Good luck, Beth! We had conferences last week, plus the final baseball game, soccer practices, and soccer games over the weekend, so I feel your pain on crazy week! C had a half day last Wednesday and no school on Thursday or Friday for conferences, so we did a quick trip to my mom’s on Thursday night through Friday morning. If anyone is ever near Tulsa, OK with your kids, go see The Gathering Place. It’s an amazing and free public park with stuff to do for kids from babies through teens. My kiddos both loved it. We want to go back next summer when the water feature areas are also open.

Hugs, drama.

I grocery shop at a couple of local chains, plus Sprout’s and Aldi, and then Sam’s Club, but do a fair amount of online shopping as well for everything else.

Kids clothes are usually bought at a consignment sale, and then I’ll add to it with what’s needed throughout the year (usually pants for DS because he’s at the age/size where I can’t get those at consignment any more that look decent, and he’s constantly growing and ripping holes in the knees).

I usually order clothes for myself online from a place with a local storefront (usually Kohl’s, Ann Taylor, Banana Republic, etc) so I can take back whatever doesn’t work locally. Otherwise it’s like my Land’s End order that sits on my closet floor for months waiting on me to ship back what I didn’t want.

I shop local Hallmark stores for birthday cards and wrapping paper.

Birthday presents for kids’ friends are usually from Target or GCs to local movie theater.

In general I’m trying to shop and consume less, but if I need it and don’t have time to hunt it down store to store, I’m ordering it online. It’s faster and more convenient, and that’s the stage of life I’m in. If there is a local option, I’ll try to do it if I can somewhat easily make it work, but if not, I’ll pick another option.

Re: my aunt’s funeral - I didn’t end up going, so taking the kids became a moot point. The funeral ended up not being until Tuesday evening, with the graveside burial service on Wednesday morning. Logistically with other stuff I had, it would have been really difficult to make it work, so I opted not to go.

The Gathering Place is amazing, but since you’re not going with a kid, probably not on your to-do list. ;-)

I grew up 90 miles north of there, and that’s where we went for a shopping mall, but there’s not a ton of stuff to do. The museums are small but interesting if you like that sort of thing. Definitely good steak and Mexican food options.

I was in Orlando for a conference, so we tacked on a Disney World trip as well. The way my conference meetings worked out, we went to Hollywood Studios on Monday, Magic Kingdom on Tuesday, Epcot on Thursday, and Animal Kingdom on Friday, and then flew home on Saturday. We spent the first few days of our trip (we flew in on Friday) at the JW Marriott Grande Lakes and used Uber Family to get to/from HS. Then we changed hotels on Tuesday to Disney’s Pop Century. The new Skyliner transportation option connects Pop to both Epcot and HS, so you don’t have to take the buses to get there (but that wasn’t open when we went - it opens later this month). We did end up using Uber Family to go to MK because the line for the bus for that park was ridiculous and we would have missed rope drop, but otherwise used the buses and they worked well.

We did 4 day park tickets (the single park ones, not park hopper) and went to each park. As M was under 3, she was still free so didn’t need a ticket. We did one character breakfast - at Tusker House in AK. It had Mickey, Daisy, Donald and Goofy, and that was what helped M warm up to the characters. I wish we’d done one earlier as most of the character meet & greets one of us held her, or she’d let her brother stand next to the character and she’d stand next to him. That said, I had low expectations on meeting characters, so I was pleasantly surprised by how it all turned out. If you schedule the last possible breakfast time on a character breakfast at Tusker House, you’ll get all of the lunch foods as well, but for the breakfast price. We scheduled ours at 1045, so we at granola bars and fruit that we brought with us early in the day, and then the “breakfast” served as our lunch for the day. And again, because wasn’t 3 yet, she was free at the breakfast. The rest of our meals were mostly quick service meals, but we looked at the options at each park so we weren’t eating pizza and burgers all of the time. And we didn’t eat breakfast there - we placed an Amazon Prime Now order and got cheerios, yogurt, cheese sticks, apples, etc delivered to our hotel and ate that food for breakfast and some snacks.

M still naps, and the only day we went back to the hotel for her nap was our Epcot day. It was a fluke, but that worked out well as there was a pretty good storm while she (and I) napped, and we only knew about it because of the puddles when we walked from our room to the buses to head back to the park. The other days, she napped in the stroller at the parks.

Epcot was my least favorite park for M, but she still enjoyed things there. She liked the Frozen ride (full disclosure, she doesn’t like tv/movies, so Mickey was really the only character she “knew” from several books we have), so it’s fun even if your daughter isn’t that in to Frozen yet. She also liked the Nemo ride and the aquarium stuff.

HS she liked the Cars show, and the 2 Toy Story rides she was tall enough for (she didn’t meet the Slinky Dog Dash height requirements). The Muppet show was also a hit. There were a few others, but I can’t remember them right now.

MK had so much stuff she could do. Peter Pan’s Flight was fun, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh has an awesome area for kids to play in while you wait in line, Teacups, Carousel, Small World, Under the Sea, Dumbo (she LOVED this one and we had to ride it multiple times), and Buzz Lightyear ride.

AK was also a hit with both of my kids, but my oldest loved animals, so that probably helped. That said, it had the least amount of air conditioning, which sucked in June. The Kilamanjaro Safaris was a hit with all of us - we ended up getting a second fast pass for that after we rode it the first time, and saw some different animals the second time, which was fun. In the Dino area, M loved TriceraTop spin - it is definitely a little lame, but is perfect for her age group. There was a ride next to it she wasn’t tall enough for that her brother wanted to ride, so she seriously rode the TriceraTop spin ride probably 8 times and loved it each time. There are also some great places to view animals at. And a cool bird show that is outdoors near the Tree of Life.

My 3yo loves airports. Crowds less so, but crowds in airports have never bothered her (or her brother).

So fun! Sounds like a series of wonderful experiences you’ll remember for years to come!

I’m on a work trip (hello, sleep!), and just found out my mom’s sister died around midnight. Ugh. My mom and her brother were scheduled to fly up to see her today (Uncle is in KC, and mom is recovering from a surgery at our house, so they were flying together to Detroit). Aunt has one daughter, who also lives in KC, and she and her family left yesterday to drive out there and were about 30 minutes away, so they didn’t make it. 😕

I’m guessing funeral will be Monday, so mom will likely just change her flight and stay out there another day, but I was hoping I’d be able to go with her. My cousin is a hot mess and I don’t want my mom to have to shoulder the burden of dealing with her grief over losing her sister and then also the drama that cousin brings with her. I don’t know if I can make it happen though. I don’t fly home until tomorrow night, and I have another trip next Wednesday- Friday, and then a girls weekend. If I go, I want to take the kids with me just so I see them, but a 12 hour drive on Sunday and then again on Tuesday seems awfully cruel to them. DH is good with whatever I decide, so there’s that, but ugh. If I go, it’s to support my mom, who says she’s fine if I don’t go, but that doesn’t mean I’m not feeling guilty and conflicted.

Hugs, mpl.

Any news on your kiddo, oped?

I’d say yes, but that’s probably because my parents sent me to college with a car. If your daughter is responsible and you trust her, I’d send her car to her. Parking is cheap, and it’ll make your life easier for trips home. The freshman lot wasn’t near the freshman dorms at my college, so I rarely drove my car during the week. But I was 6 hours from home; so it was definitely more convenient to be able to drive myself home for the weekend or a school break. Also, my nearest home airport was 90 miles away, so not convenient to fly.

Well, it wasn’t a huge dive, but we were definitely down, despite our normal contributions to 401k and kids 529 plans.

Those look fun! The Gathering Place in Tulsa is only about 90 minutes from my hometown, and I have several friends that have taken their kids there. It’s on my list to try when we’re in the area - it looks amazing!

Out of the mouths of babes...at bedtime tonight, C says to me “Mommy, you’re the best. Thanks for playing a game with me before bed.” I’m thinking how sweet; and you’re welcome buddy, when he goes on to say “And Daddy’s the best because he taught me to clean toilets and that is way better than cleaning my play room.”

What?!?! This kid and I clearly have different cleaning preferences. 😂🤣 Also, this bathroom cleaning episode happened several weeks ago and hasn’t been repeated by C since, so no idea where that train of thought came from today. Kids. 😉