514

514?  No it's not just a random number.  It's the number of days until we are here

And of course we will have to ride this

A trip to the happiest place isn't complete without a ride on It's a Small World!

I think I've been driving my family nuts with talk of Disney plans.  I think unless you've been there you just don't understand it's magic.  Well, I guess that's not entirely true.  My parents have been there, they took us 6 times when we were little.  In fact I used to get excited when my grandma came down to visit because that meant a trip to see Mickey!  Of course Disneyland was much different almost 30 (good grief  I'm getting old!) years ago.  I don't know why, but Disney is like a drug to me.  

In the United States you can get a 6 day ticket to visit my friend Mickey.  **little tidbit of info for you - if you have a 6 day ticket and you want to go for 7 days, take your ticket to the ticket booth and tell them you want to add a 7th day and it will only cost you about $5 per ticket**  Back to our regularly scheduled program - so we will be getting a 6 day ticket and possibly upgrading it to 7 days.  Still trying to figure out how we are going to fit everything in.  We want to be able to do a day in Los Angeles while we are there, and Medieval Times.  

I've been researching dining options.  Here's what I have so far:

Blue Bayou (how can you resist eating in the Pirates ride??)

Carnation Cafe

Cafe Orleans

Corn Dog from the little red wagon

churro

Dole Whip

Fantasmic Dessert package

Medieval Times (I know not Disney, but still dining)

Pinks (not Disney again, but a must do)

In and out burger (I know, I know, not Disney)

Breakfast with Minnie and Friends (see here's a Disney one!)

If anyone has any suggestions on other must try places, please let me know!

If anyone else is planning a Disneyland or Disney World trip I came across the most wonderful website a few years ago.  There is a lot of information on there about Disney World, not nearly as much about Disneyland, but the people on the boards are nice for the most part and will answer just about any question you have.

Here's the place

WARNING - the site can be addicting!

Commuting

Monday I had a job interview in Bellevue, so I decided to take the ferry.  25 minutes from my house to the ferry, 35 minute ferry ride, 15 minute drive to Bellevue.  Easy peasy, right?  Yeah, not so much.  The wait for the ferry there wasn't bad because it was during the slow part of the day.  But if I was to take it to work every morning I'd probably have to take the 6:20 boat which means leaving my house by 5:10 at the latest to make sure I made it on the boat. would get off the boat about 7 and then at that time of the morning it would probably take almost 30 minutes to get to Bellevue. So almost 2 1/2 hours of travel time.  But that's just the morning.  I left Bellevue at 4:45, made it to the ferry by 5:00 (next boat was 5:30), missed that ferry because it was too full and had to wait until the 6:20 boat that night.  Got to Bainbridge Island at 7 and then home at 7:40 because of an accident blocking the road.  so another almost 3 hours! That's just crazy to me!!

SNOW!

It's a whopping 27* outside.  According to the weather forecast from Tuesday all this snow was supposed to be gone by now.  It's supposed to be raining and almost 40* right now.  Guess the weather man was wrong.....

This is the view down my driveway.  Yes, I live all the way at the end and around the corner (it's 1/3 of a mile from the main road).  In fact it's such a pain to get in and out of the end of the driveway, closest to my house, that I had to borrow my moms car to go feed my animals today.  There was no way my car was going to make it without chains.  

I love watching the snow, but mother nature seems to be confused this week.  This is not the way it's supposed to snow around here.  We don't usually get tons of snow at one time and our county just doesn't have the equipment to deal with all this snow.  What usually happens is it snows one day and the next day it warms up and rains and all the snow is gone.  We get to see the snow and enjoy it for the day and the next day get on with our lives.  Well that's not what happened this time!  The poor people in olympia (about an hour from us) have over 2 feet of snow that fell in 2 days!  They have roofs collapsing due to the weight of the snow, trees coming down, and no power!  Thankfully, knock on wood, we have power.  But it's still cold as heck.  The horses have their winter blankets on, so they're nice and warm, but still have ice hanging off the bottom of the blankets and their manes.  

Looks like the kids will be going to school a little longer in June.  My son's school has been closed for two days and it wouldn't surprise me if they were closed again tomorrow.  Thankfully I gave us a week buffer between the last day of school and our vacation to DC this summer!     

Pinterest

I don't know who thought of Pinterest.com, but they need to be shot!  I can't tell you how many hours (yes hours!) I've spent on that site the past couple of weeks.

For those that don't know what pinterest is, it's a website for all your favorite things.  People "pin" pictures, websites, etc and then you can "repin" them onto one of your boards so you have them for future reference.  For example:  I have boards with crafts, crochet items, sewing items, food (oh my gosh there are some yummy foods people post on there!), travel, and just other things in general that I like.  Once you've pinned something your friends that are on pinterest can also see the item and pin it on their own boards if they like it as well.

If you haven't checked pinterest out already you should.  However, you should proceed with caution as it is quite addicting!!

Vacation planning confession

I'm a planner.  I plan down to the smallest detail.  Now we may not, and usually don't, do everything I have on my to-do list for the vacation - but I like to know what our options are.

• I confess that I have excel spreadsheets of my vacations
• I confess that I map out the routes for our vacation (even though we've been there a dozen times)
• I confess that not only do I look up places to eat in the area, but I price out what I think we are going to eat so I know how much it may be
• I confess that I currently have 3 vacations I am planning
• I confess that I start researching airline prices 12+ months in advance
• I confess that I log onto mom and dads timeshare account to see how many points they have to see if there's enough for a vacation (it's not like they use their points anyway lol).  Why not get a room for free if you can.  And a room with a kitchen is even better!
• I confess for my Disneyland vacation in 2013 I have a huge spreadsheet with 5 tabs and I'm nowhere near done with it
• I confess that I have a trip planning binder for my bigger vacations.  And yes I use my cricut to make it!
• I confess that I plan events/places to see while on vacation for the pure purpose of taking a picture for my scrapbooking addiction!  Yes, I would be the person who goes to the tulip festival for 2 hours and comes back with 150+ pictures.  I can't help myself!

School Website

Let me ask you this, why do schools have websites if the teachers aren't going to use them???

My son's school has a very nice website, but very few teachers use it.  I find this extremely frustrating!  Why have a page for each teacher if they aren't going to use it.  My son has a 504 plan for his Asperger's that says each of his teachers are to put daily homework assignments on it.  This way I can go back and ask him did you do such and such assignment.  But only one of his teachers use it! So frustrating!

They also have links for all the clubs at the school, but do you think those are used? Nope!  It's a requirement for the students to belong to some sort of club, sport, band, or whatever, which I think is great.  But it would be nice to know when the clubs meet and what they do so the kids know if they want to join or not.

Font

Who knew a simple little word could cause so many problems!  I laugh to myself when I see couples on TV arguing over what font to use.  Is it really that big of a deal what font you choose??  I used to think it didn't really matter what you chose so long as people could read it.  Boy was I wrong!  I've just spent the better part of the last 40.....yes I said 40.....minutes deciding on font for this blog.  Still not sure if I'm completely happy with my decision.  At least it's not permanent like a tattoo :)

It's picture time!

Let's see if I've figured this out. Looks like it worked! I can post pictures :)

This is my son Justin. I don't really have any of me. That was my New Years Resolution - make sure I'm in some of the pictures!

Justin doing what he does best :) Justin wants to go to University of Washington to be a video game inventor - I don't know what the degree is called.

Introductions

My mother taught me that I should always introduce myself when I meet new people. So here's a little about me.

For those that may not already know me, my name is Nanette. Yes, as in No No Nanette. If you don't know what I'm talking about google it. I live in Washington and as the title of my blog states I'm a neurotic list maker. I make list for everything. Now I'm not just talking one list for a trip, I'm talking 15 packing list for a trip. I plan my vacations out months (ok really it's years) in advance. Some people may see this as a problem, but I don't. It's just what makes me me.

I should probably introduce the rest of the cast of characters that live with me since I'm sure they will come up in conversations. I feel a list coming on!

*Justin - my 15 year old. How to describe Justin.......Have you ever watched Big Bang Theory? My son is the teenage version of Sheldon. He walks like him, his mannerisms are just like Sheldon, he even says some of the same things Sheldon says. And no he doesn't act like him because he watched him on TV, he's been like this his entire life. He's actually quite funny to be around. He is my travel buddy.

*Calee, Mini, Garfield - the cats. Mini and Garfield are Calee's babies, well they aren't babies anymore they're 6 and Calee is 7.

*This one is a long list - Lily, Violet, Oreo's baby, Pierre, Penny, Fritter, Isabelle, Autumn, Thing 2, Experiment 858, Huey. I think that's all of them. These would be our guinea pigs (in our world they are called cavies). My son shows some of them in 4H, and some of them we show together in open class shows (think dog show, but with guinea pigs and they are judged in little coops on a long table).

*one last character - he's part of our family but lives through the woods at my parent's house - my son's rabbit, Smudge.

That seems to complete our cast. I'm sure more people will pop up along the way.

Now to figure out how to post pictures..........