June 2013 - The Great Wedding Road Trip - Final thoughts

No worries! I deleted them

Thank you so much!

I have decent composition on my own, but I rented a Nikon D5000 for the trip and it really took them up a level. I used Kingdom Camera Rentals and was super happy with the entire experience.

Day 3 in WDW - Wedding Day!

I'm going to purposefully leave a lot of details out of this one. Becks can fill them in in she wishes.

I woke up at 5:00AM to kick Tori off of the sleeper sofa, fold it up, get a pot of coffee going, hop in the shower and blow out my hair. Geordon and the kids got to sleep in a little later. Becks had kept telling me that they would be quiet and I didn't have to wake them up early, but come on, if I was getting up - so were they. Yes, I know, I'm mean.

By 6:00AM the hair & make-up team arrived and started setting up in the living room of the villa. What originally seemed like a lot of space to me very quickly started filling. Becks and her Sister arrived shortly after. I sat down for hair & make-up first because I still had to get the rest of my family together and out the door by 9:45. The make-up artist asked me what I wanted to look like and I was all "just make me look pretty" and trusted her to work her magic. Oh my gosh, I was *SO* happy with how I looked. My fine, thin, straight hair actually looked like it exisited and the make up did not move from my face all day. It was worth every cent my very generous BFF paid. The coffee started pouring and slowing the rest of my family make their presence known. Around 7:30 breakfast arrived, I popped the cork on a bottle of champagne and the Mimosas started flowing. Becks and her sister were in the chairs for hair and make-up.

The photographer arrived around 8:30 and I helped him set up some shots of Bekah's wedding finery. I must admit I was completely charmed by this photographer. He was quick, smart, funny and completely charming. Plus he told me he needed to bring me along on every shoot and he loved my wedding morning spreadsheet, what's not to love!? I am *really* looking forward to seeing some of his pictures.

I made sure that everyone ate something and had a morning cocktail. I had forgotten to bring a curling iron to do my daughter's hair, but the make-up artist (Lane?) let me borrow one and I was able to get my girls taken care of. Next the floral arrived, but again, for some reason couldn't get to the room. I was fairly flaberghasted at the inability of people to find our hotel room, but whatever. Katie and I high-tailed it to the Wilderness Lodge Lobby and picked up the floral to go back to the room. It was BEAUTIFUL. Feathers! Becks gave me a bouquet with feathers!! I kept the feathers and brought them home.

And I admit it freely, by this point I drank an extra glass of champagne. I had bought straws for us, but did I use one? Nope! And of course I spilled my drink down the front of my dress. Thank goodness there was no color to it, a quick shot with the hair dryer and my dress was as good as new. Becks seemed fairly cool and collected, if she had nerves she was hiding them well. Though I do recall yelling at her twice to sit there and let people pamper her while I did my thing. That thing being organizing everyone else and getting her out the door on time. The photographer and make-up girls said that I ran a pretty tight ship. That made my morning.

We were out the door 15 minutes early and got to take some fun pictures in the lobby before climbing into the limo to the Wedding Pavilion. And this is where I'm going to skip ahead. I posted some wedding pics earlier, but I feel like Becks should be the one to fill in the wedding if she wants to. I'll just say that it was truly the stuff dreams are made of. It was dazzling and beautiful and Disney really knows how to do it right.

We danced, we ate, we drank, we got lei'd, and then we went back to the room for an hour nap before heading off to DHS.

Okay... so I *think* I took a nap. I can't really remember, I intended to take a nap. There may have been napping in there someplace, the day is all sort of a blur.

Eventually we wound up at Disney's Hollywood Studios, and somehow (it was to avoid fighting kids) I ended up on the Tower of Terror. Does anyone remember this thread? I suppose we should never say never. What on earth made me think I could go on that ride? My little girl had a fight with her brother who headed off with Ian because they didn't want to wait in line for an hour and I didn't want her to have to go alone. I am a S.U.C.K.E.R.

Oh... My... God! The things that we do for our children. I sat between Geordon and Katie, holding each of their hands as tightly as my eyes were shut. We made that first drop, I came out of my seat and thought for sure that the seatbelt had broken. I had trouble getting it buckled and when I flew out of my seat I just though "that's it." I prayed that I was wrong and that it would all be ok, I squeezed their hands harder and every time it dropped I wondered if it would stop dropping again before I got too far off the seat. Up and down and up and down and up and down... the thought actually occurred to me that at least I would die at Disney. I screamed and screamed, my husband was giggling like a school girl. And than it was over, and my heart started beating again.

After that I met up with Tori (who was smart enough not to go on Tower of Terror) and Geordon and Katie went on Rockin' Roller Coaster. Tori and I did some shopping and went in search of a snack. I took some pictures. Then after discovering how many snack places close ridiculously early at DHS, we settled on a Mickey soft pretzel and some plastic cheese, with a frozen lemonade chaser from Anaheim Produce.

Geordon and Katie took some selfies and geeked out over old sound equipment.

After Rockin' Rollercoaster we thought we would go find some dinner, but made the mistake of heading away from the Hollywood Hills area. We took a few minutes in the Walt Disney exhibit. We stopped at the Jack Sparrow sound stage and completely wasted a half an hour there. I don't think I need to go there ever again.

We walked through Pixar Place, still searching for food without any luck. It was about 9pm and even though there were EMH that night everything was closed. No shows, no rides, no food in the backlot area that we were in. We were tired and honestly I was about to hit a major wall. Even though I had an ecv I was about done. After what seemed like forever we found the Writers Stop and bought our "dinner." It looked an awful lot like this.

I tried to eat and I was in so much pain I could not even chew so I slurped down Katie's strawberry slushie. I had really really wanted to see Fantasmic! because it's my favorite show, but i was done for the night and had to go back to the room. Tori & Katie went on to the show (slowly because they were both limping at that point too) and met up with Kirk and Ian. As I hear it they all LOVED the show and had really great seats right in the center. I was happy that they enjoyed it even if I couldn't

Geordon and I made our way to the buses to wait in line. By the time we got there and a bus back to Wilderness Lodge came, Fantasmic was almost over. Not because it took so long to get there, but because almost every other bus passed by at least twice before a single one came for Wilderness Lodge. We had to pass on taking that first bus because it was an older model and the basket on the back of my ECV didn't fit in the lift. Seriously I thought I would cry I was so exhausted and hurting. I wondered if the kids would make it to the bus stop before we even got on. Luckily it didn't take quite as long for another bus to come and it was one of the new models so I was able to drive the ecv on without a problem.

Overall the buses weren't too bad with the ecv, I had made it out to be much worse in my head than it really was. In general people were very nice and helpful. There was even a couple of times that I tried to let other people get on the bus first but they were insistent that we loaded and not wait. I wondered if I really did look sick, I try to hide my disability for the most part. Sometimes it is easier than others. Becks had made a comment at one point that my big hat and short hair made me look like a cancer patient. I loved my hat and just decided to rock it. I was always offered the option to stay on the ecv in the bus, the buses have special seat belts if you do. It was a little scary thought and I kept feeling like the whole thing was going to tip over so I usually sat in a regular seat.

In general I felt that because Wilderness Lodge shares a bus system with Fort Wilderness that there weren't enough buses. The night that we did EMH at DHS there were some really angry people that didn't get on the bus that we were on. The reason was because there were many Fort Wilderness folks that didn't get off, then she loaded my ecv, and then she didn't actually fill the standing room of the bus and it left many people who should have gotten on behind. When we got to Fort Wilderness there were even more people left behind, and an ecv that couldn't load at all because they can only take two at a time. I heard the woman with the man in the chair arguing that this was the second bus that they hadn't been able to get on. That route really needs some reconsideration.

We finally made it back to the room about 11 or 11:30 and I completely crashed. Geordon stayed up until the kids all got home.

Oh my gosh, Becks you are beautiful, and looked so happy and radiant all day long. Please don't be afraid of your pictures they are so lovely! You were a really really beautiful bride. I really want to see the ones that Randy took, I'm sure that they are magnificent.

I LOVE this one!!! *hehehehe*

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I love the cake face shot so much! It was the coolest moment and I think the photographer really captured the emotion that moment.

I'm going to try and get my last day of my time in Disney up later today. I need to go through those photos and upload stuff.

Day 4 in WDW - This is Vacation

With the wedding over my crew was looking forward to one more day of our vacation. We all slept in a bit, but it was a day to be headed back to the Magic Kingdom. The kids headed off first, they played Sorcerer's of the Magic Kingdom and met some Princesses. Rapunzel tried to set Kirk up with Cinderella's Step Sisters. Somehow I don't think I want them as my daughters in law.

I think that I finally got to the park around 11 or 12. I had a 2pm Meet up with Danni and Geordon wasn't feeling great so we were taking it very slowly. Though we hadn't had any rain yet, the skies were starting to look threatening. I stopped at the Castle to take some pictures of the Dream Along with Mickey Show.

I was pretty excited to see the show, I hadn't stopped to watch a Castle show in a very long time and this one was going along nicely. I must admit however that I was VERY creeped out by the Captain Hook costume. The partial face prosthetic was just plain weird. I'm sure that they did it so that he would look more real and have more expressions to match the other new characters with moving features, but it was really disturbing to me.

The show stopped abruptly. I think that some pyrotechnics may have misfired, I'm not really sure what happened but everything stopped. So I took a few more pictures and then headed over to the Sleepy Hollow Refreshments to meet up with Danni.

We weren't there long before the skies opened up and the whole area flooded. We sat and talked for a while as the rain came down. Her and her traveling companion seemed to be having a great time on their trip, but they didn't have their rain ponchos and they had a fastpass for Space Mountain that the clock was ticking on. As soon as the storm let up a little bit they were off for the rest of their adventure.

Geordon and I wandered around a bit as I took more pictures. I think you can really see on my face how tired I was by this point in the trip.

After riding the People Mover we headed back to the resort. We had dinner plans with friends who live in Orlando and I needed a nap. We hopped a boat back to the hotel. I absolutely adored being just a boat ride away from Wilderness Lodge, everyone ran back and forth on that boat several times during the trip. It's nice to feel like you can get back to a park easily.

I found that there was a turtle nest on the beach at Wilderness Lodge near Teton Boat and Bike Rental.

After a nap Geordon and I got ready to head back out for the night. We were having dinner at The Wave and met John and Sarah there. The food was good and atmosphere is really calming. I always forget however that there just isn't a lot that I eat on this menu. It's largely sustainable seafood, the menu is seasonal, and they use local growers for as much as possible. However I don't eat seafood, or duck, or lamb which left me with the steak. Let's just say that you could tell that steak is not what they do best. Luckily the company was amazing and I was having a fantastic time!

Everyone split an app platter

Geordon's Lamb, which he said was AMAZING

Whatever it was John was eating...LOL

My hands were not working well by this point (part of my fibromyalgia) and I spilt half my drink down my dress when the glass just plain fell out of my hand as I went to take a drink. I recovered the glass fairly quickly, but I was mortified. John and Sarah are always so kind even when my fibro is making me less than sparkling company. I had narrowly escaped being completely covered in cider, oh well, I could have smelled like worse things than cider.

After entrees we headed over to Bay Lake Tower to the Top of the World Lounge for cake, cocktails and fireworks!

My girls were on their way to meet up, but Katie had gotten lost at Wilderness Lodge and couldn't get ahold of me, so Tori was on the way to rescue her. The plan was that they would get to Top of the World before fireworks but they didn't make it. Instead they watched from the Main Street Train Station because Wishes had started while they were on the boat. Eventually they made their way to the lounge to share in cake! This is the best cake, seriously decadent.

Around midnight we parted ways. The next morning would mark our return back to reality...