My First Trip to Walt Disney World!

Right as I began the unexpected one year hiatus from the blog we were getting ready to take our first family trip to Walt Disney World.  I had plans for very detailed blog posts about our trip, full of fun pictures and highlights.  I still plan on doing this (I actually wrote something up a year ago after our return) but first I thought it would be fun to step back in time and take a look at my first trip to Walt Disney World way back in 1989. When we were up in Massachusetts last week I asked my parents on the whereabouts of the Disney photo album and my father found it in the storage room.  I thought it would be fun to show the kids.  Then I brought it home with me because I thought it would make a fun blog post. That's right folks, we're about to crank up the Wayback Machine.

Things I realized upon opening this photo album 26 years after that first trip.

1. People didn't take as many pictures back in the day.  You really couldn't when a roll of film only allowed for 24 pictures.  Then you had to store said film with you along with the multiple other spare rolls and filled rolls.  And good film wasn't cheap.  I came home from WDW last August with 400 pictures on my phone alone.  Impossible in 1989. 
2. The quality of the pictures pales in comparison to today's digital.  I'm not just talking pixels here.  Now we can take multiple pictures in a row, select the best one and delete the others.  We can line up a shot just right, take the picture, and have immediate feedback of how we did.  If we don't like it, we simply delete it and retake.  Not so back in the day.  You took the picture and hoped and prayed you did a good job when they came back from development. Oh and your developed film always included one of these...trying to squeak an extra picture out of that roll of film. 
   
3. I think there are pictures missing from this album...the missing sleeves tell me that there are.  Over the years pictures may have been robbed for various projects. And unlike today those pictures become irreplaceable (I am assuming the negatives are long gone but hey, I won't put it past my Dad to have them stored in a box somewhere.  Where does one get negatives developed these days?).  Still some gems in there!  
4. You weren't going to waste taking a picture back then unless someone was in it.  Hence, just about every picture from that trip featured my sister and I standing in front of something.  We were game at almost 12 and 14 but I believe we adamantly refused on the return trip two years later.
5. These pictures were taken in 1989...there will be some big hair, fun fashion, and fanny packs...lots of fanny packs.

Are you ready?  Here we go! And if you click on each pictures it will show up nice a big in a slideshow.

There we are...stardate late June/early July of 1989 at Bradley Airport.  I don't remember everything about the trip but I do remember this picture being taken.  In fact I can close my eyes and picture my 11 almost 12 year old self sitting in that seat.  Why?  Because I was about to take my first EVER airplane ride and I was beyond excited. In fact it was my sister's first too and I don't think my parents had been on a plane since their trip to Greece when they were first married.  I would sit in the same terminal many times years later flying back and forth to and from Raleigh but I couldn't have even imagined that that morning.  And hey, check out that Eastern Airlines sign over there!  And look at my mom and Colleen's perfect 80's hair.  As you can clearly see I my scrawny little self didn't care one bit about doing my hair back then...the bowl cut suited me just fine.  And another thing...my mom is only two years older in that picture than I am right now.  Ok, onward!

We stayed at the newly opened Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort.  This was the very first of the moderate resorts.  We were there over July 4th and celebrated my 12th birthday:

Let's start with the Magic Kingdom because even back then, that was the first place you headed:

One thing I noticed this past August was that there was stroller parking lots EVERYWHERE.  I didn't remember this many strollers 26 years ago!  That's because I wasn't pushing one.  As you can see there's me walking by a big ol' stroller lot right there in front of Small World:

The obligatory castle shot:

And I wonder where my son gets his dorky smile:

EPCOT Center (as it was referred to back then) was and continues to be my favorite park.

I know people say that kids find it boring but I was fascinated by it from my first glance at Spaceship Earth. I really felt like I was walking around a futuristic city in Future World.  So here's the obligatory pics in front of some of the pavilions:

The Land

The Living Seas

Horizons (One of the best rides EVER...may it RIP.  We rode it multiple times).

Journey into Imagination:

This was the original version of this ride not the current sub-par version that they are showing. Bring back the Dreamfinder! Seriously, I was so disappointed last year.  Back then you actually got to go up into the glass pyramids for Image Works, now it's all closed off. This guy snuck up there though... if I may make a request to Disney to open this back up because my kids would love to see this view:

via

But I digress...on with the tour. Disney's MGM Studios was brand spankin' new.

Not as many pictures there as the other parks but my Dad finally got in one:

We also took an excursion over to Kennedy Space Center:

Here's my funny memory from that day.  See that jumper I'm wearing?  I loved it but it was starting to get a bit small on me...lengthwise. To this day I distinctively remember walking around Cape Canaveral with the biggest wedgie every time I sat down.  The things you do for fashion...

We sandwiched the trip with excursions to water parks, an afternoon at River County in the beginning (a long abandoned but loved place) and our last day at the newly opened Typhoon Lagoon Water Park.  Very few pictures for obvious water logged reasons.  Then it was time to head home via a layover at RDU:

For those that don't know that's the old Terminal C in Raleigh.  That's where we changed planes.  I remember having to haul it from one end of the terminal to another.  Little did I know I'd be spending a lot more time in that terminal starting 10 years after that picture was taken.  Funny how your future interacts with your past.

We had so much fun on this trip that my parents started saving up for Round Two as soon as we got home.  Two years later, we were off!  We'll continue that adventure in another post...

Stripes

I got brave with the third and final room in the Summer 2015 Paintstravaganza.  Katherine has been asking for a pink bedroom for quite awhile...and being the good mother that I am I put her off for quite a while too.  But finally, it was time to take her suggestions under consideration and, as with the other rooms, I hit up Pinterest.  Actually her room was the first one I really started to look for ideas for on Pinterest. I found this inspiration picture.

Yes those are stripes, big stripes.  I have never painted stripes before.  But it can't be too hard can it?  Of course, even before I investigated what would be required to paint said stripes I showed the picture to Katherine who fell in love with it.  I was on the hook now.  So I laid out my gameplan:

• Paint the wall the base color
• Paint the other three walls light pink
• Mark the stripes
• Tape the stripes
• Paint the stripes
• Peel tape
• Touch up (how much could there be?)
• Stand back and admire my handywork.

I'd say it took me almost two weeks from beginning to end.  It wasn't hard as much as it was tedious.  First off (after clearing the room and taping of course) we painted the base wall white:

This required two coats of paint and I highly recommend Behr Ultra because we were going from a color to white.  This was done over the course of two weeknights and as soon as we finished I immediately turned to the other three walls and painted them light pink:

If I remember correctly I did this on a Saturday (it's all a blur now).  The next day I started laying out the stripes.  To do this we first took a tape measure and put it along one wall and marked each line.  The wall was exactly 8 feet tall making it easy to do one foot stripes.  After the stripes were marked I took a straight edge and put a line across the wall at each marking making sure to always work from left to right for each line. This ensured the lines were nice and straight and evenly spaced.

After that I marked each stripe that would be painted with a P (for pink!) to be sure I would get mixed up in the taping or painting process.  I knew the pencil would be covered up with the paint.

Then I taped the appropriate lines, making sure the tape were just above or below the pencil line and would be covered by the paint

This whole process didn't take nearly as much time as I thought it would, maybe a few hours for two or three evenings.  After that it was time to paint, which I did in two coats across two evenings.

About 30 minutes after painting the second coat, I pulled the tape.  From a distance it looked incredible but here is what I was seeing up close:

CRAP!  There is no other way to put.  I was beyond disappointed.  All that hard work prepping.  I blamed the tape but soon realized (after some internet research) that I had skipped an important step.  Seems I should have painted each of the tape lines with the base color (white) to "seal" the tape and prevent bleed through.  Whoops!  But how to fix it? I pondered for a bit and then the solution came to me.  I grabbed a wide plastic putty knife and a foam brush.  I pressed the putty knife right up against the line:

Then dabbed with the foam brush using the base coat color.

I had to do this along every line for the ENTIRE wall. Believe it or not it moved rather quickly over the course of two nights. The result?  Boom!  Look at these lines:

I went from being completely disappointed to being absolutely thrilled at the result.  Then it was time to put the room back together:

And with that the Paintstravaganza of Summer 2015 was over! I have since scored a bedding set that is a pretty good match to the inspiration picture.  Next up will be the curtains.  I was lucky to pick up a set of curtain panels that are a fairly close match to the Roman shades in the inspiration picture and I am toying with the idea of turning them into shades.  I am also on the lookout for pink pattern curtains.  But so far I am pleased with the results.  I've shown Katherine pictures and she is excited to see her room later in the week.  I am thrilled that three major projects are behind me and I can move on to the finishing touches!  More to come as I add them!

Master Bedroom: Third Time's the Charm!

While the paint had barely cured on the guest room/office I had already moved on to our master bedroom.  As with the guest room, this paint job was a long time coming.  I had painted it about 7 years ago with what was supposed to be a lovely ivory color.  The problem is that our master doesn't get a lot of sunlight until late in the afternoon so even the lightest of colors appear dark.  This means the lovely ivory I had picked looked rather yellow once it was up on our walls.

(I didn't think to get any type of before pictures until after I had started taping bur you can see the yellow.)

Not only that,  I painted the room at a time when finances were slimmer in our household so I used cheap paint...really cheap paint.  At the time I was desperate to cover up my previous paint job which was a light lavender (I don't know what I was thinking either).  So using cheap paint to cover up a darker color with a lighter color meant not only three coats but also that I could always see the original color bleeding through in spots.  However, in the meantime child #2 came along and with two little ones in the house finding time and motivation to repaint was not all that easy.

It took me a while to decide on the paint color this time around, I was determined not to make a third mistake.  I first settled on Sherman Williams Ivoire which I spied in a Better Homes and Garden magazine.  The picture lived in my Smash book for a long time, I liked the deep, wheaty color.  Then right before it was time to paint I hopped on Pinterest to view the color up in various rooms (which, brief aside here, thank God for Pinterest...it has literally saved me hours of time with all this painting and made my decision process so much easier this time around).  I quickly realized I was headed toward another yellow disaster.  Ted was also happy to quickly remind me of my "ducky yellow" bedroom that I had in the house I rented when I was in graduate school.  In my defense I was thrilled with how bright and cheery the room was at the time but the point was taken.  I was not having luck with yellow bedrooms.

So instead I went with more of a neutral color, similar but a bit lighter than the guest room...Behr's Cream in my Coffee. And here my friends after another marathon Friday night/Saturday morning painting session (and three nights spent sleeping in our newly painted guest room) is the final product.  I am beyond please with the new color.

What's next on my "to do" list for this room?  Definitely not as much as the guest room.

• Ted's nightstand.  It's probably going to get the whitewash here soon.  Right now it's the odd man out, doesn't fit with our dressers and doesn't fit with the other nightstand.
• New lamps...I already know what I want.  The existing ones will be relocated elsewhere in the house.
• New artwork for over the bed.  The existing pictures were very old and fading quickly.  I'm not sure if I will reuse the frames in the same spot with new pictures or get something different completely.
• Reframe our wedding pictures.  I'd like thicker, possibly more decorative frames.
• A large piece of artwork for the space between my dresser and the bed.  In a money is no object world I would actually have a single window put it there...it just seems like one should be there and wow, would it provide a lot of light to the room.  Under the current budget, new artwork will do.
• The rocking chair in the corner.  It either needs to be painted or more than likely I need to find something else for that corner.  It was the rocker from the kids' nursery and when big boy and big girl rooms came about I didn't have anywhere to put it.  Plus it is/was a convenient place to sit when the kids are splashing in the big tub. Besides holding dirty clothes we do occasionally sit in to put on our shoes and stuff.  This means, it will be a chair of some sort.
• Down the road...new bedding.  That set is still holding up well but is beginning to show it's age.  Plus I'm getting a bit sick of it.  However, new bedding for the guest room and Katherine's room will take priority.  In short term, maybe new fluffier pillows and a throw blanket.

This room also seems to have the least amount of touch up compared to the other two rooms, which is a relief.  I'm planning on doing any of that plus some guest room touch up after I've finished Katherine's room.  It's been almost two weeks since we finished and I'm still just as thrilled with the results.  Here's to some good night's of sleep in our future!

Blank Slate

Welcome back to the blog!  I've missed it.  Don't have much of an excuse over the past year other than life got in the way and I really didn't have any urge to write.  In our instantaneous society I think people look at Facebook posts before they sit down to read a longer blog post.  But regardless if anyone reads it or not I wanted to get back to it.  So here I am.

I've thought about making a few changes, which will probably happen as I move along.  The biggest thing I'm pondering is the name.  The current name was born out of lack of thought and laziness.  I just couldn't come up with any snappy titles.  I think it's time to think of something new and I can change it and still keep all of the old content. I know you're just chomping at the bit to go back and read about the time toddler Katherine dropped her pants in the middle of the front yard just as the UPS man road by.  Go on, see if you can find it, I won't judge.  In the meantime, for all of you that decided to stick around on this post, I'll welcome any name suggestions...

Alrighty, let's kick off this little round of blogging with a little home improvement before and after, shall we?  I give you the before of our guest room/office:

This is not what I had envisioned for this room.  However, that vision was back before child #2 (or even #1) came along and the guest room was down the hall in what is now Katherine's room.  Here is what I wanted it to look like:

Source

Somehow what I envisioned seemed to never come into fruition.  Along the way our bonus room became the guest room and in spite of painting it the same color things morphed into this Americana type theme that I never wanted.  Plus now the room had both of our desks in it which made things feel more thrown together than actually coordinated.  It was time for a change.  I put off painting at first, since it is the largest room of the house in terms of paintable surface space.  I can make the blue work I said to myself.  But I couldn't.  Any bedding or new curtains, or really anything I liked just did not go with that blue.  What did it go with it?  More blue...and white.  So I decided while the kids were up at my parents for the month it was time to bite the bullet and paint it...actually paint 3 rooms but I'll get to the other two later.

After scouring Pinterest for various paint colors I settled upon Behr's Sculptor clay which was a nice soft neutral "greige" color.  I knew I could coordinate just about anything with it.  With that we were off!  Prep took a full week, nights after work moving furniture, removing pictures and taping. Painting was Friday night and Saturday morning and by Saturday evening the room was back together and looking quite refreshed:

Very much a blank slate...which is exactly what I wanted. I got rid of the bedding, the curtains, and even left most of the pictures off the wall (Ted's VMI diploma and Army awards above his desk are the exception). I realize I went from deep color to no color but I plan on adding the color back in slowly and putting some of the existing stuff back would make it harder for me to see other possibilities.  Here's my list of "to dos":

• New bedding: I think this needs to be first and I've begun look but it may take a while to land on something I like.  I'm still trying to decide whether to go warmer or cooler.  I do know it will be a comforter instead of a quilt this time.
• New curtains: panels instead of swags.
• Possible area rug
• Different nightstand on the left side of the bed.  My grandpa made that so it's not leaving the house but its not quite functional in its current placement.  Something a bit more sturdy is needed.
• New lamps.  Might move the ones in our bedroom in here and get new ones for in there.
• Something for above the bed.  That big picture was not right.
• Possible bench for the end of the bed.  It would be a great place for guests to place their suitcases or sit to put on their shoes.  It would also stop the covers from sliding off the bed at night.
• Paint wicker chair, or get a darker one.  I'm not sure how easy it is to paint wicker.  It might not be worth the mess when Carolina Pottery is only 30 minutes away.
• Darker frames for pictures...I have since put the framed pictures that I did have here in the living room and I like them there, so this may now be new artwork for walls.
• New, nicer filing cabinet beside Ted's desk.  That cabinet was purchased when I was a poor graduate student and is showing it's age...time for an upgrade.  Functional? Yes. Pretty?  No.

Bottom line is that I want to be intentional with anything I bring into the space and not just put stuff in there because that's what we have and I don't know where else to put it.  If it's no longer working for us, it needs to go.  Because of this, I'm going to force myself to take my time.  Our budget will thank me for that too.

Updates on rooms 2 and 3 soon!

Brave Girl Scout...Proud Mom

Katherine has been involved in Girl Scouts for a full year now.  It has been a wonderful experience for her.  Last Saturday the troop had their cookie sale celebration at Frankies Fun Park.  The troop got to pick four activities.  One of them, the Sky Trail, well... there's not much to say for an introduction.  Just take a look at this.

That's my child up there. I didn't take in the full intensity (and fear factor) of this attraction until they were putting the harness on her.  Oh My God, are you harnessing my child???  My baby's going up there?  Unattended?  I thought she would be apprehensive herself when she got to the first level.  Boy was I wrong.  She was fearless. FEARLESS. Walked across that balance beam up there like it was nothing. Went on every obstacle they had to offer.  Only two of them did she have to be coached and then once she got it, she got it.  In fact, I had to pull her off of because you tell she was getting exhausted and it was time for a break.  None of the scouts wanted to come down.  Another mom and the troop leader was there too and the three of us stood there amazed, snapping pictures and cheering them on.  As Ms. Dawn said, they were in their element.  I couldn't be prouder.  I'm talking wanting to pull aside random strangers and say "look at what my child is doing" kind of proud.  I'm an accordion picture wallet away from making a fool of myself.

Want to see some more??? Glad you asked!

How about some video?? Sure thing!

Oh, she did the go carts too:

And lest I question her ability to drive seeing as she's never done it before, she hit the gas pedal and took off like...yes whatever Mom, I've got this.  No crashes, just smooth sailing around the track.  Ok, maybe a bit slow, but smooth sailing nonetheless.

When they were planning this adventure, the choices were between Build and Bear and Frankies.  I have to admit I was secretly hoping for Build a Bear, if anything because there was a keepsake to take home at the end of it.  In my mind, Frankies would be a lot of money spent on games and such but nothing to take home at the end.  Boy was I wrong.  Pride and self-confidence are ten times better than a stuffed bear sitting in the mountain of stuffed things in her room.  That feeling will stay with her and grow.  And my pride of her will grow right along with it.

While the kids are away...

The kids are returning today from three weeks with their grandparents.  If you combine time spent with both Ted parents and my parents, they have been away a whole month of this summer.  This is precious time for them, a chance to have a real summer vacation of waking up and doing what kids do in the summer instead of being shuttled from daycare activity to daycare activity.  For Ted and I it's a much needed respite, one that we look forward to pretty much all year.  And for me it's usually a chance to catch up around this house.

I want to say during the time they were gone I completely reorganized the closets, cleaned out the garage, scrubbed the baseboards.  In previous years this was true.  But for some reason it just didn't happen. I did however put in a lot of running miles, we spent a couple of relaxing days at the beach and I actually read a book.  We watch a lot of Downton Abbey. And I painted a headboard.  So maybe a did get a few things done.  But I think I took a mental time out more than I used the time to catch up.  Being a type A, I don't know if that is good or bad but it is what my mind was telling me was needed. I spent the last few days telling myself that was ok.  And this morning I'm really believing it.  I'll probably feel different come tomorrow afternoon, when the house is in chaos again, although it would be in the same state whether I spent the last month cleaning the closets or not.  Right now, I'm just excited to get this day done so that I can go home and see my kiddos.  That's it.

And it feels good.

Back at It Again...

You know I couldn't stay away for long...from running that is.  I did take some time off after the Biltmore half...there was a bunch of stuff around the house I wanted to catch up on in preparation for the family being here for Katherine's First Communion.  But once that was over and the weather warmed up it was time to get moving.

Ted and I are officially signed up for the Outer Banks Marathon in November.  If I'm going to ever run a full marathon this is the one to do because it is flat.  Flatter than flat.  The only hill you encounter the whole time is the Bonner Bridge which crosses over the intercoastal waterway from Hatteras to Manteo Island. Granted, that occurs at around mile 23 so any elevation change will seem like a mountain at that point.  I've told Ted I still reserve the right to drop down to the half at the last minute.  But with 5 plus months to focus on training just for that, I'm feeling that it is a bit more doable this time around.  I'm about 6 weeks into training already and have already worked my way up to a 14 miles a couple of weeks ago.  Yup, 14 miles. That would have been unthinkable not that long ago. So I've made progress.

And this time around, I got a little help.  A while back Ted got us listening to Marathon Training Academy podcasts during our ride home from work.  I was a reluctant listener.  Maybe because I have never embraced the "I'm a runner" title, maybe because podcasts don't seem to be my cup of tea but for whatever reason I slumped in the passenger's side of the car thinking "I'd rather be listening to music right now."  And I spent most of my time discrediting the information in my head, as in it works for them but would never work for me.  I can't say that I don't do that still.  But they offer a personal coaching option.  Basically, they design personal workouts each week around your goals and current fitness levels.  The way I figure it, if I'm paying for it, I'm more likely to do it.  I will admit, it has gotten me to get into the cross training thing a bit more.

Last weekend was supposed to be a try at 16 miles.  I set off with all good intentions.  It was a great morning for summer running too, clear with low humidity and a nice breeze.  I was moving my way along, not extremely fast but I was getting the job done.  Until mile 8 when my IT band in my right leg started acting up. At mile 9 I stopped and stretched and that seemed to alleviate things for about 3/4 of a mile.  But when I hit mile 10 I knew I needed to stop and head (walk) home.  At that point I was two miles from home so while I put in 12 miles total it was not the 16 I was hoping for.  And I was frustrated with myself.  Not much to do though but rest my leg, do lots of stretching and ease back into things over the course of the week.  I ran 8 miles this weekend and the leg seemed fine.

So this coming weekend Ted and I will make another go of 16 miles.  I need to remember that this is going to be a journey over the next few months.  Not all runs are going to be wonderful.  Some might be horrible.  But the idea of actually going for all 26 seems doable right now.  I'll just have to tackle it one mile at a time.