avalon451
Errrr... what?
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2008
Hi, there! My name is Gail, and my husband's name is Al, and if I tell you anything else about us, I might have to kill you, so...
Wait. That didn't come out right. Let me start again.
Hello, we are a nice suburban couple with 3 daughters who may or may not be teenagers, and WE'RE NOT BRINGING THEM WITH US THIS TIME---!
Ahem. Sorry. I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm a little excited, because this will be my FOURTH trip to Disneyland (no other DL properties under my belt yet), but only my husband's SECOND. He spent most of our first trip in the Grand Californian Hotel, with our oldest daughter, who was twelve at the time and barfing her guts out. Yeah, not the best trip, for any of us. I mean, we managed to salvage it and have an okay time, and even my daughter felt better on some days and got into the parks, but it was kind of a bummer all around. That was back in March of 2008. DD and I did a "do over!" trip the following October to make up for her sad time, and that trip was fantastic. It's detailed in a TR in my signature.
Then life happened, and lots of other stuff happened both good and bad, and here we are 8 years later. I did a little solo trip last year for 4 days. DH encouraged me, because of a lot of stressful things we'd been through, and I'd always wanted to try a solo trip, and we had a little extra money sitting around from my part time job. So I did that, and it was fun, but a little lonely. I really enjoyed setting my own pace and doing my own thing, but I found that I really missed sharing the experience with my loving peeps. Also, I'm a slave driver... but only to myself. I tried to do too much (just because I could) and gave myself bad blisters and exhaustion.
This year happened. Lots of stuff happened. The kids graduated from various institutions. We took the girls to Maui last month for 8 days to say, "Yay, you graduated from (middle school, high school, college)!" Our oldest daughter is engaged, and is planning her wedding for June 2017 (gulp! How did she grow up so fast?).
Meanwhile, I'm turning -- lord, I hate even saying it, I sure don't feel it-- *COUGH52COUGH*
Hang on, folks, I swear I just turned 32 the other day. This can't be happening to me. Dangit.
Well, DH and I were talking about it the other day--- well, no, this was last March. See? I'm losing it. I can't even keep track of time. ANYWAY, we were talking about how much fun the original DL trip was even though we were trading off hotel duty with Amazing Barf Girl. I told him that after my solo trip, I kept thinking about how much fun it would be for just the two of us to go. He looked at me funny and said, "Well, why don't we?"
I love this man. We've been married 27 years and counting, and he still makes my lil' heart go pitter-pat.
So, you know how it goes. You think about a DL trip, and pretty soon you're sneaking over to the airfare websites, and the hotel websites, and looking up current ticket pricing at the discount ticket agents. You run a few numbers. You stare hungrily at your savings account balance. You calculate when the kids will all be in school or otherwise employed/occupied, and when you might be able to get out of work. I mean, I do this all the time, in years when I know for a fact that Disneyland is just not gonna happen any time soon. It's entertainment for me. But this time there was that glimmer of hope.
Hey, my birthday looked good. September, the younger two will be back into their school routine of high school and college. Hopefully the oldest will be employed by then (please God, I was thinking, last March, as she was finishing her senior projects in graphic design-- God is good to us, she was working at her first professional job even before graduation in May, and is making a fantastic salary for a 21-year-old). My job and DH's job are both fairly slow then, and the summer vacation rush is over.
So I worked it all out, and a few days later, presented DH with a fully-formed idea: "You. Me. A nice bottle of wine, candlelight, maybe dinner at Napa Rose, and a visit to a little guy named Mickey. Whaddaya say?"
DH says, "Happy birthday, Baby."
Wait. That didn't come out right. Let me start again.
Hello, we are a nice suburban couple with 3 daughters who may or may not be teenagers, and WE'RE NOT BRINGING THEM WITH US THIS TIME---!
Ahem. Sorry. I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm a little excited, because this will be my FOURTH trip to Disneyland (no other DL properties under my belt yet), but only my husband's SECOND. He spent most of our first trip in the Grand Californian Hotel, with our oldest daughter, who was twelve at the time and barfing her guts out. Yeah, not the best trip, for any of us. I mean, we managed to salvage it and have an okay time, and even my daughter felt better on some days and got into the parks, but it was kind of a bummer all around. That was back in March of 2008. DD and I did a "do over!" trip the following October to make up for her sad time, and that trip was fantastic. It's detailed in a TR in my signature.
Then life happened, and lots of other stuff happened both good and bad, and here we are 8 years later. I did a little solo trip last year for 4 days. DH encouraged me, because of a lot of stressful things we'd been through, and I'd always wanted to try a solo trip, and we had a little extra money sitting around from my part time job. So I did that, and it was fun, but a little lonely. I really enjoyed setting my own pace and doing my own thing, but I found that I really missed sharing the experience with my loving peeps. Also, I'm a slave driver... but only to myself. I tried to do too much (just because I could) and gave myself bad blisters and exhaustion.
This year happened. Lots of stuff happened. The kids graduated from various institutions. We took the girls to Maui last month for 8 days to say, "Yay, you graduated from (middle school, high school, college)!" Our oldest daughter is engaged, and is planning her wedding for June 2017 (gulp! How did she grow up so fast?).
Meanwhile, I'm turning -- lord, I hate even saying it, I sure don't feel it-- *COUGH52COUGH*
Hang on, folks, I swear I just turned 32 the other day. This can't be happening to me. Dangit.
Well, DH and I were talking about it the other day--- well, no, this was last March. See? I'm losing it. I can't even keep track of time. ANYWAY, we were talking about how much fun the original DL trip was even though we were trading off hotel duty with Amazing Barf Girl. I told him that after my solo trip, I kept thinking about how much fun it would be for just the two of us to go. He looked at me funny and said, "Well, why don't we?"
I love this man. We've been married 27 years and counting, and he still makes my lil' heart go pitter-pat.
So, you know how it goes. You think about a DL trip, and pretty soon you're sneaking over to the airfare websites, and the hotel websites, and looking up current ticket pricing at the discount ticket agents. You run a few numbers. You stare hungrily at your savings account balance. You calculate when the kids will all be in school or otherwise employed/occupied, and when you might be able to get out of work. I mean, I do this all the time, in years when I know for a fact that Disneyland is just not gonna happen any time soon. It's entertainment for me. But this time there was that glimmer of hope.
Hey, my birthday looked good. September, the younger two will be back into their school routine of high school and college. Hopefully the oldest will be employed by then (please God, I was thinking, last March, as she was finishing her senior projects in graphic design-- God is good to us, she was working at her first professional job even before graduation in May, and is making a fantastic salary for a 21-year-old). My job and DH's job are both fairly slow then, and the summer vacation rush is over.
So I worked it all out, and a few days later, presented DH with a fully-formed idea: "You. Me. A nice bottle of wine, candlelight, maybe dinner at Napa Rose, and a visit to a little guy named Mickey. Whaddaya say?"
DH says, "Happy birthday, Baby."