July Countdown

We are keeping a big calendar on the back door, counting down the days this month--there are lots of fun things going on. Next week is my birthday, the following weekend John and I are celebrating our fifth anniversary, a few days later my dear friend Erin is coming to visit from CO, and then the last week this month we are heading to Florida. John has a training in Orlando Monday- Thursday, so we are going to drive down as a family and take advantage of a company paid for hotel the beginning of the week. The kids and I will play, swim, rest, and meet up with Pappa in the evenings. Then, on Thursday we will move hotels and have two days at Walt Disney World, before returning back home Sunday. We are all really looking forward to going-- the kids are still little and this probably isn't the best year, maybe we will try it again in a year or two when they will be able to do more. But for this year, we will do what we can, not set too high of expectations, and simply enjoy it. I have been super thrifty and am quite pleased at the low cost this trip will turn out to be. The kids are still free for almost everything, since they are under 3. Yippee for that, maybe this is the right year to go. After the company paid hotel, we are using Hilton points to stay at the Double Tree in Disney World, so two of the three nights there are also free. Aside for admission tickets for John and I and food costs, we should have few expenses. I even went so far as to take my friend, Claire's advice and shopped on Disney outlet this past weekend and bought a bunch of "souvenirs". Everything I found was on crazy clearance and offered free shipping. So I have a little treat to set on the kids bed everyday we are there and paid a total for what we'd probably spend on four shirts in the park. I'll hide things away in our suitcase and they will never no the difference that they weren't purchased in a store within Disney's gates. As I look at it, one more place we can skip and focus our a time and attention on other things like riding Dumbo and tracking down those princesses!