Moms Panel Training Trip Report - 12/3 Day Before Departing for My Dream Trip

It has been a whirlwind of a week since I returned from my incredible trip of a lifetime. I was immediately thrown back into the "chaos" that comes with raising 5 active children. All of the kids had school, Shawn had a craft fair, the girls had gymnastics, Jared had a concert, there was laundry climbing the walls, grocery shopping to be done, I needed to unpack...not to mention that fact that I had not even started Christmas shopping! I've been aching to find the time to jot my thoughts down and capture some of my precious memories on here...but I simply have not had the time. Even now as I type, I am helping Shawn with his homework, answering Sierra's Christmas shopping questions and juggling a few other things.


I want to take a moment to reflect on Thursday, December 3rd. It was the day before I left for my trip. I spent the day running around with last minute errands, baking brownies and hiding dessert surprises for Steve and the kids. Except for when I helped our friends during Jonathan's kidney transplant, I had never left the kids before. I was starting to feel a bit nervous about it all. I'd made a list for Steve with all the many events of the weekend mapped out for him...complete with times and other little reminders. I had high hopes of getting to bed early, as I needed to be up at 1:50am in order to catch the 3:30am bus out of Sagamore in the morning. However, that wasn't to be. When it was time to say goodnight to Kassia, time stopped in it's tracks. She came in my room and saw me putting the new SD card in my camera. She asked what other pictures were on it and I said, "None, yet...I'm going to fill it with pictures of Disney so I can remember my trip."

She said, "Well, take a picture of me so you can remember me."


She then gave me a big, huge hug and then she started crying...and kept crying...for a good hour. I snuggled with her in her bed, as she kept hugging me tightly. I promised her I'd bring her a special gift from Disney, and told her this was VERY important to Mommy and I really needed to know that she would be ok...so that my heart would be ok too. At one point, I told her I'd send her photos of the castle, etc to Daddy's phone. She said, "I want you to send photos of YOU, Mommy...so I can see you." I promised I would.
Malia told Kasi that "this trip is special for Mommy and she should have a lot of fun, we should be happy for her." How sweet and mature for a 7 year old :) She told me she'd miss me, but wanted me to "have lots of fun". :)

At 11pm, I put a few finishing touches on my "video spiel" that I planned to continue to memorize on the plane. I climbed into bed at midnight. I started talking to Steve about how excited I was, but how nervous I was too...and I started to get all choked up. It was going to be really hard for me to leave my babies. :( I told him that I wouldn't do it for anything other than Disney...for this dream of a lifetime. I closed my eyes and less than an hour and a half later...my alarm went off. The clock read: 1:50am...the day I'd been waiting for had finally arrived...my dreams were coming true!!!