~A XMAS STORY~decorations, crowds, pixies..AND A BLOODY NOSE~ACTUAL UPDATE 11/9 p190

Wow, it took me three days but I've read all 188 pages!

I'm missing Christmas at Disney, so your tr is just wesome. And I'm loving the extras too.
 
fun!!! i haven't been to dollywood since i was like 9 years old. i bet it's a lot different now!


a *little* crazy is okay, right? ;) you should've heard luke telling me about them the other night. he had me in his bedroom floor with this card thing that had a magnet in it and he was showing me what each one of them did. it was so cute! nope, no birds. i think it was too cold for the birds! :laughing: ray's sister is a big bird watcher and she even had her binoculars out, but we never saw any to speak of. i made the taco soup just for the heck of it. it's very yummy! here's the recipe in case you want it:

1 pound ground beef
1 large onion, chopped
3 15-oz. cans mexican (ranch style) beans - do not drain (i leave these out because i hate beans!)
1 15-oz. can corn - do not drain
1 14-oz. can chopped tomatoes - do not drain
1 14-oz. can tomato sauce
1 1/2 cups water
1 4.5-oz. can chopped chiles
1 pack (2.5 oz.) taco seasoning
1 1-oz. pack of ranch (hidden valley) salad dressing mix

brown ground beef and onion, then drain. add all other ingredients together and bring to a boil. add beef and onions and simmer for 30 minutes.

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so what is everyone doing this weekend? my saturday is gonna be mega boring - i have to co-teach a continuing education class for court reporters. but at least it's at the local courthouse so i don't have to go far. but sunday ray and i are gonna go see "a christmas carol" in 3-D at the imax theater!!! we've already bought tickets so i'm super excited! :3dglasses

I've really had an interest in checking out Dollywood lately. I wish it would be open in March, because that would help with my spring break troubles.

Yeah, I guess you are just right in the crazy department. :thumbsup2

I was going to go to a Christmas Stamp-a-Stack thing that a fellow teacher is having, but Jill has something to do with John's work tomorrow, so I'm going to wait until she can go. The teacher thinks she may even do it again next week.

So, I will be hanging out at home Dising, doing chores, grocery shopping, church, dabbling in some school stuff off and on as the mood hits.

Maybe I will make taco soup. :)


Connor is into Bakugan, too! I guess it is all the rage with little boys right now. :rolleyes:

Yes, some of them can understand and explain that in great detail, but they fail a simple ten question test on habitats. Is there a 'sigh' smiley?
 
fun!!! i haven't been to dollywood since i was like 9 years old. i bet it's a lot different now! oh, i was just at anna's house giving her some of ray's cake to eat and i warned her that i'm totally gonna be a dork and wear my "team edward because jacob doesn't sparkle" sweatshirt to the movie on the 20th. she said she'd be disappointed if i didn't. :lmao:

you will be able to find PLENTY of vols shirts up there!!!

yay....go vandy! that was actually a better game than i thought it was gonna be. we play florida tomorrow. i doubt i'll even watch! :laughing:


so what is everyone doing this weekend? my saturday is gonna be mega boring - i have to co-teach a continuing education class for court reporters. but at least it's at the local courthouse so i don't have to go far. but sunday ray and i are gonna go see "a christmas carol" in 3-D at the imax theater!!! we've already bought tickets so i'm super excited! :3dglasses

Awww, I love Dollywood!! We have only been once, I actually won tickets from a radio station so Chad and I checked it out. OH MY GOSH!!! It was so clean, and nice, and the people who worked there were super, super nice!!! It is a huge difference from Six Flags. Now, it used to be nice (when I worked there) you had to talk to people and interact with them. The kids there now...UGH!! They are awful! Your lucky if they even look at you in the eye! I worked at Monster Plantation and we had to help people in and out of the boats. Well, when we went last year the girl was just leaning on the controls and just pointed her finger for you to get in. I looked at her and said, "Um, excuse me. Aren't you supposed to be talking to us, helping us in the boat, picking a booger, etc?" She just looked at me like I was stupid! I can't stand rude, inconsiderate kids!! So, I choose Dollywood anyday over SFOG. I also heard that Dolly has a lot of her kin folk working there.
Oh, and they have the best corndogs EVER!!! :rotfl2: My sister thinks I am crazy because I told her she has to try it. The little old man working in the stand dips it himself as you order it, then fries it. While the little old lady is making tater twirls! Awwwww, so yummy!!


Um yeah!! You better wear that shirt and take a picture! I am gonna do the same thing with my shirt!! I am so excited!!!

Oh no...sending some good vibes for the Florida game!!! I will cheer for Vandy really loud!! :rotfl2:

Oh cool!!! You will have to let me know how the movie is. We were gonna take Hollie to go see it today but she said she was too tired to sit still! :rotfl:
 
Your Halloween looks so fun! Interesting choice of costumes! Your fall mountain pics are really beautiful! I love the Fall colors - we don't get many of those here.

Thanks Punkin and Winkers for the Taco Soup recipes. I'm going to have to try those. I wonder how they'll do in the crock pot?
 


thanks for posting that taco soup recipe! me and chris are gonna try and make it this week it sounds so yummy :thumbsup2

i have a really busy weekend coming up so we're going to see A Christmas Carol next weekend...no IMAX around here though! you're gonna have to let us know how it is :)

you're welcome! hope it turned out good if you tried it. i will let ya know how the movie is. we're going tomorrow afternoon.

Ray looks so funny. I actually didn't recognize either of you.

good! i don't want to be recognize as a crazy drunk. :lmao:

I love taco soup! It's my go-to easy winter meal.
I have a really simple recipe....browned hamburger, 2 cans black beans, 1 can corn , 1 large can of tomato juice or V8, taco seasoning and a tbs brown sugar. I put it all in the crock pot.

oh, your recipe looks great! someone gave me the one i posted - it's a weight watchers recipe but it's good! i bet adding the brown sugar is yummy!

:rotfl2:Dawn your costume was so funny!! I have to say I love Ray's UT shirt given I am from East TN. The fall colors are beautiful and it makes me want to go up to the Smokies to see the leaves, just got to talk my husband into the drive.

Heather - You can definately find a Vols shirt in PF, should be no trouble. :thumbsup2

thanks! yeah, i think the are peaking right now so you better go soon! it's so pretty right now everywhere. i wish it would last longer!

Margot is the cutest little pumpkin ever, and you and Ray cracked me up with your Halloween costumes!!! :lmao::rotfl::rotfl2:

Connor is into Bakugan, too! I guess it is all the rage with little boys right now. :rolleyes:

i agree about the little pumpkin! :goodvibes i guess i better get ready for bakugan mania then!

Wow, it took me three days but I've read all 188 pages!

I'm missing Christmas at Disney, so your tr is just wesome. And I'm loving the extras too.

thanks for reading and WELCOME!!!

I've really had an interest in checking out Dollywood lately. I wish it would be open in March, because that would help with my spring break troubles.

Yeah, I guess you are just right in the crazy department. :thumbsup2

I was going to go to a Christmas Stamp-a-Stack thing that a fellow teacher is having, but Jill has something to do with John's work tomorrow, so I'm going to wait until she can go. The teacher thinks she may even do it again next week.

So, I will be hanging out at home Dising, doing chores, grocery shopping, church, dabbling in some school stuff off and on as the mood hits.

Maybe I will make taco soup. :)

Yes, some of them can understand and explain that in great detail, but they fail a simple ten question test on habitats. Is there a 'sigh' smiley?

i need to go back to dollywood, too. it's been over 20 years since i've been there. i'm sure it's so different now! hope you have a good, productive weekend. i had a continuing education class today that went pretty good. and tonight i've been typing and now i'm taking a break to dis a little bit. let me know if you make the soup and how you like it!

my mom used to say something similar to me. she'd listen to me sing every word of every song on the radio and then look at me sand say, "now how come you can't memorize your multiplication tables???" :laughing:

Awww, I love Dollywood!! We have only been once, I actually won tickets from a radio station so Chad and I checked it out. OH MY GOSH!!! It was so clean, and nice, and the people who worked there were super, super nice!!! It is a huge difference from Six Flags. Now, it used to be nice (when I worked there) you had to talk to people and interact with them. The kids there now...UGH!! They are awful! Your lucky if they even look at you in the eye! I worked at Monster Plantation and we had to help people in and out of the boats. Well, when we went last year the girl was just leaning on the controls and just pointed her finger for you to get in. I looked at her and said, "Um, excuse me. Aren't you supposed to be talking to us, helping us in the boat, picking a booger, etc?" She just looked at me like I was stupid! I can't stand rude, inconsiderate kids!! So, I choose Dollywood anyday over SFOG. I also heard that Dolly has a lot of her kin folk working there.
Oh, and they have the best corndogs EVER!!! :rotfl2: My sister thinks I am crazy because I told her she has to try it. The little old man working in the stand dips it himself as you order it, then fries it. While the little old lady is making tater twirls! Awwwww, so yummy!!

Um yeah!! You better wear that shirt and take a picture! I am gonna do the same thing with my shirt!! I am so excited!!!

Oh no...sending some good vibes for the Florida game!!! I will cheer for Vandy really loud!! :rotfl2:

Oh cool!!! You will have to let me know how the movie is. We were gonna take Hollie to go see it today but she said she was too tired to sit still! :rotfl:

i really need to get back there! six flags is horrible!!!!! i hate going there. now i LOVE the rides, but the park itself is disgusting and the people working there are just flat out rude. they are NEVER pleasant, at least not that i've encountered. one time when me and my brother and his girlfriend at the time were there, we were walking to the car and they had one area of the parking lot blocked off, but it was really confusing. well, we kind of walked in the wrong area (not knowing it) and the person who was working in the parking lot starts yelling at us and flagging us to go the other way, like really forcefully. it was so obnoxiously rude. so i yelled at her, "you have a great day. and your customer service skills rock." she looked at me and said, "just doing my job." so then i yelled back, "we are SO not at disney world!!!!!!" :rotfl2: i just couldn't help myself.

yeah, we lost. :rolleyes: 27-3. but at least it wasn't like 82-3!!! i wish we could've at least got a touchdown though.

i'm sure you've seen the previews but the part where marley's ghost comes back to haunt scrooge is kinda creepy. i just didn't want you to take hollie and be surprised by that. it's not extreme - probably just depends on the kid as to if it's too scary or not. we are seeing it tomorrow afteroon!

Your Halloween looks so fun! Interesting choice of costumes! Your fall mountain pics are really beautiful! I love the Fall colors - we don't get many of those here.

Thanks Punkin and Winkers for the Taco Soup recipes. I'm going to have to try those. I wonder how they'll do in the crock pot?

thanks! i haven't tried the soup in the crock pot but i bet it's good....especially with the brown sugar added in!
 
remember how i said that the halloween/fall pics were the last non-TR update until i finish?

i lied.

:rotfl:

i had to share these with you. well, first, before i get to the ones i'm gonna share, let me show you this. it's luke's very first school picture! isn't he getting big? he's a kindergardener now.

IMG-1.jpg


i have no idea why that's so ginormous. oh, and my scanner kind of cut off the left side but you get most of the picture.

okay, now on to what i was gonna show you. one of my good friends, amanda, just got back from disney. she and ben (her hubby) and alex (their DD) went to orlando with ben's brother, sister-in-law and their DD for a week. amanda called me like a month before and said they wanted to surprise the girls with a day at magic kingdom, but that's all they wanted to do because it was unexpected and they didn't have the money for a full disney vacation. she wanted to eat in the castle......A MONTH OUT FROM THEIR TRIP!!! :scared1: of course nothing was available when i tried to get her an ADR at CRT and everything else was booked up too. all i could get was the ohana breakfast with lilo and stitch and neither girl even knew who they were! well, about 2 weeks before they left i happened to be online looking at something for another client and i thought i'd try again and i got her BREAKFAST AT CRT!!!!!! :woohoo: i was SO excited for them!!! i called her to tell her and she was running around her office, telling all the people she worked with. they were mostly guys and didn't "get" her excitement - she said they thought she was a crazy person! :laughing:

anyway, amanda does photography work on the side and so she had some really great pictures. for those of you who have been around on my TRs for awhile, she took the pictures of me, brooke and brett (my siblings) in november of '07 for my dad for christmas that year.

so here are her pictures!

they went to DTD for a day, too. so i will share those first.

here's alex.....

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here's alex and her cousin (i'm not sure of her name) playing in the dig yard at t-rex.....

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lego time!

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i thought this picture was so sweet!

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ben had to be gross with the lego sea monster. boys!

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isn't she adorable?

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now if this picture doesn't say, "disney fun," i don't know what does!

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she had to slide down with the dino she made at t-rex....

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they got to go up in the "characters in flight" balloon! :thumbsup2 looking straight down....

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looking back towards the marketplace.....

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looking at SSR.....

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looking at west side and then beyond you can see spaceship earth and the swan/dolphin....

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DTD at sunset....

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the two princesses before their breakfast at the castle!

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ben, alex and amanda....

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i had to post this one because ben has on alex's tiara! :rotfl: if you knew ben, you'd know that he's NOT the tiara type.

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i love this one!

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and this one....

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meeting cinderella! i think alex got a little shy when the big moment came....

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such a great picture!

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the princesses being led to their table....

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with some pretty special friends....

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i think this was during the "wish" ceremony.

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another great shot!

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amanda texted me at the end of their MK day and asked me what other park was good to go to because they loved it so much that they were going back! i told her any of them really but that nothing really tops MK, so they went back to MK a second day! :laughing: she hasn't sent me the rest of her pics yet but if/when she does i will post any of the really cute ones!

i just loved these pictures and thought i'd share! :goodvibes
 
Such sweet memories to treasure forever! And it's awesome that they loved it so much they wanted more. :thumbsup2

Thanks for sharing those. It was a nice way to start my morning seeing those bright little faces. :)
 
those pictures made be teary eyed and I don't even know them! there's just something about little girls meeting the princesses.:love:
 
Aww, those little princesses are so sweet! :lovestruc And Luke is pretty handsome himself! Hard to believe he's in Kindergarten already.
 
Oh, wow. Those pictures are so great!! Thanks for sharing. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the one of "Little Cindy" looking out the window. Such a great shot. Oh--and I can't believe how big Luke is getting!
 
Those pictures are awesome! Thanks for sharing them.

you're welcome!

The picture of the riverboat at DTD at sunset and the picture of the girls headed upstairs to CRT are beautiful pictures! Love them!

i thought so, too!

Such sweet memories to treasure forever! And it's awesome that they loved it so much they wanted more. :thumbsup2

Thanks for sharing those. It was a nice way to start my morning seeing those bright little faces. :)

i know...i love spreading the magic! glad i helped to brighten your morning.

those pictures made be teary eyed and I don't even know them! there's just something about little girls meeting the princesses.:love:

seriously! so sweet!!!

Awww..thanks for sharing those pics Dawn!

you're welcome!

Those pictures are beautiful. I would love to have that kind of talent. The girls are adorable!

i agree...so adorable! and yes, amanda is talented! she took some pics of me and my brother and sister for our dad a couple years ago for christmas. here's a couple of my favorites.

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and of course here's my favorite one of brett being goofy....

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he was SO skinny back then!!! he's still a rail but not as bad as he was.

she also did anna and chris's wedding pictures, which were gorgeous. she took this one of me and ray there.....

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she's awesome!

Aww, those little princesses are so sweet! :lovestruc And Luke is pretty handsome himself! Hard to believe he's in Kindergarten already.

i know!!! he's getting so big. makes me feel old. :laughing:

It looks like they had a great day at MK!

she said he was awesome!

Oh, wow. Those pictures are so great!! Thanks for sharing. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the one of "Little Cindy" looking out the window. Such a great shot. Oh--and I can't believe how big Luke is getting!

you're welcome! yeah, that's one of my favorite pictures. and luke is such a little man now!
 
as promised here it is....

THE FINAL INSTALLMENT OF THIS TRIP REPORT!!!!

part of me wants to do this....:sad1:

and the other part of me wants to do this.....:woohoo:

it's taken me just short of a year to write a TR for a four-day trip!!! but it was packed full of fun so i guess that's what matters.

since it was over a month ago since i did my last update :rolleyes1 here is the link in case you need to be reminded of where we were:

http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=33485393&postcount=2569

basically, we had just watched the once upon a christmastime parade.

after the parade it was around 11:00 and we were all SO TIRED!!! we parted ways and said, "see ya at the condo," then anna and chris headed out of the park. here are some pics she took along the way....

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she said they stopped by the camera center (near tony's) on the way out and told the CM there about losing her photopass card the day before. she said it took awhile, but that they found all her pictures for her! :thumbsup2

they then caught a boat back to WL and here are some pictures she took there that night.....SO PRETTY!!! i can't wait to see these things with my own eyes.

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a blurry bunny....

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they actually didn't get back home until after ray and i did, so it took them a good while at the photo center to find her pictures because we walked around more before we left.

back to me and ray.....

after the parade i knew the end was coming. and i was very sad. :sad2:

we decided to walk through frontierland and adventureland on the way out since we really hadn't been over there nearly at all during the party. in frontierland we saw woody and buckeye in the diamond horseshoe signing autographs. i had seen them earlier, but we didn't stop either time.

here is splash mountain at night.....

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as we were walking through adventureland and nearing the magic carpets, i came around the corner to see this guy.....

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IT'S BIG AL!!!!!!! he's my FAVORITE country bear and it was SO NEAT to see him out and about. i've only seen him in parades before!

you can tell i'm slightly excited to meet him. :laughing:

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continued in next post: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=34270712&postcount=2840
 

after i calmed down from meeting big al, we made our way to main street and decided to look at a couple more shops on the way out. i loved these figurines!

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i don't know if you can tell, but this is supposed to be a picture of the snow on main street. you can see it in anna's pictures above a little bit, too.

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one last look at the beautiful christmas-y castle before we left.....

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bye, magic kingdom. see you in...gulp....two years. :sad:

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i knew i'd be sad when we left but i'm actually very proud of how i held myself together. i was teary-eyed but i wasn't laying on the ground, kicking and screaming and crying my eyes out like a three-year-old, so that was definitely a plus for ray. i just sat on the monorail in silence and watched the gorgeous castle until i couldn't see it any more as we pulled into the TTC. i knew i'd be back, and hopefully when i do come back i will have a little one with me. so it will be all that more special. two years is a long time to wait though. but i can't complain - i went to disney world twice in 2007 and three times in 2008 and that's more than most people get. so i count myself to be a very lucky girl. :goodvibes

we went back to the condo and got a good night's sleep, then got up the next morning, packed and hit the road. we left at ......

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can't we just get off at this exit ONE MORE TIME??? :laughing:

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those wonderful gates as seen from highway 429.....

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one very sad girl....

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eight hours later we picked up our boys, who we always miss so much....

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sherman modeled my mickey-earred-santa hat when we got home....

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:rotfl2: poor thing. we torture him so.

well, that's all she wrote! it was a WONDERFUL trip and i can't wait to go back for christmas next year. the holiday season at disney world is unbelievable and it's something we will definitely try to do as often as we can manage. i highly recommend it! :santa:

so we have 389 days until we return and i will be counting those days!!! :hourglass in the meantime, i look forward to reading all of your TRs and living vicariously through you (and my clients!). :surfweb: i might even start a way-too-early pre-TR soon just so i have a place to share my trip plans and other life happenings with my dis friends. still pondering that. i will link it here if i do!

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING AND SHARING THIS TRIP WITH ME!!! :grouphug:

ETA: i started my pre-TR for december 2010. yes, over a year away. who says you can't plan ahead?

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2327634
 

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