What are your best tips?

I posted this on fb and got lots of great answers, but now I am asking for your help!  What are your best tips for going to Disney World?

Today

Abs gave us a run for our money.  I really miss her wearing a school uniform.

Today she went to school like this.

This was much more appropriate than when she came home with a pair of her tights on her head the previous day, like gigantic bunny ears.  Clothing that covers her body parts is not a battle I choose to fight.

It was pajama day at Junior's school, and he fell in love with these fireman pajamas from Heidi.  So much so that he insisted he wear them to dinner.  He cried when we made him put on clean pajamas for bedtime.  We're such mean parents!

Have you ever read the book Caps for Sale?  He loves that book.  He was wearing Gunner's beret and trying to act out the story.

We went for pizza, and we were there over an hour after we ordered.  Gunner went to check on the meal and they said it was coming up.  The first pizza came up, was brought out, and delivered to the table next to us.  They delivered us the second pizza at least.  I told the waiter that I wanted a refund on the pizza, and he said he would have to talk to the manager.  I asked him to just send the manager out.

I explained the situation--waiting for the pizza over an hour, our neighbors eating our pizza, and only getting one pizza.  He apologized and said he would take care of it and get us our pizza.  He brought us the missing pizza, took care of our entire bill, which was more than what we asked for, I just wanted the pizza we never got, taken off.  Our neighbors also got the pizza that they ordered, so they thanked us and smiled with mouths full of my pizza as we sat starving.

After enduring painful blisters while running, I went and got fitted for new running shoes this morning.  My gait is fine, etc., but apparently when you move to a higher altitude, they told me that everything expands.  I thought my jeans were getting tight!  I tried on several pairs of shoes and if you saw a curly headed girl sprinting jogging around downtown, that was me.  I ended up with a pair of shoes that make it feel like I am running on air.

I came home, grabbed Sammy, and went for a two mile run.  Sammy could have continued, but it was too windy and cold for me!

Time for us to hit the sack, we have a full day of child wrangling coming up.

Hello, my name is ABW, and I am not organized--Deployment Ideas Part II

Most of my friends might call me a mess.  There's no rhyme or reason as to why I put anything anywhere.  While my house is clean (most of the time), I couldn't tell you where anything important is.

Enter Gunner.

My uber organized husband that loves me dearly.  After he went to Iraq the first time and I had to have my mom sign for housing because I couldn't find my POA--thank goodness he knows me and gave her a POA--he decided he needed to organize me.

He made me an Everything Book.

It was the best thing he could have done.

He made categories, printed out nice little labels, and spent weeks scouring the house for every important piece of paper.  There's a section on the car--titles, insurance copies, dealer information.  One on each child--shot records, passports, birth certificates, daycare information, school information.  There's a deployment section with POA's, orders, rear d information.  He included banking, credit cards, cable, job information, etc.  You name it, it's in this gigantic white binder--housing, camps, contact numbers, addresses, etc.

It's time to start updating it now that we are in a new location.  He'll sort through the piles of mail I don't open and start putting in all the vital information that I might need while he is gone, and if I ever have to go anywhere important, this book goes with me.  (He's also learned and gets more than one POA for me, just in case!)

I won't have to search for anything.

I'm thinking this time he might want to include ideas of things to do or maybe races I can train for?  Maybe a list of books for the kids to read that he loved at their respective ages.

Do you have one of these books?  What do you put in it that I am missing?

Give me your best!

So Gunner leaves in less than 5 months, and I am trying to come up with new ideas and things to do for both the kids and myself.  I usually go 125 mph the entire deployment, but since each deployment is different, this one might not be that way?  (knock on wood)

What was the best thing you did for the kids while your Soldier was deployed?

What helped you the most?

What was the one thing you wish you had prepared for before they left?

Any good books that you recommend?  

What's the one thing that helped you the most?

Last deployment I counted trash days in order to make the keeping of time bearable.  Now, because of bears, we have a dumpster with locks.  

What can I count now?  Number of times I have to unstop the toilet?  How many nights Abbie doesn't sleep?

I need some fresh input on how to survive our 5th year long deployment.  Hmmm....maybe I should count weeks until retirement?  

Booked

We are expecting snow today!  While everyone else gets piles of snow and it never melts, one of the things I love about this place, is that besides a few piles, it melts within a couple of days!

Yesterday we planned, researched, priced, routed, and spent hours upon hours planning the perfect vacation.

Then I said forget it, and booked another vacation to the other side of the country in less than an hour.  I can't wait!

Friday morning, I won 4 tickets to see The Magic Flute!  Em and I asked her friend and her mom if they wanted to go, and they jumped at the chance.  We had a great time!!!  The show was hilarious!  It was nice to get dressed up and get out and do something different.  There's a Broadway show I really want to see in Denver, so maybe that is next on our list!

Em attended a tennis sports camp at the Academy yesterday, and has fallen in love with the game.  I love that they have these camps here for the kids to be able to try out different sports, attend a game, and they even feed them and give them a shirt!

I'm trying to decide what to do with Sammy while we are gone.  The military gave free subscriptions to sittercity.com, and they have a pet section, but I don't want someone to stop by once or twice and feed him, he would go crazy!  I also hate the thought of someone I don't know coming by.  There is one place that comes highly recommended, so we might try him out in doggy daycare there and see how he does.  I never thought I would be one of those people that took their dog to daycare!

Today is biking day at the gym, core, and arms, followed up by my swim for the day.  Happy Sunday!