Wishes And Pixie Dust

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

Category Archives: Countdown


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Getting, and Staying, In The ‘Disney Mood’

I’ve been asked how to stay in the Disney mood during down times, blah days and just for inspiration when needed.  As we hit our 40-day countdown, I’m happy to share some of the things we do to get in, and stay in, the Disney mood.

First is our collection of Disney music.  Music from the movies, TV shows and theme parks take up a huge chunk of my iPod and iTunes library.  An easy way to get the magic going.  I keep a selection of our favourites in the playlist on the right for you to enjoy.

Second, I listen to Disney podcasts on a daily basis.  Some come out weekly, some more and less often; but I always have some ready to listen to every day (even going back to older past episodes.  These are great shows giving excellent information and they all entertain while informing.   I can highly recommend all of the podcasts on my list below to you.  I start with my “Top 6” and then list, in no particular order, all of the podcasts I listen to weekly; all are available on iTunes.

  • The WDW Radio Show – My number 1 can’t miss podcast.  Hosted by the amazing Lou Mongello, a true Disney ‘genius’.  I’ve listened to WDW Radio from its beginning; having been a huge fan of Lou’s since the days of the long-gone and fondly remembered MouseTunes podcast.  Lou is my favourite source of Disney information and he has many rotating regular guests (Jim Korkis, Tim Foster, Beci Mahnken and others) who bring an excellent mix of Disney History, current news, reviews, travel tips, ‘Top Tens’ and just plain fun to every episode.  Lou is the author of The Walt Disney World Trivia Books (Volumes 1 and 2) and the Producer/Host of the Audio Guides to Walt Disney World.  He also hosts a weekly live video Disney Newscast every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET.  No one I know pursues their dream with a passion quite like Lou does, and his Disney credos of “If we can dream it, we can do it.” and “Keep moving forward.” are ones we follow as we move forward with our Dream.
  • WDW Today – My number 2 can’t miss podcast.  Matt Hochberg, Mike Newell, Mike Scopa, Len Testa, Annette Owens and an unlimited number of special guest hosts provide first-rate information and reviews along with current news.  They answer listener questions on a variety of subjects and always know their stuff.
    Matt Hotchberg also hosts several Hollywood Studios web sites.
    Mike Newell also owns and operates MouseWorld Radio (www.mouseworldradio.com), a great online radio station for Disney music and theme park music lovers.
    Mike Scopa is a regular contributor at AllEars.net.
    Len Testa is the co-author of the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World (a must read) and creates the touring plans available at TouringPlans.com.
  • Be Our Guest WDW Podcast – My number 3 can’t miss podcast and another I’ve listened to WDW Radio from its beginning.  The BOGP team of Mike, Rikki, Pam, and Debbie are always entertaining and informative combining reviews with ‘how to’ and trip reviews from many guests.  Mike also runs the Magical Mouse Radio station on Live365, an awesome collection of Disney music and Park Loops.
  • Betamouse – An awesome podcast for those of us who are both Disney and tech geeks.
  • PassPorter’s Disney and Beyond – If you are a fan of the PassPorter guides or just want to listen to a family-driven show bringing you family-friendly tips on WDW and beyond; this is a ‘must listen’.
  • The WDW News Today Podcast – Tom Corless and his group always entertain and inform.
  • Disney Film Project Podcast – A great new podcast delivering awesome reviews and in depth discussion of favourite Disney movies.
  • WaltCast – An overlooked and underrated podcast featuring interviews with many great celebrities.
  • Disneybrit Podcast – A UK-based podcast giving insight into the Disney Parks here and overseas.
  • Inside the Magic
  • Your MouseCast
  • WEDway Radio
  • inner mouse
  • DestinationD
  • MouseVent – A seasonal Christmas series of short podcasts from many different Disney podcasters.
  • Magical Definition Podcast – Lou Mongello’s former MouseTunes partner, Nathan Rose, hosts this podcast.  And if you’re a fan of Jim Hill, he co-hosts this informative show.
  • Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Pod
  • MouseStation
  • LaughingPlace.com Disney Podcast
  • Disney Dudes Podcast- A show with a little “zing”, Wayne and Trace have a very unpredictable format, but this show is strictly ‘Adults only’.
  • Magic Never Ends – An occasionally updated podcast/vidcast sharing the Disney Parks Magic through the eyes of a young family.
  • The DizFanatic “Ears On Ears” Podcast
  • Remember the Magic
  • Mr. Frank’s Wild Ride (mrfrankswildrides.com)
  • The DIS Unplugged
  • Mousetalgia
  • WDW Memories Podcast
  • WDW Fan Boys Podcast
  • Mouse Lounge Podcast
  • Character Breakfast – Disney Variety Show
  • A Window To The Magic
  • Trapped on Vacation
  • MouseChat
  • YWaitDiz – A new podcast that gives info and ride audio from your favourite attractions.

I also enjoy reading many Disney sites, news sites and blogs.  My ‘ongoing’ list:

I’ll start off with the one we follow most ardently right now, the blog written by our good friends (and fellow WI to FL relocators) Amy and Craig Petermann.

And finally, I enjoy the many Tweets and Facebook updates from our many online Disney friends.  You all bring smiles to our faces every day.  🙂

~Mark.


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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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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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Setting Goals. Or Not.

[Artwork done by our lovely daughter, Princess Cate!]

One of the biggest challenges we have faced in our move thus far is finding the time to prepare for the move, while continuing to live our lives as normal.  We have been fortunate as we have allotted ourselves six months for the move.  Incredibly, four months have already passed us by, so we expect to step up the packing progress as our time here in Wisconsin comes to a close.

We originally set goals of packing areas by a certain date.  That didn’t seem to work so well, so we moved to setting a goal of one packed box per day.  This method seemed to flow until last week, when life got busy with prom, concerts, soccer, doctor appointments and rehearsals.  The thing with setting goals, is that you need to allow for the unexpected to occur.  One wouldn’t think this would apply with packing boxes.  Unless one has a son who has to play with every toy for two minutes before it gets packed.  🙂  It’s all good, though.

We are stepping away from setting specific goals and just trying to concentrate on getting it either packed or moved out.  The current area we are focusing on is the sunroom.

The desk area is unusable.

As this room seems to be the dumping ground for all miscellaneous paper piles, the challenge is to pack what is not needed.

Our oldest son Nick has already secured his apartment here, and will slowly be moving his belongings out in July.   He was fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of an offer that gave him his first month’s rent free, so this saved on needing to rent a storage unit and stay in a hotel for a week, as his original plan was to find an apartment for August 1.  He will be taking our couch, a chair and other pieces of furniture, which will allow us to use our furniture (and more importantly our beds) until the very end.  He will also be on the receiving end of most of the kitchen appliances and supplies, as well as whatever food is left.

In other news, we have paid our security deposit on our apartment, and will be setting up an account with Progress Energy so that it is all set to go when we arrive in Florida.  Our goal is to spend our first night in Florida in our new apartment 🙂  We may need to purchase air mattresses to accomplish this goal, as we won’t be able to shop for our beds until we arrive.  We will be setting up an account with Bright House for our cable and internet, but will wait until we arrive to make this appointment.

We have found a wonderful Yahoo Group, Clermont Connection Cafe, which has already given us a wealth of information, from lovebugs to wholesale clubs to doctor referrals. Everyone we’ve had the opportunity to talk to who lives in Clermont is very friendly and welcoming to us, something we’ve appreciated immensely.  We look forward to being a part of this wonderful community.