Life Lately September 2023

September was a pretty busy month, but I'm not complaining! We started the month with a road trip to Canada for Labor Day weekend because we had some things to do for my mom's estate and it gave Avalanche the chance to be spoiled by his grandparents!

the car is his favorite place

being the laziest eater possible

he loves sitting out on the patio furniture

the first time he's ever willingly
walked into water with us
(admittedly it was to drink the dirty water, but still!)

I'm growing more accustomed to this new role at work and to being spilt between two schools with some time at central office, but I miss my former school and colleagues terribly! They surprised me with a beautiful piece of art (rainbows!!!) and I love it so much! I have it hanging in one of my offices and it makes me happy every time I look at it!

another wonderful gift from one of my best friends...
captures the Dachshund attitude perfectly

bought two cute name banners for my offices

I went to WDW twice - once with two of my best friends and once with C - and there haven't been too many times in my life when I've been lucky enough to go there twice in one month! I also went to an educator night at the International Spy Museum in D.C. and it was so well done! Such a cool event!

strong memory, yes, but I am NOT
really known for my technical know-how

Finally, we ended the month with a road trip to New York to visit B2 and S2. We miss them very much and I just wanted to hug my brother so badly. It also gave Avalanche the chance to meet his cousins, pups Max and Kazak and kitty Glen. If you know me, you know I love all three of them, but I love, love, love, love, LOVE Max. When my brother adopted him 13 years ago, he was living with us, so our house was Max's first home and he grew up with our Dachshunds and he is so incredibly special to me. 2023 has been A YEAR and with everything that was happening, I hadn't seen Max since Christmas! How is that even possible?!? As such, Avalanche hadn't met Max yet. I'm so happy to share that they got along famously! The most heartwarming thing was that as a general rule, Avalanche is not a tail wagger; his aloof personality does not lend itself to expressions of joy. LOL! But he wagged his tail repeatedly when he was with Max! REPEATEDLY! Seeing him happy made me so happy! As the afternoon went on, Kazak grew accustomed to Avalanche and all was well on that front. Glen, however, was highly annoyed by Avalanche's presence and hid the entire time after hissing loudly to make his extreme displeasure known. After our visit, Avalanche had his first hotel stay and the staff at the hotel commented several times about how well behaved he was!

on the road!

at long last!

napping with Kazak

a cake slice vending machine
at a rest stop in NJ

had to

it was delicious!

waiting to check in

elevator ride

he was excited!

making himself at home!

As usual, I have a collection of random Avalanche pics from this month:

he was standing in the rainbow created
by the prismatic film on our windows

Dachshunds are known for curling up into circles
when they sleep ("Donut Dogs"), so seeing Avalanche
sleeping in a circle was beyond adorable

my daily welcome home committee

I'll leave you with this...Husky Shedding Season! I was just petting his leg and the fur coming off of him was insane!

Happy Tails to you!

WDW September 2023

We went to WDW last weekend for our second trip of the eleven we're taking this school year. For the first time in forever, we rented a car and that is not something we'll be doing again! I've written about it many times before, but the car rental process in America is just the worst. We did have a reason for renting a car on this trip, which I'll get to in a minute, but first, I have to say once again how amazing my Disney-loving BFF is! We were on the plane when the virtual queue opened on our first day, and she kindly logged on for me and not only got us a Lightning Lane reservation for Guardians of the Galaxy, but she also got us into the passholder shopping event that was happening. When I turned my phone on when we landed, everything was taken care of! She is THE BEST!

So back to renting a car. Many years ago, we had one of our typical checklists and made a point of staying at every WDW resort. There were three properties that we never included on our list - Swan and Dolphin, because they aren't owned by Disney, and Fort Wilderness because it is not a hotel, but rather campsites and small cabins. Fast forward to this year when we were planning out these monthly trips and we decided we wanted to stay at eleven different resorts over the course of the trips. We found a pretty good deal on the Fort Wilderness cabins and decided to finally stay there.

Big mistake. HUGE.

We did not like it whatsoever. I am struggling to come up with anything positive to say about it. Pretty much as soon as we checked in, we were discussing switching resorts. Fort Wilderness could not be less our vibe. We rented the car thinking we'd be able to explore and drive around the resort, but no! Cars aren't allowed to drive around the resort - the only vehicles on the roads of the resort are the Disney buses and rented golf carts. Completely absurd because it takes forever to get anywhere on the buses. Maybe this works for families who are spending a week camping, but for us, absolutely not.

We ended up going to the front desk around dinner time and the most awesome cast member helped us! I got the feeling we were far from the first people to be disappointed by Fort Wilderness, because as soon as we started talking, he was like, "This place is just not your thing, right?!?" Honestly, it could not be further from "our thing." He started explaining all of our options and even offered to switch us to a different resort that night, although we opted to stay for one night just so we can say we've spent a night there. He was incredibly helpful and knowledgeable! Since I do want to find something good to say, I thought our cabin was pretty cute. But for the price, even at the discounted rate we found, it is not at all worth it, especially given the limitations of the rest of the resort.

So the morning of our second day, we moved over to Art of Animation, which we love! It is by no means the fanciest resort, but its theming is fabulous and it's got the Skyliner, which makes it so convenient. The cast member the night before had arranged everything for us so we were able to get checked in quickly and get over to the parks!

Here are pics I took over the course of the trip. The weather was really nice - hot, but not sweltering, and there was no rain until we were on the plane waiting to come home!

they brought this back for the 100 year celebration
and when I say I was overcome with emotion,
I mean I sobbed the entire time
#memories

I realized something when I returned to school on Tuesday (Monday had been a holiday) about how weird it is to be in two different schools. Since the last time I'd been to school number two (the week of September 11), I'd been to WDW twice! Once with my best friends and once with C!

Despite a not great "resort" experience at Fort Wilderness (still not considering it an actual resort!), we had such a wonderful trip! We did two new things at DHS - Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway and the Wonderful World of Animation projection show - and both completely surpassed whatever modest expectations we had! They were both so good!

Having these weekend trips to look forward to has done wonders for me on those very hard days when I'm missing my mom or feeling out of place in this new job. While there are so many places we want to see in the world, and we certainly won't do this monthly-trip-to-WDW thing every year, I'm so glad we're doing it this year!

Happy Tails to you!