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There are other changes as well.
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Moving on with the current of the years.
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It's time to move on and move forward.
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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.
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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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Sorry about all the hassles with Delta. We had issues with them similar to yours and since then, we've never flown them. Just too many unknowns as you said for planners like us.
Wow! I missed a lot! Congratulations on your Lasik! I had mine done 6 years ago and I LOVE the freedom of no glasses! Heck I can even see the radio clock RIGHT next to my bed in the middle of the night!
I'm really sorry you have had so many issues with Delta. That would really frustrate me. You have a great attitude about it.
Sounds like Nate is making progress with his back. It's so nice to see them moving better!!!
If you have a spare moment, I would call Disney about the problems you are having with MDE. They were able to fix all of our problems when I called. I was very impressed with the lady who helped. It took AGES but it was worth it and now we have been able to deal with things, mostly, between the 2 of us, well, me really...I'm the super over-planner right now.
So sorry about the run around with Delta! So frustrating.
Too cute about Cam teaching Mal about Disney. And who knows he may change his mind about those princesses once he sees them - then again, maybe not. That's all Lukas wants to do - meet Cinderella. Dylan could care less about meeting them or standing in line for any character really.
Whew! I'm way behind! Congratulations on getting your surgery; however, I'm sorry to hear that your husband may have to go through the same right before your trip. Delta, Delta, Delta...I refuse to fly Delta. I have heard your horror story by so many others...it's nuts! I hope they calm down and keep the schedule from here on out. That would be one less thing to worry about! Congrats on personalizing your MagicBands! Woot woot!! I remember feeling EXTREMELY excited after completing that task...it definitely made it feel real!
Sorry about all the hassles with Delta. We had issues with them similar to yours and since then, we've never flown them. Just too many unknowns as you said for planners like us.
Yeah I'll definitely consider a different airline for next time. Although Delta has the most options coming out of MSP.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HopeAnna79
Wow! I missed a lot! Congratulations on your Lasik! I had mine done 6 years ago and I LOVE the freedom of no glasses! Heck I can even see the radio clock RIGHT next to my bed in the middle of the night!
I'm really sorry you have had so many issues with Delta. That would really frustrate me. You have a great attitude about it.
Sounds like Nate is making progress with his back. It's so nice to see them moving better!!!
If you have a spare moment, I would call Disney about the problems you are having with MDE. They were able to fix all of our problems when I called. I was very impressed with the lady who helped. It took AGES but it was worth it and now we have been able to deal with things, mostly, between the 2 of us, well, me really...I'm the super over-planner right now.
Good luck with everything!
Isn't Lasik great. I'm more in love with it every day.I love seeing in the shower and the clock at night. It's so convenient. Nate is continuing to improve. Hopefully he'll be 100% for our trip, but I'll settle for 90%. I'll have to look into calling Disney, but I don't have a lot of time. Maybe after the holidays...
Quote:
Originally Posted by OhToodles!
So sorry about the run around with Delta! So frustrating.
Too cute about Cam teaching Mal about Disney. And who knows he may change his mind about those princesses once he sees them - then again, maybe not. That's all Lukas wants to do - meet Cinderella. Dylan could care less about meeting them or standing in line for any character really.
Hum... Only time will tell with Cameron and the princesses. I had him pick DVDs for our Thanksgiving trip and out of the 5 he picked 3 were princess movies. And I gave him free choice of our entire collection. Of course in the car he picked the 2 non-princess movies and then Tangled. But he still brought 3 princess movies with.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KHarrod
Whew! I'm way behind! Congratulations on getting your surgery; however, I'm sorry to hear that your husband may have to go through the same right before your trip. Delta, Delta, Delta...I refuse to fly Delta. I have heard your horror story by so many others...it's nuts! I hope they calm down and keep the schedule from here on out. That would be one less thing to worry about! Congrats on personalizing your MagicBands! Woot woot!! I remember feeling EXTREMELY excited after completing that task...it definitely made it feel real!
Delta is my worst enemy at the moment. I'm giving them the evil eye. They are something I'm stuck with for now though so I'll have to make the most of it I guess. I'm really excited about the magic bands. Even more excited about my new Mickey mail!
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I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Ours was busy. We were going non-stop from Thursday AM up until Sunday night. It was fun, but I kind of need to sleep for a week to recover. With two little kids that isn't going to happen so I'm just going to try and make it though the best I can.
We're inching ever closer to our trip and I realized that I'm falling behind on our preparations. I can't really help it. I've got a HUGE deadline at work right before Christmas. And then there's Christmas and all that fun prep so the trip is constantly on the back burner.
I did get an email from Delta again... I am now on a 3:15 PM flight. I did look and it appears that they also added a 4:45 PM flight so I've got to find time to call and see if I can get changed to that one. It's still earlier than my original 6:25 PM return flight, but it's better than 3:15 PM. I'm just angry that I have to deal with it at all. Hopefully I can make some time this week to get that straightened out, but it might have to hold off until next week.
Over Thanksgiving we traveled to my grandmothers in Duluth, MN. It's about a 2 1/2 hour drive from our place. I had the DVD player for the car and we watched Planes, Muppets Christmas Carol and Tangled. Cameron doesn't do well with long car rides so I also brought along a little craft. We made a countdown to Mickey's house chain! I had been a little nerdy and wrote a program that would spit out how many days left and the date. Then I used MS Word to run a mail merge on the results so that I could print out 5 strips per page. So each strip says things like:
33
Days
October 22
No those aren't the real dates. The whole reason I wrote the program is because I didn't want to have to manually type the number of days. And I wanted the date on there too because without fail I always miss at least one day and then I have to count everything to get back on track. So I put on my nerdy hat and wrote a program. And then fed construction paper through the printer. I handed Cam strips of paper and stickers. He decorated them and I stapled them together:
I handed the finished product back to Cam and he said "Dats as long as Punzles hair!" We were watching Tangled at the time. I hung it up in his room and so far he's been super excited to take a ring off every day. I think it's good for him to be able to see how long there is until the trip. He keeps pestering me about it and now he doesn't have to. Maybe I'll get 2 seconds of peace. Probably not, but maybe.
We got home from our trip and I found this in my mailbox:
I was so excited. I hadn't heard of these packages before and I wasn't expecting one. There was a little booklet about our trip. It was pretty much just explaining what there was to do and then a little bit about MyMagic+. There was also a note apologizing for the "pixie dust" with the new system. Maybe this was a little gift from Disney so that we wouldn't be too frustrated by being the test subjects. Either way I don't really care. The USB drive is 2GB. It had 2 HTML pages saved to it that basically linked to the main Disney website. So I didn't really get much out of them. I think it played 2 videos, but they didn't give me any new information. But now I have a really cool thumb drive and I was just thinking that I needed to buy a new one as I maxed out my current one. Score!
My mom got an identical package. She is confused by it and could care less about the thumb drive. She just wants to go. She doesn't want Disney to update her all the time. I told her I'd take the thumb drive off her hands.
I've started a todo list for the trip. Not sure when I'll be able to start TODOing it, but I've got a few things I know need to get TADone. We'll see... Since I have the suitcases out from our Thanksgiving trip and we won't be going anywhere until Disney I'm thinking of filling them with our summer clothes as we don't need them here in the frozen tundra of the north. Other than that I haven't done much at all. Someday I'll get on planning this trip some more. For now here's what I have on my list:
- Pre-pack summer stuff in suitcases. I say pre-pack because I know I'll pull it all out and re-evaluate closer to the trip.
- Pre-order photopass CD
- Garden Grocer Order
- Online check in
- Fastpass+
- Call Delta
- Update our flights with DME
- Figure out airport transportation and/or parking
This time of year is always busy, but it will make time pass quick before your trip...which personally, I am always for. I hate the last bit of time, it passes so slowly.
I did a countdown chain like yours with my DD when she was 5 and we were going on the first trip that she remembered. It really helped cut down the when are we goings. Of course, knowing barely anything about computers I didn't write a program for it. LOL! AND I had the problem you said you would, if you didn't write the program.
Sounds like a crazy busy Thanksgiving week. The countdown chain is really cool. I *almost* wish I had a littlier one that would enjoy that type of thing but neither boy wants to count down to Disney. The oldest has flat out said he won't be excited until MAYBE the week before because "there is just too much else going on in my life right now!" ROFL!!! Crazy kid. Youngest will ask questions on occasion by it but not too often.
The thumb drive looks really cool. Since mom is the one on the Reservation, she is the only one who got it. However.......we do have TWO reservations...maybe she got 2 and is hording one, I'll have to bug her about that......that would be super cool to get one!
I am totally feeling you about the trip taking a back burner! Ah well, the waiting duldrums will soon be over and we'll be in a panic to get it all done!!!
Good Luck with everything ti be done. That's cool about the thumb drive - you're the only one I've heard get one.
Too funny about Cam picking out Princess movies for the car ride.
Cool thumb drives! and getting more planning done for the trip!
Thanks!
Quote:
Originally Posted by mommapants
thr thumb drive is super cute
It's my new favorite! And I use a lot of thumb drives in my field.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OneLittleSpark
This time of year is always busy, but it will make time pass quick before your trip...which personally, I am always for. I hate the last bit of time, it passes so slowly.
I did a countdown chain like yours with my DD when she was 5 and we were going on the first trip that she remembered. It really helped cut down the when are we goings. Of course, knowing barely anything about computers I didn't write a program for it. LOL! AND I had the problem you said you would, if you didn't write the program.
Love that Cam calls Rupunzel Punzle. SO cute!
I love that he calls her Punzle too. He has even told Mallory recently "You gots nakey feet just like Punzle." right after she pulls her socks off. It makes me giggle every time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HopeAnna79
Sounds like a crazy busy Thanksgiving week. The countdown chain is really cool. I *almost* wish I had a littlier one that would enjoy that type of thing but neither boy wants to count down to Disney. The oldest has flat out said he won't be excited until MAYBE the week before because "there is just too much else going on in my life right now!" ROFL!!! Crazy kid. Youngest will ask questions on occasion by it but not too often.
The thumb drive looks really cool. Since mom is the one on the Reservation, she is the only one who got it. However.......we do have TWO reservations...maybe she got 2 and is hording one, I'll have to bug her about that......that would be super cool to get one!
I am totally feeling you about the trip taking a back burner! Ah well, the waiting duldrums will soon be over and we'll be in a panic to get it all done!!!
Sorry the older kids aren't that excited. I'm sure they will be soon though. They just know that it's still a ways off. I love the flash drive. You should completely "borrow" it from your mom. I've decided I'm not going to panic about the trip until after Christmas. I'm too busy panicing about Christmas and all the stuff I have to get done for that! Then I'll revisit the trip.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OhToodles!
Good Luck with everything ti be done. That's cool about the thumb drive - you're the only one I've heard get one.
Too funny about Cam picking out Princess movies for the car ride.
I had no knowledge of the thumb drives. Nate got the mail and came in and said "We got something cool from Disney" I was giddy. And also wouldn't let him open it. Cam always talks a "I don't like princesses" talk, but I think he has a soft spot for them. That or he just likes that Flynn Rider hits things with a frying pan.That's probably more like it, but I'll take it!
I hope that everyone had a great holiday! Now that Christmas is finally over I can resume my regularly scheduled Disney planning. Those pesky holidays got in the way of my Disney obsession. For the most part we had fun and the children enjoyed themselves and the magic of Santa :
Girl needs a haircut!
They both got the new jammies from my mom because we were going on the trip together.
The one downside to this holiday season is that we spent most of Christmas Day at the hospital visiting my mother in law who had a stroke on Monday. It was a minor stroke and she's home now, but if you've got any pixies to spare... If you read my last PTR/TR my in-laws tagged around on that trip so my MIL has made an PTR/TR appearance here on the boards.
So maybe I can't devote all of my time to our trip now, but I've got more time (and with how close it's getting to the trip I have to make time) to obsess over this trip. Since my last update I managed to call Delta and get switched to a 4:25 PM return flight. I'm still upset over our flight changes from what I booked as I would much rather be leaving at 6:25 PM, but I guess 4:25 PM isn't half bad. I also called Magical Express to update them with our flight changes. And right before Christmas I received our ME tags! Trip is getting real. I think we should be getting our Magic Bands sometime soon. We've got them all customized and everything...
I went through the children's clothes the last time I did laundry and put away all the stuff that no longer fits them. They are growing like weeds - hopefully Cameron has reached 40 inches! The bad thing is I realized that Cameron had mostly t-shirts in size 3T and those don't fit him at all anymore. Gah! They don't sell t-shirts in Minnesota in December! I've got some 4T stuff, but I don't know if it will be enough.
I printed out our packing list today to see what I have and what I need to purchase. I know I need to order another rain cover for our second stroller. I tested the one we currently have and it fits our new strollers so I'll probably just order another one of those, but I can't remember where I got it from. Mallory needs some leggings to go under her sun dresses in case it gets cold. That way she can still wear the cute dresses she has as I already have a sweater to go over them.
We've been taking off a ring on our countdown chain every day and this morning Cameron says to me "Woah dats getting really short. We're going to Mickey's House soon! If I jus take off da last one can we go today?" I like the way he thinks!
My mother has been having knee problems for a few years now (she was a toe ballet dancer and it took it's toll) so I've been trying to convince her she'll have a better trip if she gets a scooter. She still hasn't committed to anything, but I'm pretty sure she'll warm up to the idea. I just think she'll regret it if she doesn't rent one.
We also managed to score a 5% off Target coupon. We combined it with our 5% RedCard discount and scored a free $50 Disney gift card. Not too bad except our credit card information was stolen (possibly just like everyone elses). I also recieved a bunch of gift cards for our trip for Christmas. New Dooney bag for Missy! And Nate got a nice bonus from work so we've got some spending funds.
We've got a lot to squeeze in the next few weeks, but soon we will be heading back to our happy place. I'll update next time with our daily plans for now here's what I have on my TODO list:
- Pre-pack summer stuff in suitcases. And figure out what we have and what we need to buy.
- Pre-order photopass CD - well I think I read it's Memory Maker or something now. I've got some reading to do...
- Garden Grocer Order
- Online check in - I've tried and failed. Stupid website.
- Fastpass+ I have a few days scheduled, but didn't want to post them as I'm 89% sure I'm not sticking with them.
- Call Delta - TADone!
- Update our flights with DME - TADone!
- Figure out airport transportation and/or parking
- Scooter rental for my Mama
- Find out who will care for our cats
- Schedule pre-trip mani/pedi
- Figure out the pesky budget and evaluate our gift cards
- Get cash/tip money
- Print/email/backup trip documents (was going to use my MyMagic+ thumb drive, but it broke already )
I'm sure the list will grow. And grow and grow. Until it stresses me out. And then the trip will happen even when the list doesn't get done. Cause that's how the world works.
I read about your mil on facebook. for her.
Good luck on your to-do list. I always make a list but it still always seems like I'm forgetting something.
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Pixie Dust
Disney Magic - Oct 2015
Kristin
Holly: 
and 
getting more planning done for the trip! 
"Sparky"(My first trip.)
:
They don't sell t-shirts in Minnesota in December! I've got some 4T stuff, but I don't know if it will be enough. 
Mallory needs some leggings to go under her sun dresses in case it gets cold. That way she can still wear the cute dresses she has as I already have a sweater to go over them. 
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