Compliments of My Amazing Aunt Carole
Ok, how cute is this? We just got a wedding present from my aunt, 112 days after our wedding! This is my artistic aunt and she did the MOST AMAZING thing for us...she drew this panoramic piece of art featuring my family as their favorite Disney characters. Kyle and I even have our bride and groom ears on! How cute is this?!?!
And that's all she wrote...
I think I've officially come to the end of the Disney wedding story. True, there are a lot of little things that I could go on about...vacation photos from our guests, the pictures I wish we had gotten in Florida, the special wedding gift from Disney...but honestly, I feel like we're beating a dead wedding here. It's time to move on to the home receptions!
But first, I have to share one last thing. I pulled this off of my mom's camera when I got her Florida pictures. Apparently my tea was crashed by an uninvited guest...
But first, I have to share one last thing. I pulled this off of my mom's camera when I got her Florida pictures. Apparently my tea was crashed by an uninvited guest...
Reader Spotlight: J. Darling
I've never done one of these, but I wanted to highlight one of my blog readers before I move on from all the weddingness...
It's sort of random and weird to have "blog friends". The instant reaction is that you can't be friends with someone if you don't "actually" know them. After all, they don't really know you either and exchanging a few comments isn't the same thing as getting to know someone. That being said, I have made so many blog friends since I started blogging about the wedding. Some of these friendships started on other forums and then crossed over when people were sweet enough to come to my blog and follow along with my planning. Other friendships sprung out of nowhere, with new faces showing up to drop off a friendly line or too.
Of all the people who comment on my blog, J. Darling is one of my favorites. Her comments are always very thoughtful, helpful, and personal. One in particular has stood out to me as one of my favorite things that anyone told me when I was planning the wedding. I posted a handful of engagement pictures last summer and asked for feedback on which one we should choose for our invitations. J. Darling noted that she liked the one that we eventually chose and said: "If I were a poet and would put words to this photo, I would say that you are his joy. You center him. He is your support and fills your life with happiness. It's beautiful and truly makes you guys appear to be equals in adoration."
It's such a simple comment, but it made me so happy and now every time I see that picture, I think about her words.
J. Darling has her own blogs. J's Journey Book is one of those random happy blogs that serves as a net to catch whatever she happens to be dreaming about that day. The Wellness Journey is her personal fitness/health blog and it's been a source of inspiration for me as I've been struggling (you have no idea!) to get back on the diet wagon after I fell off (*SPLAT*) once the wedding was finished. I strongly recommend that you take a peek if you haven't already...she has a lot of wonderful things to say.
Thank you, J. Darling, for being such a steady source of support, advice, and friendship. I truly appreciate it!
It's sort of random and weird to have "blog friends". The instant reaction is that you can't be friends with someone if you don't "actually" know them. After all, they don't really know you either and exchanging a few comments isn't the same thing as getting to know someone. That being said, I have made so many blog friends since I started blogging about the wedding. Some of these friendships started on other forums and then crossed over when people were sweet enough to come to my blog and follow along with my planning. Other friendships sprung out of nowhere, with new faces showing up to drop off a friendly line or too.
Of all the people who comment on my blog, J. Darling is one of my favorites. Her comments are always very thoughtful, helpful, and personal. One in particular has stood out to me as one of my favorite things that anyone told me when I was planning the wedding. I posted a handful of engagement pictures last summer and asked for feedback on which one we should choose for our invitations. J. Darling noted that she liked the one that we eventually chose and said: "If I were a poet and would put words to this photo, I would say that you are his joy. You center him. He is your support and fills your life with happiness. It's beautiful and truly makes you guys appear to be equals in adoration."
It's such a simple comment, but it made me so happy and now every time I see that picture, I think about her words.
J. Darling has her own blogs. J's Journey Book is one of those random happy blogs that serves as a net to catch whatever she happens to be dreaming about that day. The Wellness Journey is her personal fitness/health blog and it's been a source of inspiration for me as I've been struggling (you have no idea!) to get back on the diet wagon after I fell off (*SPLAT*) once the wedding was finished. I strongly recommend that you take a peek if you haven't already...she has a lot of wonderful things to say.Thank you, J. Darling, for being such a steady source of support, advice, and friendship. I truly appreciate it!
My Grandma and Her New Digital Camera in WDW
One of the things that is keeping me from posting about the at home receptions is that there are still little crumbs and nuggets left over from our time in Florida and I want to get those out there before I move on. I just haven’t gotten organized enough to put all the crumbs and nuggets up in blogland.
One such nugget is the pile of pictures and video that I got off of my grandmother’s camera. My grandma’s pictures from Florida are Exhibit A for why you should always practice with your digital camera before a big event. Luckily, there were about a bazillion photos from everyone else and the moments were all adequately captured. If my grandma’s pictures had been the only record of the family trip to WDW, well…
One such nugget is the pile of pictures and video that I got off of my grandmother’s camera. My grandma’s pictures from Florida are Exhibit A for why you should always practice with your digital camera before a big event. Luckily, there were about a bazillion photos from everyone else and the moments were all adequately captured. If my grandma’s pictures had been the only record of the family trip to WDW, well…
Life After the Wedding
After we got home from the wedding and finished recovering from illness and exhaustion, we found that there was still more wedding work to do. Pictures and video were pulled off of our cameras and those pictures were soon joined by hundreds of others as people sent in the photo cds that I had included in their welcome packets. The photo cds ended up being a really good idea and I had a couple of people tell me that they wouldn’t have even taken pictures, but the cds reminded them that I was hoping to get a lot of photos. In just a week, we even got our professional previews from Root Photography and those were quickly followed by more than a thousand beautiful professional pictures.
Pictures and video weren’t the only things piling up. We got a handful of wedding cards while we were in Florida, but when we got back from the wedding, the gifts really started to pick up. We weren’t expecting any of the Florida guests to get us anything, but a bunch of people did and a bunch of the people who couldn’t make it ended up sending us stuff as well, so before you knew it we had a whole bunch of awesomeness in our living room.
Pictures and video weren’t the only things piling up. We got a handful of wedding cards while we were in Florida, but when we got back from the wedding, the gifts really started to pick up. We weren’t expecting any of the Florida guests to get us anything, but a bunch of people did and a bunch of the people who couldn’t make it ended up sending us stuff as well, so before you knew it we had a whole bunch of awesomeness in our living room.
Today's Post is Brought to You By Kate
Katelyn didn't believe me when I told her the bridal tea was a "hats on" kind of event and therefore she didn't bring a hat with her to Florida. I told her not to worry about it, but to her credit she promptly went out in search of the perfect hat...
Our Wedding Album
We've made a wedding album for friends and family who want one...I tried to keep it down to a reasonable length (so many great photos!), so this album only includes photos from Root Photography and I tried to narrow it down to the best of the best. You can see a short preview of the book on the website, but I've also included the full book below for those who are interested. The book is available in paperback for $29.95 and in hardcover for $44.95.
When I feel truly motivated, I'm going to put together a wedding album/scrapbook for Kyle and I that will include EVERYTHING about the wedding, from the planning to the parties to the full trip to the home receptions to the honeymoon...oh, it makes me tired just thinking about it. In the meantime, enjoy the pretty pictures!...
When I feel truly motivated, I'm going to put together a wedding album/scrapbook for Kyle and I that will include EVERYTHING about the wedding, from the planning to the parties to the full trip to the home receptions to the honeymoon...oh, it makes me tired just thinking about it. In the meantime, enjoy the pretty pictures!...
Wedding Trip - The End
Wedding Trip - The End
Kyle and I woke up early Sunday morning at the Polynesian Resort. We had to get back to our hotel, pack up our stuff, and catch the Magical Express at 10:30, so we walked over to the TTC and caught one of the marathon busses. Goodbyes with my family were short, sweet, and uncertain. I still didn't feel comfortable leaving with grandpa in the hospital and the rest of my family stranded in Orlando, but we were working on a tight timetable, so I headed back to the hotel to help Kyle pack up.
Kyle had moved from "getting sick" to "really sick" to "been sick for too long" by this point and he had absolutely no energy. We packed up our things on time, but it was a really rotten morning. Between my stress over grandpa, Kyle's illness, and the fact that we were leaving Orlando, we were both in bad spirits. I ended up calling my mom to let her know that I was going home to Ohio. I felt terrible about leaving everyone to take care of grandpa, but there was nobody else to take care of Kyle and I didn't want to send him home alone, him being as sick as he was.
The flight home was uneventful and instead of being carried over the threshold, I helped my new husband drag our stuff in so he could collapse into bed. Thus, with our beautiful Disney wedding behind us, we were home.
Epilogue: My grandfather wasn't discharged from Celebration hospital until the following Tuesday, so my family was in Orlando for four days longer than they thought they would have been. Luckily, the Polynesian staff worked with them and kept them in their rooms, which was wonderful. My grandfather is doing fine now, having changed up some medications, etc., but we're still keeping an eye on him. Kyle's fever broke the night we got home, finally, and with about 48 hours of sleep, he was back to normal.
Kyle and I woke up early Sunday morning at the Polynesian Resort. We had to get back to our hotel, pack up our stuff, and catch the Magical Express at 10:30, so we walked over to the TTC and caught one of the marathon busses. Goodbyes with my family were short, sweet, and uncertain. I still didn't feel comfortable leaving with grandpa in the hospital and the rest of my family stranded in Orlando, but we were working on a tight timetable, so I headed back to the hotel to help Kyle pack up.
Kyle had moved from "getting sick" to "really sick" to "been sick for too long" by this point and he had absolutely no energy. We packed up our things on time, but it was a really rotten morning. Between my stress over grandpa, Kyle's illness, and the fact that we were leaving Orlando, we were both in bad spirits. I ended up calling my mom to let her know that I was going home to Ohio. I felt terrible about leaving everyone to take care of grandpa, but there was nobody else to take care of Kyle and I didn't want to send him home alone, him being as sick as he was.
The flight home was uneventful and instead of being carried over the threshold, I helped my new husband drag our stuff in so he could collapse into bed. Thus, with our beautiful Disney wedding behind us, we were home.
Epilogue: My grandfather wasn't discharged from Celebration hospital until the following Tuesday, so my family was in Orlando for four days longer than they thought they would have been. Luckily, the Polynesian staff worked with them and kept them in their rooms, which was wonderful. My grandfather is doing fine now, having changed up some medications, etc., but we're still keeping an eye on him. Kyle's fever broke the night we got home, finally, and with about 48 hours of sleep, he was back to normal.
Wedding Trip - Day Eight
Day Eight
When we woke up on Saturday morning, a week after getting to WDW, Kyle was done. He was so done. I've never seen him so done in my life.
His fever was raging and he was so congested that none of the medicine was working. He'd gone through an entire box of Advil Cold and Sinus since Wed morning and he was still totally miserable. Our plans for the day included going to breakfast at Kona with my mom's family before they all flew out and then going to Epcot to spend time with my dad and his family, because we hadn't really had the chance to see them at all during the trip. I told Kyle to skip breakfast and meet up with us later, but he was bound and determined to come along. I think part of it was that he didn't want to let me down by staying behind, but I think the other part of it was that he just didn't want to miss anything while we were still on vacation.
Unfortunately, we got caught in the mess that was the half-marathon day traffic. If you'll recall, Kyle and I signed up to do the half-marathon. We paid about $250 and never even made it over to pick up our t-shirts and commemorative pins. I honestly don't know what I was thinking when I signed us up to run. Not only had we not trained at all, but we were so tired from the wedding and the week that we couldn't have done the race if we'd actually been running from wild animals. As the bus went by the runners, I did feel pretty jealous, though. I had such a good time when I did it in 2005. Oh well...2010?
We finally made it to Kona about 45 minutes after we left Pop Century. My fam was already all down there and everyone was in pretty good spirits, considering it was the end of the trip. To be fair, they had done a WHOLE LOT for a group of people who had never been to property before and, other than my brother, I think everyone felt like they had really done enough.
Our meal was amazing. I don't remember what everyone else got, but I got some kind of eggs benedict thing that was spectacular. No, I don't remember what it was called or what it had in it, but it rocked my world like you wouldn't believe.
After breakfast, it was time for us all to say goodbye. They all had to catch the next Magical Express to the airport and we needed to get over to Epcot to meet up with my family. As we got up from the table, though, my grandfather fell down. Actually, he sort of fell into my Uncle Denis, who helped him lay down. I don't know if you'll recall, but right before Christmas, my grandpa had all sorts of trouble with his heart and we weren't actually sure if he was going to be able to come. So, when he went down, we were panicking but at least we had a good idea of what was going on.
The staff at the restaurant were really good about calling paramedics immediately and keeping everyone around us from freaking out. There was a doctor (or something?) at the restaurant who was from some foreign country and he was right there from the beginning, but it only took about five more minutes for a whole team of people with a stretcher to show up. My grandfather was conscious, but he was disoriented and he didn't remember what had happened, so they ended up taking him to Celebration Hospital with my Aunt Carole, who help my grandparents with all of their medical stuff. The rest of us went back to their rooms to wait.
Things were sort of a mess for a while. We were trying to figure out what was going on and the hotel staff was working to extend the rooms, since check-out was in an hour. My mom managed to get everyone's flights changed, but because she didn't know when they'd all be able to leave, they were changed to really weird flights that were sort of theoretical. I called my dad to let him know that we were hung up for a while and then we were all just sitting around, looking at each other, not knowing if someone should go to the hospital or what.
While all of this was going on, Kyle had sat down in one of the chairs in my mom's room and fallen asleep. To be more honest, the boy had basically passed out. I tried to wake him up, because I was afraid that if he stopped too long he'd have a harder time getting up later, but since we weren't going anywhere, there wasn't any real reason to bug him. I don't know if I could have woken up if I had really tried...he was out like a light, all wrapped up in a blanket and twitching with fever.
We waited for about an hour and when nothing had changed, it became clear that nobody was going anywhere for a while. Kyle woke up because he'd gotten a call from one of his groomsmen, who was hanging out at AK by himself as it turned out. Kyle left to go meet up with him for a while (such a trooper) and I grabbed Randy and J.W. and headed to Epcot.
The boys still had a day left on their park passes because they had one of those length-of-stay passes, so I figured it would be better for them to come to the park with me than it would have been for them to mope around at the hotel while we waited for news. This was actually not the brightest idea, because they could have saved the passes for the next day and spent the whole day at the park, but at the time we still thought they were leaving on Sunday.
We found my dad and his family in Germany, eating at the restaurant. Randy and J.W. took off to ride Mission Space and I walked around with everyone else for a while.
At some point around America, Chris took the little kids and let them lay down on benches so that they could take a little rest and everyone sort of split up. Dad and his sister went to ride Test Track, which I don't ride, and I think my Aunt, Uncle, and Cousin had lunch reservations. So, with almost my entire family on Disney property, I somehow ended up alone at Epcot for about a half hour, wandering through the shops. I won't lie...it was a little bit awesome. I haven't been alone at WDW since I worked there and it was nice to just look at stuff and grab an ice cream and do my thing for a bit.
I caught up with my brother and J.W. and we did the future world thing for a while. We also got in to the Disney Visa character thing and I got some great pictures...
While the boys were riding segues, Kyle caught up with us. We had made plans to meet Craig and Kristen for lunch, so we left the boys at Journey Into Imagination and headed over to Canada for cheese soup and pretzel bread.
Craig and Kristen had done the half-marathon and they were celebrating their three year wedding anniversary, so it was pretty much a big party. We got special desserts and all that from our nice canadian waiter and whatever it was that we had for lunch was amazing...I wish I could remember, but the deliciousness of the pretzel bread just drowns everything out...
After lunch (late lunch), we went over to Morocco to meet up with my dad again. Through some sort of miscommunication, I thought that they were still wandering the pavilion, but as it turned out they were just eating dinner at the restaurant, so we couldn't really visit with them for very long. We said our goodbyes there, since they were leaving early in the morning, and then Kyle and I made our way out of Epcot. We had been checking in with my mom's family all day, but nothing had changed. They were heading to MK to use their park passes, but it was going to take them a while to get there, so we had some time before we needed to get over to meet them.
That night in Epcot was the last night that we were going to be in a Disney park for a while and we both knew it. Between the week spent there for the wedding and the "honeymoon" that we had taken in August, we'd actually racked up a lot of park time. Still, it's always so sad to know that we're going to be going home. We got a hot mint tea to go, sat in Japan for a while watching people, ended up buying a couple of plastic knickknacks, and talked about how nice the week had been.
As we were leaving the park, walking under Spaceship Earth, I couldn't help but think about how many times Kyle and I had walked under that ball together. The first time I ever went to Epcot was with Kyle in 2002, while my boyfriend was at work, and he had taken me straight to the ball because it's his favorite ride at Epcot. When it was time for us to fly home from the college program, Epcot was the last park we went to and I took a picture of Kyle under the ball so that I'd always remember him there. Three years later, when we were there for the half-marathon, Epcot was the first park we hit and as we were walking under the ball, Kyle took my hand and held it for the first time in a Disney park. On our honeymoon, we ran to Spaceship Earth after overindulging on our attempt to Drink Around the World and I have lots of happy, blurry pictures of us playing and dancing around in the line for the ride. And now, with our wedding week behind us, we walked under the ball with our arms around each other (mainly me holding him up because he was still so sick) and I absolutely could not have been happier.
We took the monorail to MK and met up with Randy and J.W., who had been riding the adventureland rides. It turned out that everyone else had wised up and decided not to waste their park passes on what was left of the night, so it was just the four of us. The great thing about Randy and J.W. is that they're totally easy-going and fun, so they were up for anything. The first thing we hit was Mickey's Philharmagic, which I had really wanted my brother to see. It was TOTALLY worth it. My brother has the greatest sense of humor and gets a real kick out of things like that, so he laughed through the whole thing and completely loved it.
After Philharmagic we hit teacups, Toontown, Snow White, and snuck in a one-minute-before-closing It's a Small World. It's really the greatest ride to end the night with because it takes soooo long that you end up being in the park a half hour later than you normally would have. We shopped around a little bit, but there wasn't anything that we really needed, so we took the monorail to the Polynesian with the boys. Everyone was just hanging out, so we traded stories, snacked on the bits of food that had been collected over the course of the trip, and laughed at how many pins my aunt had managed to collect since I gave her that lanyard.
There was still no update on grandpa, but we knew that he was probably going to be there for a little while. As it got later and later (and Kyle got sicker and sicker), we debated on whether or not to go back to Pop Century. We had to check out and grab our flight the next morning and the room was a complete mess with all the wedding stuff thrown every which way. Ultimately, we ended up spending the night at the Polynesian in the extra bed because we were just so tired and it takes so long to get back to Pop Century from there.
I'll tell you, there's nothing like spending your second night as a married couple in a hotel room that you're sharing with your parents and little brother while your new husband positively burns up with fever. Good times.
When we woke up on Saturday morning, a week after getting to WDW, Kyle was done. He was so done. I've never seen him so done in my life.
His fever was raging and he was so congested that none of the medicine was working. He'd gone through an entire box of Advil Cold and Sinus since Wed morning and he was still totally miserable. Our plans for the day included going to breakfast at Kona with my mom's family before they all flew out and then going to Epcot to spend time with my dad and his family, because we hadn't really had the chance to see them at all during the trip. I told Kyle to skip breakfast and meet up with us later, but he was bound and determined to come along. I think part of it was that he didn't want to let me down by staying behind, but I think the other part of it was that he just didn't want to miss anything while we were still on vacation.
Unfortunately, we got caught in the mess that was the half-marathon day traffic. If you'll recall, Kyle and I signed up to do the half-marathon. We paid about $250 and never even made it over to pick up our t-shirts and commemorative pins. I honestly don't know what I was thinking when I signed us up to run. Not only had we not trained at all, but we were so tired from the wedding and the week that we couldn't have done the race if we'd actually been running from wild animals. As the bus went by the runners, I did feel pretty jealous, though. I had such a good time when I did it in 2005. Oh well...2010?
We finally made it to Kona about 45 minutes after we left Pop Century. My fam was already all down there and everyone was in pretty good spirits, considering it was the end of the trip. To be fair, they had done a WHOLE LOT for a group of people who had never been to property before and, other than my brother, I think everyone felt like they had really done enough.
Our meal was amazing. I don't remember what everyone else got, but I got some kind of eggs benedict thing that was spectacular. No, I don't remember what it was called or what it had in it, but it rocked my world like you wouldn't believe.
After breakfast, it was time for us all to say goodbye. They all had to catch the next Magical Express to the airport and we needed to get over to Epcot to meet up with my family. As we got up from the table, though, my grandfather fell down. Actually, he sort of fell into my Uncle Denis, who helped him lay down. I don't know if you'll recall, but right before Christmas, my grandpa had all sorts of trouble with his heart and we weren't actually sure if he was going to be able to come. So, when he went down, we were panicking but at least we had a good idea of what was going on.
The staff at the restaurant were really good about calling paramedics immediately and keeping everyone around us from freaking out. There was a doctor (or something?) at the restaurant who was from some foreign country and he was right there from the beginning, but it only took about five more minutes for a whole team of people with a stretcher to show up. My grandfather was conscious, but he was disoriented and he didn't remember what had happened, so they ended up taking him to Celebration Hospital with my Aunt Carole, who help my grandparents with all of their medical stuff. The rest of us went back to their rooms to wait.
Things were sort of a mess for a while. We were trying to figure out what was going on and the hotel staff was working to extend the rooms, since check-out was in an hour. My mom managed to get everyone's flights changed, but because she didn't know when they'd all be able to leave, they were changed to really weird flights that were sort of theoretical. I called my dad to let him know that we were hung up for a while and then we were all just sitting around, looking at each other, not knowing if someone should go to the hospital or what.
While all of this was going on, Kyle had sat down in one of the chairs in my mom's room and fallen asleep. To be more honest, the boy had basically passed out. I tried to wake him up, because I was afraid that if he stopped too long he'd have a harder time getting up later, but since we weren't going anywhere, there wasn't any real reason to bug him. I don't know if I could have woken up if I had really tried...he was out like a light, all wrapped up in a blanket and twitching with fever.
We waited for about an hour and when nothing had changed, it became clear that nobody was going anywhere for a while. Kyle woke up because he'd gotten a call from one of his groomsmen, who was hanging out at AK by himself as it turned out. Kyle left to go meet up with him for a while (such a trooper) and I grabbed Randy and J.W. and headed to Epcot.
The boys still had a day left on their park passes because they had one of those length-of-stay passes, so I figured it would be better for them to come to the park with me than it would have been for them to mope around at the hotel while we waited for news. This was actually not the brightest idea, because they could have saved the passes for the next day and spent the whole day at the park, but at the time we still thought they were leaving on Sunday.
We found my dad and his family in Germany, eating at the restaurant. Randy and J.W. took off to ride Mission Space and I walked around with everyone else for a while.
At some point around America, Chris took the little kids and let them lay down on benches so that they could take a little rest and everyone sort of split up. Dad and his sister went to ride Test Track, which I don't ride, and I think my Aunt, Uncle, and Cousin had lunch reservations. So, with almost my entire family on Disney property, I somehow ended up alone at Epcot for about a half hour, wandering through the shops. I won't lie...it was a little bit awesome. I haven't been alone at WDW since I worked there and it was nice to just look at stuff and grab an ice cream and do my thing for a bit.
I caught up with my brother and J.W. and we did the future world thing for a while. We also got in to the Disney Visa character thing and I got some great pictures...
While the boys were riding segues, Kyle caught up with us. We had made plans to meet Craig and Kristen for lunch, so we left the boys at Journey Into Imagination and headed over to Canada for cheese soup and pretzel bread.
Craig and Kristen had done the half-marathon and they were celebrating their three year wedding anniversary, so it was pretty much a big party. We got special desserts and all that from our nice canadian waiter and whatever it was that we had for lunch was amazing...I wish I could remember, but the deliciousness of the pretzel bread just drowns everything out...
After lunch (late lunch), we went over to Morocco to meet up with my dad again. Through some sort of miscommunication, I thought that they were still wandering the pavilion, but as it turned out they were just eating dinner at the restaurant, so we couldn't really visit with them for very long. We said our goodbyes there, since they were leaving early in the morning, and then Kyle and I made our way out of Epcot. We had been checking in with my mom's family all day, but nothing had changed. They were heading to MK to use their park passes, but it was going to take them a while to get there, so we had some time before we needed to get over to meet them.
That night in Epcot was the last night that we were going to be in a Disney park for a while and we both knew it. Between the week spent there for the wedding and the "honeymoon" that we had taken in August, we'd actually racked up a lot of park time. Still, it's always so sad to know that we're going to be going home. We got a hot mint tea to go, sat in Japan for a while watching people, ended up buying a couple of plastic knickknacks, and talked about how nice the week had been.
As we were leaving the park, walking under Spaceship Earth, I couldn't help but think about how many times Kyle and I had walked under that ball together. The first time I ever went to Epcot was with Kyle in 2002, while my boyfriend was at work, and he had taken me straight to the ball because it's his favorite ride at Epcot. When it was time for us to fly home from the college program, Epcot was the last park we went to and I took a picture of Kyle under the ball so that I'd always remember him there. Three years later, when we were there for the half-marathon, Epcot was the first park we hit and as we were walking under the ball, Kyle took my hand and held it for the first time in a Disney park. On our honeymoon, we ran to Spaceship Earth after overindulging on our attempt to Drink Around the World and I have lots of happy, blurry pictures of us playing and dancing around in the line for the ride. And now, with our wedding week behind us, we walked under the ball with our arms around each other (mainly me holding him up because he was still so sick) and I absolutely could not have been happier.
We took the monorail to MK and met up with Randy and J.W., who had been riding the adventureland rides. It turned out that everyone else had wised up and decided not to waste their park passes on what was left of the night, so it was just the four of us. The great thing about Randy and J.W. is that they're totally easy-going and fun, so they were up for anything. The first thing we hit was Mickey's Philharmagic, which I had really wanted my brother to see. It was TOTALLY worth it. My brother has the greatest sense of humor and gets a real kick out of things like that, so he laughed through the whole thing and completely loved it.
After Philharmagic we hit teacups, Toontown, Snow White, and snuck in a one-minute-before-closing It's a Small World. It's really the greatest ride to end the night with because it takes soooo long that you end up being in the park a half hour later than you normally would have. We shopped around a little bit, but there wasn't anything that we really needed, so we took the monorail to the Polynesian with the boys. Everyone was just hanging out, so we traded stories, snacked on the bits of food that had been collected over the course of the trip, and laughed at how many pins my aunt had managed to collect since I gave her that lanyard.
There was still no update on grandpa, but we knew that he was probably going to be there for a little while. As it got later and later (and Kyle got sicker and sicker), we debated on whether or not to go back to Pop Century. We had to check out and grab our flight the next morning and the room was a complete mess with all the wedding stuff thrown every which way. Ultimately, we ended up spending the night at the Polynesian in the extra bed because we were just so tired and it takes so long to get back to Pop Century from there.
I'll tell you, there's nothing like spending your second night as a married couple in a hotel room that you're sharing with your parents and little brother while your new husband positively burns up with fever. Good times.
NEXT: The End
Day Seven - Part Two
Day Seven – Part Two
Schovy, Jed, Steve, and I took the monorail to the TTC and then caught the boat over to the Magic Kingdom. The monorail to MK is much faster, but Michelle had been desperate to get herself on a boat for her whole trip and the ferry across the lake made her very, very happy.
At MK, we met up with Kristen and Chris and ran around for a while, riding whatever we wanted. My big feat of the day was managing to get Schovy on the Haunted Mansion ride. The girl has a serious phobia of anything that may or may not be scary and the last time we rode the Haunted Mansion (Disneyland), the ride broke down right when we were in the middle of the graveyard area. I thought she was actually going to hop out of the doom buggy and take off on a blind run. Luckily, we made it through this time without incident (if you don’t count the half-moon gouges her fingernails put into my arm).
I can’t even give you a run through of everything we did because we flew through it, but we hit a whole lot of rides in a really short amount of time. Around the time that we hit up Pirates and the Jungle Cruise, Schovy and I split off from the rest of the group. This was the fourth time that I’d been at MK during the trip and Schovy used to go to Disneyland all the time when she lived in California last year, so we didn’t feel like we were missing out by leaving early. The other four were still getting their fix, though, so we made plans to meet up with them later…
Schovy and I took the monorail over to Epcot to meet up with my family. Friday was their last day in the parks since they were leaving Saturday morning, so they were getting in their last round of pin trading and German beer. We met up with them at China, where my grandparents were happily engaging the sales staff in speaking Chinese. My uncle offered to buy me a dress for our Napa reception, so I ended up with the first authentic Chinese dress of my adult life…which you don’t get to see until I blog about the Napa reception.
After we finished shopping, Kyle showed up. He and Jeff had split up and Kyle had gone back to the resort to pick up Kaitlyn, who hadn’t spent any time in the parks with us. She’d had her face painted at some point, so when she showed up she was a niece of many colors…
Our caravan of wheelchairs, pin traders, and painted nieces slowly our way from pavilion to pavilion. Kaitlyn isn’t very shy so after only about ten minutes of hiding, she started to warm up to my family and once they started giving her candy and Disney pins, she forgot about Kyle and I completely. Kyle was holding up a little bit better, it seemed. He was still pretty warm, but he’d had the chance to rest for a minute before he and Kaitlyn met up with us and he’d caught his second wind. Plus, since my family moves at the pace of a glacier, he didn’t have to run around anymore.
Eventually, we all made our way to The Land pavilion, since they have the most diabetic and low-sodium friendly menu items. At this point, Kaitlyn had received a sucker and a smoothie from my mother, who was practicing the whole grandma thing, and I wasn’t sure about her eating dinner. She’s not the best eater in the world…when she’s hungry she’ll eat a ton, but if she doesn’t feel like eating it turns into a major battle of wills.
When we hit the food court, she gravitated immediately to cookies and ice cream, which my mom probably would have indulged her with if I hadn’t been there to be the bad, mean aunt. We got her one of those PB&J snack boxes instead, even though I was 99% sure there was no way we were going to get her to eat it. (I think the exact quote was “I don’t WANT that…I HATE THAT”)
Luckily, the rest of us had gotten noodles and there was an abundance of chop sticks on the table when we sat down. Kaitlyn was pretty intrigued with the fact that we were all eating with sticks (Kyle and Schovy are quite good at chopsticks, actually) and it wasn’t too long before she wanted to try. I’m not even sure how she did it, buy my mom managed to talk Kaitlyn into eating her entire box dinner with chopsticks. That kid happily snapped up piece after piece of that PB&J sandwich until there was absolutely nothing left. It’s true we practically had to give her a standing ovation after she managed to get each piece to her mouth, but still…
The plan had been to get to a place where we could see the fireworks before all the good spots were gone, but we left The Land with only ten minutes to go before Illuminations. My family just doesn’t rush very well. There were lots of bathroom breaks, lots of wheelchair organization, lots of double-checking…by the time we got back to the show we only had a couple minutes left and the thing was PACKED. We ended up watching the show from a pretty bad spot and the people in the wheelchairs couldn’t see much, which was really too bad. My grandfather was so impressed with the show, even though he couldn’t see much of it…I really feel like he would have been blown away if he could have seen the whole thing.
After Illuminations, we started wandering up the other side of the pavilion, stopping in at the United Kingdom so Schovy could get her fill of British. I was worried that Kaitlyn would start to crash and get really whiny, because it was late and she’d been at the parks for almost the entire day, but she was pretty content to just ride around on my mom’s lap on the wheelchair.
Eventually the group ended up at Japan because there was something my cousin wanted to buy. Kyle’s parents met up with us to pick up Kaitlyn, which was lucky because she was starting to lose it over the fact that I wasn’t buying her one of those oysters to crack open for the pearl inside. What can I say? I’m a mean, mean aunt. Don’t feel too bad for her thought…before she left, my stepdad bought Kaitlyn a pair of her own chopsticks, so that she could go home and practice.
The park was really winding down at this point. Kyle and Schovy were both dragging along, but they were being troopers. We made it out of the world showcase slowly, stopping at each pin trading station and sampling the foods that hadn’t been tried. Eventually we ended up back at The Land pavilion (we just couldn’t get enough!) My family hadn’t been able to ride Soarin’ yet, since it was always so crowded, so we had really left it to the last minute. I think my family was actually pretty done at this point, but I was desperate to get them on that ride since they know all the places that are showcased.
A few of Kyle’s friends met up with us, so we ended up being the group with 15 or 16 people. I was a little worried about my grandparents falling out of those little seats, but they were fine. Randy and Michelle took extra precautions when they buckled themselves in with the safety strap.
In the end, it was great that we stayed late to do it because my grandparents really liked it and were talking about it the whole way back. I know some people are iffy about Soarin’ because it’s not that thrilling and it does really depend on which seat you end up in, but I really like it. I just wish those lines weren’t so long…
We made plans to meet my family for breakfast before their flight out and left them at the bus station. The rest of us hopped on the bus to Pop Century and ended up back at the resort right around 1 AM. What can I say? Kyle and I were pretty incapable of getting to bed before midnight for the whole week…and so, it was another super-round of antibiotics and fever reducers and then we collapsed into bed with only one more day to go…
Schovy, Jed, Steve, and I took the monorail to the TTC and then caught the boat over to the Magic Kingdom. The monorail to MK is much faster, but Michelle had been desperate to get herself on a boat for her whole trip and the ferry across the lake made her very, very happy.
At MK, we met up with Kristen and Chris and ran around for a while, riding whatever we wanted. My big feat of the day was managing to get Schovy on the Haunted Mansion ride. The girl has a serious phobia of anything that may or may not be scary and the last time we rode the Haunted Mansion (Disneyland), the ride broke down right when we were in the middle of the graveyard area. I thought she was actually going to hop out of the doom buggy and take off on a blind run. Luckily, we made it through this time without incident (if you don’t count the half-moon gouges her fingernails put into my arm).
I can’t even give you a run through of everything we did because we flew through it, but we hit a whole lot of rides in a really short amount of time. Around the time that we hit up Pirates and the Jungle Cruise, Schovy and I split off from the rest of the group. This was the fourth time that I’d been at MK during the trip and Schovy used to go to Disneyland all the time when she lived in California last year, so we didn’t feel like we were missing out by leaving early. The other four were still getting their fix, though, so we made plans to meet up with them later…
Schovy and I took the monorail over to Epcot to meet up with my family. Friday was their last day in the parks since they were leaving Saturday morning, so they were getting in their last round of pin trading and German beer. We met up with them at China, where my grandparents were happily engaging the sales staff in speaking Chinese. My uncle offered to buy me a dress for our Napa reception, so I ended up with the first authentic Chinese dress of my adult life…which you don’t get to see until I blog about the Napa reception.
After we finished shopping, Kyle showed up. He and Jeff had split up and Kyle had gone back to the resort to pick up Kaitlyn, who hadn’t spent any time in the parks with us. She’d had her face painted at some point, so when she showed up she was a niece of many colors…
Our caravan of wheelchairs, pin traders, and painted nieces slowly our way from pavilion to pavilion. Kaitlyn isn’t very shy so after only about ten minutes of hiding, she started to warm up to my family and once they started giving her candy and Disney pins, she forgot about Kyle and I completely. Kyle was holding up a little bit better, it seemed. He was still pretty warm, but he’d had the chance to rest for a minute before he and Kaitlyn met up with us and he’d caught his second wind. Plus, since my family moves at the pace of a glacier, he didn’t have to run around anymore.
Eventually, we all made our way to The Land pavilion, since they have the most diabetic and low-sodium friendly menu items. At this point, Kaitlyn had received a sucker and a smoothie from my mother, who was practicing the whole grandma thing, and I wasn’t sure about her eating dinner. She’s not the best eater in the world…when she’s hungry she’ll eat a ton, but if she doesn’t feel like eating it turns into a major battle of wills.
When we hit the food court, she gravitated immediately to cookies and ice cream, which my mom probably would have indulged her with if I hadn’t been there to be the bad, mean aunt. We got her one of those PB&J snack boxes instead, even though I was 99% sure there was no way we were going to get her to eat it. (I think the exact quote was “I don’t WANT that…I HATE THAT”)
Luckily, the rest of us had gotten noodles and there was an abundance of chop sticks on the table when we sat down. Kaitlyn was pretty intrigued with the fact that we were all eating with sticks (Kyle and Schovy are quite good at chopsticks, actually) and it wasn’t too long before she wanted to try. I’m not even sure how she did it, buy my mom managed to talk Kaitlyn into eating her entire box dinner with chopsticks. That kid happily snapped up piece after piece of that PB&J sandwich until there was absolutely nothing left. It’s true we practically had to give her a standing ovation after she managed to get each piece to her mouth, but still…
The plan had been to get to a place where we could see the fireworks before all the good spots were gone, but we left The Land with only ten minutes to go before Illuminations. My family just doesn’t rush very well. There were lots of bathroom breaks, lots of wheelchair organization, lots of double-checking…by the time we got back to the show we only had a couple minutes left and the thing was PACKED. We ended up watching the show from a pretty bad spot and the people in the wheelchairs couldn’t see much, which was really too bad. My grandfather was so impressed with the show, even though he couldn’t see much of it…I really feel like he would have been blown away if he could have seen the whole thing.
After Illuminations, we started wandering up the other side of the pavilion, stopping in at the United Kingdom so Schovy could get her fill of British. I was worried that Kaitlyn would start to crash and get really whiny, because it was late and she’d been at the parks for almost the entire day, but she was pretty content to just ride around on my mom’s lap on the wheelchair.
Eventually the group ended up at Japan because there was something my cousin wanted to buy. Kyle’s parents met up with us to pick up Kaitlyn, which was lucky because she was starting to lose it over the fact that I wasn’t buying her one of those oysters to crack open for the pearl inside. What can I say? I’m a mean, mean aunt. Don’t feel too bad for her thought…before she left, my stepdad bought Kaitlyn a pair of her own chopsticks, so that she could go home and practice.
The park was really winding down at this point. Kyle and Schovy were both dragging along, but they were being troopers. We made it out of the world showcase slowly, stopping at each pin trading station and sampling the foods that hadn’t been tried. Eventually we ended up back at The Land pavilion (we just couldn’t get enough!) My family hadn’t been able to ride Soarin’ yet, since it was always so crowded, so we had really left it to the last minute. I think my family was actually pretty done at this point, but I was desperate to get them on that ride since they know all the places that are showcased.
A few of Kyle’s friends met up with us, so we ended up being the group with 15 or 16 people. I was a little worried about my grandparents falling out of those little seats, but they were fine. Randy and Michelle took extra precautions when they buckled themselves in with the safety strap.
In the end, it was great that we stayed late to do it because my grandparents really liked it and were talking about it the whole way back. I know some people are iffy about Soarin’ because it’s not that thrilling and it does really depend on which seat you end up in, but I really like it. I just wish those lines weren’t so long…
We made plans to meet my family for breakfast before their flight out and left them at the bus station. The rest of us hopped on the bus to Pop Century and ended up back at the resort right around 1 AM. What can I say? Kyle and I were pretty incapable of getting to bed before midnight for the whole week…and so, it was another super-round of antibiotics and fever reducers and then we collapsed into bed with only one more day to go…
Day Seven - Part One
Is there life after a Disney wedding?...
Day Seven – Part One
I woke up early on the morning after the wedding. Did I want to wake up early? No. I swear, I woke up about as tired as I had felt when I had gone to sleep the night before. As it turns out, six hours is not long enough to recover from an 18 hour event. However, we had made plans to take a group of our friends on a whirlwind tour around the parks, since this was their only day in the parks and (honestly) if you’re going to do it all in one day, you have to make sure you’re doing it right.
I woke Kyle up, but the boy was in really bad shape. He had spent the whole night laying on top of our stuff, not moving, and his fever still hadn’t broken. At this point (Friday morning), Kyle had had a low to mid-grade fever since Tuesday night. He had taken a ton of fever reducers, but that thing just wouldn’t leave. He was on board for hitting the parks, but he was moving a lot slower than I was. My friends were up and dressed and in the food court getting breakfast, so I ended up leaving without Kyle. I know, morning after the wedding and all that…I probably should have stayed to make sure he was ok. I didn’t want him to feel rushed, though, and he wasn’t sure when his friends would be ready to go to the parks, or who was going, so it made sense to split up.
I found Schovy, Jed, Steve, Kristen, and Chris down in the food court. Pretty much everyone else was gone by this point…a lot of people caught flights out the morning after the reception, to avoid needing any more nights at the hotel. Margi and the baby were still at the hotel, but they weren’t up to doing the park thing. I would have loved to have gotten Nate and Neaner and Kate all in the park at the same time with us so we could have run around in a big group, but alas…$85/day park tickets were not conducive to my strong desire for fabulous group pictures…
The group was totally open and up for anything, parkwise, so we started off at Hollywood Studios. As I’ve mentioned before, I like to start my days with a little Rollercoaster/Tower combo action, so we headed in the direction of Old Hollywood.
As luck would have it, Kyle and Jeff showed up not too long after we got into the park and Kyle was able to take all of our tickets and get us fastpasses for Toy Story Mania, which we hadn’t been able to ride yet. Toy Story Mania is amazing, but the line is long and the fastpasses sell out early. If I could, though, I would just spend a day riding that one over and over again…those virtual pies are my ultimate nemesis!
After we rode Tower and Rollercoaster, we met up with Kyle and Jeff (and our fastpasses) and started to do the Hollywood Studios wander. The wander is what happens when you’re in fastpass limbo…you’re basically waiting to get on something great and you don’t really care what you do in the meantime, but you care enough to not want to waste it hanging out in gift shops and snack shacks.
We finally made the decision to ride Space Tours, which I always forget is at DHS. Space Tours is just so classic that I could honestly never ride it again and be completely content. I love it, but the number of times that I’ve ridden that thing over the course of my life is well into the three digits area and after a while it’s more of a good memory than a good ride. The peoples had fun on it, though, and the boys did the usual 20 minute close examination of every Star Wars product in the gift shop.
We still had a little over an hour before the fastpasses were good and we were lightly bumping up against the lunchtime hour, so we made the decision to go into the Sci-Fi Dine-In. If you remember that far back, Kyle and I had already eaten at this restaurant with Justin and Tracy a few days before the wedding, but nobody else had ever been there and we figured we might as well take advantage of the fact that there were walk-in spaces available. To be fair, that restaurant almost constitutes a ride in itself because it’s so much fun…
Following lunch, our fastpasses were only about fifteen minutes away from becoming active, so we headed over to the Pixar Studios area. It’s so much fun over there, but it’s so congested! It’s really hard to enjoy something when the elbows of strangers are attacking you from all sides. We found a spot to group together, though, and killed the next five minutes by taking completely unnecessary pictures.
I don’t remember who did the best on the ride, but I do remember that we kicked Michelle’s butt soundly by quite a large margin. Again, such a genius ride! We were still talking about that ride for the rest of the day because the competition element had been thrown in. You really just have to bow down to the genius of Disney sometimes.
After Toy Story Mania, we rode The Great Movie Ride…which is easily in my top five favorite rides at DHS. It’s not that thrilling, but it’s such an interesting ride and it’s done well for what it is. I had been dying to get Michelle on this ride for years, because she’s a huge movie buff and she has a deep and unquestioning love for everything Gene Kelley. To be fair, it’s probably the worst animatronic figure in the whole ride, but hey…he’s still singing in the rain!
Kristen and Chris had left us to hit up The Magic Kingdom, so after the Great Movie Ride we decided to follow in their example. Kyle and Jeff stayed behind to hang out at Studios for a while longer, since Kyle still wasn’t feeling well and they had both spent a lot of time at MK in the days before the wedding.
As we left the park, we decided to make a pit stop and hit the bathrooms. When Schovy and I came out, Jed and Steve were deep in conversation with some of the Streetmosphere characters, who had fallen in love with Steve’s bright orange shoes…
Day Seven – Part One
I woke up early on the morning after the wedding. Did I want to wake up early? No. I swear, I woke up about as tired as I had felt when I had gone to sleep the night before. As it turns out, six hours is not long enough to recover from an 18 hour event. However, we had made plans to take a group of our friends on a whirlwind tour around the parks, since this was their only day in the parks and (honestly) if you’re going to do it all in one day, you have to make sure you’re doing it right.
I woke Kyle up, but the boy was in really bad shape. He had spent the whole night laying on top of our stuff, not moving, and his fever still hadn’t broken. At this point (Friday morning), Kyle had had a low to mid-grade fever since Tuesday night. He had taken a ton of fever reducers, but that thing just wouldn’t leave. He was on board for hitting the parks, but he was moving a lot slower than I was. My friends were up and dressed and in the food court getting breakfast, so I ended up leaving without Kyle. I know, morning after the wedding and all that…I probably should have stayed to make sure he was ok. I didn’t want him to feel rushed, though, and he wasn’t sure when his friends would be ready to go to the parks, or who was going, so it made sense to split up.
I found Schovy, Jed, Steve, Kristen, and Chris down in the food court. Pretty much everyone else was gone by this point…a lot of people caught flights out the morning after the reception, to avoid needing any more nights at the hotel. Margi and the baby were still at the hotel, but they weren’t up to doing the park thing. I would have loved to have gotten Nate and Neaner and Kate all in the park at the same time with us so we could have run around in a big group, but alas…$85/day park tickets were not conducive to my strong desire for fabulous group pictures…
The group was totally open and up for anything, parkwise, so we started off at Hollywood Studios. As I’ve mentioned before, I like to start my days with a little Rollercoaster/Tower combo action, so we headed in the direction of Old Hollywood.
As luck would have it, Kyle and Jeff showed up not too long after we got into the park and Kyle was able to take all of our tickets and get us fastpasses for Toy Story Mania, which we hadn’t been able to ride yet. Toy Story Mania is amazing, but the line is long and the fastpasses sell out early. If I could, though, I would just spend a day riding that one over and over again…those virtual pies are my ultimate nemesis!
After we rode Tower and Rollercoaster, we met up with Kyle and Jeff (and our fastpasses) and started to do the Hollywood Studios wander. The wander is what happens when you’re in fastpass limbo…you’re basically waiting to get on something great and you don’t really care what you do in the meantime, but you care enough to not want to waste it hanging out in gift shops and snack shacks.
We finally made the decision to ride Space Tours, which I always forget is at DHS. Space Tours is just so classic that I could honestly never ride it again and be completely content. I love it, but the number of times that I’ve ridden that thing over the course of my life is well into the three digits area and after a while it’s more of a good memory than a good ride. The peoples had fun on it, though, and the boys did the usual 20 minute close examination of every Star Wars product in the gift shop.
We still had a little over an hour before the fastpasses were good and we were lightly bumping up against the lunchtime hour, so we made the decision to go into the Sci-Fi Dine-In. If you remember that far back, Kyle and I had already eaten at this restaurant with Justin and Tracy a few days before the wedding, but nobody else had ever been there and we figured we might as well take advantage of the fact that there were walk-in spaces available. To be fair, that restaurant almost constitutes a ride in itself because it’s so much fun…
Following lunch, our fastpasses were only about fifteen minutes away from becoming active, so we headed over to the Pixar Studios area. It’s so much fun over there, but it’s so congested! It’s really hard to enjoy something when the elbows of strangers are attacking you from all sides. We found a spot to group together, though, and killed the next five minutes by taking completely unnecessary pictures.
I don’t remember who did the best on the ride, but I do remember that we kicked Michelle’s butt soundly by quite a large margin. Again, such a genius ride! We were still talking about that ride for the rest of the day because the competition element had been thrown in. You really just have to bow down to the genius of Disney sometimes.
After Toy Story Mania, we rode The Great Movie Ride…which is easily in my top five favorite rides at DHS. It’s not that thrilling, but it’s such an interesting ride and it’s done well for what it is. I had been dying to get Michelle on this ride for years, because she’s a huge movie buff and she has a deep and unquestioning love for everything Gene Kelley. To be fair, it’s probably the worst animatronic figure in the whole ride, but hey…he’s still singing in the rain!
Kristen and Chris had left us to hit up The Magic Kingdom, so after the Great Movie Ride we decided to follow in their example. Kyle and Jeff stayed behind to hang out at Studios for a while longer, since Kyle still wasn’t feeling well and they had both spent a lot of time at MK in the days before the wedding.
As we left the park, we decided to make a pit stop and hit the bathrooms. When Schovy and I came out, Jed and Steve were deep in conversation with some of the Streetmosphere characters, who had fallen in love with Steve’s bright orange shoes…
I can’t even cram in what happened in the next 20 minutes. You’ll just have to watch the (shortened) video. I can spoil the surprise, however, by telling you that it ends with Schovy, Jed, and Steve driving away in one of the classic Hollywood cars…
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