Some tips for getting the most out of Disneyland and Walt Disney World.

FASTPASS

• FASTPASS is the key to getting the most out of your Disney experience. My husband is somewhat of a pro about the FASTPASS.
• FASTPASS can be used on the following attractions at Disneyland: Autopia, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Indiana Jones Adventure, Roger Rabbit’s Car Too Spin, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, and Star Tours.
• Use FASTPASS on these California Adventure rides: California Screamin’ (well worth it even though I was terrified!), Goofy’s Sky School, Grizzly River Run, Soarin’ Over California (our family’s favorite ride at both EPCOT and California Adventure), The Twilight Zone of Terror (I couldn’t get anyone to ride this ride with me!), and World of Color.
• When you enter a Disney park, check the bulletin board at the park entrance. The board shows wait time for rides and which rides are FASTPASS. You will also see which rides are closed for the day.
• Look for FASTPASS distribution kiosks near the entrance to each ride.
• Check the FASTPASS return time to know when you can ride the attraction. Don’t use a FASTPASS if you will not be available to ride the ride. Save your FASTPASS for another ride.
• A tip about World of Color at California Adventure… World of Color is a spectacular light, water, color, and movie show. You will want to use your FASTPASS to get a good viewing spot. Go early to the Grizzly River Run to get your FASTPASS for World of Color. You can hold a World of Color FASTPASS and a FASTPASS for a ride, so go get one as soon as you arrive in California Adventure.

Season

• We have visited Walt Disney World twice in the fall. While the parks have shorter hours in the fall than in the peak seasons, we loved walking on rides and waiting for just a few minutes to get on a ride.
• In addition, to short wait times, you’ll also find that flights in off-peak season are cheaper as well as hotels.
• On this trip we visited in August. Because it was the height of a peak season, we planned our days with FASTPASS, wait times, and our stamina in mind. If we were all up for waiting in a long line, we did.

Technology

• Our two-day stay at Disneyland Resort would have been far less fun had my husband not had an app on his phone. He kept us apprised of wait times. With a Kid, a Preteen-now-Teen, and a Teen, we had the flexibility to race from one ride to another. Families with younger kids will want to pace themselves due to weather, crowds, and wait times.
• Here’s an app for Disney World Wait Times.
• Visiting Disneyland? Here’s an app for wait times.
• And of course, charge those batteries. Bring all chargers on your trip. Charge digital, video, and phones at the hotel each night.
• We had a couple of Flip Video Cameras which we let our kids carry.

Safety

• Stay connected with cell phones.
• Our Teen and Preteen-now-Teen did not carry their phones as they were worried about losing them or getting them wet. Because of this we stayed in a group of 5 or we split in to a group of 2 and a group of 3. My husband and I coordinated a meeting spot if we split up to ride different attractions.
• Let each family member carry his Disney ticket in a lanyard. You can bring a lanyard from home or buy a colorful lanyard from any of the Disney stores. Each lanyard comes with a clear plastic case for holding the Disney ticket and money. We found it helpful for each child to carry his own lanyard and ticket so that it was easier to get FASTPASS.
• My older two know their name, address, home and all our cell phones, but I wrote down all our details on a piece of paper for my youngest child to carry with him. If he got separated from us, I wanted him to know how to reach us.

I was given passes to Disneyland and California Adventure. We paid for our own flights, car rental, and hotel accommodations while in Southern California. The views expressed in this post are my own. I follow the tenets of Blog With Integrity.

In the grand scheme of things, I can deal with a noisy computer and a teeny screen far better than a virus. I will never forget the time a virus attacked our home PC. It was in my pre-kids days. Even though I didn’t use the computer for absolutely every household and family task except cleaning the house, my computer was a much-needed device in our household. Once the computer was wracked and essentially wrecked by a virus, we were at a loss. We had no handy flash drives or external hard drives for backing up data. Essentially, we hadn’t backed up our harddrive nor had we installed a virus checker.

Basically one virus damaged 0r deleted every single thing on the harddrive. Gone. Just gone. The local big box computer/electronics repair department was unable to help us. We learned our lesson that day. Always back up files. And always run frequent virus scans.

I was recently asked to review ChicaPC-Shield from Chicalogic. I was game to try it. I wanted to see how it would do with my new desktop computer. While the computer is very new, I have downloaded a ton of toolbars, files, and other gadgets to make my new computer look like my old computer. I was anxious to find out what was lurking beneath the shiny exterior.

The process for downloading ChicaPC-Shield was an easy one for me.

Once you have downloaded ChicaPC-Shield, do a scan. The first scan will take 10 to 15 minutes. For subsequent scans, you can choose the Basic Scan, Full Scan, or the Quick Scan. The full version of ChicaPC-Shield costs $24.95, and you can add a Backup CD to your order for $7.95. I found the whole process of downloading and scanning straightforward. And, the new computer is as clean-as-a-whistle even with all my downloads.

Want to find out about ChicaPC-Shield? I have FIVE free one-year subscription keys to ChicaPC-Shield — a $29.95 value! I will choose the first 5 readers who do two of the following AND leave one comment stating what they did. Use one comment for both entries. Here’s what you need to do to win:

1. Tweet this: I entered @MusingsfromMe’s #giveaway 4 @Chicalogic software 4 women by women 2 keep computers running smoothly. Enter> http://bit.ly/qcM9lh.

2. Visit ChicaLogic Tips & Tricks. Share one article that you found interesting in the comments below.

3. Share a computer nightmare that Chicalogic could have helped prevent.

For more information on ChicaLogic:

With a kid, a preteen, and a teen in a multitude of activities there are only so many hours and minutes and seconds in a day. My husband and I are only two people. We have only two cars. Only two drivers for now.

As you can imagine, weeknights and weekends are a complex web of who will drive which kid to what activity. Throw in the days when we need to get three kids to three locations in the same time frame. Add in the activity where a parent needs to stay. Consider the activity where I need to pick up a kid who isn’t my own kid and drive them somewhere. Factor in the last minute changes in plans frantically texted to me by a kid who just learned of the change in plans.

Are you exhausted? I know I am…every single day. My life was so much easier in the days when I would put the baby and the toddler in the minivan and drive to the library for storytime. By the time we got back from storytime, all three of us were exhausted and ready for a nap. Some weeks the storytime was our only activity. I look back fondly on those nonstressful days where I had little to no reason to leave the house with my children.

The Heck’s are a family just like mine and yours. The Heck’s son Axl is in football, while Sue is in cross country. Mom and dad wonder how they will decide who goes to which activity. I’ll bet Axl only wants Dad to see his games. But, what about Sue…I am sure she wants Dad to be at her games too. The Heck’s are the family in the show The Middle…and the Heck’s aren’t a million miles away from my family.

It would be so much easier to send kids to school each day and have each family member stay home each evening and weekend. But, as you know this is not possible when your kids want to do activities that interest them.

The second season of The Middle is out on DVD. You can purchase it using my amazon affiliate link. Or buy it from major retailers or purchase it online.

I have been hired by Warner Bros. WBWord division to promote The Middle Season Two on DVD. The views expressed in this post are my own. I follow the tenets of Blog With Integrity.

It sounded like a plan. A crazy plan, but a plan nonetheless.

If you know me at all you know I am all about getting everything done all at once. Have a doctor’s appointment. Hey why don’t we schedule 2 or 3. While we’re doing the doctors’ appointments, why not run a quick errand and hey let’s get the emissions done while we are out. It’s a marathon not a sprint. I’ve been known to run 8 or 9 errands/appointments in a day. Crazy? Yes. But, do I get everything out of the way on the same day? Yes. Do I make everyone in my family utterly insane in the process? Why Yes!

In fact, one day over Spring Break my daughter had an eye exam, a doctor’s appointment, and the dentist all in one day. I was elated. She was exhausted. Complained bitterly about missing a day of her vacation. But, as I told her at least I didn’t have to pull her out of school for 3 separate afternoons. She’s a Teen so she gets that missing high school classwork is more trouble than it is worth. Any class she misses means that she needs to do all her work for the class, plus homework, plus catch up on any notes given out. Even with my explanation she still wasn’t thrilled at the interruption to her sleeping, ipoding, writing, Facebooking, and general hanging out schedule. Again, I don’t blame her in the least. But, I have to tell you that I got a charge out of crossing off 3 appointments from the kitchen chalk memo board.

The chalk memo board is showing some serious crazy this week. The Kid is signed up for an afternoon camp. With swim practice, this week would have been doable. Throw in an all-day, worthwhile camp for the Teen and the level of crazy goes up several notches. Add in an unexpected but necessary camp for the Tween and the level of crazy is off the charts. And that’s not all. Oh no. Because Coach Dad has work for 4 days this week. And little ole me, well I have my work commitments. Crazy plus crazy plus crazy equals crazy.

But, think of all the crossing off I can do on the memo board? Camp. Check. Camp. Check. Camp. Check. That’s a whole lotta of crazy crossing off I can do.

Links are to my amazon.com account.

The end-of-the-school year was a chaotic, mad dash, harem scarem, crazy mess. Come to think of it the school year wasn’t much better. We raced from homework to activity to school to the sports field. Isn’t it supposed to get easier as kids get older?? Not so in the Musings from Me household.

I always thought that once all of my children were in full-day school that magically my days would get easier. Wrong. Wrong. And did I mention…wrong. Instead of easier, our days are harder. From homework to parent-teacher conferences to science fair projects to after school activities to sports to you-name-it-and-we-are-probably-doing-it, every day is long and complicated and wonderful and awesome. But, did I mention long??

We’re slowly but surely adjusting to summer. Finding a rhythm. Getting in to a routine. The summer is less scheduled than the school year. We still have swim team, a few camps, and a few activities on the calendar but nothing like the August-June calendar. By comparison out June-August calendar is very tame.

How about you…how is your summer going?

My tween and I embarked on a project this past month. After a few days of the project, I knew that my tween was able to do all the work by herself. As a mom it is easy to micromanage school projects.

Over the years, I have resisted the urge to rewrite, correct, and change my children’s homework. I would much rather offer assistance and guidance than do the work for them. I would prefer that the teacher know that my child did the work on their own. Believe me when I say that I have seen more than one science fair project or poster or diorama that was most definitely the work of the parent rather than the child.

I can say with pride that my tween was wholly responsible for her Science Fair project this spring. Aside from assistance with shopping — I drove her to Walmart to get her supplies and paid for the supplies — and filming and photographing the Science Fair project for my blog posts, my tween conducted the Science Fair experiment on her own.

Want to know about my tween’s preparations for her Science Fair experiment?

Musings from Mom? Yeah! I had a point-of-view about Science Fair experiments.

No project would be a hit with your tween without a shopping trip. Our Science Fair experience began with a trip to Walmart of everything from Ziploc containers, to tape, to display boards, to liquids, to many more items. Here’s our whrll…

To complete her Science Fair experiment, my tween analyzed the results of her experiment to see what effect different liquids had on eggshells. Her hypothesis was proven correct that darker liquids will stain eggshells, and eggshells in lighter liquids and clear liquids will show little to no discoloration. She wanted to see if Diet Coke does stain teeth. The eggshells were the stand in for actual teeth. We filmed her results along with her creation of the Elmer’s Tri-Fold Poster Board with assorted Elmer’s Project Popperz cutouts and markers.

For more information about the Society for Science and the public’s Broadcom Science Fair, go here. Find a Science Fair location near you.

Elmer’s is the Classroom Sponsor for the Broadcom Science Fair. You can Like Elmer’s on Facebook.

My tween and I participated in #ProjectReady for Elmer’s through Collective Bias. We were compensated for our time and supplies by Elmer’s through Collective Bias. The views expressed in this post are mine or those of my tween daughter.

We’ve been in our house almost 16 years. Still have not painted the master bedroom, one bathroom, living room, and dining room. Builder’s white…I loathe you.

The rest of the house has been painted. In fact all three children’s bedrooms have been painted 2 or 3 times!

My teen’s bedroom has gone from Winnie the Pooh to Princess to Tie Dye.

My preteen’s bedroom has changed from Winnie the Pooh to Marie the Cat from the Aristocats to purple with wall stickers.

My kid’s room was Winnie the Pooh and is now white with red trim featuring Fatheads from Maryland Terps and the Washington Redskins with a few Manchester United stickers thrown in to recognize our English heritage.

I have had 2 cans of blue paint outside my bathroom door for over a year…waiting for a time when I will have time to paint.

The master bedroom is in need of painting too. Don’t get me started on the hallway and landing with all the scratch marks from baby gates. There are also a hug number of scuffs from kids’ feet while in time out. Who decided to use the bottom of the stairs as the time out spot, anyway??

Stay tunes to see if I paint this summer…or not…

Cell Phones

We let our girls (now 11 and 14) to both get cell phones in 6th grade. Both spend all day at volleyball tournaments 2 weekends a month. Their dad is always with them, but if he had to leave early the girls would have a way to contact us. The other moms and dads on the girls’ teams look out for all the girls too. I have the cell numbers of the parents, so that I can contact them if needed.

No cell phones broken, Phone chargers go missing. One was replaced — I think the tween left it at a hotel.

ipod

My teen got an ipod at 9. I thought she was too young, but the grandparents insisted. She proved to be very responsible.

My tween got one at 8. She was younger and needed more hand holding as far as downloading songs.

My 7-year-old desperately wants one, but I am holding off. He is so-so in the responsibility arena. He still listens to CDs in his bedroom, while his sisters only listen to itunes.

itouch

I won a itouch. I have barely seen the darn thing! My tween always seems to have it. She has downloaded a dizzying array of apps. She likes playing games. My youngest likes watching pre-approved by me YouTube vidoes.

The itouch comes in handy when we travel to swim meets, volleyball tournaments, etc. Since it is too hard to share a device, we set up a schedule of show gets the itouch for the entire day. There is no argument since the kids know that who has the itouch next.

Nintendo DS

My tween got one when she was 9. The teen got one when she was 11. Both play with them intermittently. My youngest was the lucky recipient of a DS that I won. I gave it to him for his 6th birthday with a few games. He plays with the DS the most. He and his sisters share Mario and Nintendogs games.

Age 6 is really too young, but I was tired of him pestering his sisters for a turn. It is impossible to share a DS. The games are too long.

Now, the only thing I have to worry about is where the various chargers are!

Want to add your voice to this conversation? Head over to BitMoms!

Camping is a memory I will have a hard time erasing. The wet. The damp. The bathrooms. The shower! My goodness how could I forget not showering. The floor of the shower was extremely cruddy. No way was I stepping on that floor!

My two daughters went to a couple of GS camps. I agreed to chaperone as both girls were too young to spend the night away from home alone. Both had gone on sleepovers, but camping is outdoors. Wild animals! Bears! Crazy people! (Photo taken at Great Wolf Lodge — Williamsburg. My kind of camping is staying in a Great Wolf Lodge room with a built in cabin!)

Once at the camp site, the reality set in of what I had agreed to do. On one trip I left the tent flap open letting bugs in. My tent mates were not pleased. Another year I packed only one pair of shoes each for my daughter and myself. You guessed it…we both got our shoes wet. Another year it was the Great Cicada Epidemic. I had to sweep the dead, crackly bodies of cicadas off the pad before we could pitch the tent. Creepy!

Wondering what to bring on a G.S. camping trip? Here’s what I remember packing:

• tent
• sleeping bag
• mattress pad
• shoes for walking to the bathroom at night
• flashlight
• clothes for warm weather x number of days
• clothes for colder weather x number of days
• sweat shirt
• raincoat
• some troops like girls to have a camping plate and cup
• some troops want parents to bring food, paper goods, plastic bags for sharing
• two pairs of shoes — sneakers and boots

Writing this list is reminding why I dislike camping. Indoorsy person. Hotel room here I come!

What question perplexes me most on forms and questionnaires? The question I find most difficult to answer is what major city do I live closest to?

As a child through my pre-children years, I would have had several answers:

• 0-4 years — Manchester, England
• 5-8 — New York City
• 9-10 — Manchester, England
• 11 — New York City
• 12-15 — Manchester, England
• 16-18 — Milan, Italy
• 19-22 — Philadelphia
• 23-29 — Washington, D.C.

Yes, my childhood was madness personified!

In 1994, my husband and I realized that our tiny townhouse in Montgomery Village was not big enough to accommodate all our stuff let alone a child! I was happily working in Gaithersburg while my husband commuted to Damascus. We were a stone’s throw from the Shady Grove Metro. I had commuted to DC for work each day before finding a job closer to home. I still took the Metro once or twice a week to George Washington University for graduate classes. Occasionally we would visit an art gallery or museum in D.C. In short, we were D.C. people.

In late 1993, we began our search for a new place to grow roots and hopefully start a family. We quickly realized that Montgomery County, MD, was out of the question. House prices were through the roof. We wanted to build our own home. My husband had this crazy notion that he wanted to buy land. He grew up on 3/4 of an acre, which meant he found our townhouse neighbors too close for comfort.

The quest for land took us to Frederick and Carroll counties. The drive out to both was daunting. We drove in nonrush hour times and on weekends. House after house failed to appeal to us. Some were too small…too expensive…too weird (we stumbled in to a community of senior citizen bungalow townhomes with roll-in showers and extra wide doorways)…too near to massive power lines (seriously, the powerline was where I envisioned having a play structure).

Our search was stalled. We were about to give up when my FIL showed us a listing for a new development in Howard county. The drive out to Howard sold us before we even go to the house. We saw not one car as we drove over the Montgomery county line. It was a ghost town — in a good way — that Sunday afternoon.

The neighborhood — a former farm that my FIL recalled playing at — was almost completely developed with only 5 or 6 lots left. Most of the lots had steep, treacherous driveways that would be nightmarish to mow. The last lot we looked at was perfect. Too close to the road for some, but flat enough for us to visualize our “kids” riding bikes down the completely flat driveway. Welcome to Baltimore, hon!

Through some finagling of finances we were able to swing the much higher home price and lot price. In June 1994 we were the proud owners of 3 acres and 1 new home…thankfully no mule…in Woodbine, MD!

Woodbine has changed over the years, but remains a safe place to live. Thanks to some draconian county laws, many of the farms are in historic preservation. I can’t tell you how relieved we were to find that the farm we can see through our kitchen window would remain a farm. Our neighborhood is bordered on 3 sides by county parkland and 1 side by a semi-working farm.

Which brings me back to the question of what city I live closest to. Howard County is in a no-man’s land. Not a part of the DC Metro Area and not a suburb of Baltimore City and County. I have done what anyone would do — I call both cities my own.

When I am in a DC frame of mind I recall visits to the International Spy Museum, reading the Washington Post, and almost meeting Guy Fieri. As a DC Mommy I go here to find out about events, things to do, and places to shop.

But, let’s not forget my Baltimore side. As a pseudo-Baltimorean, I recall fun times at Port Discovery, flying out of BWI, and inflating our Christmas decorations.

Sometimes I think about what it is like to live in Woodbine with my clutter woes and new-to-us holiday traditions.

Woodbine is not famous for anything. It is a cluster of homes and farms with parkland thrown in for good measure. Woodbine is split between two counties. We’re south of the railroad tracks in Howard County, while those north of the tracks are Carroll County.

Searching the brief entry on Wikipedia I know that…

• Woodbine is named after a plant that grows in fields and on riverbanks.
• Lisbon our neighboring town is home to the first traffic circle in Maryland. Lisbon now has two, woohoo!
• During the Civil War, Rebel cavalry crossed the Patapsco River at Woodbine scouting the Union Army that was on its way to the Battle of Gettysburg.

If you are passing through Woodbine, you might want to stop at Larriland Farms to pick some of the best fruit out there or go on a fall hayride, visit the horses that are nursed back to health at the Days End Horse Rescue Farm, or check out the Woodbine Facebook page.

I wrote this post as part of Blogtrotting. For more information about Blogtrotting, go here.