A Late Halloween Post

Well, I didn't mean to leave everyone in suspense. Luckily, you all know me well enough to guess that I'd let you hang for a little while! :-)

First off is Halloween. Brian and I aren't crazy about this "holiday." Given my (diminishing) fear of people in costumes, and the fact that Brian's family just never really "did" Halloween, it's typically been the holiday where we would go out to dinner or just sit in a darkened house and enjoy a nice dinner and movie. When Ann Catherine came along, we wanted to enjoy seeing her in a costume but still really didn't want to do the whole trick-or-treating thing, so we started taking her to the Fall Festivals at church. Luckily (or unluckily depending upon how you look at it), the child's own fears really made her prefer to stay at home with her party-pooper parents.

This year was different. Ann Catherine's best friend from school just happens to LOVE trick-or-treating (despite her own shyness) and the two girls hatched up a plan for the two of them to trick-or-treat together. I talked to her friend's mom at the school's Fall Festival one night and we decided we'd go ahead and take the girls together. Now, if my shy little girl and her shy little friend happily and giddily announce that they want to go door-to-door and actually say "Trick or Treat" to a stranger, then I'm all for it. I've been looking for opportunities to allow my fearful one to shake loose a few fears. If it meant standing out in the cold surrounded by hundreds of costumed parents and children, then so be it. And since my little boy is not fearful of anything at all, we figured we'd bring him right along.

The kids had a ball. Actually, Ann Catherine had a ball. Will liked it the first couple houses. Then, when a very creepy looking costumed man walked out to hand the kids some candy, he quickly backed away. My typically anxious little girl decided to play protector and asked for some candy for him. They proceeded to do this for the next half hour or so every time Will found a house he wasn't too sure of. With a smile, a chuckle and a shaking of my head, I enjoyed quite a bit of time observing my little ones swapping roles as Will became the anxious one and Ann Catherine suddenly became so brave for him.

As the night wore on and it started to get colder out, Will's little feet started dragging. Soon, the big kids were a house ahead of him. At this one house, he slowly walked up the very steep steps to the front porch. His little feet were dragging and suddenly he tripped on one of the steps. The lady who owned the house was watching him and waiting to see if he'd make it but, once he fell, she decided she'd save him the rest of the trip and came down the stairs to give him some candy. After wiping away his tears, we knew it was time for Daddy to take him home.

Ann Catherine and her friends still had plenty of energy to spare so we continued up and down the street until we finally made it to our own street. Now here's where it got funny. Ann Catherine's friends were starting to drag and their mom said it was time to go home. Ann Catherine was so upset - she wanted to keep going! As she sadly watched her friends walk away, she looked at me and asked if she could continue on. "Sure," I said, "but I'm NOT going to walk with you up to the house and you're going to have to say 'trick or treat' on your own."

"OK!" she quickly agreed.

Ummmm...is this my daughter I'm talking to?!?! Since when does this child who hyperventilates in a 3D movie, or looks terror stricken any time it starts to rain, or has to be bribed to get her to say hello to strangers (and sometimes even friends) at church, have the bravery needed in order to trick or treat ON HER OWN?!

She did it though! She bravely walked up to doors and knocked and loudly said, "Trick or Treat," dug through their candy bowls and clearly said, "Thank you" at each house. Of course, it all ended when she came upon a bowl that someone had left on their front porch for trick or treaters that just happened to be a bowl with a motion-sensored hand in it that would grab your hand as you went to get the candy. I tried to warn her. She didn't listen. She cried for most of the way home. Of course, her 10 pound bag of candy helped wipe away the tears as soon as we got back home.

Oh, and yes, she's declared that she's doing this EVERY YEAR!

So, for the second half of my story...

Drum roll please. Anyone want to guess after reading my trip report to Disney as to whether or not we're going back to Disney again next summer?

No cheating by asking Rachel. I couldn't keep the news in while she was at our house.

Ok, the answer is...maybe.

When we got back home, we were still not sure if we wanted to brave the trip with Will again. We WANTED to go, but we were so afraid he'd pull the same temper tantrums again. I don't like paying a huge amount of money only to be miserable half of the time. But when we got back home, I had another little surprise waiting for me in my inbox in my email. You guessed it - it was another pin code that gives us a discount on another trip.

Now here's where it gets a little funny. The pin codes only covered trips until the end of May. And we were looking at doing a trip in June. Just because I was curious, I looked to see when Ann Catherine's last day of school is. Friday, May 21. So, for the fun of it and because I'm daring and brave (no, not really - just too curious for my own good), I forwarded my pin code email to my travel agent. Uh oh. Remember how this got us in trouble last time? Oh yeah, she came back with a good offer; much lower than we originally expected. I told her we'd think about it, knowing we had five days to make our decision before a discount would be needed to hold our reservation.

I went back to my favorite Disney website just for the fun of it but noticed a couple posts from a couple people mentioning the same pin code email. And then I saw one where someone talked about how, with the pin code, cheap it was to upgrade from the value resort (the motel-ish type hotel we stayed in last month) to a moderate resort (the medium one which is more like a nicer hotel we'd typically stay in, but still one step away from the deluxes...which obviously we'll never be able to afford!). Just for the fun of it (yeah, right...again, too curious), I emailed my travel agent and asked her how much it'd cost to upgrade to a moderate resort. Ummmm, yeah. It was only $200 more.

Here's where I had to start thinking quickly. In the value resort, you have to PAY to rent a refrigerator. In our household, given my son's frequent desire to wake up in the middle of the night needing his sippy cup of milk, a refrigerator is a necessity. So we knew that, by staying 7 nights at a value hotel, we'd end up paying $70 just to rent the refrigerator for a week ($10 a night). But at a moderate resort, you get the refrigerator for free. You even get a coffee pot (which you don't get at the values, but would be a huge plus for Brian and I to cut down on our grumpiness!!). Yeah, that totally justifies spending the extra $200 to upgrade to a moderate resort with a bigger pool, less people and a less crowded bus!

Sooooo...want to guess what we did?

Yeah, we booked it. Granted, it's still booked with a question mark hanging over it. We've only put down the minimal deposit (which is very minimal and fully refundable up until sometime in April). But we're going to watch Will and see how he changes and matures in the next six months and, of course, we're going to majorly work on the attitude and practicing with our time-out skills. Six months from now, we're hoping to walk into our lovely room with queen sized beds at the Coronado Springs Resort. If something happens (ahem, Will), then we may just be driving down the beach instead.