The 13th Birthday "let's be a kid again" Celebration Pre-Trip Report About This Page:

[Colexis Mom]

Great plans!!

[Cam22]

Your plans are great!

[elisa1006]

Great PR-TR you have going !
Can't wait for more!

[mcc0313]

Think your plans sound great. AK is definitely a different park during the day and during EMH, you could definitely do a park in the morning and the head over to AK for late afternoon and evening and it will be cooler then too.

[chezp]

Great plans.

[pparm]

Looks like you've got a great time planned!

Paula

[bsblady01]

I hope that you and your family have a magical time at the world

[OhToodles!]

I think your plans sounds great!

[vfair]

Your plans look great!

[disneydreamer33]

Your plans look great.

[Poohsbear]

Phew! Sorry for such a long time between posts and updates. Life comes at you quick sometimes. We've been very busy around here with baseball season ending, football season starting and getting situated into middle school this year too. Along with the football season comes football photography for our teams. I don't get much time to actually watch the games because I'm too busy taking pictures of all the kids. This becomes time consuming on the computer with editing and uploading everything online. Now for this next part, I warn you, it's not anything to happy to read. I apologize but the last few months have also been a little rough here.

We also unfortunately got some bad news that is not settling well with anyone. Our cat, Pooh Bear, is dying of cancer. We had an idea of this a few months ago and I've been keeping a close watch on his bloodwork ever since. Well, the beginning of this month, we got the sad truth; after 10 years with us, he will be joining the angels in heaven soon. We adopted him when he and DS were both 3 years old. Pooh's birthday is in Sept. while DS's birthday is in Oct. It's always been a joke that for one month, the cat is older then the kid. DS is heart broken as well as everyone else. As of this moment, he is still living but losing weight at a fairly quick rate for a cat but eating twice as much as he used too.
After a long and hard family discussion that lasted several days, we decided that we would let him go before we left for the trip. I can not explain how hard it is to pick a date out to put your four-legged kid to sleep! We are afraid of a few things; 1) he is not used to being alone that long and afraid he would just curl up and give up before we got back and 2) the biggest thing... we wouldn't enjoy ourselves because we would all be worried about him up here. It sounds mean and I feel like a very uncaring person in all of this but I can't see taking a chance that he may die alone.. without us. I've never let them die alone and I hate to even think of it now. This is probably the biggest reason I haven't been on here much. Purposely trying to keep myself busy so I don't fully break down and cry every night. Right now Pooh thinks he's in heaven. He's always been on a special diet, no people food, no canned food, very little for treats, all due to a health problem when he was younger and his weight(he was 22lbs) and now...well he gets a small can of cat food daily and as many treats as people will give him!

Now another thing that has come up is school. DS, for the last few years has had a problem with handing in his homework on time. It's not that he doesn't do it and it's not that he can't do it, he just never gets it in on time! I have tried everything under the sun, along with the school, to remedy this but to no avail. Well, with this trip planned, we started talking about school and homework during the summer, prepping him that it HAS to change this year. He promised and guess what.... it hasn't. I have no idea why nor do I know how to get him to see the light in any of it. I had talked to all his teachers at the beginning of the school year as well as the principal this summer about this trip, assuring them he would get caught up on what he missed while gone. Now, I'm not sure and I'm gonna take a guess that the teachers are not too sure he can/will do it. I've never taken him out of school like this before and now, 18 days before our trip of a lifetime, I'm feeling guilty and thinking we shouldn't go ...all because he can't get his homework handed in on time.

So, with these few things, my magical planning has become a lot more stressful then I ever imagined! Instead of being extremely excited that we are so close to this vacation, all I can muster is tears. DS knows what he needs to do and I hope, after many people talking to him, that he gets it done but I could really use a lot of pixie dust right about now. About the only thing that has gone well is we got all our ADR's that we wanted and in this whole process the last few months, I've lost 20 lbs! I just want to be in that happy place....I need to be in that happy place!

I will get more posted as things go on. I think I avoided it to some extent in having to type all this out. Putting it in writing always seems to make it more real I guess. The date picked for our cat is on the 7th, a week and a half before our trip, hoping to give us all enough time to grieve and well, DS's grades have 2 weeks to improve before we know where that is headed.

Sorry for the downer of a post... I can only pray that in 3 weeks, all posts will be extremely happy ones!!!

[Cam22]

Many, many for you all! I am sorry that you've had so much to deal with prior to your trip.

[PamelaK]

I know it is tough but you are doing the right thing for your fur kid. I have a similar issue with my teenager. Her problem is that she rushes through her work and won't really look for the answers so her grades on all her worksheets are low. You will all be in my thoughts.

[EastYorkDisneyFan]

I understand completely how you feel about your cat, we put down our first cat after having her for 18 years, then a couple of years ago one of the cats we got a few years after passed away as well.

[mcc0313]

I am so sorry things have been so rough for you lately...I am sending your way and know that you are in my thoughts.