Katie S. 28

The boys and I just got back from Gulf Shores. My parents made a last minute decision to rent a condo for a couple of days and they invited my sister and me to tag along. Unfortunately Chris had a big deadline at work this week so he wasn’t able to come with us. It was the longest he and I have gone without seeing each other in about 8 years, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I teared up like a goober as we drove away. (OK, maybe I am ashamed…but only slightly) Anyway, other than missing daddy a wonderful time was had by all. We played family games at night, Corbin perfected his swimming skills in the zero entry pool, we all played in the sand, and Bennett regaled us with numerous renditions of “We All Live in a Yellow SUP-marine” in the car. On the second full day of our trip a morning thunder storm left the ocean so clear that we could see all kinds of beautiful fish, shells and even a couple of dolphins.

There were however a few bloopers in the midst of all our family fun. During an evening dip in the zero entry pool my poor sister was stepped on by a very large, very inebriated woman as she tumbled into about six inches of water. Drunkchunkula then had the nerve to try to assess the damage she had caused to Jacqueline’s elbow, all the while holding her cigarette high above her head so as not to get it wet in the pool. As she repeatedly tried to touch my sister’s arm, my mother kept pulling Corbin further and further away from the woman. It was at this point that she revealed through slurry words that she was a nurse… I know. If that’s not tragic irony I don’t know what is. We took a kind of sick pleasure knowing that the pain and humiliation of a fall like that probably hit her hard once her buzz wore off.

The next day I accidentally turned Gulf Shores into a topless beach when the clasp of my bando bikini top broke without warning. This might not have been quite so humiliating if not for the fact that 1) it was mid-day and the beach was at its absolute busiest, and 2) my mother and sister had just taken Bennett up to the room so  my only beach companions were my father (who quickly threw a towel around me) and my four year old son. I then had to take the long walk of shame back to the room wrapped in a towel as my father avoided eye contact and Corbin asked inappropriately loud questions about why I didn’t have my top on.

Oh well, at least we’re sure to remember this trip!

The title might suggest that we’ve decided to throw caution to the wind and go to Disney World next month, but that isn’t the case. (A better title if we had decided to go see Mickey might have been “The Ears Have It”…but I digress) About two days into our vacation planning we incurred yet another not fun, unexpected expense. I finally went to the optometrist after neglecting my eyes for about two years. (I did this by making each 1 month pair of contacts last about 3 or 4 months.) So it should come as no great shock that I was told my optic abuse has caused some damage to the inside of my eyelids.  The method of damage discovery involved a tiny hook-like instrument that the doctor used to turn my eyelids inside out. I know… EWWWWW!

So $580 later (and yes that’s WITH vision insurance) I have a new kind of contact lens, the first pair of glasses I have owned in 12 years and strict instructions to start giving my poor eyes regular breaks lest I do so much damage that I’ll never be able to wear contacts again. (Oops, my bad.)

When we combined the fact that we are hemorrhaging money with the fact that just about every friend and family member we have lovingly told us we’d be crazy to go to Disney in July, the answer became clear.

We are going to wait until the fall when the weather is cooler, the crowds are smaller and the rates are cheaper.  It will involve taking the boys out of preschool for a few days, but with Corbin starting Kindergarten next year it seems like this might be our last year to do something like this. So in the mean time we are looking for a cheap weekend getaway that we can take with my family to break up the oppressive July heat. Any suggestions?

The practical and the impractical sides of my brain are doing battle right now. Our summer beach vacation has been canceled due to the oil spill, so we’ve been scrambling to come up with a plan B. A good friend of ours recommended Disney World. She and her husband took their 2 and 3 year old sons there last year and had an absolute blast.

As crazy as it sounds, we’re seriously considering it.

Because of  our school and work schedules, (and the fact that hurricane season is at its height in the fall) it looks like mid-July would be the best time for us to go.  So that brings me back to the practical vs. impractical fight that is consuming me right now. My list of pros for going goes like this:

1. Our boys are 2 and 4 right now and their world is full of wonder. The joy of hugging Mickey, seeing Cinderella’s castle and sleeping in a pirate ship bed will probably never be more real to them than now. And watching them experience these things for the first time would be a sweet blessing for Chris and I.
2. They are getting along extremely well lately. Their good relationship could make for a much more peaceful trip than we might have in a few years  when the age difference between them starts to cause friction again.
3. If we keep waiting and planning we may never find a perfect time to go. Part of me is saying, “Lets just go for it!” It will be hot, it will be crowded, but we’ll just try to rest during the peak hours and go to the parks in the early morning and night. Regardless of any other factors we’ll be sharing the experience together, and that’s what a family vacation is supposed to be all about.
4. When you go to Disney in the summertime there are certain advantages. For one thing the parks stay open later meaning that if  you rest up, you can enjoy the rides at night without having to endure the blistering sun. And also there are nightly parades, light shows and fireworks displays that I know we all would enjoy.
5. I’ve never been to the Magic Kingdom, and getting to see it for the first time though the eyes of my sweet little guys would be a hard opportunity to pass up.

Now my cons list goes like this:

1. Its more expensive when you to travel to Disney in the summer. We’ve had a series of not fun expenses in the last month (fixing Chris’ car, replacing a broken shower door and the tires need to be replaced on my car) so financially speaking it would make more sense to wait until next year. But by that time my school schedule will be really intense so we probably wouldn’t end up going at all.
2. Its hotter when you travel to Disney in the summer time. And while Chris and Corbin don’t mind a little heat, Bennett and I will be miserable if we don’t get regular opportunities to cool off.
3. Disney is more crowded in the summer time. I’ve heard horror stories of massive foreign tour groups, gaggles of screaming children and hordes of pushy parents. And while I realize that there isn’t a time when we’d have the park to ourselves, waiting and going during the off season might afford us a more leisurely experience.

So there you have it. For every pro, I answer myself with a con, and visa versa. Today my gut is saying just go for. Yesterday my gut was saying wait and go in the fall…or late winter. At this rate I’ll probably be looking into Euro Disney by tomorrow!

Thoughts opinions and personal experiences are greatly appreciated! (However we also reserve the right to ignore all words of wisdom and just do whatever the heck we want to…assuming we figure out what that is.)

1) Be prepared to walk…and walk…and walk some more. No matter how big you think the hotels and casinos are, they’re bigger. The scale of the place is truly mind boggling. And even though the pictures make it look like everything is lined up in a neat little row, it would literally take you hours to walk from one end of the strip to the other.  On our first day we made the mistake of walking down to the Mirage wearing flip flops. By the time we got back to our hotel I had blisters all over my feet.  Our ongoing joke in Vegas was that no matter where you stood on the strip you were either in front of or across from Caesar’s Palace, and that the Mirage was literally just that.  Every time it seemed like we were almost there it would recede a bit further into the distance.  (Picture that scene in the Holy Grail where Lancelot is trying to storm the castle to rescue Prince Hubert.)

2) Don’t try to save money on hotels. In Las Vegas there are some really nice casinos and some really crappy ones, and the price difference between the two isn’t much. As I mentioned before, each of the major hotels is about a city block long, so you might as well spend the extra $30 a night and  stay somewhere nice. And unlike hotels in the rest of the country, themey doesn’t necessarily mean tacky in Vegas. One of the nicest places we saw was the Venetian, which (obviously) is designed to look like the city of Venice.  My personal ranking from nicest to junkiest hotels goes like this:

• Venetian and Bellagio
• MGM Grand and Mirage
• Caesar’s Palace and Paris
• Luxor and New York New York
• Excalibur, Harrahs and the Hilton

Of course there are many casinos not listed above, these were just the ones we happened to visit. We stayed at the MGM Grand and really enjoyed it. However, if we go back I would probably opt to stay in the main hotel rather than the West Wing.  Although the rooms were nice and had an interesting modern decor, the hallways were dark and the elevators smelled vaguely like sulfur.

3) Set a gambling budget for yourself and strictly adhere to it.  Slot machines are literally everywhere (even in the airport) so opportunities to blow your life savings on games with names like “Alien Outlaw” abound.  $20 a person will provide you with hours of fun on the penny slots, and whether you win or lose you won’t walk away feeling ripped off.

4) If you don’t see any other sights, make sure you see the fountains at the Bellagio at night and the canals at the Venetian during the day.  They’re iconic Vegas images for a reason and DEFINITELY worth seeing. However, the outdated animatronics at the fire and lights show in Caesar’s Palace can be missed, as can the Lions at the MGM Grand. (Unless of course you’ve never been to a zoo)

5) Do not bring your children. For all the PR Vegas has done in the last decade about becoming a family friendly vacation destination, its still not an appropriate place for kids. Aside from the drunken antics of business men and college kids alike, visitors will also be exposed to a number of video billboards previewing local burlesque and peep shows.  And a short stroll down the strip will afford you more pornographic imagery than a lifetime subscription to Playboy magazine ever could, care of a seedy troop of neon T-shirt wearing peddlers. Each peddler carries a thick stack of ‘business cards’ for local ‘escorts’ and as you pass they flick the cards with their fingers to get your attention. When you don’t pick up the card they simply drop it at your feet, which is why the streets themselves are covered with illicit images. When we were walking outside of Paris we saw a little boy stop to tie his shoes, only to be ridiculed ruthlessly by his preteen sisters. The sight was so troubling that we took the monorail to neighboring casinos from that point forward.

6) Take in a show. We got free tickets to the Cirque du Soliel show “Love” as part of our travel package.  Love is full of amazing acrobatics, beautiful dances and impressive special effects all set to Beatles music. There are speakers in front and on either side of every chair in the auditorium, which gives you the sense of being inside the music. It was really one of the most moving shows I’ve ever seen. However, if you don’t happen to be a Beatles fan I would recommend seeing Ka or O instead. And if you don’t happen to be a fan of music in general, I hear Barry Manilow and the Osmonds have Vegas shows as well.

7) Save yourself some embarrassment and don’t touch the statues. There’s a good chance its really just a street performer who has painted his entire body and is standing perfectly still.

8 ) Be prepared for a very bumpy take-off and landing at McCarran International Airport.  Apparently it has something to do with the surrounding mountains and rapid altitude change. The day we left there were damaging winds sweeping though the city. I spent the first 5 minutes of our flight boring holes into Chris’ palm with my fingernails and telling God I wanted to live.

9) Eat and drink off the strip. Now of course this little piece of advice is not at all convenient if, like us, you didn’t happen to rent a car. But man will it ever save you some money if you are trying to do your trip on the cheap. The average price for a hamburger in the casinos is around $16 and the average price for a cocktail is around $12. For our part, we ended up eating at the low rate chain restaurants during the day and splurging on dinner at night. But I have it on good authority that had we ventured a bit further off the strip we would have found reasonably priced food.

10) And last but not least… people watch, people watch, people watch. On the first day of our stay we saw 3 Elvis impersonators, 2 show girls, 4 brides (2 of whom were walking down the strip holding plastic souvenir cocktail cups and wearing poofy white wedding gowns),  and an obviously partied out college girl sound asleep at a slot machine in the middle of a busy casino.

In Chris’ words, “Vegas is a city where you’d have to work really hard to get in trouble.” Its a place where just about everything seems to be allowed, so people just do in public all the things that they do in private at home. Its crazy, its gaudy, its Chuck E Cheese for maturity stunted adults – and in my opinion, its totally worth seeing at least once in your lifetime!

I’ve not been a very good blogger recently.  Maybe its because I let my posts get too long and therefor too daunting to write (and read).  So here is a short one to set a new tone.

Chris just got his annual bonus and we are very thankful. It wasn’t enough to replace the 97 Saturn that he drives to work, but it was more than enough to cover any repairs that might need to be done in order to keep our old tried and true ‘rubbermade’ coupe running for yet another year.  Since a new car is off the table right now, we might actually get to spend part of his bonus on something fun.  And this time I’m not talkin new kitchen counter tops fun, I’m talkin long weekend getaway for mommy and daddy fun!

Our friends Jamie and Chris did this last month and based on how happy and glowy they’re both looking these days, this might just be the best idea ever.

I’m thinking Vegas Baby!

These are a bit overdue but I wanted to share some pictures of the city we all fell in love with (some of us for the second time).

This is the Chateau Laurier, which is a beautiful old hotel less than a block away from parliament.  Chris and I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary at one of the many restaurants inside.  We had an amazing cheese tray, a delicious smoked salmon appetizer, and some very interesting cocktails.

The locks on the Rideau canal

Several views of Parliament.

The view from our room on the 21st floor at Les Suites.  It wasn’t until the rain cleared up on Sunday that we realized there was a spectacular view of the Gatineaus (a group of hills in Quebec) hiding behind all that mist.

The changing of the guards on the lawn of Parliament.

The art museum…and yes that is a giant spider statue (complete with egg sack) behind my mother’s head.

And just because Canada is random like that….

…A stuatue of Queen Elizabeth on a horse and a stray cat sanctuary that has been set up right behind the Parliament building!

If you have been to Ontario Canada any time in the last two decades then you are well aware of the cultural phenomenon that is Tim Horton’s.  Tim Horton’s, or ‘Timmy’s’ as it is most commonly referred to, is a reasonably priced, deliciously blended, beautifully efficient coffee, doughnut and sandwich shop that can be found on just about every street corner and interstate exit in Canada.

I love Timmy’s for a number of reasons, not the least of which being its general lack of pretense (you know, the kind that one tends to encounter at certain other chain coffee shops that shall remain nameless).  Timmy’s is totally comfortable with what it is – good, no frills coffee at good, no frills prices.  Whether you are the CEO of a large corporation or a Toronto trash collector, Timmy’s considers you its equal.

Being the mega coffee addicts that we are, making a daily (or sometimes thrice daily) Timmy’s run was an absolute necessity during our Canadian adventure.  And we quickly learned that this mecca of coffee shops appeals to family members of all ages.  One day as we were making the five hour trip from Ottawa to Toronto, we realized that things had been very quiet in the back seat for quite some time.  When we turned around to investigate we were astonished to see a large Timmy’s box balanced on Bennett’s car seat. He was clenching a doughnut in each hand and he wore a delighted grin on his maple frosting covered face.

We still have no clue how he got a hold of the box, which I could have sworn I had placed well out of reach.  But regardless of how he got his hands on them I elected not to confiscate these particular items of contraband. I mean after all, the delicious doughnuts were keeping our little screamer quiet.  Plus everyone knows you should never come between a man and his Timmy’s!

I did however manage to snap a picture or two in between my fits of laughter.

We ended our great Canadian adventure at the home of my mother’s childhood friend Linda.  Linda’s husband Jerry is the owner of a popular racing team on the Canadian Nascar circuit.  He also has just about every toy and machine that any male could ever want and around 100 acres of beautiful land  on which to play.  Over the course of two days my boys got behind the wheel of  a 4 wheeler, a tractor, a ride on lawn mower, and more trucks, Nascars and classic cars that I have room to mention.  Not surprisingly, getting my men to leave yesterday was no small feat!  The tractor was Corbin’s personal favorite.