Wishes And Pixie Dust

Follow the journey of a Wisconsin family of 4 who relocated to the Walt Disney World area in July 2011

Monthly Archives: June 2011


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Preparing for the Road Trip

Our first experience with driving down to Walt Disney World was in August 2009, and because it was our first time, we were a little apprehensive, not sure how all five of us and our “stuff” was going to fit comfortably into a family car for a 21 hour trip!  As it turns out, it was the event that memories are made of.   With three drivers, we had great experiences, we were able to rotate out drivers and got a lot of great pictures.  Of course no picture is better than this one:

As we approach the 40-day mark, we wanted to share what we are doing to get ready for the long drive.  This time we will have two drivers and four people, which will give us a little more leg room in the car, which we will need to transport the two laptops, portable DVD player and netbook.  We are fortunate in that we have sizable trunk space, which mainly will hold our clothes and the personal items that cannot be put in the moving truck. We do plan to use the space saving bags that can be vacuumed shut to hold our extra clothes.  We will arrive in Clermont on July 25; however the moving truck may not arrive until August 1st, so we need to bring all our summer clothes with us.

AAA:      We highly recommend signing up for AAA if you are considering long-distance travel.  It provides peace of mind that your regular car insurance roadside assistance can’t offer.  It also offers discounts for lodging and other businesses, as well as the free Trip Tik personalized itinerary and maps for all the states you are traveling through.  We do have GPS on our phones, but we discovered the phones aren’t always accurate, so it’s nice to have a back-up written plan.  With AAA, we find that the membership fees pays for itself yearly, even if we don’t plan on traveling long distances in a particular year.

The Next Exit:     This is a book that provides a complete guide of what is available in terms of food/gas/lodging/camping/shopping amenities at every interstate highway exit. We found this invaluable for our 2009 trip, and have purchased the 2011 Edition.  It runs for about ten dollars on Amazon.  If you purchase the online version for $14.95 from www.thenextexit.com , you will be able to download a free iPhone app.

Snacks/Meals:     In 2009, we planned a picnic lunch for our first meal.  We decided to stop in Indiana, just after crossing the state line.   We typically buy deli ham, swiss cheese and chips:  things that are non-messy but convenient to eat.  We plan to make this our Friday dinner meal, and we will also have a small soft cooler that we intend to fill with soda and snacks.  We bought it at Big Lots for under $20, and it’s perfect because it’s more narrow than a typical cooler and will fit between the kids perfectly.   This will help prevent paying gas station prices for drinks and snacks, at least for part of the trip.

Tune-Up:  We will be bringing the car in on Thursday for an oil change and to make sure it’s in good condition for the trip.  In particular we are having the air conditioning system, shocks and exhaust looked at.  We just met with our insurance agent and he recommended dropping comprehensive and collision coverage on our car, but we plan on keeping it at least until we get settled in Florida.

Sun Pass:  We were on the fence as to whether we needed Sun Pass, or if we would just pay the tolls as we pass through them.   With living in Clermont, we don’t anticipate that we will need to pay tolls when we go to Disney (Clermont residents please correct us if we’re wrong), but we would need to pay tolls if we travel in to Orlando or make trips to the coasts.  We decided the convenience of Sun Pass is worth the purchase of a transponder unit.  (We preferred the transponder to the sticker for personal reasons).

We are really looking forward to the drive, not only because it brings us to our new home, but because we enjoy road trips, and plan to use Twitter/Facebook to document our travels.  We’re thankful that we were able to sell our second car, and bring only one car to Florida, which saves hugely on expenses, and also allows us to experience the drive together as a family.

Thanks for following along~   


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Farewell to Rosenow

Today was another series of “lasts”:  the last time I will drive to and from the schools, which surprisingly feels very weird, but more importantly, it is the last time Catie and Ben will see the inside of their respective schools.  Catie will miss her friends more than the school, but poor Ben has been having a rough adjustment with transitioning on.  At fifth grade graduation yesterday, the principal gave a small talk about the “Rosenow Way” (Rosenow is the name of the elementary school):  the school environment is a close-knit community, where teachers treat the students as their own children, and the students are always welcome back to the school to visit.  He said, “you can always come back home”. Ben has been attending Rosenow since 2003–eight years is a long time in a young child’s life, and especially with a child who has autism:  it’s so very hard to walk away from what is familiar.

 

We reached an important milestone in the Vitek household today:  we brought up the few remaining items that were left in the basement.  It may not seem too monumental to some, but this is the first time ever that we have been living in a house that does not have piles and piles of boxes in the basement.   This is what was left in the basement:

So we have added to our Goodwill/Freecycle pile 🙂  We have been trying to pack at least a box a day, if not more.  We have started to organize our photos/videos/candles into the bags they will go in our car trunk.  With our pictures we are throwing away the duplicates and those stored on the computer.  We can always order more prints.   When we first decided to move in July, we were totally unaware that certain items could melt while in transit, notably crayons, videotapes, candles, and potentially cassette tapes and photographs.  Well, we knew about crayons, having previous experience during a family vacation trip to St. Louis, but didn’t think about the rest.  🙂  The framed pictures are being packed, but we will be bringing all the non-digital photographs with us, as they are totally irreplaceable.  Life before digital cameras:  the horror of it all!  :=)  Looking back, I don’t think we would have altered our decision, as it is important to us that the kids finish out their school year in Wisconsin, which they have.  We also wanted to make sure that we move in the summer months, as moving in the dead of winter, which we have done, is certainly not an ideal situation, and one to be avoided if at all possible due to the potential for delays and detours due to the weather conditions.

We wish everyone a magical and happy weekend!

 

 

 


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Baby, It’s Hot Outside

We almost felt like we were Floridians yesterday; our high reached 97 degrees, with the heat index in the 100’s!  While we are enjoying the weather (after all, this is what we are moving in to!), we do wish Mother Nature would tone it down a little, if nothing else but to save on our electric bill!

We received a shipment of boxes late Monday afternoon, and one of the boxes he brought was a huge TV/Large Picture box, which we requested for Ben’s marble vortex toy.  At first we thought it might be a little too big,  but then realized the toy and several odd-shaped items could fit in there as well, so we’re actually quite happy that the box was over sized.

We’ve been experiencing a series of “lasts”.  We recognize that certain things we do will be the last time we do them, possibly forever (but who knows what the future holds?)  We met with our insurance agent yesterday, to find out information regarding the steps we need to do to transfer our policies down to Florida.  We have been with this particular agent since we first moved to Fond du Lac from Chicago, twelve years ago.  We’re finding it’s hard to walk away from local businesses that we’ve patronized for so long.  It’s not going to prevent us from moving, but it’s also producing sadness and a feeling of loss that really we did not anticipate.  There are a lot of unique businesses that only exist either in this city or in the Midwest, that we will be walking away from.

One of these establishments is Friar Tucks, and we decided to take advantage of the kids still being in school, and do a last visit.

This is a small bar/restaurant that serves the absolute best one-third pound cheeseburgers.  There are a couple other locations in Wisconsin, located in Oshkosh and Manitowoc, and our son Nick works as a cook at the seafood restaurant this same company owns.

This morning we will have another “last”– our son Ben’s 5th grade graduation.  This is also a tough moment, as we have had children attending this particular elementary school for eight years.  Ben is particularly having a hard time separating from this school, his friends and teachers, and especially his aide, who has been a constant in his life since Kindergarten. She entered his life at a time when the school district was moving away from 1:1 aides as “not being in the best interest of children who have autism”, and we are so thankful that she has been able to remain by Ben’s side in spite of that fact.  We will post pictures later of the celebration!

We will stop posting updates on the “Wishes-And-Pixie-Dust” friend on Facebook effective July 22nd, so we encourage you to friend and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.   We plan to post a lot of pictures along the way using Twitter, and will be able to post blog updates each night.    We are Mark Vitek and Jen Vitek on Facebook, and @FondyMark and @jvitek on Twitter.  We do encourage you to friend and follow both of us, because we won’t be posting the same updates on both accounts.  It depends on who’s not driving!

Have a magical day!!


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Checklists

As we pass the seven-week mark life seems to be a whirlwind of not only daily activity, but also everything that we need to remember to do in preparation for our move.  Up to this point we have set tentative goals that we have met at times; at others not, but as we move into the home stretch we realize that it needs to be on paper.

For those of you who are wishing to follow in our footsteps and plan a long-distance move, we thought we would share our paper organization and checklist methodology.  Feel free to tweak it to fit your own needs.

Inventory:  Every box that is packed is given a unique letter combination.  We started with A, worked our way to Z, and now are advancing to the double letters (AA, BB, etc).  For example, Living Room A.   On the laptop we have an Excel file with several worksheets that lists the contents of all the boxes.  This can be a little tedious when packing and does take extra time, but it will prove invaluable when we find ourselves in Florida with an apartment full of moving boxes, and wondering where we put something.  We’ll just need to pull up the Excel file on the laptop and will be able to pinpoint which box it is we need to locate.

Blue File:  This is where we keep all our documents that we will need on our journey: school papers for the kids, automobile documents for the DMV, hotel information for our stays along the way.

File Box:  This is what we use to keep the papers we need to move with us but don’t necessarily want to put in a moving truck, such as banking information or credit card statements.  As we sort through the filing cabinet, most of it is getting shredded or scanned.

Notebook:  This is our checklist.  Each room has its own page, where we list what we are moving with us, what will get donated, what will get sold, what will be given to Nick, and last but not least what we still need to do in that particular room, in terms of cleaning or purchasing replacement products, such as new blinds.   The notebook will also be where we keep notes on what we need to do yet before our move, what documents we need to acquire yet, and what phone calls need to be made.   We find that as our departure date gets closer, we are more distracted and likely to forget things, and this helps to keep us on track. It also helps to make it seem less stressful–by focusing on an item or two on the list, we are not feeing overwhelmed by thinking it all has to be done right now.

The key to a successful move is organization and planning, and we share this information not to overwhelm you with ideas, but to help you plan out your move.   Have we moved without doing all this?  Absolutely, usually our moves end up in throwing stuff in garbage bags the morning of the move, because we run out of time (and boxes), but it usually results in a lot more chaos than is necessary.  Our current goal is to be fully packed and living out of suitcases by Tuesday, July 19.  Thursday, July 21st our son will take away the furniture and mattresses that he wants.  We will spend the night in a hotel, and then Friday, July 22, of course is moving day.

Thanks for following along,

Mark and Jen

 

 


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Left Behind

We were among many of The Relocated Tourist followers who tracked Amy and Craig’s journey from Wisconsin to Florida this past weekend.  We were especially curious, as we will be making that same journey ourselves in 46 days.  Interestingly enough, we feel “left behind”:  it’s hard to believe that we are no longer in the same state as the Petermann’s. We had good intentions to meet up with their family before they left, even had an outing in mind, but our lives got extremely busy and it just never happened.  I’m sure we will have many opportunities in Florida to reconnect.

46 days.  It seems so long but yet short as there’s a lot to get accomplished before moving day.  On Monday we hope to go room to room and make a checklist of what needs to be accomplished yet before we move.  We do have a lot of boxes packed; right now we are waiting on our Mayflower rep to bring us some more boxes.  We won 2 tickets to Country USA which we need to pick up at the Festival Foods in Darboy, and at the same time we will meet up with two people from Craigslist which will give us another $45 to stuff in the pig.

Nick just came in and we had one of our late night chats, talking about the move and what he is taking with him and/or needs to buy yet for his apartment.  I am sure going to miss that when we move.  😦  (For those new to our blog, our oldest son Nick is not moving to Florida with us.)  I’ll be honest, it’s hard to leave a family member behind; even if that member is a capable, responsible adult.  He’ll always be my little boy, and yes, I need to let the mama strings go sometime, but it’s still never easy.    He has a good head on his shoulders, a good plan in place, and I am proud to call him my son.

We hope to blog more regularly as our moving date moves closer.  Please friend us on Facebook (Mark Vitek, Jen Vitek) and follow us on Twitter (FondyMark, jvitek).  When we leave on July 22, we will post our moving updates on our personal accounts using Facebook and Twitter.   We’re hoping to get a lot of pictures along the way (whoever is not driving!), and our intent is to find a place to stop in Tennessee to get some great photos of the mountains.  When we drove to Disney in 2009, we were absolutely awestruck by their beauty.  (Ok, remember we are from mountain-less Wisconsin!)

We are excited to continue our Florida adventure and keep you posted as we move closer to our dream!

~Jen & Mark