OK...I would like to first apologize for all of the trip reports I have neglected. Work was chaos, the holidays consumed my world, and well...life happened...a lot. But...I will do my best to do more reading and commenting in the near future.
I also have a trip report of my own to bring you...a trip that I still can't believe has come and gone. The reporting is also going to take a little bit longer since I'm doing something a bit different this time. I'm going to be posting on here as well as another forum (I know...such a traitor), so it's going to be a more time consuming process.
Now, for those of you who don't know me and aren't familiar with my trip reports...I'm Sandy ... aka HouCuseChickie (and also TiggerTrigger in a few other places). Obviously, I'm the one with the hat and glasses!
Sorry, huge pictures. I borrowed them from my Facebook galleries.
And another huge picture, but these are our girls (younger one pictured with me above)...
That's Kendall (age 9) on the left and Sammie (age 7 and very toothless) on the right. It's hard to believe these two were just 4 and 2 on my first trip report.
Finally, we've got DH...who will be referred to as such throughout, unless I slip up. LOL. He probably wouldn't be too happy that I'm using this pic, but this was him at the end of "Movember" after growing out his moustache. We're all happy that he shaved it off on December 1st.
So, that's us...but it's been a while since I did anything with my PTR, so some refreshers and updates on the details of the trip...especially the final details. And for those of you who have seen my previous reports, I promise you tons and tons of pics- and even a few videos, but let's recap a bit with the plan and get up to date on some things.
This all started as a "Let's go to Disneyland for the 60th anniversary festivities" trip, which spiraled into so much more. DH reminded me (aka- total guilt trip) that I'd promised him a ski trip. Well, the only way I could get this to work with Disneyland and not have it get too crazy with the budget (or so I thought) was to ski in California. So, the Big Bear- Mammoth-Tahoe debate was started and Mammoth won. All my CA friends said it was better skiing than Big Bear and it's closer and a smidge cheaper than Tahoe.
Plans and costs started to get crazy as dates and transportation started to factor in. We were planning on Disneyland from December 27th-31st and Mammoth on December 31st-January 3rd. In fact, this is what we had the girls believing were our vacay dates until the very end (more on that in a bit). But...I remembered how my parents saved a ton flying on Christmas last year and the dog's boarding facility would take her no later than December 23rd, so leaving on Christmas day started to sound like the better plan. In fact, the one-way cost of our Christmas day flights was something like $150 cheaper per person than the flight I was eyeing for the 27th. So, a Christmas day departure became a reality...and the trip grew by 2 days. But before all was said and done, the trip grew by 1 more day. January 3rd was a Sunday and flights were much more expensive than January 4th. The kids were still off from school on the 4th, so we extended the trip 1 more day. We also decided the extended trip would be the kids' big Christmas present. More on that coming up.
Somewhere in the process of this, as I was planning details of our drive to Mammoth, I found out that California has really strict tire chain laws during winter. Couple that with the taxes that can double the cost of your rental and I decided to bite the bullet and fly from LA to Mammoth. I waited and waited for prices to drop back to the lows I'd seen earlier in the year and by late September, it finally happened. Or so I thought. Just days before the trip, I realized I booked our air in reverse. Instead of LA to Mammoth, I booked Mammoth to LA. I was under a lot of stress at work at the time of this booking and even though I checked things at least 5 or 6 times, I misread all of it. It would have cost more than twice the price of those flights to change everything, so we just ate the cost, booked a rental, came up with a plan for the tire chains, and nervously prayed we wouldn't need to use our plan. There are a couple of silver linings with this that will come at the end of the report.
Now here's where some of the biggest fun came in during the pre-trip time. In late November/early December, it hit me that I really needed a plan to give the girls all of their trip gifts as well as the big gift. We'd be leaving for the airport before 7am on Christmas morning, so there was no time for anything but the big gift that day. Now, we're a dual religion household and between me celebrating Hanukkah and DH celebrating Christmas...I figured we could work it all out with that. Before looking at the calendar, I decided we'd do gifts for the 8 nights of Hanukkah and the 12 days of Christmas. I just didn't realize that it would all match up perfectly so we'd have 20 straight days of gifts. It may sound like a lot, but it was all trip related stuff...stuff to show the girls that $ goes into the fun stuff and the necessities... and that it can be just as fun (if not more) to have it all be part of amazing experiences. Sammie still believes in Santa, so I also had to make it believable. So, I wrote a rhyming letter from Santa talking about how the Christmas gift is so big that DH and I would need to play elves for 11 of the 12 days of Christmas. It even had Santa's signature and the North Pole seal.
During Hanukkah, the kids got things like snow boots, Disney Vans, ski bibs, winter gear, clothes, etc. The 12 days of Christmas were a bit more fun. We started out with character hats for autographs like they requested when we were at the GF back in August, a whale watching cruise, made with the magic wands, a GoPro style camera to record their adventures, stockings full of pins/new lanyards/lip balms/etc., and one of my fave days- Star Wars tickets. We gifted them Star Wars tickets for the trip on the day the movie opened, but it's how we did it that made it a ton of fun. Back in 2014, we built lightsabers for them in DHS and they've held up really well. So, on Dec 18th, while the girls were eating breakfast, I came out of the bedroom wearing one of those audio Chewbacca mask and challenged DH to a lightsaber battle with Sammie's purple lightsaber. DH had Kendall's red one hidden under the couch and we battled it out in the living room. It would eventually hit the kids that they were seeing the movie, but initially, they were more interested in the mask. In fact, here's Sammie (as Chewbacca) wishing everyone a very merry Christmas.
My MIL almost ruined the surprise on Christmas Eve, but thankfully the kids didn't hear and they went to bed totally clueless. Before they woke up, I modified the countdown calendar they'd been using to show the 25th instead of the 27th as our departure day, had a new letter from Santa revealing the surprise, and put the packed bags around the tree- with bows on their packed carry ons. What's really amazing is that when the focus for gifts was shifted away from toys, the only thing the girls were really wishing for this Christmas was for the trip to get here sooner. So, they actually received their Christmas wish.
The girls were so tired when we woke up them up and were reading without really comprehending when they first read Santa's note, but they read it a second time- it all clicked- and we had some utterly giddy girls.
Coming up...Christmas Day- Travel Day
I also have a trip report of my own to bring you...a trip that I still can't believe has come and gone. The reporting is also going to take a little bit longer since I'm doing something a bit different this time. I'm going to be posting on here as well as another forum (I know...such a traitor), so it's going to be a more time consuming process.
Now, for those of you who don't know me and aren't familiar with my trip reports...I'm Sandy ... aka HouCuseChickie (and also TiggerTrigger in a few other places). Obviously, I'm the one with the hat and glasses!
Sorry, huge pictures. I borrowed them from my Facebook galleries.
And another huge picture, but these are our girls (younger one pictured with me above)...
That's Kendall (age 9) on the left and Sammie (age 7 and very toothless) on the right. It's hard to believe these two were just 4 and 2 on my first trip report.
Finally, we've got DH...who will be referred to as such throughout, unless I slip up. LOL. He probably wouldn't be too happy that I'm using this pic, but this was him at the end of "Movember" after growing out his moustache. We're all happy that he shaved it off on December 1st.
So, that's us...but it's been a while since I did anything with my PTR, so some refreshers and updates on the details of the trip...especially the final details. And for those of you who have seen my previous reports, I promise you tons and tons of pics- and even a few videos, but let's recap a bit with the plan and get up to date on some things.
This all started as a "Let's go to Disneyland for the 60th anniversary festivities" trip, which spiraled into so much more. DH reminded me (aka- total guilt trip) that I'd promised him a ski trip. Well, the only way I could get this to work with Disneyland and not have it get too crazy with the budget (or so I thought) was to ski in California. So, the Big Bear- Mammoth-Tahoe debate was started and Mammoth won. All my CA friends said it was better skiing than Big Bear and it's closer and a smidge cheaper than Tahoe.
Plans and costs started to get crazy as dates and transportation started to factor in. We were planning on Disneyland from December 27th-31st and Mammoth on December 31st-January 3rd. In fact, this is what we had the girls believing were our vacay dates until the very end (more on that in a bit). But...I remembered how my parents saved a ton flying on Christmas last year and the dog's boarding facility would take her no later than December 23rd, so leaving on Christmas day started to sound like the better plan. In fact, the one-way cost of our Christmas day flights was something like $150 cheaper per person than the flight I was eyeing for the 27th. So, a Christmas day departure became a reality...and the trip grew by 2 days. But before all was said and done, the trip grew by 1 more day. January 3rd was a Sunday and flights were much more expensive than January 4th. The kids were still off from school on the 4th, so we extended the trip 1 more day. We also decided the extended trip would be the kids' big Christmas present. More on that coming up.
Somewhere in the process of this, as I was planning details of our drive to Mammoth, I found out that California has really strict tire chain laws during winter. Couple that with the taxes that can double the cost of your rental and I decided to bite the bullet and fly from LA to Mammoth. I waited and waited for prices to drop back to the lows I'd seen earlier in the year and by late September, it finally happened. Or so I thought. Just days before the trip, I realized I booked our air in reverse. Instead of LA to Mammoth, I booked Mammoth to LA. I was under a lot of stress at work at the time of this booking and even though I checked things at least 5 or 6 times, I misread all of it. It would have cost more than twice the price of those flights to change everything, so we just ate the cost, booked a rental, came up with a plan for the tire chains, and nervously prayed we wouldn't need to use our plan. There are a couple of silver linings with this that will come at the end of the report.
Now here's where some of the biggest fun came in during the pre-trip time. In late November/early December, it hit me that I really needed a plan to give the girls all of their trip gifts as well as the big gift. We'd be leaving for the airport before 7am on Christmas morning, so there was no time for anything but the big gift that day. Now, we're a dual religion household and between me celebrating Hanukkah and DH celebrating Christmas...I figured we could work it all out with that. Before looking at the calendar, I decided we'd do gifts for the 8 nights of Hanukkah and the 12 days of Christmas. I just didn't realize that it would all match up perfectly so we'd have 20 straight days of gifts. It may sound like a lot, but it was all trip related stuff...stuff to show the girls that $ goes into the fun stuff and the necessities... and that it can be just as fun (if not more) to have it all be part of amazing experiences. Sammie still believes in Santa, so I also had to make it believable. So, I wrote a rhyming letter from Santa talking about how the Christmas gift is so big that DH and I would need to play elves for 11 of the 12 days of Christmas. It even had Santa's signature and the North Pole seal.
During Hanukkah, the kids got things like snow boots, Disney Vans, ski bibs, winter gear, clothes, etc. The 12 days of Christmas were a bit more fun. We started out with character hats for autographs like they requested when we were at the GF back in August, a whale watching cruise, made with the magic wands, a GoPro style camera to record their adventures, stockings full of pins/new lanyards/lip balms/etc., and one of my fave days- Star Wars tickets. We gifted them Star Wars tickets for the trip on the day the movie opened, but it's how we did it that made it a ton of fun. Back in 2014, we built lightsabers for them in DHS and they've held up really well. So, on Dec 18th, while the girls were eating breakfast, I came out of the bedroom wearing one of those audio Chewbacca mask and challenged DH to a lightsaber battle with Sammie's purple lightsaber. DH had Kendall's red one hidden under the couch and we battled it out in the living room. It would eventually hit the kids that they were seeing the movie, but initially, they were more interested in the mask. In fact, here's Sammie (as Chewbacca) wishing everyone a very merry Christmas.
My MIL almost ruined the surprise on Christmas Eve, but thankfully the kids didn't hear and they went to bed totally clueless. Before they woke up, I modified the countdown calendar they'd been using to show the 25th instead of the 27th as our departure day, had a new letter from Santa revealing the surprise, and put the packed bags around the tree- with bows on their packed carry ons. What's really amazing is that when the focus for gifts was shifted away from toys, the only thing the girls were really wishing for this Christmas was for the trip to get here sooner. So, they actually received their Christmas wish.
The girls were so tired when we woke up them up and were reading without really comprehending when they first read Santa's note, but they read it a second time- it all clicked- and we had some utterly giddy girls.
Coming up...Christmas Day- Travel Day
