The CLQ Heads West - Even Eileen!! About This Page:

[PrincessSharon]

The CLQ Heads West – Even Eileen!!
July 27 – August 1, 2012

I don’t know why I do this, but I keep giving my Trip Reports names I have to explain right off the bat! If you’ve read any of my trip reports before, chances are you’re familiar with the CLQ, but in case you’re new, I’ll explain.

CLQ stands for the Crazy Lady Quartet (no further explanation necessary ). The four of us are great friends who all happened to meet right here on the PassPorter boards. In fact, the first time I ever traveled with any of these ladies (back when we were the CLT), it was a trip to Disneyland. And by the way, that trip (or rather, trip report) is the reason it’s taken me so long to get this PTR started. I went back to reread it (it’s some of my best work, if I do say so myself ) and realized that none of my pictures were showing! I’d uploaded them to a photo sharing site that no longer exists, so all the fun pictures were replaced with awful little red x’s. I’ve fixed them now (it took a couple of days), so if you want to go read it, here’s a linky http://www.passporterboards.com/foru...ed-7-11-a.html.

Wow, I’m already sidetracked and I’m only two paragraphs in. The CLQ consists of (in alphabetical order, so Karen doesn’t think I’m playing favorites) Eileen, also known as Caldercup.



Eileen, I want you to know that it took all my restraint to not use that photo of you and the crazy cow from the girls trip. To this day, I can’t look at that photo and not laugh. For a very long time. If you don’t know what picture I’m talking about, read the old TR. To be honest, it was difficult to find a normal-looking picture of Eileen. Eileen's always willing to take a silly photo for the laughs.

Eileen and I are geographically closest of the CLQ, but for some reason, we don’t see each other in person often enough. I don’t even see her as much as I see the other CLQ’ers. It’s just that she doesn’t travel to Disney as often as we do. She’s busy with her writing, which has something to do with this trip, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

The next member of the CLQ is Jill, a/k/a Jillybean.



Jill joined the CLQ after our DL trip, so this is going to be a first for the Koenigs. Jill is going to write her own trip report, so I don’t need to say much more about her.

And then there’s Karen, or zacksmom_1993 as she’s known around here.



Karen is… great. If she’s not happy with that, she can write her own dang trip report! Hey, here’s an idea – if you enjoy Karen’s hilarious trip reports, post here and tell her about it. Maybe we can convince her to post one!

And finally, the fourth member is me!



As I’ve said before, we are great friends, but we live in all different parts of the country. So we spend our vacations together when we can. Eileen can’t travel as often as the rest of us, so we sometimes go to her place to be together.

Because we can’t always travel together, Eileen is sometimes left home to read about it on Facebook (except from me, because I’m not even on Facebook ). So last year, when the four of us were able to take a Disney trip together, one of you fabulous PassPorters posted something which I got the meaning of right away, but having my crazy, wicked sense of humor, it made me laugh, and laugh, and laugh. Love ya, LeeNee.

Anyway, I’m talking about this post from Laura, talking about the trip we took together last December:

Originally Posted by njlaura

The CLQ is back? With Eileen too? Can't wait to hear all about it!

Now, I know perfectly well that Laura meant it was good to have all four of us together for maximum snarkiness, but I couldn’t help looking at it like we’d kicked Eileen out of the CLQ and were only letting her back on a trial basis. We had plenty of laughs about that on the trip! And now whenever I refer to the CLQ, I must add “even Eileen” because it makes me laugh. I realize I’m the only one. And it makes me laugh just as hard every time it happens!

Originally Posted by tcmary

Have a wonderful time. Just thinking about your dining reservations makes me drool! Wait - did you not invite Eileen??

Poor Eileen, the red-headed stepchild of the CLQ. Thanks for the laughs, Laura and Mary!

The four of us will have some company for this trip. Karen’s son Zack will be along for the ride and to torment me. I thought it was tough getting a non-silly photo of Eileen! Forget about it with Zack! It was tough just finding one of him looking at the camera! I did manage to find one (and bonus photo of Karen).



The rest of the Koenigs family rounds out our traveling party. I have a few silly photos of Thom, too! More than a few. It was hard finding normal photos. I hereby declare that I will take normal photos of people this trip! Oh yeah, and Mary Devall and Maddie are growing much too quickly! I think I’ll just steal… err, borrow one of Jill’s pics.



The entire reason we’re taking this trip together is because of Eileen, so it’s fitting that I should name this TR in her honor (sort of ). Eileen is a brilliant writer (you’ve read her trip reports, so you know this). What you may not know is that Eileen has written a book! And it’s a good one! I haven’t actually read it yet, but I can tell it’s good. Not just because she’s my bestie and I know what a great writer she is, but because she’s actually gotten some acclaim from her book. In fact, she’s a 2012Golden Heart Finalists for Regency Historical Romance! How awesome is that! I’m so proud of Eileen, no matter what happens! And the conference and award ceremony is being held in Anaheim, California (starting today, so send pixies, please!).

When Eileen learned the conference was being held in Anaheim, she figured it wouldn’t take much convincing to get some traveling companions. I mean, Karen was a no-brainer, being just a drive away. And I was in, too (surprised? ). Unfortunately, Jill and her family had other plans. Mary Devall wanted to spend her 11th birthday at WDW, and that conflicted with these dates.

The Koenigs had planned to spend their spring break in northern California with Karen and Zack (while Eileen and I sat home being jealous ), but Jill getting jury duty threw a monkey wrench into her plans, and she had to cancel the spring break trip. Wait, I mean yay! The change in plans made Jill decide that it was time to get her girls into Walt’s park for the very first time.

Continued…