The Disney Vaca That Changed Our Lives Forever and TaughT Us To Always Look For the Silver Lining!

We were in the middle of a firestorm of problems. The economy had fallen and along with it my business at the time. I had been to Disney as a kid, my husband only as an adult, and he had vivid memories of wanting so badly to go there as a kid. I figured with the problems that were going on, there was no chance our kids would be able to see Disney World ever and that devastated me. 

Sadly in 2011, Chris' sister died. It was not sudden bc she was ill for a long time but it was still shocking to all of us. There was no will done. Her husband who was good friends with both myself and my husband since long ago, decided that she would have wanted him to have something. We had been struggling to keep up with bills and had all kinds of awful things going on so he told us if we wanted to do more bills we could or maybe we could do something fun with it. We both thought the same thing at the same moment. Disney World. In that moment, we thought it was going to be our only chance to take them to Disney World. So it had to be Disney World. We decided to use what we had, to go in style... 

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I could cry just looking at this picture. Just a few years after this, we all moved down and Disney became our home!!!!!!!

We had an amazing week beyond anything we could imagine. Seeing the place for the first time through the kids eyes was better than anything we could have imagined ever!
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I remember the last breakfast on the dock patio at the Grand Floridian. I remember looking around the table knowing that this was going to be the last day of 8 that would not involve fighting with bill collectors and fighting with a corrupt and lying mortgage company that was taking advantage of the housing bubble situation and making it impossible for us to get caught up and keep the home we built and brought our kids home to. You might ask why we didn't just use the money we had gotten that we used for Disney to fix it. We had tried. Every time we tried to offer, they would up it until a time that one of them told me to save my money and use it for something else bc they were going to foreclose no matter what as they would make more for it. They did not care about the family living in the home or any of our efforts. So I sat there in the sun and the wonderful Fla warmth in October and looked at the faces of our kids and how relaxed and happy they were and wondered if we would ever sit at a table here at Disney again and feel this way. I had no idea what our future had in store for us and that we would one day, be living down here and coming to Disney multiple times a week for a few hours to get exercise and be together in the house of mouse and Walt. I am super glad I never lost hope bc many times it came close, which is the main reason I tell people to always hold on and try to tough it out, because you never know what good things are in front of you. Sometimes the bad brings the good as you will learn when I write more of our story. 

So we got to Disney on October 5th 2011 and got on the saddest bus in the world, the Tragical Express back to Illinois, on October 12th and went home to a cold, rainy, sleety dark night. Our youngest had a horrid problem with his ears in landing bc for them to land at O'hare they seem to have to sharp turn and come down fast. His Eustachian tubes always had some problems but we were not prepared for what this poor little man went through on the way in which made leaving Disney and that wonderful world all the harder. We went back to a home without a plugged in fridge so we ate a nasty meal of late night McDonalds and then for me the moping began for roughly 2 years. But the moping was instrumental because it made me research and it gave me alternative avenues to think about housing and what might be a better decision than staying there. 

The strange thing is that once we went to Walt's happy place and it showed me the difference between the sepia filled world of Illinois and the color filled world of the Disney area, it became clear what I needed to work towards, and then it almost felt like something took control of it and started making things work out right to get us here. Signs were all around us and things just fell into place the right way. Someday I will write about that too. So out of the pain came the silver lining. Came the thing our lives needed to feel renewed and happy and wonderful. 

I have a lot more to write but I will save it for another entry. Just know that if you are in a dark place and it seems things are not going to budge, you have to always have hope and faith and know that sometimes the pain you are feeling is growth and the direction you are supposed to go will present itself. 

Thanks for reading and watching! Hope you enjoy the video. We sure do! If you love Disney as much as we do, I'm sure you will enjoy it. I love sharing our story! 

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Click pic to see more of my special fx Disney and Central Florida art

Sometimes goofing off and being kids together is so important!!!