This photo was taken shortly after 7am on my birthday. Mom was a good sport and humored me by getting to the Magic Kingdom nice and early. In the first hour we rode Dumbo, Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan and the Little Mermaid. A great start to what woudl be a great birthday.
Cole is th son of a close family friend. My mom worked with his grandma for many years and are still friends today. I've known his Aunt since I was little, going to the babysitter together to graduating high school together. Cole's mom is two years younger but still a part of my family.
About a month after Cole's 1st birthday the family found out he has SCIDs (Severe Combined Immunodeficiency). Basically he has no immune system and is very sick. The plan right now is for Cole to have a bone marrow transplant to replace his lack of immune system with the donor's. Luckily Cole has found a donor and is about to start a very rough journey.
This is a joruney my mom and I are very familiar with. My dad had two bone marrow transplants. The first one they used his own stem cells and the second time he had an unrelated donor. The dangerous part of the transplant is what happens before. The doctors need to kill all the good stuff in your system so that it doesn't attack the foreign cells from the donor. After the transplant there are still hurdles to overcome but it can be done. Aside from my dad, two of my mom's former coworkers have had to go through this process. It's not fun for anyone involved.
Cole and my dad were lucky that there are strangers out there willing to donate bone marrow to help save the life of someone they don't know. I've been on the national bone marrow registry for close to 5 years. It's really easy to get on the registry. They send you a kit and you swab the inside of your mouth. After you send it in, you just wait for the call. If I were to ever get the call I would do it in a nanosecond. I can never repay the man that gave my dad a few more years.
That's how you can help. Join the donor registry to help save a life.
November is one of my favorite months. I love Thanksgiving, it's my holiday, the holiday that I cook dinner. It's also my birthday month.
I have a few goals for this month.
1. NaNoWriMo - I'm not going to write a novel but I do want to write more. My goal is to write 50,000 words through journaling, blogging, scrapbooking, work and other things. I've attampted this the past couple of years but this year I have a better plan.
2. Wear a skirt at least once a week - I have some boots I really like and I want to wear them. Skirts are the perfect way to do this.
3. Figure out the best way to organize books - I have books all over the house. The problem is I love books so I'm always buying them. I do donate books to my library and I have been selling some books on Amazon but I really do need to purge a massive amount of them as I'm running out of space.
4. Gratitude Album - I have a gratitude album ready to populate with pictures and journaling. I'm using a Snap Binder by Simple Stories. I used a fall line of paper from Simple Stories to decorate the album. I'm excited to fill this up.
5. Read more non-fiction books than fiction - I love reading any kind of book, espeically those that I can learn from. I can guarentee that most of the books will be about Disney, movies, parks, the company.
I’ve had the itch to go for awhile but no real reason. I have been twice, but that was before I became really obsessed.
I’m using needing miles on Delta to keep my Silver Medallion status as an excuse. The trip to the west coast should guarantee I’ll keep them for another year.
It was interesting planning this trip after planning many trips to Walt Disney World. There is a ton of information on Disney World but very little on Disneyland.
First up was the hotel. I really wanted to stay at one of the 3 Disneyland hotels but the cost was being prohibitive. I could stay across the street for half the cost. But as I am going by myself I always think, “Is it safe enough for me to be walking around at night?” Procrastinating on this task actually paid off. I had picked an off-property hotel when I saw a deal for the days I wanted to go for the Disneyland hotels. I quickly booked the Paradise Pier for about the same price I was going to pay off property.
Now I’m trying to figure out dining. I know of 2 places I will eat for sure but when I booked my package through Disney I was informed I get a free character meal. This totally confused me. I think I’ve figured out what I’m going to do, breakfast at the Storyteller’s Café at the Grand Californian. I want to have breakfast before any of the parks open.
I leave in about a month so I have a lot of homework to do. World of Color totally baffles me. But the goal of this trip, aside from enjoying being in the park Walt build, is to see how many times I can ride Toy Story Mania as I hear the lines are much shorter than at Hollywood Studios at Disney World.
I’ve been to Disney World the past 2 years at Christmas time and as it gets closer to December I’m not sure if I can celebrate Christmas without the Candlelight Processional at EPCOT.
So a trip to Disney was in the works for December.
The first thing was to figure out where I wanted to stay. I have stayed at Economy, Moderate and Deluxe. Economy was defiantly out because those rooms were SMALL! I knew I wanted to stay at a resort that didn’t require me to ride a bus everywhere which only gives me the Deluxe option.
Every time I go to Disney I like to talk to random strangers in line, especially if I’m on my own. I ask them where they are staying and if they like it. In all my trips I had never heard anything bad about the Polynesian Resort. It fit the criteria, only a monorail (or two) ride away from EPCOT and the Magic Kingdom. (I also read reviews at AllEars.net and the Polynesian has the highest rating)
The Contemporary and Wilderness Lodge were also options for me, they’re both cheaper than the Polynesian. The reason I said no to the Contemporary is because if I wanted to stay in the main building then it would have been more expensive and the Wilderness Lodge would only give me a boat to Magic Kingdom but a bus to everywhere else. Also, the only Moderate I have any interest in staying at is Port Orleans and even that urge isn’t very high.
The next step in planning was to figure out when I’m going to go. If I get my way, I’ll be in Vegas the first week of December for work and I didn’t want to travel back-to-back. The date was decided (and then pushed back a day so mom could go).
Lastly I was waiting for a price I was willing to pay. About a month ago I had an email that said 40% off hotel stays and the dates I wanted fit in there, but when I called the price was too high. I figured I would wait to see what else came up or convince myself to stay at a Moderate resort.
About a week after the first offer expired I received another email and thank goodness, the price was right.
Next up will be dining….. I’m doing the Disney Dinging Plan for the first time so I’m trying to figure out a tentative plan. But everything is on hold until I can make my reservation for the Candlelight Processional and mom can tell me Steven Curtis Chapman or Thomas Gibson.
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