get in line 45 minutes before the show started. While my idea of Disney fun does not lend itself to standing in line, we wanted to see this show as a group of 10, so we headed to the lines early.

At this point, I can only assume that someone at Disney marketing had a cerebral event. A full half an hour before the show started, the theater (lovely and air conditioned, btw) was packed full and the doors were closed. Now, someone must not have thought this all the way through. The have a theater full of hundreds of people, and no one can buy anything. No souvenirs, no snacks, nothing. Thirty minute of wasted spending time. Then, I thought that surely, they would go ahead and start the show, but they waited the full time. Weird. The Darling Husband entertained Toddler while she climbed steps and explored the theater.

The show was pretty good, but if you hadn’t seen Nemo, (as the Norway crew), you would have no idea what was going on. I am a native English speaker and I couldn’t understand most of what they said. They had some nice interactive parts with characters in the audience and the costumes were neat. Toddler lasted almost the whole show, so that’s all that counts, really.

The ‘rents-on-law took Toddler for a while, so we got to take the older two on the Safari ride without having to deal with little Ms. Wiggly Buns. She, in turn, got to see the Jungle Parade. She is a huge parade fan, probably her favorite thing at Disney.

After our safari, we headed over to the Rainforest Cafe for dinner with everyone. It is such a neat restaurant, and aside from the arctic level the air conditioning was set on, we had a good time.

I’m not sure how it happened, but I ended up with all 3 kids as we headed out through the gift shop (I am convinced that you can’t leave anywhere in FL without going through a gift shop). We were waiting on the rest of the crew and I managed to lose both older girls at separate times. It was almost funny, really. I’d find one, then lose the other. Yep, I was that mom walking briskly through the Rainforest gift shop dangling a toddler while shouting for my other two kids (they will let anyone be a parent). Finally, I caught up with the rest of the gang and handed off the 2 kids I had in custody at the time to go back into the gift shop to find the last kid. (Who happened to be our eldest. Oddly, she has been the one getting lost this trip–time to reconsider that cell phone thing.)

We are headed to the Kennedy Space Center tomorrow. Being the geeks that we are, we are totally looking forward to it.

© 2008 – 2009, melissa caddell. All rights reserved. If you steal my stuff, I will also be really, really mad.

I have to say, I totally buy into the whole “magic” kingdom thing. I think Walt Disney was a man with tremendous vision (in addition to the marketing thing). I don’t think Disney World is the “happiest place on earth” (as demonstrated by the number of shrieking parents kids), but I do love the propagation of the power of imagination.

In my experience, the cast (all the people who work at Disney) are unerringly polite, happy and friendly. I love that people from so many different countries work there, and they seem to be the cream of the crop. I wish I had a peek into the behind-the-scenes magic of how the parks work, but maybe that would take away some of the sparkle. (I did briefly speak to a former Disney employee who said there was pretty high turnover. The Darling Husband–showing off how invaluable his iPhone is–found a website while we strolled through Epcot with articles written by a former cast member, click here for the articles.)

We had my parents-in-law, their foreign exchange student and some of her family with us, so we got to see America and Disney through their eyes a bit. Since they are from Norway, we booked The Princess Storybook lunch at the Norway pavilion at Epcot for a late lunch that day. The character dining is a bit pricey, but the food is good and plentiful and it is a great way to spend a few extra minutes with the characters. As a note, turns out that our view of the Viking hats with the horns on it is all propaganda. The horns could easily be grabbed by an enemy, so I guess version 2.0 without the horns was the one they actually used, though I imagine they wouldn’t sell as well.

We spent a little bit of time poking around Norway and The Pixie Child discovered the craft area that was sponsored by Sharpie. They have spots in the different countries at Epcot where kids can get their Epcot passport stamped and do a craft. Sharpie. You know, the PERMANENT MARKER company. What the heck were they thinking? I hovered slightly nervously bout while The Pixie completed her ELABORATE and TIME-CONSUMING mask. Honestly—permanent markers and kids?? Sigh. Did I mention that they have such a station in all of the 11 worlds at Epcot? With helpful little signs and arrows to direct the children?

We went to on a few rides at Epcot and the girls played on a water playground. Epcot is one of our favorite places and we plan to come back later in the week.

We headed back to the hotel where The Toddler’s travel crib fit very nicely in the walk-in closet, so she had a little spot all to herself. It seems vaguely wrong to put her in the closet, but it just works out so well. She’s happy, we’re happy…

TUESDAY
Hot. Really, really hot. Even though it is barely April, it is seriously hot and humid in Orlando. Like wilting hot. Ugh. Last time we visited it was November and the weather was very comfy. We have made a mental note about that for future trips.

So, our assault on the Mouse really started on Tuesday morning and the Magic Kingdom. Our first order of business was taking The Pixie Child on her first roller coaster ride on Splash Mountain. The Sunshine Child had taken her first ride here four years ago and we wanted to keep with tradition. She is a very adventurous child and she loved it, though she barely made the 40” height requirement. We taught her the proper way to raise her hands and scream, so I considered it a success. My favorite coaster is probably Big Thunder Mountain, and despite the fact that The Pixie Child slid all-over the seat the whole ride, she loved it, too.

Did I mention that it was hot? Spirits were revived with mouse-shaped ice cream and we headed to Fantasyland and The Toddler’s inaugural ride on Dumbo. She liked going up and down, but really, it was more for me to get pictures for her scrapbook to prove to her that we love her as much as her older sisters, even though we only have about 5 pictures of her.

Maternal guilt abated for the moment, we dinked around Fantasyland for a bit, including meeting up with the whole gang for It’s a Small World. It is complete sensory overload for me, but I still find it oddly appealing. The girls liked it a lot and, more importantly, it was air conditioned…yay!

We did a few things in Tomorrowland, including the Monster’s Inc comedy show, which was, indeed, funny. The Darling Husband, Pixie, Toddler and I all had a cameo on the show (due to where we were sitting, not because we looked all that funny, I’m sure). The Pixie was very cute on camera. When asked where she was from, she correctly identified her state (a proud mothering moment) and chatted back and forth with the animated monster on the screen.

We rounded out the day with dinner at Cracker Barrel (I think their breakfasts are better then their dinners, btw). The Toddler was a wiggly wreck at that point we just had to keep popping bites of food in her mouth. She did manage to grab a plate and throw it onto the ground when I had my head turned. Nothing like the sound of shattering dishware to grab attention. Grrr. The Pixie and Sunshine had a great time playing that little peg game where I can never get fewer then 2 pegs…

Tomorrow is a full day at Animal Kingdom, so hiegh ho, heigh ho, it’s off to bed I go….

p.s. stay tuned for my “Traveling Tips with Toddlers” blog…

© 2008 – 2009, melissa caddell. All rights reserved. If you steal my stuff, I will also be really, really mad.

Okay, it wasn’t near as bad as I feared. 2000 miles later, we are all still friendly. Except, we all loathe Elmo and his Pets DVD as that is the only thing The Toddler has watched for the last 4 days. (Please, someone, tell me why Elmo’s friend has a cat named ‘Chucky Sue’? And why does anyone bother to ask Mr. Noodle anything–he NEVER knows the answer! Jeepers…) La la la la, la la la la, Elmo’s world….

We did about 350 miles the first night to Hays, KS. Having driven through Kansas before, we opted to do as much at night as possible. While it is a lovely state, there is only so many miles of corn-silo-cow-repeat a family can take.

As we headed out the next morning, we saw a sign for The Oz Museum. Well, we HAD to see that. So, a few hours later, we pulled off the road (because they neglected to mention that the museum was 10 miles off the freeway) to get Toto’s Tacos (no joke). They weren’t bad, actually. We spent more time in the gift shop then the museum, but it was a nice break and we did see 2000 pieces of Oz memorabilia we had never seen before… The Darling Husband got a mug that reads: “Did the Wizard ever get back to you about the brain?”. The Pixie Child feel in love with the little glass with Toto on it (a shot glass, of course) that reads: Dorothy–Hate Oz, took the shoes, find your own way home.-Toto.” Funny….

We wanted to get to the St. Louis Arch that night, but it was closed when we got there (okay, in all fairness it was like 830pm). We did get to see it from like 3 states as we drove around and around trying to find the entrance. The Darling Husband’s iPhone took forever to load the page and his map thingy on said device wasn’t so helpful. Anyway, we dashed like frozen maniacs over to the base of it so at least the kids could see it and touch it’s freezing metal surface. The Toddler was just so happy to run around–until the momentum of that big ole’ toddler head hit the pavement when she fell down. The Darling Husband and I (stellar parents) kept checking her mouth, sure she had bit her tongue or something with all her crying and totally missed the big bruise on her forehead until the next morning. They will let anyone be a parent.

We stayed in a town called Puducah, KY that night. ‘Who knew?’ is about all I have to say about Kentucky….bless their hearts.

Did I mention yet that one of my favorite features on the Darling Husband’s device of iJoy is that it will locate the nearest Starbucks for you, and then give you directions to it? :)

We drove through Nashville on our way to see The Darling Husband’s sister in Atlanta. It was interesting to note how the country and people changed a bit from one stop to the next (basically, because we were in another state before we got to stop again). Accents were different, local cuisine (someone must tell me what one does with a boiled peanut), even driving. (Aside from The Darling Husband’s sister, I’m sure, Atlanta has the worst drivers we encountered on our trip.) We stopped and had a lovely home-cooked meal with my dear SIL and then hit the road for a few more hours of driving.

(Note: the Suburban totally rocks. If I ever wanted to drive a tank on a daily basis, I would have to get one. This one has leather-esque seats (which totally changes your outlook on spills), XM Radio (who knew it could be so much fun!), a moon roof (which the children love), and a built-in DVD player (so they all have to watch Elmo when their players run out of power and they forgot to charge them the night before). However, what I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE is the dual climate control. Wow. As it turns out, The Darling Husband and I have a 5-8 degree temp difference in how we set ours. How will I ever go back to shrieking and turning all the vents away from me/towards him when he fiddles with the fan back in the old minivan?? Sigh.)

My SIL had warned us that tourists heading to Disney World were the local law enforcement in south GA’s bread and butter and she was so right. It was raining pretty hard, so we weren’t tempted to speed in any case.

(Note: the speed limit on the highways changed from a reasonable 75 to 70 as soon as we hit Kansas….ugh. SOooooooo painfully slow……)

We spent the night in Tifton, GA where The Darling Husband and I realized that we have come a long way, baby. The only room we could find was at a MicroTel Inn. Which, years ago, we would’ve been thrilled with. However, we are now getting old and cranky, apparently. Paper thin walls, the sheets and towels felt cheap, and who’s black hair was that in the bathroom?? Eeeewwww.

Don’t get me wrong–we don’t normally stay at 5 star hotels…just ones with a slightly less ‘how many college kids can we cram in here to save money’ feel. Trust me in that we would know what that feels like. :)

We made it to Disney World in tact and everyone singing along to Hannah Montana on the XM radio. It took two loads on the very full luggage cart to get all of our crap into the lovely timeshare condo our inlaws are letting us use. (Clearly, they believe firmly in the saying–be nice to your kids, as they are the ones who will pick your nursing home. :)

Let our assault on the Mouse begin….

© 2008 – 2009, melissa caddell. All rights reserved. If you steal my stuff, I will also be really, really mad.

Brace yourself. What I am about to tell you is not for the fainthearted…

We are DRIVING to Disneyworld.

Yep. DRIVING. Three days. Three kids. One rented Suburban. An, um, economically-minded (read: tightwad) Darling Husband, and moi, who is making endless lists so we don’t forget some critical item that we will suddenly need in, say, Kansas at 3 am (when we’ll still be driving).

The reasonable question is, of course, WHY?? Well, it all started when my Darling Husband looked at airfares for our trip. We were going to use his frequent flier miles for one of the tickets, which left us only having to purchase 3 (I totally milk that “no ticket ’til they’re 2″ thing). No problem and yay! that all the business travel might pay a small dividend! Turns out he hadn’t actually earned enough miles for this ticket. Darn.

So, my Darling Husband spent some time crunching numbers and found that it would be almost $1000 cheaper to drive, even with the added expenses of hotels and meals. Well, that’s pretty much like saying “sic’em” to a dog. With all the various vacation expenses starting to rear their ugly heads, no amount of my daily cost-comparison on airfares would dissuade him.

(As an aside, my dear and very travel-savvy sister sent me the following link for keeping an eye out on airfare: Airfarewatchdog.com).

We leave Thursday evening. Currently, I have instigated military-level packing. On a previous long trip to CA last year, I discovered the joy of gallon-size ziploc bags. For our 11-day trip, I have packed 6 outfits for everyone with plans to do laundry. Because we travel so much, each person has their own packing list and the girls are in charge of their stuff, mostly. Also, packing snacks and toys and such into clear plastic crates seriously decreases the mess in the car, which I hate. Wow, reading this paragraph makes me sound a bit AR….(anal retentive….)…

We are fairly well-prepared, I think. All the children (even the Toddler) have various electronic devices to amuse them, so I hope we maintain sanity. We decided to rent a larger car and ended up getting a Suburban, which kinda scares me. They are SO stinkin BIG, but it makes me feel safer and it will be more comfortable, I think.

Off to finish last minute packing…

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