Sunday, June 29, 2014

Disney World Adventure

First off I want to say sorry for being MIA for the last month or so.  Loads of stuff going on. My oldest if officially a senior in high school.  Yikes! The fourteen year old is now a freshman in high school.  Both of my girls in the same school. That is a whole blog in itself.  The fourteen year old had an opportunity to dance in Downtown Disney at Disney World in Florida this month.

WARNING: Proud dance mom major brag moment coming up. You may skip this and move on to the next section if you have an aversion to a loving mother who is super proud of her daughter. She was FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC!!!! She hit all her leaps including a tricky axle and just glowed on stage.
This pic of her is courtesy of an awesome dance mom named Jen,  without whom I would have nothing but crappy cell phone pics of all my daughter's major dance events.

Ok enough of that and on to the meat of this new post.  Actually I wanted to talk about my vacation to Disney World.  I'm sure many of you think "what kind of nut job with M.S. goes to Disney World in Florida in JUNE?". Well, I think I made that pretty clear.  Trust me I was plenty worried about the trip to Florida in June.  It was going to be hot.  I do not do well in the heat.  Add the fact that this is also a big event for my daughter, we had to make sure all her costumes were in order, and be where she had to be on time, it was stressful.  I do not do well with stress. Those two factors were enough for me to have anxiety about this trip.  In the end we had a fabulous 7 day vacation with some planning.

My daughter was also scheduled to dance in some workshops with a choreographer at Epcot Center one day and the show was the next day, so the planning for that was pretty tight.  We made sure she had everything packed in large baggies marked with each dance and day.  Done.

Because is was so hot down there we had to make sure the dancers didnt get too overheated.  I packed some instant cold packs for her, and thought they would work for me too.  They did.   I activated two packs and put them in a cinch pack that I carried on my back with bottles of frozen water.  It worked great, and bonus the sunscreen I put in the backpack was also cool whenever I had to reapply.  I drank loads of water though out the day when I was at the parks, and could even score ice in a cup if I needed it from the vendors.  Disney is so cool like that.

 The big thing we did during this trip was not to try to do everything.  There is always the temptation to try and experience every square inch of the park no matter what. That just leaves me exhausted and ripe for a relapse.  We all chose one or two things we really wanted to do and then took it from there.  We stayed at The Shades of Green Military Resort and let me tell you it was the best decision we made.  There was bus transportation to every place we needed or wanted to be.  Big stress reliever right there.  We also bought the meal plan so we had breakfast and dinner everyday.  It kept us from overextending ourselves.  We were able to go back to the room and relax.  I also made sure I could stay in the shade or air conditioning as much as possible.
I like to think of this as a @Chronicles of Riddick moment, stay close to the wall, out of the sun. "Kira get your ass in gear!" Sorry, I love that movie.

We have been home for a few days now and so far so good.  I feel a little weepy, but that could just be from the fact that is so much change going on right now.  I don't do well with change.  That will be a new post.

I guess the point of this is not to be afraid to do something fun and memorable just because it might cause a relapse.  If you plan well and do all the right things, you may still end up with an exacerbation anyhow.  But really, would you rather have a fun idea or relapse with a great memory?  I know what I chose.