10 days left and lots of things to do

We only have 10 days left until our vacation and we have lots of things to do. We are especially busy this weekend because my son has a soccer tournament on Saturday and Sunday about 85 miles away from our home so I am up early to do laundry, blog, get ready, and because my allergies are killing me today. I was on a field trip yesterday with my daughter to a battlefield/re-enactment and being outside in the woods all day has really taken its toll on my allergies today. Hopefully the Claritin kicks in soon.

Today is also the day we can do Disney's online check-in. I highly recommend this service. It is much quicker than regular check-in. Basically, you just confirm your name, phone number, and credit card for either room charges and/or to use for a credit card on your key to the world card. Once this is all confirmed all  you have to do is go to a separate line at your resorts check-in area. The line will have signs that say online check-in above them. These lines are usually shorter than the regular line. All of your stuff is printed and ready to go, just show your drivers license to confirm who you are. No waiting to scan your credit card, no answering 20 questions, no super long lines, just a quick in and out. We were in and out of line last year in 10 minutes. It was late at night but it was still quicker than the year before when we arrived late at night and it took 30 minutes to check-in. This does not get your rooms ready faster, it just helps speed up the check-in process.

I made some new envelopes to use for some of my gifts. I have some papers to give the kids and also some different coupons (ice cream, mini-golf, etc.). I thought it would look nicer to use a cute envelope than to just throw a little piece of paper in that big gift bag. Don't worry, I saved the gift bags because there are some more gifts to come. 

To make these cute envelopes I did the following: First I needed an envelope. I just happened to have 3 plain, cream colored envelopes (I think they are still left over inside envelopes from my wedding 14.5 years ago), the size of these is 7x5. I had some Mickey Mouse scrapbook paper from some autograph books I made a few years ago. This paper was already cut to 6x6, I just trimmed the top and bottom so it would fit 5 inches. Next up is the Mickey head. I Googled "Mickey head outline" and searched until I found the right one. I saved it on my computer and printed it in the right size I was looking for. I cut the head out and then traced around it on black construction paper that I got from my kids art drawer, I glued the black head to the Mickey Mouse paper. As for the word "Days" it was typed and printed in the Waltograph font that I already have on my computer, it was glued to the Mickey head. I also typed some numbers in the Waltograph font and will tape those on daily. After all of this was put together, I glued it to the envelope. I'm sure this would look much cuter if someone had a Cricut but I do not and just used what I had. 

As for today's gift the kids are getting Pressed Penny papers. I found these papers at presscoins.com I used the "Current Listings with Short Descriptions". Back in April I gave the kids some quarters and pennies to use in the parks listed here and in May I gave them pouches to carry their pennies in here. These are nice checklists to carry in their backpacks so they can highlight the ones they want before we go and we will know exactly where to find them when we get there. There are 9 pages but if you photocopy 2 sided you can get away with only 5 pages. I will have the kids take only the pages they need, ex. if we are going to EPCOT there is no need to take the pages that list pennies from Animal Kingdom with us.   

Total cost of this gift is $0....I REALLY like free things :)