Baby Watch

At the moment, I am trying to keep my calendar open and be prepared to drop everything, pack quickly and travel to Michigan for the birth of my first grandchild.  We plan to drive since the timing is unknown and it is still hurricane season which can make airline reservations stressful.  It will take us about a day and a half to arrive, with a one night stop on the way, so while we won’t make it for a hospital visit, we will be there pretty quick.  I am ok not getting to the hospital and leaving that time for parents and baby.

Becoming a grandmother and watching your daughter become a mother is an interesting and emotional experience and I plan to take things as they come.  I also plan to let her lead the way in how much help she wants.  We have discussed this a lot and I think it is best to give her time after the birth to see how it all feels with a newborn in the house.  We are open to anything, even staying at a hotel if that is easier on all.

But, the main thing is getting a chance to hold that sweet girl and start a loving and life long relationship.  I plan to soak it all in and never forget this special time for our family.

 

Disney World Day Trip

 

For my husbands’s birthday, we decided to take a day trip to Disney World with one day at Magic Kingdom and a one night stay.  Orlando is a two hour drive for us (though traffic on 1-4 is usually pretty bad) so it is easily doable to leave in the morning and be at the park when it opens.  The day we were there, the park closed at 6, because of the nightly Halloween Party, but we found it was plenty of time.

We have not been there since we moved to Florida and have not been as adults without children in a very long time.  It definitely is a different experience and skipping a lot of the children’s rides, plus the character interactions gives you a pretty easy day.  The system where you can book ride times (costs extra) worked really well for us too.  We managed to ride 3 of the more popular rides within the first hour by utilizing this system, plus standing in a short line when the park opened.

I highly recommend a random Tuesday in September when kids are back to school, because wait times were generally short if we didn’t have a reservation (lightening lane) and overall the park was not crowded.  We were even able to ride the 2 mine rides twice.  

Since we were out of the park by 6, to keep the Disney vibe going, I made dinner reservations at Disney Springs.  We had been there last summer and found it to be a great spot for lunch or dinner.  We tried Raglan Road, an Irish pub that everyone raves about.  It lived up to the hype; great food and a fun atmosphere with Irish dancers and singers.  

We are not necessarily Disney people and probably won’t go back until it’s time to take grand children, but it was a fun getaway and a nice perk of living in Florida.

Engaged!

I will be putting on my Mother of the Bride hat again, because Melissa and Kevin are engaged.  We have known for awhile that it was coming, because he traveled to Florida to ask for her hand (he’s a good guy), but he was able to surprise her on Friday in a beautiful old part of Detroit and she is over the moon happy.

Since Melissa owns her own event and wedding planning business, this will be a totally different planning process.  I don’t anticipate doing a lot of the actual planning, just the fun parts.  It will be interesting to see how the wedding planner, plans her own wedding!

As usual, I will take all of you along for the ride.  It has been a happy year for our family.  One month (or less) until the sweet girl is born and now a wedding to look forward to.