2018 Holiday Advent Blog – Day 19 – Glittery Porch Pirate Revenge

Posted on by Scott / 0 Comment

We’ve been pretty lucky in that I’m not sure if we’ve ever had a package stolen off of our porch.

A few weeks ago I had a couple mis-delivered to a neighbor’s house, but they were very cool about it.

Fun Fact – When I was still living in my first apartment, I actually had a neighbor accuse me of stealing their packages because the FedEx guy had dropped them on my doorstep by mistake and I’d pulled them inside to take over to their house after work the next day! The lady left me like a page-long letter taped to my door about reporting me to the police and the building managers because they needed that package to take to her parents house that weekend.

Needless to say, I hope that stupid printer jammed whenever they tried to print anything that their Grinch of a daughter sent to them… 😯

Now that said … this video is still amazingly satisfying!

It’s by Mark Rober, who worked for NASA on the Mars rover, and he goes into incredible detail describing his engineering process before finally showing what this little payback device can do to someone who dares to steal from kids at Christmastime.

P.S. +1 for the fart spray 😉

2018 Holiday Advent Blog – Day 17 – The Gift of Date Night

Posted on by Scott / 0 Comment

One last advent blog post from our vacation, and something that we were a healthy mixture of nervous and excited about, was the opportunity for us to enjoy a night out…

…without the kids…

It’s something that we’ve really only done a handful of times, always relying on family and sometimes even waiting until the kids were already in bed. We admittedly didn’t really know what to do about finding a sitter between having three rambunctious boys to deal with and then two of them being special needs on top of that.

But Sara ended up finding this local service called Doublemint which offers a variety of sitters who are trained to work with all sorts of children, and because they have people all around the state of Florida, it wasn’t really a big deal for one of their folks in Orlando to come to our hotel for the evening and watch the kids right in our room … which honestly was a nice bonus because we weren’t sure how they were going to take to it because they’ve never had a babysitter before.

And that said, apparently … they did awesome. 😀

We hired a sitter to watch the boys from 6pm – 10pm with the intent that we were only walking over to Jambo House for dinner at Jiko, so we’d be close if anything were to happen.

Well, it turns out that what happened was these kids were fast asleep before we even got dessert, with David even asking the sitter if he could go to bed!!!

I guess occasionally skipping naptime has its perks after all. 😉

So we had a wonderful, adult dinner – I had lobster tails, and I didn’t have to share a bite with anyone.

Afterwards we wandered around the grounds and checked out all of the savannah viewing areas at night, which actually ended up being pretty cool because we got a chance to try out night vision goggles to look out at the animals!

Then we did a little secret Christmas shopping, wandered back to Kidani and checked out the comparatively quiet savannah there, and that was that.

Date night is honestly something that has slipped quite a bit in our lives since becoming parents, and it’s weird because before we had kids Sara and I would go out to eat and see movies and spend late nights at the parks all of the time …  so needless to say we were both quite pleased with how easy Doublemint made sneaking out for a couple of hours, and hopefully in the new year it will be something that we can do for ourselves every few months to help keep the sanity by giving us a night away from the chaos!

2018 Holiday Advent Blog – Day 16 – The Great Santa Wait!

Posted on by Scott / 0 Comment

So apparently Santa is a busy guy this time of year … have you ever waited six hours to see Santa?!?!?!

Woof!

After checking in to meet Santa sometime around 1pm, needless to say we did just about everything we could think of to kill time all afternoon while we waited.

We had lunch at the new Chicken Guy restaurant … which wasn’t bad.

We did some shopping, including buying Lego cars for Christopher and David … which was kind of fun to build to pass some time.

We went to the movies and watched Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas … or at least we tried to! I don’t know why I keep thinking that our kids are ready for the movies because they’re very much not… 😛

We even rode the train a couple of times … which is always a surprising favorite whenever we visit Disney Springs, even though it’s very much a 3rd party-operated ride and you have to pay money for it and everything.

But eventually … when the 7 o’clock hour finally rang … Santa sent us a text message announcing that he was finally prepared for our arrival!

2018 Holiday Advent Blog – Day 15 – At Home with the Animals…

Posted on by Scott / 0 Comment

It’s pretty common when we stay at a Disney resort to find ourselves saying afterwards that we wished we’d spent less time running around the parks and more time enjoying our resort itself.

Well, between the age of the kids and somewhat gloomy weather all week, I’m happy to say that this vacation we did exactly that!

Animal Kingdom Lodge is perfect for lounging because the atmosphere itself is both relaxing and exciting with all of the animals, and as a bonus for the kids, they actually had quite a few different activities that they could partake in between Jambo House and Kidani Village. In addition to just getting super excited spotting all of the animals, the boys also had a chance to learn a little about ecosystems and conservation from one of the cast members, Christopher worked on a scavenger hunt which gave him a chance to practice talking to people, and he and Sara also played a fun game finding various landmarks around Africa on a map.

Vacationing is definitely different with kids because try as I might, you can’t exactly just lay around all day and take in the ambiance in the manner which I would currently prefer, but nonetheless I think they all had a great time and we didn’t spend nearly as much time fighting with lines in the parks, so that’s a huge win in my book!!!

2018 Holiday Advent Blog – Day 14 – Dinner with Mickey & Friends

Posted on by Scott / 0 Comment

Today took us to Epcot where we had dinner at the Garden Grill, along with Mickey, Pluto, and Chip and Dale, too!

Our original intent was to watch the Candlelight Processional afterwards, but it was kind of drizzly all day and I had a very low tolerance for dealing with the rain plus cranky kid attitudes on account of said rain.

I was also a little miffed that we finally found ourselves in the park while the DVC Member Lounge was actually open at the Imagination Pavilion, but still didn’t get to go because there’s no accommodation for strollers and I didn’t feel like breaking the party up…

Anyways, we ended up just having dinner and then taking the opportunity to give the boys a couple of rides on the monorail instead, which they ended up enjoying just fine! 😀

2018 Holiday Advent Blog – Day 13 – Once Upon a Christmastime at Christmas

Posted on by Scott / 0 Comment

We originally weren’t going to do Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party this year because it was too expensive, but there ended up being a mix-up with our room and Disney gave us comped tickets anyways!

This is always a great party for the atmosphere – snow blowing down Main Street, complimentary cookies and hot chocolate (that were actually complimentary this time!), and just the characters and other happenings that aren’t normally out during a normal day at the Magic Kingdom. Believe it or not, I even danced with Christopher because after he spotted the dance party at Cosmic Ray’s when we were on the hunt for cookies, surprisingly he just had to be a part of it himself!

What can I say – parenting brings out parts of ourselves that we never knew we had in us… 😉

2018 Holiday Advent Blog – Day 12 – Strike a Family Pose

Posted on by Scott / 0 Comment

Today was on and off stressful, as most days with our kids tend to be, but this picture represents one of the happy, little moments when everybody was in a good mood and looking in the same direction and everything!

I’m honestly not sure who gave him the stickers, or why they gave him so many, but I’ll have you know that he was definitely somehow wearing one curled up as a tail while this particular shot was taken… 😯

Scott’s Hospital Fun Guide!

Posted on by Scott / 0 Comment

So I got released from the hospital today.

I still have cellulitis, but I’m on my way to living my life without it.

Cut to a clip of me throwing a football and you’ve got the commercial for the cocktail of antibiotics that I’m on!

But seriously, kids – I do not recommend cellulitis. I haven’t the foggiest idea how I got it, but I wouldn’t suggest that anyone else give it a try. 

0/5 – Skin Infection not recommended

Thankfully, I had a pretty great care team during my stay that made the whole thing as manageable as possible … thanks to Katie, Brandon, Kristen, and Caitlin for taking care of me and finding me warm socks and all sorts of other things that I don’t think a lot of people realize are just part of the job for nurses. And while you don’t need to go to college to get someone a blanket or refill their ice water, I can’t tell you how much those little gestures helped to make my first stay in a hospital ever a little less lonely.

😉

Anyways, a few final thoughts on my stay before switching track into full blown Christmas vacation mode…

  • The Food Network is a terrible channel to watch in the hospital, particularly at mealtime when you’re trying to figure out how to stomach down “real eggs” and “definitely real sausage” and “not at all cardboard-based pancakes” that the dietary people swear they prepared in a bonafide kitchen and not a microwave and everything.
  • Not having reliable wifi was a real blow. Luckily, they had a decent movie selection, so I watched several during my stay, but I didn’t do a lot online because staring at my phone was bothering me and to write anything I had to do it offline, then tether my laptop to my phone to be able to post.
  • Movies!
    • 1) Get Smart … I just love this movie, so I watched this one the first night I got there. It was interesting to see where the edits for TV were made, but I was relieved that the bit with the swordfish was still included – even if “Holy shit! Holy shit! A swordfish almost just went through my head!” did get corrected to “Holy stuff…” or some other such nonsense…
    • 2) Pacific Rim: Uprising … I hated the first movie, so I figured this was going to be garbage, and it kind of was. I know these movies are more about just giant things fighting, but I have a hard time when the plot holes are big enough for Kaiju to drift through…
    • 3) Jack Reacher: Never Go Back … I thought I remembered Sara and I not really liking the first one, but this was honestly decent. It was basically almost another Mission: Impossible story that gave Tom Cruise two hours in which to be a bad ass, which is always a fun way to wait for one’s pain medication to kick in! 😉
    • Honorable Mention) A Christmas Story … I was going to slip in this one last night, but ended up making some phone calls instead. Sorry, Ralphie – you’ll shoot your eye out soon enough, though – I promise.
  • I must admit that at least once I did contemplate whether I could sneak out to my car and run home for nothing in particular before anyone noticed, considering that the hospital is barely five miles from my house. I pictured stuffing the bed with towels, a la Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and then I remembered that back in reality I couldn’t make it five feet to the bathroom without a walker…
  • I used a walker for the first time! At only 38 years old! It was kind of embarrassing, but then again, so was watching me try to walk without it.
  • A good indicator of how to know when I’m really sick is when I’m willing to wear socks to bed.
  • Also, having another person put on your socks for you is both a very humbling and very endearing thing to experience.
  • Sleeping all day in the hospital isn’t nearly as enjoyable as you think it sounds when you consider it’s because sleeping at the hospital is perpetually interrupted by lab tests and vital signs and people asking you to sign forms promising that you’ll definitely still pay, even if the charges are mutually agreed to be ridiculous.
  • And last but not least, thankfully my charges should be zero or close to it because we exceeded the Out of Pocket Maximum for our insurance two months ago.

So if you’re still thinking about getting cellulitis after all of these glowing reviews that I’ve given for it, I’d recommend waiting until the insurance company is going to pick up the tab before you stumble into the ER on an otherwise uneventful Sunday afternoon.

For best results, wait until about 5:00am and sneak into your insurance company’s room to ask if they’re cool with it – 5:00 am is when people give the best feedback, at least in my own personal experience as a veteran, one-time hospital patient…

2018 Holiday Advent Blog – Day 11 – Caroling a la Car

Posted on by Scott / 0 Comment

I don’t really like to sing in front of other people.

Call it anxiety, call it reality after my bizarre stint back in high school when for like a year and a half I was somehow the singer for the rock band I was in, but as much as I’ll sing along with the radio like anybody else in the car when I’m by myself, I normally just can’t do it with any sort of an audience – even if it’s just my wife.

Yet tonight I found myself singing Christmas carols in the car with Sara and Christopher, and it was both different and kind of nice.

Part of it was because we were desperately trying to distract David from whatever the heck he was crying about, and another part of it was sheer amusement/amazement each and every time that I looked over my shoulder to see Christopher smiling and singing along with us like he knew all of the words by heart!

Considering how much he really struggled with speech over the last couple of years, and even looking back to his end of the year program at school last year where the whole class sang a couple of songs and he just sort of stood there … it was really awesome to see my kid happily singing about Rudolf and Santa and Frosty like it was just another one of those things you do for fun at Christmastime.

…before life and anxieties convince your brain that you have no business emitting any tones other than your normal speaking voice, anyways!