Medical Possibilities

I got some interesting mail the other day.
It was an Explanation of Benefits about my ER visit in March.  Now, don't get me wrong, I don't usually enjoy mail telling me I owe yet another medical facility money.  However, this one was a little different. 

It said I'd met my out-of-pocket max for the year.  What does that mean?

1. It means ER visits and surgeries are just WAY too expensive even with insurance.
2. Better yet, it means insurance pays 100% for things from now on.

I know, I know, they won't pay for everything.
I'll still pay for copays, and prescriptions.
BUT I'm going to find out everything they will pay for and get it ALL done!

Lasik, spider-vein removal, allergy testing, boob job - yup, I'm calling the insurance about it all to see what they cover.  And if they cover a boob job, I'm totally doing it.  (Ah, I wish they would.)


What about you?  If insurance covered everything, what would you get done?

What I (am in the Process of) Learning Wednesday: Menu Bars

Well, readers, my hope was to figure out how to add a menu bar at the top of my blog and have it figured out by today.  However, as I mentioned yesterday, this is turning out to be a very busy week, so I haven't finished my learning for this post yet.  But I will keep on plugging and hope to have that out to you by next Wednesday. 

Disney: Hollywood Studios

Going to Disney, anyone?  Hear first hand tips from someone who just got back.

I decided not to go in chronological order in my touring posts.  Since we went to the Magic Kingdom 2 days - Tuesday and Friday, I thought I'd put those 2 posts together next week.  You can look for those on Monday and Tuesday.  Today I'm going to tell you all about our day at Hollywood Studios.  (If you went there when you were younger, it used to be called MGM Studios.)

Our family was just so excited about our Hollywood Studios day.  My kids love Star Wars, Cars, Disney channel characters, Playhouse Disney characters, etc.  All of those are at Hollywood Studios.  And Tim and I were excited about the shows.  We knew we had to veer off of our original plan to tour in the morning, rest in the afternoon and return in the evening.  That evening we were going to Mickey's Backyard BBQ and we would have to leave at 5 PM to get there, so we had to tour all day instead.

As usual I checked out the touring plan the night before.  We had decided on the touring plan for parents of small children.  Originally we were going to do the tween one because Julie wanted to ride the Tower of Terror and the Rock 'n Roller Coaster, but she changed her mind after hearing someone on the bus talk about them.  The plan called for riding all the rides in the morning and attending all the shows in the afternoon.  Since we were heading out early, we knew we couldn't make it to all the shows listed.  Instead, each family member picked a show that they really wanted to see and we made it our priority to see those.  Anything else was just bonus.

Just like the rest of the week we arrived early before the park opened.  About 15 minutes before opening, they allow you through the turnstiles onto the main street of the park.  But you can only go as far as the rope across the street lets you.  They have this little show, then open the park officially and the rope drops.  Just like the rest of the crowd, our first stop was Toy Story Mania.  In case you haven't heard, this is the hottest ride of all the Disney parks.  So hot, they have a Disney employee walking in front of the crowd pacing them so no one runs for the ride and gets trampled in the process. 

Even getting there with the crowd, we went straight onto the ride without a wait and, let me tell you, it was an awesome ride!!  I know why everyone loves it.  As you ride in the little vehicle, you wear 3-D glasses and shoot at screens, kind of like you're at an arcade.  At one screen you are shooting pins at balloons, at another you toss rings over Toy Story aliens' heads.  And all of it is made possible by the wonders of modern technology and 3-D.  It's really cool.  So cool, that we wanted to ride again.  So after we got off the ride, I hopped on over to the handy dandy Fastpass machines and grabbed 4 passes to ride again later.

**TIP - If you want to ride Toy Story Mania (and trust me, you do), go there first.  Do NOT get the stroller first.  It will slow you down.  Ride the ride first, then go back for the stroller.  If you want to ride again (and you will), get the Fastpasses immediately after you get off the ride.  Fastpasses for that ride "sell" out quickly.  If you wait there won't be any left.

After our wonderful ride, Tim went back to rent our stroller for the day.  In the meantime, my kids had money burning a hole in their pockets.  So they had to find a place to spend it.  Luckily there was a face painting booth right outside of Toy Story Mania and they happily took the kids money.

Don't our pirate and our water fairy look lovely?  Seriously, this is the best face painting job I've ever seen. 

I thought it was great!

Prince Caspian's attraction was right next to Toy Story Mania and our kids are huge Narnia fans, so we decided to check it out next.  It wasn't on the touring plan because the author really dislikes that attraction.  After seeing it, I agree with him.  It was awful - not even worthy of being called an attraction.  Basically they take you into this room with the stone table (if you've read the books or seen the movies, you know what the stone table is).  You're not allowed to touch the table.  So you just stand there as clips from the movie show on screens around you.  That's it.  Seriously, you're Disney and that's all you've got???  

**TIP - Don't waste your time with the Prince Caspian "attraction," even if you are a Narnia fan.  You'll be disappointed.

Unfortunately for my two little Star Wars fans, the Star Tours ride was closed for remodeling (it reopened yesterday).  But the Jedi training academy was still going on.  And that is what David chose as his show for the day.  Now according to my guide book, the master Jedi picked volunteers out from the audience to be trained in the ways of the force.  The guide's advice was to get there early and sit up front.  So we went there next...only to find out that you have to sign your kids up ahead of time.  They don't pick volunteers from the audience any more AND they were all booked for the entire day!  David was crushed.  Luckily the Star Wars store and the chance to spend more money helped cheer him up a little.  After he bought a LEGO Star Wars bad guy ship, he was ready to go watch someone else become a Jedi.

 The little Jedis got to fight Darth Vader.  I really wish David could have done it.

 Looking on, wistfully.

 At least he got to pose on a speeder.

My Jedi princess.

After that, we went on to Muppet Vision 3-D.  That was about the coolest 3-D I've seen (except for Mickey's Philharmagic in the Magic Kingdom - that was a little cooler).  We ate lunch at the fun, but loud Pizza Planet.  Our after lunch plans included catching everyone else's show choices and watching the Pixar afternoon parade.

We headed over to Tim's choice - the Indiana Jones stunt show.  That was really good.  They had a set that kept opening up to new sets with more stunts.  Everyone liked that, even David.  We had a few minutes before Julie's show, so we jumped on the Great Movie Ride.  I thought it was too slow and had bad acting.  You have a live driver who interacts with a live Bugsy character.  They were NOT good actors.  In fact, it really ruined the ride for me.  I thought it was the worst ride of the entire World.  Don't go on it.

After that lame ride, we had 5 minutes to make it to the American Idol experience - Julie's show choice.  We walked right in.  Julie picked a good one.  I really enjoyed that show.  They had 3 singers chosen from the people visiting the park that day.  The winner went onto a finale that evening.  The winner of the finale gets a golden ticket.  With the golden ticket, they can jump to the front of the line at any Idol audition.  Pretty good prize, I think.  It was a full-fledged show complete with a host and judges.  I couldn't decide if the judges were being serious in their critiques or if they were just acting.  But the first judge had the best arm muscles of any female I've ever seen.  I was so jealous.

From there we went to the Pixar parade.  While we liked the parade, I was a little surprised that there were characters from "Up" but no characters from "Cars" or "Wall-E."  My kids loved both those movies and could have cared less about "Up."

 The Incredibles

 A Bugs Life

 Ratatouille

 Up

And, of course, Toy Story

Just after the parade, we waited around on the San Fransisco street and got to see one of David's favorite characters, Mater.  Gotta love Mater!

To finish out the day, we went to my show choice - Beauty and the Beast.  It's always been my favorite Disney movie and the stage show there was wonderful.  I highly recommend putting that on your To Do list for your Hollywood Studios touring day.

We had a few disappointments for the day.  Star Tours was closed (although we knew that ahead of time), the Cars section of the park was closed in preparation for Cars 2 opening this summer and we didn't get to see Fantasmic, the nighttime show that everyone raves about.  But we did have an awesome day and really want to go back again soon to see all the stuff we missed.

And our final fun for the day?  Julie lost a tooth while eating a cinnamon bun and waiting for the bus.  

A cast member told her that if you lose a tooth at Disney World that Tinkerbell comes and puts $50 under your pillow.  Well, Tinkerbell didn't have that kind of money when she visited our room.  She only put $1 under Julie's pillow.  But since that was twice what the Tooth Fairy normally pays, Julie was pretty happy.

Target Deals and a Missing Hamster

Today has been super busy around here.  I started a new Disney post but haven't had time to finish it yet.  I'll try to get that out tomorrow.  This might be a preview of my summer - no time to blog with kids around.  I hope not.

Anyway, I just wanted to shoot off a quick post about my trip to Target today.  I don't have a lot extra of extra money to spend on deals this month, so I only got the really useful stuff and the really great deals.  Here's what I got:

• 5 boxes of Special K (this is our favorite cereal and we had just run out at home).  I only buy this if I can get it for less than $2 a box.  Target had it on sale for $2.95, buy 4 get one free.  I had a $1 off 3 Target coupon and two $1 off 2 manufacturer coupons.  That made it $1.76 per box.
• 4 boxes of Ore-Ida Easy Fries.  Priced at $0.99 each.  I had 2 Target coupons for $2 off 2 Ore-Ida potatoes product.  So I got them all for free - woopee!!
• Sally Henson nail polish.  Priced at $2.34.  I had $1 off 1 manufacturer coupon and $1 off 1 Target coupon.  So I paid $0.34 for my cool glittery nail polish.
• 2 boxes of Up & Up pain reliever (generic Advil).  Priced at $0.99 (for a 24 count box).  I had $1 off 1 Target coupon.  FREE!!
• 12" Digornio pizza.  Priced at $5.99.  I had a $4 off 1 manufacturer coupon making it $1.99.

My total? $11.62.  It may not qualify for Extreme Couponing, but it's pretty good in my book.  (Especially since I didn't buy 77 bottles of mustard or 93 bags of croutons.  Have you seen those crazy people on that show?  Seriously, what do you do with 93 bags of croutons?)

The other thing on my mind today was our escaped hamster.  Our 2", tiny, escaped dwarf hamster, that is super fast and we really have no chance of catching.  In light of that, I made a little hamster trap.  Someone on Facebook suggested I put a tasty snack in the bottom of a bucket then make a little hamster ramp up to the bucket.  Hopefully our little hamster will climb the ramp, fall down into the bucket and not be able to get out.  Since hamsters are nocturnal, we haven't really seen her during the day.  Tim has spied her twice in the early mornings, but never during the day.  The trap didn't catch our hamster last night.  My fingers are crossed that she'll be hungry and thirsty enough to fall in tonight.

Anyone out there got any other suggestions for catching a tiny hamster?

Disney: Lodging

Planning a trip to Disney World?  Or just love Disney?  Either way, check out all my previous Disney posts.

As I mentioned before, deciding where you are staying while "in the World" is one of the hardest decisions about your trip.  I really can't attest to lodging outside of Disney because after we made our decisions to stay on property, we didn't really look at anything off property.  However, I did learn a little bit about on-site Disney lodging and I'm going to share that with you.

Resort Price
Disney separates their vast array of resorts by price levels.  This is actually a pretty smart way to do it, in my opinion.  Because if you are like us, money is always on your mind while you are planning your Disney trip.  You can stay in the Value Resorts, the Moderate Resorts, the Deluxe Resorts or the Deluxe Villas (I'm pretty sure the Deluxe Villas are only for Disney Vacation Club members).  There is also a campground available if you have an RV. 

Each price level has 4-8 different resorts to choose from.  That can be overwhelming.  Trust me I know.  But by breaking it down by price, you can eliminate a lot of the choices.  We started out by going to Disney World's website and finding this page.  It lists the price range for every Disney resort.  Obviously, the nicer, bigger rooms will cost more.  Decide what you can afford to spend on lodging and pick your price level.  We went with the Moderate level.

Congratulations, you've now narrowed your choices from 26 down to 8 at the most.  Your halfway there!

Resort Amenities
Do you like to fish?  Want to rent a boat?  How about the proximity to the parks?  Would you like to be within walking distance to Epcot's back gate?  Those are all possibilities that you can do in one of the Disney resorts.  Now that you have narrowed down your choices, it's time figure out what you really want in a resort.  If you are just looking for a place to crash after spending all day touring, then maybe finding a really quiet resort is your number one criteria.  A Disney guide book will really help you out here. In it, you can find a list of all the extras included in each resort.

For us, a great swimming pool was a must.  Our children love to swim and our plan was to swim in the evenings after touring at the parks and to swim on our day off.  We started by getting several resort recommendations from friends (all you have to do is post a question on Facebook).  Then we looked at all the pictures and descriptions of those resorts and chose Port Orleans, French Quarter mainly because of the pool (see it here).

Finding Deals
Now that you've got your resort all picked out, how can you save money?  The best way is to register your email address on Disney.com early on in the planning process.  Disney sends out savings emails to its subscribers.  These emails have a pin code that is unique to your family.  You cannot share them and you can't use someone else code (sorry).  Just be patient and the right deal will present itself to you.  Keep in mind, most Disney deals are for specific dates; so if you are going at a high traffic time, your chances are lower that you will be able to use a deal email.  We got a pin code for 40% off of a room only reservation.  That was perfect for us, so we jumped on it.

As I mentioned in my Disney budget post, with 40% off, we paid just over $1000 for a week at Port Orleans, French Quarter.

Pros and Cons
We learned some things about Disney resorts once we got there.  Some were good, some bad.  Here's what we learned.

Cons

• No free internet access and no wireless internet access at all.  If you want the internet, you'll have to pay $9.95 per 24 hour period. You can only connect using a wired connection with the Ethernet cord provided.  In my opinion, that is totally unreasonable.  In this day and age, there should be wireless internet access in every room and it should be included free with your fee.  Disney really dropped the competitive ball on that one.
• Make sure you ask where you room is in relation to the bus stop.  Ours was literally as far from the bus stop as you could get.  It becomes a long walk when you are carrying a sleeping 40 lbs 5-year old.
• There is no lifeguard directing kids on top of the dragon slide.  So if you see the same little 3-yr old in a blue lifejacket go down the slide 5 times before your kids gets down it once, you know she's cutting in line and no one (including her parents) are doing anything about it.  You may have to go direct traffic up there.
• Don't believe the cafeteria ladies when they tell you "dessert is included in your meal."  It's only included if you are on the meal plan.  If you are paying yourself, dessert is definitely NOT included.

Pros

• Disney transportation.  It's such a weight off your shoulders to not have to drive to the parks, park, get the tram to the monorail, ride the monorail in, etc.  You just wait for the bus, let them drive you to the park of your choice and drop you off right at the front gate.  There are also boats that can take you to and from selected resorts and parks.  We got to ride a boat from our resort to Downtown Disney and one from our dinner show to the Magic Kingdom.  
• New queen sized beds.  We were very concerned about the bed sizes.  Don't think badly of us, but we don't fit into a full-sized bed very well and the resort had listed the beds as full-sized.  Luckily, they have been renovating rooms and ours had 2 queen-sized beds.  Yay!
• Cool pool.  Our pool had a cool dragon slide that you climb up it's tail and slide down it's tongue.  Most of the resorts, including the value resorts, have pools with a neat shape or cool slides, so be sure to look at the pool pictures online.
• Disney employees.  Let me tell you, Disney employees are great.  I called the front desk with a question and they answered not with "Hello", but with "Hello, Mrs. _____, how can I help you today?"  Talk about making a guest feel pampered.  It was awesome!
• Package delivery.  What's the worst thing about buying things in the parks (besides the price)?  Carrying it around with you all day!  If you are on Disney property, you can have it sent to your resort instead.  It will show up the following afternoon (for instance, if you shop on Tuesday, you'll get your package on Wednesday afternoon).  Our only complaint was that it was a little outdated having to fill out paperwork each time we did this.  Disney has so much information on our room card/charge card, you'd think their system would allow you to just swipe your card to get all the room info, but that hasn't happened yet.
• Charging things to your room.  When you check in, you get a personalized room card with you name on it (kids get one too).  if you are an adult, your room key card can also be used as a charge card to charge things to your room.  Obviously, you still want to stay within your budget using this, but it is pretty handy to have.

Overall, we really thought the pros outweighed the cons in terms of staying on Disney property.  We would do it again in a heartbeat.

What about you?  Have you stayed in a Disney resort?  I'd love to hear about your experiences!

Blogging for Books: Judgment Day

Judgment Day by Wanda Dyson


Suzanne Kidwell, a reporter for a local cable news channel, spends her life exposing criminals on her Judgment Day weekly cable news show.  During an investigation of a US senator, she finds her late boyfriend's nurse dead in her apartment.  Suzanne is the number one suspect in the crime.

Private investigator, Marcus Crisp, might be her only hope of proving her innocence.  Unfortunately he is also her ex-boyfriend.  As his investigation continues, details of Suzanne's shady business ethics are called into question.  Can Marcus see past his former hurt and continue with the investigation?  Will Suzanne's innocence be proven before she becomes the next victim?

My Thoughts 

I sound kind of like Randy Jackson here, but this book was just OK for me.  I got annoyed early on with some details that didn't match up.  First of all, on the back of the book, it states that an entrepreneur that she is investigating, John Sterling, is found dead on her floor.  But the book isn't written that way.  In the book, it's Suzanne's boyfriend's nurse that is murdered.  And John Sterling is a senator in the book not an entrepreneur.  That's a pretty big detail.  You'd think they'd get that right on the summary.

Secondly, towards the front of the book Suzanne attends a funeral.  Then she talks about an event that happens a week after the funeral.  Well...each chapter starts with a date.  And that event couldn't have happened a week after the funeral because it had not been a week since the funeral on the author's timeline.  That's the kind of thing an editor should catch.  And this isn't a prereleased copy.  This book has been out since September.

Anyway, I think because I found those two discrepancies early on, that while I read the rest of the book, I spent more time looking for more errors than I did enjoying the book.

As far as the story goes, it's one of those books where the reader knows who the murderer is.  You just don't know why and if the hero will figure it all out in time.  The crimes involved were actually very interesting.  They are crimes I had never heard of or read about.  I do give the author kudos for that.

As far as character development.  Some characters were developed a lot and really grew throughout the book.  Others seemed more superficial without steady growth.  My vote would be to borrow this from a friend or library instead of buying it new.

3 out of 5 stars.

Disney: Epcot

Planning for a Disney trip?  Make sure you have a budget and a plan.

Day 1, Monday, was Epcot for us.  Our plan was to follow the one-day tween touring plan in the morning, take an afternoon break back at our hotel, then return after dinner for evening touring and fireworks.  That was our plan, anyway.

We started out early.  The park opened at 9 that day.  All the experts say to arrive at the park as soon as you can.  Getting to the parks early is crucial if you want to avoid crowds and lines.  One of our favorite parts of staying on Disney property was the transportation system.  The first bus of the morning left our hotel one hour before the park opened.  So we were at the bus stop at 7:55 ready and excited for that first bus.

When you arrive before the parks open, you just line up behind the turnstiles and wait.  For excited little kids (and parents), that was kind of hard.

 But snacks and drinks helped.

**TIP: Disney lets you bring in food and drink.  

I highly recommend doing that, especially if you are trying to save money.  

You will be buying a LOT of snacks and drinks if you don't.

We brought in a drink bag and a snack bag every day.  That helped keep our family much happier. **

**TIP:  Make friends with people standing in line near you.  The nice lady behind us got our first of many family pictures that day.  Even if you don't want pictures from them, you can met lots of interesting people and it makes your time in line go faster.  We met people from Philadelphia, Colorado, and Indiana while we were there.  **

Then it was time to go in.  Yay!!  We were so excited.  For 3 of us, it was our first time ever in Epcot (Tim had been there as a child).  If you've never been there, let me enlighten you on the layout of the park.  The front section is full of rides and educational exhibits.  The back section is called the World Showcase and is made up of sections themed as different countries of the world.  The idea is that you can experience multiple cultures all in one place.  The front section opens up earlier than the World Showcase so that's where our touring plan started.

First on our agenda - Fastpasses for Soarin'.  On the way, we got to check out some of the cool topiaries in the park (it was the flower and garden festival time).

It's hard to see but David has on his new Mickey ears/Goofy ears/Mater hat.

After we had our Soarin' passes in our pocket (really they were all in my little backpack) we went back across the park to Test Track.  

My kids had seen Test Track advertised on a Disney informational video earlier, so they were super excited about that ride.  And it didn't disappoint.  It was awesome!!  I've got a great picture on our Disney PhotoPass account of us in our Test Track car.  When I get all those pictures back, I'll put them on here.

Next on our plan was Mission: Space.  The premise is that you are on the first space mission to Mars.  You take off in your rocket, fly through space, take a little hypersleep nap, then wake up and land your spacecraft on Mars.  Mission: Space has two sides to it.  The Orange side of the ride spins you around and around and takes you to 5 G's.  Lots of people get sick on this side...and walk around miserable all day.  That is the side our touring plan called for.  We thought about doing that one - for a split second.  Then we said, Uh, No way.  So we trotted over to the Green side.  Nice, safe green.  On that side you lean forward a bit and back a bit, then you push a couple of buttons.  And it's still cool.  It still feels like you are blasting off to space.  As soon as we got off David declared it his favorite ride "because I got to push buttons."  Glad he's easy to impress.

After all that excitement, it was time for a relaxing ride.  Lucky for us, we were within our Fastpass time slot for Soarin'.  We went back across the park to the Land building.  Soarin' (where you feel like you are riding in a hangglider over lots of scenery) was good, but it wasn't the best ride we've ever been on.  I know a lot of you are gasping right now.  All we heard beforehand was how awesome this ride was.  Maybe we were expecting too much, but it was just good for us, not great. 

Waiting in line for Soarin'.  Even with a Fastpass, it was a 20 minute wait.

 **TIP:  For rides that you have a Fastpass for, you don't have to go to the ride within the times listed as long as you go after the first time.  For example, if your Fastpass says 12:20-1:20.  You can't use the pass until after 12:20.  But you don't have to use it before 1:20.  So you can use the pass at 2 if you want or at 5 or 6, whenever, as long as it's after 12:20.**

**One caveat to that tip: we got reprimanded when we did that at a character meet in the Magic Kingdom.  There they told us we needed to be within the times listed on our pass.  So maybe it's different between characters and rides or maybe we just encountered our only snotty Disney employee of the trip.  I don't know, but just keep that in mind.**

Our touring plan called for riding the Living with the Land boat ride next, but it looked boring, so we skipped it.  Nemo was next on the agenda.  We found the super big stroller parking, pulled in, and went to get in our clamshell.  We helped find Nemo again and made things right with the world.  Whew!

We were going to stay for Turtle Talk with Crush but we were hungry, so we bowed out of that one.  But here we are in front of the fish tanks in the short time we waited.

At that point we went back to the Land building for lunch.  And we kind of veered away from our touring plan at that point.  That was a mistake.  We were having so much fun that we didn't want to leave and go back to the hotel to rest.  We toured the Innovations West building for a few minutes, then we decided to start our World Showcase tour.  What that resulted in were hot, tired and cranky kids.  In hindsight leaving for a few hours and returning in the evening like we had originally planned would have been better.

But, before we got hot, tired and cranky, we did have a little fun in France and Japan with Kim Possible.  Back at the Innovations building we signed up to help Kim Possible save the world from bad guys by using her ultra-cool cell phone.  

Ah, the cell phone.  

It was equipped with a GPS and Kim's voice and a fun "OK" button to push.  So what was the problem with it?  There was only one of them and two children.  Hmm, Disney, wish you would have let us have two of those to use.  Our day might have lasted longer that way.  But despite all the fighting, the kids loved going on the cell phone scavenger hunts.

The one time they weren't fighting over that phone.

We also managed to meet a few celebrities out in the World Showcase.

 Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way.

Alice - she was hilarious.  The kids loved her!

Overall our Epcot experience was wonderful.  There are a few wishes I have for the next time we go back.  I really want to have more time to explore the countries.  We only made it through Great Britain, Canada, France and Japan.  I also wish we could have seen the evening show on the water.  Next time, we will go with our original plan. Rest and recharge in the afternoon, return to the park in the evening and stay for the show.

**TIP:  If you have elementary-aged children or younger, go with the plan to tour in the morning, break in the afternoon then return at night.  I think you will be happier and less stressed.**

**TIP:  If you have young children, rent a stroller.  You can bring your own stroller; however, it has to be fully collapsed before you get on any Disney bus.  Watching others who had to do that, it can be pretty annoying to do when you are juggling stuff and kids.  Even if we didn't have children small enough to fit in the stroller, we still would have gotten one to store all our stuff in while we went on rides.  It's $15 a day to rent a single stroller.  If you rent it for multiple days, it goes down to $13 a day. So go ahead and rent one for all the days you are in the parks and save (your multiple days don't have to be consecutive). **

Stay tuned tomorrow for tips we learned on our first Magic Kingdom day.