From Way Up Here, It’s Crystal Clear

Disney, Travel, Vacation

Hi, TechyDad is not here at this time.  He is off to Disney World.  Don’t worry, though.  He has scheduled a bunch of posts to go live and will likely write some more during the nights after the kids are asleep.  In fact, this is one of the posts that he is scheduling.  While he is doing so, he is wondering just how long he can keep referring to himself in the third person.

Ok, I think that’s long enough.  At the point that this post goes live, my family and I should be high above the clouds.  We’ll be trying to keep the boys entertained on the aircraft (most likely with varying degrees of success) while we get closer and closer to Disney World.  Hopefully, the boys don’t utter too many “Are we there yets.”

In fact, considering that we’ll likely have to wake them up at 5am, if not earlier, to get to the airport on time, I hope that they’ll be asleep for part of that trip.  I’d love to be asleep myself for part of it too.  Somehow I doubt either of those will happen.

Stay tuned because I might be posting pictures from our trip during the nighttime.  At some point, we might not have Internet access, though.  I considered getting guest posters for this period of time, but other matters came up and I never set this up.  So if my blog goes dark for awhile, don’t worry.  I’ll be back shortly with much Disney goodness to share.

Disney World Characters and Autographs

Disney, Photos, Travel

I originally intended this to be a Wordless Wednesday, but I figured I should give an introductory paragraph or two.  We’ve taken the boys to Disney World twice over the past couple of years.  On the first trip, we bought them an autograph book and pen.  Then, every character we met, we got their autographs.  Here are photos of my boys with the characters they met and got autographs from in the order that they met them.  (Not pictured are characters like Lightning McQueen, Mater, Sully or Mike Wazowski who don’t sign autographs.)  Their book currently has room for 12 more autographs.  Whose shall we get this time?

How many characters can you name?

P1150076 P1150046 P1150031 P1150063 P1150069 P1160072 Image106 P1160224 P1170044 P1170045 P1170050 P1170059 P1170274 P1220652 P1220803 P1220806 P1220811 P1220835 P1220841 P1220910 P1220915 P1230162 P1230198 P1230304 P1230308 P1230315 P1230324 P1230333 P1230338 P1230456 P1240136 P1240288 P1240373 P1240718 P1240722 P1240729 P1240732

20 Pounds In 20 Weeks: Week 9: Last Pre-Disney Weigh-In

20lbs in 20 weeks, Disney, DisneySMMoms, Fitness, Food, Travel, Vacation, Weight Loss

This marks the last time I will weigh-in before we go to Disney World.  (At least, the last “official” weigh-in before Disney.  I might weigh myself just before we leave out of sheer curiosity.)  While at Disney, I’m putting the weight loss plan aside.  This doesn’t mean I’m going to pig out just for the sake of pigging out, but neither am I going to count points.  Let’s face it.  This is Disney World we’re talking about.  The food there is incredible and I’m not going to ruin our good time by trying to figure out which dishes are the lowest in points.  Besides, going to Disney World means a lot of walking.  (Last year, I only wound up gaining half a pound during my trip.)

Starting Weight 205
Current Weight 188
Goal Weight 185
Lost 17
Left Until Goal 3

All that said, I weighed in at 188 yesterday morning.  This puts me a mere three pounds from my goal.  Were Disney not a factor, I could probably reach my goal in the next two or three weeks.  I’d say I’m doing pretty well.  Now, I’m off to prepare to celebrate in Disney World!

Aloha Friday: Flying Fears

Aloha Friday, Fear, Travel

I’ve written about my fear of flying before.  When the airplane I’m riding in takes off or lands, I get very nervous.  Just writing and thinking about it is causing my hands to shake a bit.

I try to fill my mind with statistics which prove that air travel is safe.  I tell myself that the number of accidents involving fatalities in the past 5 years is only a handful compared to the tons of flights that take off and land uneventfully day after day after day.  Still, the Hollywood image runs through my mind of a plane coming in for a landing when something goes horribly wrong.  (Perhaps Hollywood Airlines should get some better planes because a plane in a film or TV show almost invariable encounters problems along the trip.)  The fear remains with me no matter how unreasonable I tell myself it is.

Still, I’m going to have to endure this if I want to go to Disney World.  I could do this with no problem, but this year there’s an additional fear: Airport Security.  I’m all for security on airplanes, but I’ll admit I’m afraid of the enhanced security procedures that I’ve heard are in place.  From Rapiscan scanners (seriously, could they have come up with a worse name for it?!!) that effectively display a nude image of you while exposing you to radiation to TSA personnel who must pat you down in areas that only my doctor and wife ever touch.

And it isn’t mainly me I’m afraid about.  Were it just me, I’d steel myself for it and get through it.  It’s my kids I’m worried about.  Will they ask JSL to step into the scanner by himself?  Will they want to pat down NHL such that our Stranger Danger lessons get triggered?  The boys are excited about the Disney World trip and I’d hate for an airport security nightmare to mar the experience.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Have you travelled with kids recently via airplane?  How was your airport security experience?  If not, do you have any fears about your kids handling airport security?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the McLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha Friday by Kailani at An Island Life

Aloha #78

Finishing What I Start: Progress Report 2

Cleaning, Finish What I Start

According to my goals for 2011, my To Do List Whiteboard should have been hung up and I should have published the first of my How It Works blog series.  Yeah… Neither of those has happened.  Lest you think I’ve been lounging around on the couch watching television, I have been hard at work.

First of all, I’ve had a couple of freelance projects that kept me busy.  (One of which was the redesign/rebranding of SimplyCathi’s website to PlanesTrainsAndTaxiCabs.com.  Freelance work brings in extra money and so gets a bump in priority over blog postings.

Secondly, we’ve been continuing our cleaning of the upstairs playroom.  During my last FWIS update, I mentioned some improvements that needed to be done.  Well, here’s some updates on those:

  • My big desk – We considered disposing of it and buying a new one, but researching desks led us to conclude that we just can’t spend the money on one right now.  Now with other household repairs that need to be done (gutters repaired, ice melting coils installed on the roof, etc).  So my big desk will need to stay.  I did notice something important, though.  Due to the placement of the radiator, the desk was pulled back from the wall.  This made my big desk take up even more room space than it needed to.  We moved it to another (radiator-free) wall and it is taking up less space now.  It’s still a hog, but we can work with it for the time being.
  • Old computer equipment – This has been pushed onto and under the Big Desk for the moment.  The equipment is old, but still workable so I feel bad about just tossing it in the garbage.  Besides, you can’t simply throw this stuff away.  You need to properly recycle old computer equipment.  I’ve been looking into various methods of getting rid of it, like selling it (at a very low price) to local people or giving it away to a charity that might be able to use it.
  • Boxes of old papers to shred – We’ve gone through much of this and realized that a lot of the papers didn’t need to be shredded.  They could simply be ripped and tossed away.  So we went through the boxes and separated out shred items and toss items.  This process isn’t completely done, but it has greatly reduced the amount of papers we need to shred.  (This, by the way, was my Project for August.)
  • Old toys – We cleaned out the play room’s closet and moved most of the old toys there.  It isn’t a permanent solution, but it gets them out of the way so the boys can play in the room.

While the playroom isn’t completely done, I’d say it is about 90% done.  And considering that this was a big item that I didn’t think we would complete until November, I think we’ve made excellent progress.

With our Disney trip coming up, however, I don’t think my March project (complete Math Board Game With NHL) is going to be done on time either.  That’s ok, though.  The due dates were always meant to be flexible guidelines instead of written in stone commandments.

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