...Vacation...

***This post is long. Really long. The beginning is more of a journal entry and has nothing to do with physical health or weight loss. However, closer to the end it does get into health issues. Fell free to skip to the end. :) ***


I've mentioned several times the vacation were getting ready go on. But lemme give y'all some of the details and talk about some of my worries and dilemmas.

The vacation -- Mickey Mouse - whooo hewww!!

I guess I should start with who all is going and why were going. Mistee, Monkey, Bubba and I, along with the boys' God mother, Duppy are the ones going on the trip.

This past year has been very rough on our family to say the least. Last year February, our little Doodle moved in with us. Doodle is our G-baby from Mistee's oldest son. **I'm 32 and refuse to use the word-grandmother.** We welcomed him with open arms and he's been a blessing to have. He's not an easy baby, but a blessing none the less. To add to our little family of five, because of some CPS issues - our niece , nephew and their younger sister, moved in as well. At that point, we had five kids aged 9, 9, 7, 3, 2 and 1. So, to help out the house and to work towards getting custody of his kiddos, Mistee's brother moved in - relocating from out of state. Our three bedroom house that used to home a family of four - in less than a years time, was housing a family of nine.

Diddy and Angel(our niece and nephew)came with nothing. Absolutely nothing. Because of that, and other factors, Monkey and Bubba's way of life was completely transformed. They were unfortunately, put into a position of having to not only share their possessions, but their parents, outings, holidays and personal space as well. This was very hard on them, to say the least.

Mistee's brother was not able to financially help us and his ex (the kids' mother) chose not to help us. Because of that - financially, it was a very rough time.

We felt we owed it to our boys to do something for them. Something where we could celebrate the core of our family. It needed to be about us for us. And it needed to be big.

That's where Mickey Mouse came into the picture. We've taken several long weekend trips out of town over the years, but have never taken a true family vacation.

Disney packages are very easy to book and are surprisingly not as costly as you'd think. I booked our trip this past July and have been able to pay on it, little by little, as time went on.

We're leaving noonish on the 12th of March and will return home on the 21st. Part of the adventure for us is that were driving - yes, driving - the 21 hours from here to Orlando. All of the adults love road trips and it was cheaper for the five of us to drive verses fly.

Mistee and I have both been to DW several times in our younger days but never together. This will be the first time for both of the boys. Their ages are perfect at almost 10 and almost 4 (both of their birthdays are in April). I know the fun that's waiting for them. I am unbelievably tickled with excitement for them because I know it will be the trip of a lifetime. There's nothing like your first experience with Mickey Mouse. Ive actually been caught crying a few times over the months because of excitement on watching their experience. ** Yes, Im one of THOSE moms**

Back in August, Monkey and I made a paper chain to count down the days we had left to go on the trip. There were 192 links on the chain-one for every day until our trip. Every night, before bed, he would cut a link of the chain off. This was the chain right after we hung it:


This is the chain today!



***
"So, what are your worries and dilemmas?" your probably asking.

If you've never been there - you have NO idea of the food available. Anything and everything your heart could ever imagine! Seriously, its insane. There are even message boards dedicated to the food at DW. Disboards has a thread dedicated to "food porn" - pictures of food taken there. Don't believe me? Look!

I researched almost all of the restaurants and booked our meal reservations months ago. Our meals are included in our trip package so I wanted to make sure we were getting our moneys worth. However, I booked all of our reservations based on yummyness of the food - not on my healthy mission. I actually booked everything before beginning my healthy mission.

On the subject of exercise - I found out that a person can walk on average of 10 to 14 miles a day there. That's a total of 80 miles, for our trip, figuring on the low end. If a person walks 10 miles a day at 30 minutes a mile - which is a very casual pace-- that's 1379 calories burned (per sparkpeople). That makes 11,032 calories burned for our 8 day trip. Holey cow! That's alot of burned calories. That would be a little over 3 pounds burned just by having a party with Mickey Mouse!

Knowing all of that still doesn't put my mind at ease. I am terrified of wasting all of my time busting my hump for these months, just to gain all of my 22 pound (so far) weight loss back on a 10 day trip.

How on earth am I going to be able to resist not snacking and eating all day? How am I going to be able to NOT eat everything that's served? What about my 4/1 walk mission I'm on? I wont have a treadmill. What about my water?

So far - I have a few plans. I'm just going to have to take a break from my 4/1 - but I figure with as much walking as were doing, it'll be ok. I'm not packing my Wii but I am taking my laptop. So - I can take Jillian with me for some 30 Day Shred. Also, on Exercise tv's website I found a great 30 day plan. Each day has a different work out, which is great now because I wont get bored. But since its online - I can do these while on the trip too. Yay! Now, I'm not saying I plan on walking 10 miles a day, doing 30 Day Shred AND the exercise tv 30 day plan. I just want to have options. I would LOVE to come home and say I did either Jillian or Etv everyday. So the fitness part doesn't seem to be my issue.

I'm not really worried about my water while we're there. I have always chosen water over other drinks offered and know with the amount of walking were doing, I'll drink gallons. But on the road trip, I don't want to have to stop and pee every hour, so I guess I wont be able to drink much - which means I'll feel like doo doo. I can start to feel dehydrated after just a couple of hours of no drinking

But the food - oh the food! How do I do it guys? How do I resist? I want to be able to have fun on the trip and not feel consumed by what I'm putting in my face but I want to stay on track too. I plan on taking a notebook with me everywhere, so I can write down all I'm eating. But actually tracking the calories consumed will be hard if there are no nutrition menus or websites with the information available.

So, if any of you have any advise or ideas that worked for you - or ones that didn't work for you, cause they may still work for me - please let me know!

If I break even, Ill be happy. But, I do NOT want to come back with a gain. I will be devastated.


**Mistee's brother has since been given full custody of his kiddos. He got his own place and they moved out three weeks ago. Their little sister went back to their mother. We still have Doodle.**