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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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We are in the build it - photograph it - tear it apart and build something else camp. We have a bunch of tubs filled with bricks. There is an ever evolving "Bionicle" city on display in the rec room. Sometimes, the little itty bitty ones get sucked up by the vacuum!
My DS puts them together, plays with them, then usually ends up added/subtracting parts to customize them. We have so many Star Wars sets....they all look alike to me...but he can look at a random brick on the floor and tell you exactly which set it belongs to!! Usually the "latest" one he has received is the one that stays put together.
We also invested in an accordian style plastic folder to keep all the set directions (Although if you do end up losing them you can easily download them from the Lego site)
Just recently we bought him one of those bin shelves (with the three "shelves" with diferent sized bins you can take out and put back) to keep them all in...sorting the legos was a multi day project until he "got it just right"!!
We also have a ton of legos. I have 3 boys, one is obsessed with bionicles, and I am a big SW fan. The SW legos get built and stay built. I figure for the $$ I want to keep them together. Many of them are upstairs in my room (which is large). DH bought me the Death Star for Christmas, I am a lucky girl! The bionicles are organized in bins in DS's bedroom. The general legos are in several tubs in the playroom - a tub for regular bricks, a couple tubs for "special" pieces, and a box4blox (New Lego Toy Storage Box To Keep Legos Tidy - Award Winning All-in-One Lego Sorter and Organizer by BOX4BLOX) for the small parts. I also have separate bins for Harry Potter, Castle, Mission Space - whichever theme the kids get a lot of. And we have a 3 drawer thingy for the people (built, parts and minifig accessories). I tend to go overboard in the organization but we can find pretty much whatever we need. We also save all the instructions, and keep the MegaBloks separated from the Legos.
We have a folding table in the playroom. It is covered with baseplates and the boys enjoy making "lego city" on it. The table is divided in thirds so they will share and they enjoy creating new cityscapes all the time. It works really well for us.
DS is a lego junkie. Special sets he builds and displays...lord only knows what he will do when we move to a new assignment and he has to take them apart for their own safety. Not sure if we kept the directions. He has storage for them too though and sometimes, the ones he isn't attached to, get taken apart and rebuilt into something from his imagination! He has designed all kinds of implements with a military purpose...plans, tanks and a plane that turns into an amphibious vehicle! I'm thinkin this kid will be working with Boeing or Lockheed-Martin someday!