As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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DW is the room mother for DD's K-class again, I guess no one else wants to do it. Any way she is gearing up for the Valentines party and is not sure what sort of games, crafts ideas to do with the kids. We are not real big Valentines people, Halloween that's another story. We had too many ideas for that party, and had to scale back. Plus we have almost funded every single party ourselves, due to a lot of the families being poor, or on government assistance. So, we have tried to make it as fun and memorable for them as possible.
So, if any of you crafty or former room mothers have any ideas, we would love to hear them.
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I remember in elementary school, for Valentine's day, one of the room mothers organized a "Queen of Heart's" Alice in Wonderland-themed party. She had covered each of our desks with an individual red napkin or placemat, we had a tea party, and somehow playing cards were involved, as well as a game of croquet played with lawn flamingos (I think it was more like bowling, actually.) She also sprinkled red heart-shaped confetti on our desks, and there were heart-shaped cookies and candy. It was definitely on of the best "Room" parties I ever attended, and clearly the one that sticks out the most in my mind (I was in third grade at the time!)
Our schools don't do "parties" anymore, so the teachers get around it by doing "station days" with holiday themes! Last year the kids played Bingo (actually they called it Heart) with m&ms or hershey kisses for markers. They frosted cookies for snack (the grocery store sold plain sugar cookies and we brought in frosting and sprinkles). They did a "cake walk" where all the places were hearts on the floor. For kindergarteners you could use letters, numbers, or the sight words they already know. (We used numbers, but drew simple math problems and hte kid standing on the solution won)
Cut out large heart shapes in red construction paper. Then cut each heart in half with an odd zig-zag pattern so that each 1/2 heart only matches up with one other 1/2 heart (like 2 puzzle pieces that only have one possible match). Then give each child one 1/2 heart and have them find their heart's "perfect" match. One year I wrote jokes on the hearts with one half having the question of the joke and the other half having the answer- possibly too hard for kindergarteners if they are just learning to read.
Make or buy a valentine shaped wire form with shiny valentines covering it. Use a suction cup tipped arrow, covered in red tissue paper or construction paper and hearts and have the kids try to "shoot" cupid's arrow through the heart.
You can have a competition of stacking conversation hearts to see who can stack them the highest without falling.
You can do a relay with conversation hearts and spoons. Have the kids fill the spoon at one end, carry it to the other end and dump the hearts in a cup. The first team to fill their cup wins.
craft idea:
Use craft foam and cut out 4 inch x 3 inch kite shapes in red and/or pink. Cut 4 inch pieces of white ribbon to glue on (from behind) as the kite's tail. Buy or cut out heart shapes to glue on to decorate the kite and the tail. I think I bought a small bag with different sizes of foam hearts in red/pink/white. Buy a roll of stick on magnet tape and cut 2 inch pieces to stick on the backs of the valentine kites. The kids can use them as refrigerator magnets.
I've stayed away from having the kids frost cookies in the winter months as they seem to lick their fingers (or the plastic knives) and generally spread germs. You can avoid that by having the parents pass out a cookie and a blob of icing on each kid's plate so they aren't all sticking their knives in the same icing.
If the kids haven't already made them, they could make mailboxes for their desks for the valentines they trade. (Kids still do that in elementary school, right?)
DJ's all excited about making artist trading cards instead of valentines for the kids in his cyberschool class. I let him raid my scrapping supplies and he's loving it!
Or, with just acouple of pieces of construction paper, they could make woven paper heart baskets. I got the instructions for those from Disney's Family Fun website.
They could decorate their own cupcakes. If a parent could be convinced to bake them and ice them, the students could decorate their own with little pink, red, and white candies and sprinkles, M&Ms, or the little candy message hearts.
Oriental Trading has some fun-looking valentine games, too. You don't necessarily have to buy games, though. You could duplicate some of the games on your own.
How about a lifesize Valentine Memory Game? Each child gets a large paper heart "card" with a picture pasted on the back or a matching word written on the back. The kids have to match the word with the picture by choosing the student who's holding the right card. The teacher can just go around the room and let each child take a turn to guess who has the matching card. The game speeds up as more cards are turned over and they get a peek, but they have to remember not just who was holding which picture, but who had the word matching the picture. DJ is in kindergarten and he loves these kind of memory card games.
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