Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Ugh

We have been busy since we got home from my parents with work. Now I feel like I'm coming down with a cold. I started to take some vitamins and hopefully get rid of it. I'm feeling ok for the most part...just have a sore throat and a little on the achy side.

I love this time of year though. It seems like we are constantly busy between work and then holiday events. We have our holiday party on Friday December 16th. Ian's off work on Fridays naturally but we found out recently that my team will also be off because we start close to when they are releasing people to go to the party so excited about that.

We got a room at the hotel the party will be at. So now when we get up and get stuff together we can head to the hotel so we don't have to mess with downtown traffic on a Friday.

Then our anniversary is coming up pretty soon too. We are both off on the anniversary so we are going to cook up a meal together at home. Probably grill some yummy steaks on the grill and have some yummy sides. Maybe get some wine. Then just a few short weeks after our anniversary we will be getting packed up and ready to get on a plane and go to Disney. So very excited about our trip. I looked at our countdown the other day and we are almost to the one month and few weeks to go. I know we have our final payment due next week. I will be making that next Tuesday. Which means we will be around the 45 day mark. Pretty soon we will start seeing the Micky mail showing up with the stuff for the magical express bus tickets and the vouchers for the arcade, and misc stuff.

Ok...off to check on my home made chex party mix and then to take some meds to hopefully kick this cold to the curb.

~Hugs

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Almost Turkey Time!

So excited to get to go to Kingwood and see my family there. We will get to meet the newest addition to the family as well, our niece, Alice.

Work has been crazy slow for us. We are so on top of our queue they have been letting people leave early. I managed to snag a spot today and was able to come home at like 3pmish. I told them that I had no PTO to use as the PTO that is in the work tool is being used in Jan for our vacation. Well I thought they understood that I can't use the PTO and have since found out if it's there they have to use it. I wish this could have been maybe a little clearer as I thought since my time was in theory used that I didnt have any to spare so they wouldn't deduct it. So needless to say I'm a little concerned over how everything will work out for our vacation time.

Best case scenario is since I'm on a 4x 10 shift for our holiday shutdown pay, those on these types of shifts would get 40 hours of shutdown pay as others would get 32 hours as they work 8 hour shifts. If this happens and we get to either have 40 hours paid to us or we can elect to use them as holiday hours, which is what Ian and I plan to use. I will be ok. That would cover my leaving early today.

If on the other hand we only get 32 hours, then I will likely have to work the friday before we fly out for Disney and get to keep the remaining parts of the vacation the same.

I sent my manager an email letting them know I would no longer put my name in the mix to get sent home early just to avoid any confusion. They were thinking it would be ok as I get float as well at the start of the new year. However I had to inform them that all our vacation hours including float/holiday shutdown and vacation were going into the 80 we need for our two week vacation.

We are supposed to be getting information from the HR team soon to let us know about how we can use those shutdown hours. They usually offer to pay it out on the last paycheck of December or you can elect to have it carried over into next year to use as time off. We all know how Ian and I are using it.

I now see I should have clairifed some things with my manager before I agreed to take the leave early today...but it's done and over with now and nothing I can do to change it.

On the plus side I now get an extra 10 hours of pay thanks to them having to take out my leave early from my PTO today. So the ten I get on Thursday will be extra instead of covering for todays hours....lol.

Poor Ian..I have been a constant mess lately because of not knowing how the shutdown was going to work as we hadn't heard anything. Finally got an email letting us know we were getting it. Now we are just waiting for the last email that tells us how to let them know we want it as time to take off so we can get that last piece of the puzzle in.

The only last thing that is causing me a headache is some of my team members showed Thursday and Friday as being 10 hours of pay which is what is should be. But my tool was only showing 8 hours. Our manager will not be in for another week as they are on vacation. So hopefully my senior will know who I need to hit up if it's not fixed on Sat as that is our last payday. I don't want to be screwed out of any money. LOL...

What's funny is my other holidays for the rest of the year such as Christmas and New years show 10 but not this one.

Hopefully I can just relax and enjoy my long weekend. Don't have to go back to work until Sat.

I guess that is enough blabbering now. I know this post was a mess but I was just needing to vent about some things and just air it out.

Only two months until vacation as I let out a sigh of relief.

~hugs

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Touring Plans finalized now!!

I was a busy bee last night as the title should explain. I was reading my Disney tip boards last night and they had up the recommended parks to visit for our Jan trip up finally. After pouring over them and looking over our plans we had to make some changes. They base the parks they recommend for each day depending on several factors and did a really great job explaining them. So on to our plans:

Sunday Jan 22nd, we will fly out of the airport in Austin at 3:18pm and should get into Orlando around 6:40 pm. We will then make our way down to the Magical Express check in area and load up on a bus. No need to pick up our luggage as they will take care of it for us. We will then make our way to our resort, Cornado Springs Resort. After checking in we will probably be ready for dinner so will head our way to their quick service resturant. This likely will be the Pepper Market. I need to make arrangements for the shuttle/taxi in the morning for Discovery Cove.EEEEEEEEKKKKKKKK...yes I'm excited. We will probably just unpack once we get our bags delivered tonight, might check out the hot tub depending on the weather or just check out the resort grounds and take some pictures.

Monday - Jan 23rd, we will be getting up nice and early for Discovery Cove. I will probably have the taxi pick us up around 7:30am as they start checking in people at the reception area around 8AM and then we can go to their breakfast buffet they will have for us. Then it will be time to check out this place. We will have tons to see and explore. We will also be having lunch here as well and will be doing a dolphin swim at the time they schedule us for.

We will probably head back to the hotel around 4 so we can take showers and get refreshed for our dinner reservation at the table service resturant at our resort called Maya Grill. I have a feeling we will crash early as we will likely be exhausted from swimming so much and I'm sure it will be an emotional day for me. With all the swimming and my dream of swimming with the dolphins coming true, I bet I cry a few times.

Tuesday morning we will be up and at breakfast at the quick service place once more by 7:30AM. Then we will head to Hollywood Studios for some fun. The park opens at 9AM today and we will be spending all our time here today. We might go back to the hotel for an afternoon nap depending on how tired we are. We have a dinner reservation for Sci Fi Diner at 4pm. The park closes at 7pm so we will just go back to the resort and relax. Maybe hot tub for a bit depending on how tired we are from walking a bunch.

Wed morning we have a breakfast reservation at the Crystal Palace. This is in the Magic Kingdom part and we get to enter the park before it opens so we can get some amazing shots with the park nearly deserted. This breakfast has characters at it such as Winnie the Pooh, Tigger and their friends. We will be at this park today all day. It officially opens at 9AM and closes at 8PM. We have a dinner reservation at the Polynesian Resort at a yummy resturant called Kona Cafe. It's very raved about on my disney boards. Our dinner appt is set for 6:25 pm so we should be able to catch the night time fireworks from their beach and see the electric water pagent as well.

Thursday morning we have a breakfast reservation for Tusker House at Animal Kingdom Park. This is another character meal and we will have Donald Duck and pals like Mickey, Goofy, etc. We get in this park early again so can get some great shots with hardly anyone in the park. This is set for 8:15 am so we will likely need to be up and out the door by 7:30. We will stay and play here until we get tired or around 1pmish.

We can go back to the resort and relax for about 2 hours. Then we will head out to Epcot for a tour of the World Showcase. That was another thing mentioned in the touring plans. If you are going to get to Epcot twice in one week, to break it up. Such as one trip go around the world showcase and then on the next one do the stuff in future world. So that is our plan. We will head to Epcot by 2:30 at the latest as we have a dinner reservation for LeCellier Steakhouse at 5:35pm. We will stay until 9pm as Illuminations is set for 9pm. I definitely want to see it as this will be our only night in epcot this week. A lot of people recommend taking your time on your way out of the park after illuminations is over. As we will watch Illuminations from the World Showcase this will be easy to do.

Friday morning we will have a breakfast reservation set up for Kona Cafe at 8:05AM. We will then hop on the monorail and make our way to Magic Kingdom to get our favorites done again and catch anything we missed on the last trip. We will only stay until around noon and then go back to the hotel until about 2:30ish. Then we will go back to Hollywood Studios for any favorite again or things we missed on the first trip. Then we will make our way to Downtown Disney for some shopping and dinner at Earl of Sandwich. No dining reservations as it's a quick service type place.

Saturday morning we will get up and eat at our quick service for breakfast. Then we will go to Epcot as it opens at 9AM. We will tour the Future world items like Test Track/Soarin, pretty much any ride/show in this part of the park. This probably won't take more than a few hours and then go from here to Animal Kingdowm. We will do our repeats again like Expedition Everest and probably get to see the animals in the evening and get to see how they behave as the sun sets. We need to leave here by 5:15ish so we can make our way to the Ft.Wilderness Campgrounds as we have dinner reservations for a dinner show called Hoop de Doo Revue. This is a show and dinner. Plus it's served family style at each of their tables. When you get shown to your table you have bread/honey butter and salad waiting for you. Then we get fried chicken/ribs/mashed potato's/beans for dinner. Then for dessert we get strawberry shortcake. This also comes with unlimited drinks such as coke products/tea/pomegranite(sp?)lemonade/beer/wine/and sangria.

Once we are done here we will probably just go back to the hotel and pack and relax.

Our flight home on Sunday takes off at 12:30 pm. So magical express will pick up at the hotel around 9:30 or somewhere around there.

That's our trip plans and advanced dining reservations we have set up.

I should have a ton of pictures and videos to post when we get back.

Only a few more weeks until turkey day. YAY!!! So excited to be going home for a change.

Guess that is all for now. Take care!

~Hugs

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Update to my last post

So we received an email through the work that we are getting holiday shutdown carryover time. YAY! Apparently it's still only 32 hours so not sure why it was removed to begin with. I'm just very relieved to find out we are still getting it.

Apparently we should hear details in the near future. It's probably to ask if we want it as vacation hours or time paid out as extra pay. This is what they did last year so would be shocked to see if it was something different. Phew!

A little bit of stress that built up due to the time going missing has now been lifted.

We also got the date and time of our holiday party. It's going to be on Dec 16 which is a Friday. Great for Ian as he's off on Fridays but not sure how it will work out yet for those that have to work. If it's like last year only 3 get it approved as vacation and the rest will have to just have to make it up. I guess as details get released we will have an idea of if we will be going or not.

That's all for now.

~Hugs

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

OMG it's November!

The months are just flying by us now. I can't believe it's already November. We had a wonderful visit up at mama and papa faas's house. It was cut short by a day due to us having to get home for Ian's eye. His right eye had some cells develop under the flap they made for the surgery. They wanted to get him in ASAP because they multiply really fast. So they opened the flap back up and used what looked like a metal hook to pull the flap down and then used a sponge to scrape off the cells. Then put the flap back up and he was done.

This weekend we don't have much on the agenda. I think on Thursday we are going to go to the movies. Haven't been in a while.

As for vacation news we have a minor blip but hopefully it will get resolved and no more issues arise with it. Some of the time we were going to use for the time off is called holiday shutdown time. It was in the system when we put the time in for the vacation and now all of a sudden it disappeared.

Ian spoke with his team manager and he thinks they removed it because we are getting bumped up to 40 hours of it instead of 32. That will be awesome if that happens. Hopefully we will know for sure in the very near future. His team manager has a ticket in to our HR people to find out for sure. Hopefully it's not taken away because we know corporate is shutting down for the holidays and that is why we get it. Only time will tell.

Hopefully we know for sure soon though because I need to cancel my November request if we aren't getting it to have enough hours for the full week we would be at Disney. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Not much else to report now.

~hugs