Ladies, gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages and fellow Magicians, as you can see, I am having a little trouble with the title of this trip report. It could be “THE ONE FOR MY BEST FRIEND’S BIRTHDAY”, or “THE ONE WHERE I LEFT MY BRAIN AT HOME.” Or there is, “THE ONE WHERE I GOT A GLIMPSE OF A DISNEY LEGEND”. There is also, “THE ONE WHERE WE JOINED THE RESISTANCE”.
I think I will begin title less and let all you good people have a say when it is over.
We always begin with the why.
A small bit of background first:
M and I have been friend’s since college (a looong time
). M’s family has a small family business. When my kids were little my job got to be too much (70-100 hours a week) so I left. When my youngest started Kindergarten M’s family asked me if I would come work for them part time. It is not what I went to school for but it offered me flexibility for the kids, and besides, how do you say no to family?
So some of you may have figured it out, M is not only my friend, but my boss as well.
M is a great friend! No really! Die hard Met fan who will go with me to see the Dodgers when they are in town and actually root (
root root) for the Dodgers.
M had a birthday coming up. M’s sister and two grown nieces are big Disney fans and we are always talking about what is new with the parks, food and the shopping
. Poor M, always left out. So I asked if he wanted to go for his Birthday. “YES”, was his answer BTW. (Plus, my oldest son, X had a lacrosse game in Jacksonville so we got to see that as well.)
M hadn't been to WDW in 20 years! So we got the time off from HR (M’s sister
) and I started planning.
I will say, taking a newbie (after a 20 year absence you revert to newbie status-this is the way) to WDW is fun! I got to see everything through his eyes, like it was the first time. Plus, if I made a miscalculation or left something out—he had no way of knowing!!! M’s only request: “can we ride the teacups?” (and he asked X to score 5 goals for him as a birthday gift-stay tuned for that)
“Of course we can!” My family will never ride the teacups with me so I haven't been on them in at least 10 years. This was off to a promising start!!!
I think I will begin title less and let all you good people have a say when it is over.
We always begin with the why.
A small bit of background first:
M and I have been friend’s since college (a looong time
). M’s family has a small family business. When my kids were little my job got to be too much (70-100 hours a week) so I left. When my youngest started Kindergarten M’s family asked me if I would come work for them part time. It is not what I went to school for but it offered me flexibility for the kids, and besides, how do you say no to family?So some of you may have figured it out, M is not only my friend, but my boss as well.
M is a great friend! No really! Die hard Met fan who will go with me to see the Dodgers when they are in town and actually root (
root root) for the Dodgers. M had a birthday coming up. M’s sister and two grown nieces are big Disney fans and we are always talking about what is new with the parks, food and the shopping
. Poor M, always left out. So I asked if he wanted to go for his Birthday. “YES”, was his answer BTW. (Plus, my oldest son, X had a lacrosse game in Jacksonville so we got to see that as well.) M hadn't been to WDW in 20 years! So we got the time off from HR (M’s sister
) and I started planning. I will say, taking a newbie (after a 20 year absence you revert to newbie status-this is the way) to WDW is fun! I got to see everything through his eyes, like it was the first time. Plus, if I made a miscalculation or left something out—he had no way of knowing!!!
M’s only request: “can we ride the teacups?” (and he asked X to score 5 goals for him as a birthday gift-stay tuned for that)“Of course we can!” My family will never ride the teacups with me so I haven't been on them in at least 10 years. This was off to a promising start!!!
And he had to end every day with ice cream. He especially liked milkshakes and he would always say "It's a good thing milkshakes aren't fattening!" When he passed, we gave everyone the opportunity to share a story about him and half of them were about ice cream....that he brought ice cream to a 4th of july picnic when it was extremely hot and there was no way to keep it cold, but he HAD to have his ice cream. At the end of the funeral, we had bought a bunch of those individual ice cream cups with the wooden spoons so everyone could have ice cream with him one last time. Ice cream stuff to me is kind of like the quarters for you. It always tells me my dad is watching. I think he'd have gotten along well with 
