We Turned Her Into A Disney Lovin', Character Huggin', Thrill Ridin' Girl! COMPLETED 7/11 - Page 3 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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An uneventful first driving day is a good thing in my book. I understand about Selah and Mcdonalds. Alex is the same with Walmart and Target. He is getting better if we go by them though. We didn't get comments on the shirts only because I think we only wore them on the way down. lol.
Glad you are on your way and the first day's drive was smooth!
Thanks! So excited!
Quote:
Originally Posted by mcc0313
So glad you decided to do a TR and I love your new sig pic. By your title I am so excited to hear all about Selah's reaction. This is definitely a well deserved trip for all of you. Can't wait to hear more.
Thanks for following along! I was so excited to be able to put a new Disney pic of us as my sig pic! Her reactions were... well I guess you will just have to wait and see. Wouldn't want to give it away.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdobereiner
Great start! You're on your way!! Reading about the great reveal totally brought tears to my eyes, what a great gift to open on Christmas!
Can't wait to read more!
Mel
More to come soon! Hopefully all tears will be happy ones!
Quote:
Originally Posted by lauriep
Oh, boy, you're on your way! Very good first day. I guess the kids are pretty good travellers-- what did they do to keep themselves busy in the car?
The kids are fairly good travelers when we have all the necessary things. I didn't think to mention anything about that but I am going to post it before my next official update.
Quote:
Originally Posted by alexsmommy0412
An uneventful first driving day is a good thing in my book. I understand about Selah and Mcdonalds. Alex is the same with Walmart and Target. He is getting better if we go by them though. We didn't get comments on the shirts only because I think we only wore them on the way down. lol.
That would make sense as to why no one said anything to you about it. Lol. I guess that might also be why some of the CM's have never seen it since a lot of people probably wear it on their way there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
Great reveal and now you're on your way!
Thanks!
Quote:
Originally Posted by clio
What a wondeful Christmas surprise. Glad your trip was relatively uneventful so far.
Liz
What a great Christmas surprise for your kids! I'm glad the start of the trip was pretty uneventful, a great drive so far. We also stopped in Kingsland on our drive down last trip, I loved that we only had a 3 hour drive to Orlando the next morning!
sounds like a great first day can't wait to hear more about the rest of your trip
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What a great Christmas surprise for your kids! I'm glad the start of the trip was pretty uneventful, a great drive so far. We also stopped in Kingsland on our drive down last trip, I loved that we only had a 3 hour drive to Orlando the next morning!
We have stopped there a couple of times and we really like doing it that way. It's nice getting to WDW early in the day your first day.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KMB733
What a great present to get on Christmas!! Glad you are on your way!!
Thanks!
Quote:
Originally Posted by valegirl5292
Great start, you are almost there. I had the same reaction with my boys when we surprised them. with your room requests !!!!
Thanks!
Quote:
Originally Posted by bsblady01
sounds like a great first day can't wait to hear more about the rest of your trip
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In my last update I talked about our leaving day but I forgot to mention a couple of things so this is just a little addition to that day.
1/27
Someone asked how the kids did riding in the car. What kind of things they did to keep them occupied. Here is what they did for this trip.
Asher is very good riding in the car. He always has been. His only problem is he gets carsick if he does anything (reading, games, watching movies, etc.). So the ride for him is pretty boring but he is good about it. There is always a lot of, " where are we now? How much farther?" and things like that. He likes to play the ABC game where you find the letters of the alphabet on signs and you have to find them in alphabetical order. First one to find all the letters wins. It is not an easy game. Try finding X on a sign. Oh, I forgot to mention the letter has to be at the beginning of the word. There are only so many words that start with X. It is a fun game and takes a lot of time. So a great game for road trips. He is also our talker. He never runs our of things to talk about. Since I homeschool him I am with all day and some times I just have to stop him and say, "no more words Asher, no more words". This usually lasts about a minute and he is right back to talking. He can talk to anyone too. He loves to talk to adults. It doesn't really matter what about. He just loves talking. We don't know where he got it from because Jamie and I are not talkers. We are pretty quiet. I talk on the computer a lot more than in person.
Selah is not as easy in the car. She is fine for short trips in the car. Just riding around town but any more than about an hour and she is over it. She does not like it when the car stops. You know, for those pesky stop lights and things like that . On long trips we take toys for her to play with, her iPad, snacks and her favorite CD. We have a bedtime CD that we got when Asher was a baby and he loved it. It was perfect for calming him in the car when he was a baby. It is a Veggietales CD called Juniors Bedtime songs. It is a very cute CD but when listened to for 8 hours straight it is not quite as cute any more. This CD keeps her calm in the car just like it did her big brother when he was a baby so it is great but we listened to it for most of the trip down on the first day. It was much better than her screaming though.
One other thing that I forgot to mention. Bathroom breaks. You would think, "bathroom breaks, thats simple, just stop somewhere to use the restroom". Nope, not that simple. Selah is not potty trained so where do you change a 5 year olds diaper? That was the question we had when we discovered she had a dirty (not just wet) diaper and we had passed a sign several miles back that said last rest area for 60 miles . I don't remember for sure the mileage but it was something like that and there was no way we could wait to change her. So, I told Jamie to just stop at the next exit that had food and gas and we would figure something out. For changing her in public, rest areas work the best because the changing tables tend to be bigger or at least the restroom is bigger. Public restrooms in restaurants have the typical Koala Kare changing table and she is just too big for them now. Well, we pulled off at the next exit and there was really no place to go. We pulled into a gas station parking lot and tried to figure out a plan of action. We drive a Chrysler Pacifica and they have the OPTIONAL third row seating. If you are using the third row seating that means there is not much trunk space. We were using one of the seats for Asher so we only had half of our trunk space for 5 peoples luggage. Plus the fact that Selah requires a lot of stuff. Needless to say our car was full to the max. Now, normally when we are out and she needs to be changed we can change her in the trunk area. Well, that area is very full. We ended up folding down the middle seat where Wanda was sitting and laying her on the back of the seat while I sat in Asher seat and changed her. That was fun
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Wouldn't want to give it away. 
with your room requests !!!!
. On long trips we take toys for her to play with, her iPad, snacks and her favorite CD. We have a bedtime CD that we got when Asher was a baby and he loved it. It was perfect for calming him in the car when he was a baby. It is a Veggietales CD called Juniors Bedtime songs. It is a very cute CD but when listened to for 8 hours straight it is not quite as cute any more.
. I don't remember for sure the mileage but it was something like that and there was no way we could wait to change her. So, I told Jamie to just stop at the next exit that had food and gas and we would figure something out. For changing her in public, rest areas work the best because the changing tables tend to be bigger or at least the restroom is bigger. Public restrooms in restaurants have the typical Koala Kare changing table and she is just too big for them now. Well, we pulled off at the next exit and there was really no place to go. We pulled into a gas station parking lot and tried to figure out a plan of action. We drive a Chrysler Pacifica and they have the OPTIONAL third row seating. If you are using the third row seating that means there is not much trunk space. We were using one of the seats for Asher so we only had half of our trunk space for 5 peoples luggage. Plus the fact that Selah requires a lot of stuff. Needless to say our car was full to the max. Now, normally when we are out and she needs to be changed we can change her in the trunk area. Well, that area is very full. We ended up folding down the middle seat where Wanda was sitting and laying her on the back of the seat while I sat in Asher seat and changed her. That was fun 
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