Goin' Down the Bayou ~ The TR (November 1-10, 2012) About This Page:

[lfredsbo]

Great start!!! Looking forward to your TR - as I am staying at POR in December!!!

Your girls are beautiful!!!!

[Hugmonster]

Great start looking forward to more.

[sc507]

Looking forward to reading all about it! Your girls are dolls

[mommapants]

great start. Can't wait to read all about it.

[islandgirl]

Great start! Looking forward to reading more!

[Dlandmom2]

Joining in so I don't miss a thing! Can't wait to hear about the trip!

[shnewell]

Can't wait to hear all about it!

[disneyfreeeak]

Great start!

[honeybee723]

Can't believe I got here in time since I feel so behind with everyone's TR.

[JKnott17]

Thank you everyone!! I promise I have not forgotten about you, and I hope to get another update in soon I hope each and every one of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Originally Posted by kangelop

Can't wait to read more!

Originally Posted by chezp

Great start!

Thanks

Originally Posted by lauriep

Great start, Jenn! Wonderful shots of the girls-- and I'm sure we'll get to see lots more. Can't wait to hear how you liked being onsite at PO.

Two words, Laurie ... LOVED it!!

Originally Posted by jimmymac

Great start - looking forward to the next installment

Originally Posted by MayraLR

Yay, you started! Can't wait to read about your trip.

Thank you both! Hopefully I'll have another update soon

Originally Posted by Grammy Grumpy

Your girls are beautiful! Can't wait to hear all about your trip. DH and I were there during the time you were there, wish I'd been on the look-out for you!

Thanks! Too bad we didn't know, it would have been fun to meet!

Originally Posted by OneLittleSpark

Excited to read more!

Thanks!

Originally Posted by dsteiny23

Glad you've started. You're going to shame me into starting soon aren't you?
I think we all had a tough time coming home this time around so it will be good to go back and relive it all with you

No shame But I am one update ahead of you BTW

Originally Posted by Colexis Mom

Great start!

Originally Posted by disneydreamer33

Yay! I can't wait!

Thank you

Originally Posted by shazza

Your beautiful daughters are at such a perfect age for WDW - can't wait to hear how much fun you had.

We had a ball!

Originally Posted by mushu22

Great start

Originally Posted by Cam22

Great start!

Originally Posted by bsblady01

great start more please

Thank you all!

Originally Posted by lfredsbo

Great start!!! Looking forward to your TR - as I am staying at POR in December!!!

Your girls are beautiful!!!!

Thanks, Lisa We loved POR, it's just beautiful!

Originally Posted by Hugmonster

Great start looking forward to more.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by sc507

Looking forward to reading all about it! Your girls are dolls

Aww, thanks! I think I'll keep them

Originally Posted by mommapants

great start. Can't wait to read all about it.

Thanks, Holly!

Originally Posted by islandgirl

Great start! Looking forward to reading more!

Thank you!

Originally Posted by Dlandmom2

Joining in so I don't miss a thing! Can't wait to hear about the trip!

Thanks for joining in!

Originally Posted by shnewell

Can't wait to hear all about it!

Thanks, Shayne!

Originally Posted by disneyfreeeak

Great start!

Thanks

Originally Posted by honeybee723

Can't believe I got here in time since I feel so behind with everyone's TR.

I think you had a good excuse Welcome home!

[JKnott17]

The days leading up to this trip were trying, to say the least. We lost power at about 2PM on Monday 10/29, hours before the full strength of Sandy would make landfall. I’ll admit that I completely underestimated the power of this storm, and never did I imagine all of the destruction it caused I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the news reports the following morning. It was then that I started thinking about our trip. We had gotten in touch with all of our friends and family that live along the coast, thankfully they were all safe and sound, but many of them completely lost their homes. How could we even think of going away now?

A conversation with Chris’ mom made us realize that we needed to go on this trip, to enjoy ourselves and just celebrate our little family and everything we were lucky to have She assured us that there was nothing we could do for them right now, and that the rest of the family wouldn’t want us to cancel. With the airports being closed indefinitely, we weren’t sure what would happen with our flight, but as of Tuesday evening it had not been cancelled yet. As a back up we looked into rental cars and decided to just drive to Orlando if need be. Chris wanted to pack up and leave on Tuesday night instead, but I thought if we had a chance of flying out on Thursday night I wanted to do that. The girls were really looking forward to flying! And so was I

The airport had opened up by Wednesday morning with “limited service”. All of Jet Blue’s flights, however, were cancelled for that day. Our Thursday evening flight was still showing as On Time We really lucked out, it seemed as if they cancelled about half of their flights that day. The flights before and after ours were both cancelled.

We ended up spending Wednesday night at my sister’s condo in Jersey City, they were lucky enough to have gotten power back earlier that day. It was so nice to finally have a hot shower! Our flight wasn’t until 7:10 PM, but we left her place around 1:30 that afternoon. Some of the roadways we needed to take out to JFK run right along the waterfront, and we weren’t sure about the road conditions so we wanted to leave ourselves plenty of time in case of any detours. It turns out we didn’t need any of that time, the roads were fine. In fact I think we made it to the airport in record time We started seeing road signs for the various terminals, and then ahead of us a sea of red. Uh Oh! Three or four lanes of traffic and a standstill! I’ve never seen such traffic at an airport before.

We crept along, slow and steady, and I was glad we had left ourselves so much time, there didn’t seem to be an end to the traffic in sight. Finally, as we neared terminal 3 we could see a fork in the road, and all of the heavy traffic was heading toward the right to the arrivals level. Luckily, we needed to go left to continue on. I noticed that terminal 3 was an international hub, and I can only assume that all of the traffic was due to an influx of overseas flights that had been delayed or cancelled because of the storm.

Finally, we pulled up to terminal 5 between 3:30 and 4:00 pm. Chris dropped off me and the girls, and I got us checked in while he dropped off our car at the Police building’s lot. Even though we had weighed the bags at home, one of ours was way over the 50 pound limit. Like 8 pounds over! I have no idea how that happened I did some switching around and got it down to 52 pounds, but that was as low as it was going to get! I think the guy felt bad for me, because he let it slide and didn’t charge me the overage fee. Thank you sir!

Chris still wasn’t back yet, so the girls and I grabbed a seat in the corner to wait for him.



We were chatting about our trip and the girls were playing with their Duffy’s when this little old lady walked by. I swear, she looked just like YiaYia from those Athenos Greek Yogurt commercials. She didn’t speak a lick of English either, but that didn’t stop her from trying to talk to Abby about her Duffy bear At one point she grabbed the bear and hugged it, but then started to walk away, jokingly. Poor Abby didn’t know what to do. She had half a smile on, while giving the woman the stare down, like “you better get back here with my Duffy!” I couldn’t help but laugh. After handing Abby back her bear, she smiled and spoke some more words we didn’t understand, but we all nodded and smiled at her and she went on her way.

Chris had finally made his way back to us, so we gathered our things and headed towards security. Things went pretty smoothly. Well, until they thought my M&M tubes filled with Pennies and Quarters were magazine rounds! Next time, I’ll keep the change out of the tubes until we are through security. After TSA was certain I was not packing any ammunition , we made our way towards our gate to wait for boarding. Chris and the girls grabbed some pizza for dinner, while I just had a smoothie from Jamba Juice. My nervous stomach didn’t leave me much of an appetite. An hour and a half flew by and soon we were boarding the girls first ever flight, I was so excited!


Up Next: I Can't Believe We're Finally Here!

[lfredsbo]

Again - so glad that you guys faired well during Sandy, but sorry for your friends/family

It must have been an interesting drive along NJ/NY.

[Linnynad]

I am so glad you made the flight and everything was off to a good start. I think I may have gotten a little peeved with the yia yia lady though, glad the Duffy's were given back quickly as I am sure that would not have been a good situation.
Can't wait for more

[Colexis Mom]

Glad you survived the storm and your flight wasn't cancelled!

[dutchdisneyfamily]

I'm so glad you were able to go despite Sandy. That's crazy about the coins. I'll keep that in mind too. Never crossed my mind.