May 17, 2017: I Wanna Go Back to the Islands

I’ve been listening to a lot of Jimmy Buffett music this week. Maybe it’s because yesterday we booked our 10th anniversary cruise and I’m pretty excited about checking out a different part of the tropics than we’ve visited before, but also, island music just has this natural way of slowing life down that I think we can all use a bit…

December 17, 2016: Christmas Vacation 2016, In Retrospect

The worst part about going on vacation is that eventually you have to come home again. And check your credit card balance. Mostly the second one, really… Visiting Disney World during Christmastime has long been a staple excursion of ours, and after a few years ago making a proper trip out of mid-December, I’m not…

December 16, 2016: Jingle Bell, Jingle Bleh…

I really miss the Osborne Lights at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. And I’m sure I’m not the only one, so we might as well get this out of the way first – the interim holiday show at the Studios … Jingle Bell, Jingle BAM … jingle sucks. It’s nowhere near the spectacle that the Osborne lights ever were, the story…

December 12, 2016: Exhausted Christmas Vacation Arrival (AND SANTA!!!)

We made it! And everything fit in the car! And the day was filled with several meltdowns from each and every one of our kids! But we made it to Christmas vacation!!! 😀 The battle was long and arduous, beginning with maybe four hours of sleep since last night before resuming our vacation prep with reckless abandon….

December 11, 2016: The Last-Minute, Pre-Vacation Scramble…

I should be going to bed instead of writing this, but when it’s already 5am and you have to get up in a few hours, do an extra 15 minutes even matter that much anymore??? We had BIG plans for today – multiple loads of laundry, finishing putting up Christmas decorations, generally cleaning up the…