Have airline credit, Must travel: a mostly non-Disney park August 2019 adventure (11/29/19 update)

DAY 5: Our First Disney Park of 2019 (Continued)

So we found a pretty good spot to view the parade...and then I asked the kids if they wanted to do some trick-or-treating...and they replied NO. Who are these kids anyway???

We did get to see the headless horseman which was great...and I got a few not-so-great photos with my phone:

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One the parade was over, we had time for ONE MORE ride...and lately this is one we have done many times as the last ride at night at MK...so this seemed fitting:

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You will notice two boys of our party not present there...as they decided to make their way back to the room without us.

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A shot above as we left the ride...and then below as we left the park:

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And then our group shot taken at some point during the night:

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We had a great night at the party and definitely made the most of our ONE and only Disney park day of 2019. We didn't get to everything...but we did quite a bit in our 10 hours there.

So that's it for our Disney park of 2019. And we still had a little bit of vacation left.
 
Well back for a real life update...much stalking of different reservations has produced no availability to move us all close together for our upcoming December trip. I'll keep looking of course. I'll most likely buy everybody's park tickets while I'm in Orlando this month.

Today DH and I had a day off but the kids were all in school. We are lucky to live close to the National Zoo in Washington, DC which is FREE to enter. We packed a lunch and headed for the Metro this morning. I was super excited to see the new Cloud Leopard kittens that they they had there. I couldn't get great shots of them as they slept together high on a swing in a tree...but so cute:

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The pandas are also so cute:

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And this guy was clearly busy sleeping:
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Other than all the CATS I also love these guys:

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But mostly I'm there for the cats:
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And on another note, I got a text from the daughter of a friend of mine asking about a fundraiser for her school to raise money so they can go sing at the Candlelight Processional. What? My friend told me her daughter had some trip to Disney to sing but she wasn't sure in what event. This is HUGE...I'd love to go down just to see that as the CP is so lovely. Wonder if I can convince my friend to do a girls trip down with me to see that? Crazy right?
Not at all!
For the return trip I realized that for a little more than my plan to book two different hops on the way home I could just book SWA and I had enough points to cover my flight. DH has more points though...and has a lot of upcoming work travel so chances to earn more points coming up. He was willing to book my return flight for me, and while I requested a flight that would leave before his but had a connection that would put me home a bit later than him, he booked me instead on the same flight as him for about 4K more points. So we will get to travel home together I guess.
Nice!
So this one will be a very short trip...in December...2 nights at the most. And for what reason? Well I think I mentioned before that a good friend's daughter's school is singing in the Candlelight Processional for one night in December. The narrator is Neil Patrick Harris. My friend clearly had NO idea how big of a deal this was, when this school from Maryland sent in an audition tape to be part of this event. Even my husband, upon learning the news, didn't even blink when he realized I wanted to go with my friend and help plan out the trip. We have added a 3rd person so far to the trip also. So 3 girls on a short trip for the sole purpose of seeing a CP performance. My friend with the daughter is totally on board, and DH will be out of town on a business trip elsewhere so he isn't able to go anyway.
This will be so fun!
Yes this is the Dole Whip Froscato from Wine Bar George and yes it was quite delicious. Not a ton of alcohol in it but it was nice to walk around and enjoy on a hot Florida day. We did check in on doing the Void but the Star Wars version was down and the guys didn't want to do Wreck-It Ralph. So back on the boat and soon our treehouse was in sight:
Yum! That looks great!
And when I called to book several weeks earlier I was told ours would be the first one...and it clearly wasn't. However I seemed to be the only one concerned about this (the other couple didn't seem confused at all) so then I thought maybe i just got it wrong. I would find out later I did not...and I'm still not happy about it.

Now I'm okay with wine...but honestly didn't have much of an interest in learning that much about it. This was still a very interesting event and very well done and if you like wine it's great. This was about a 2 hour presentation and we probably ended a little before that. Let me say at this point I was so glad we had some food...and still all that wine...well afterwards I needed a nap!

Once it was done, we got in the touch with the kids who had made their way over and were letting us know that we had to approve them to be able to drive boats. So we met them on the dock and filled out paperwork and decided each adult would ride with a kid driver...so I got DD and DH ended up with the 19yo. Doesn't he look thrilled?
That's too bad, not very good communication on their part.
Hopefully my snoring wasn't mistaken for bears, but my 19yo was also hanging on a nearby couch. Soon the rain ended up driving people back to the hotel, and that meant they had some characters wandering the lobby. I woke from my nap to see a family talking to DALE...only they weren't sure which it was and with no handler there...and non-talking chipmunks...they clearly needed somebody to help which is when I did, as I like to do, starting talking to random strangers and explaining to them that they were in fact hanging with Dale and how they could tell them apart. And then I made my 19yo wander over and take MY photo with one of those lovable chipmunks:
Love it!
This was another day where we could simply hang out for a while with no need to rush off. However my DD16 is not a sit in the room and chill kid at all. While the others were okay watching TV, she wanted to get out...and so I made the decision to take her and I out to get pedicures. Something you don't know about me...I do not like having my feet touched...and I have NEVER had a pedicure. However I found one that got good reviews and we went...and were the only ones there. It was pretty clear that we both had no idea what we were doing, and pretty sure the people taking care of us and speaking a foreign language probably realized that too...but they were nice. It was an okay experience and our toes did look nice...and DDH16 got a manicure also.

Before heading back to our Treehouse we contacted the family to say we were going to pick up lunch from a favorite...Panera...so they placed some orders and we went to get food to bring back.
You are just like my sister, she doesn't do pedis either.
First ride complete, we had plenty of time until our next FP and thought we should just hang around Tomorrowland for a bit and do some rides there. Plus it looked like some rain was coming in and the best rides for rain are Carousel of Progress and Tomorrowland Transit Authority. We ended up doing both.
Two of my favourites!
I've given them all "homework" to complete regarding a CP Dining package. I want everybody to pick their top 3 choices (for lunch or dinner) and then I will work on trying to book a CP package. There are still plenty available but it's so tricky to get the TIME that you want for those shows, especially if you book a lunch, so I want to have time to get that done.

I'll probably get park tickets for everybody when I'm down there in a few weeks since I'll be staying at Shades of Green, but we may pre-order them. Right now we are looking at 2 day 2 park tickets and NOT hopping, but there is the possibility of hopping a bit on Friday maybe between 2 parks. I'm leaving that up to the group. I'm okay with whatever we do.
Are you still finding CP dining availability. I wanted to change my dinner to an early lunch but am not having any luck. Right now I have a 4 pm dinner at Rose and Crown with the 8:15 show. I hope it'll work out.

I think after this we went off and rode a few other rides...of which I can't recall. I think we did the Haunted Mansion at least as that was a must do:
Absolutely!
After this I think we headed back to the dessert party area and got our "escort" back to the Garden Plaza viewing area, which was just SO NICE. We could SIT on the grass and view the fireworks the entire time. Gosh it is so worth it.
Awesome!
So that's it for our Disney park of 2019. And we still had a little bit of vacation left.
Such a great day!
 
Are you still finding CP dining availability. I wanted to change my dinner to an early lunch but am not having any luck. Right now I have a 4 pm dinner at Rose and Crown with the 8:15 show. I hope it'll work out.

I honestly haven't looked recently. I just went ahead and did a late lunch (I think close to 2pm) at Coral Reef and the 6:45pm show that night. It's so tricky to get the exact show you want (and we really wanted the 6:45pm) so when I finally snagged this one I booked it. I've told the other ladies I'm open to trying to switch if they want to look for something else, but I wanted to make sure we had at least SOMETHING on hold.

Still zero luck in booking another room at Pop Century though (we currently have 2 of us at Pop and 2 at Carib Beach) despite stalking many times a day.
 


Adorable pictures from the zoo! We went to that zoo once a few years back and thought it was great. We have the Bronx Zoo right here so we compare every zoo to that and the DC zoo is the only one that's come close to being as good for us.

It would really great if people FOLLOWED DIRECTIONS.
Um, yes 1000%. You have no idea how many clients don't LISTEN and more frustrating don't read the emails/texts/papers I send them and then either don't get something done in time, or I need to explain the same thing to them over and over :headache:
I think our only plan right now is to have a nice dinner at Jiko (DH's choice) and perhaps do HHN. Anything beyond that we will just be playing it by ear I guess.
We tried Jiko for the first time last month and absolutely loved it. Citricos is still our #1 but we will absolutely return to Jiko. And I of course love that the rest will be played by ear because that's how I like doing the majority of each trip, just a little planning and a rough outline of what we're doing! Those trips/days end up being the best.
Doesn't the 19 year old look thrilled...as does his 16yo sister behind us. :)
:laughing: similar to my Ricky's ride pictures!
"How to get yourself thrown out of a Disney dessert party" on a FB post. People didn't realize that these were plastic and my FIL with that cup is trying to figure out of he can put that on the top. Spoiler: he didn't.
I think I missed this on FB but that's funny, it looks like your FIL really enjoyed this trip :goodvibes
I have no idea where they take this photo...yet.
OMG when this first started around the time of our May EPIC trip so many of us were confused and got some of the funniest pictures. So it's right before you enter the first room, the library. You know those portraits hanging on the wall to the right that change, like Medusa? The camera is behind I think the last one, the cat lady.
 
Adorable pictures from the zoo! We went to that zoo once a few years back and thought it was great. We have the Bronx Zoo right here so we compare every zoo to that and the DC zoo is the only one that's come close to being as good for us.

It really is a nice little zoo. It is no San Diego Zoo at all of course...but it's local and it's FREE so we do enjoy it from time to time. I may enjoy it more than my family. :) I actually like the Baltimore Zoo as well.

Um, yes 1000%. You have no idea how many clients don't LISTEN and more frustrating don't read the emails/texts/papers I send them and then either don't get something done in time, or I need to explain the same thing to them over and over :headache:

I can only imagine!

We tried Jiko for the first time last month and absolutely loved it. Citricos is still our #1 but we will absolutely return to Jiko. And I of course love that the rest will be played by ear because that's how I like doing the majority of each trip, just a little planning and a rough outline of what we're doing! Those trips/days end up being the best.

We haven't been to Jiko in many years...but it's still a meal that Frank remembers and he's talked about doing again quite often. This time we'll need to make it happen, especially since it's just the two of us. I agree about the non-planning for this one. We do have an outline but we'll see what happens.

:laughing: similar to my Ricky's ride pictures!
I think I missed this on FB but that's funny, it looks like your FIL really enjoyed this trip :goodvibes

Yep...it was pretty funny and yes he did for sure.


OMG when this first started around the time of our May EPIC trip so many of us were confused and got some of the funniest pictures. So it's right before you enter the first room, the library. You know those portraits hanging on the wall to the right that change, like Medusa? The camera is behind I think the last one, the cat lady.

Ah...good to know...though I'm not sure when I'll be back at MK. It is not a park I plan to visit for my next trip though it is in the running for another visit in December right now.
 
FALL UNEXPECTED TRIP

What
else can I call this one?

So I really had some thoughts about cutting my upcoming 5-night trip short for many reasons. Financially there is just no need for me to spend extra money on meals and other stuff while there as we are on a big push to try to pay off some bills. However when I started looking at options for changing my flight back home to an earlier one, it wasn't going to be a very big savings if at all in terms of points for DH to rebook it for me. I guess I'll just stick it out for the entire time.

I have a pretty rough schedule in place for now.

SATURDAY: Morning arrival, drive to Shades of Green. We are on 2 different flights on 2 different airlines that leave at about the same time, so hopefully that all works out. I have a rental car for the week so we'll pick it up and drive off as usual. We think we should have plenty of time to spend the afternoon/evening perhaps at EPCOT for this night, that is once we buy park tickets which we do NOT have yet. Crazy right? Right now I'm planning on 2 day single park tickets so no hopping. I think it can be done.

SUNDAY: DH has conference stuff and I am volunteering at GKTW in the morning. I should be done around noon then back to the resort. I'm not sure what I'll do for the rest of my afternoon. I have the Storybook Dining dinner reserved this evening for the two of us. I'd like to try to find someplace to watch the 4:25pm Ravens football game.

MONDAY: DH to conference, me to GKTW again. Nothing for the afternoon yet. Evening I think we plan to do HHN.

TUESDAY: I am volunteering a bit later as I anticipate a late night out the night before. Nothing for the rest of the day so far.

WEDNESDAY: I think we are going to try to do the early morning extra early magic hours at Hollywood Studios, aiming for a 6am arrival or so, and then checking out the new cool Star Wars stuff, getting some rides there as well as Toy Story Land and hopefully TOT and RNRC. We figure we'll be done late morning and then DH will probably attend some more conference stuff while I may hang out at HS for a while or head back and chill at the room or pool. We figured we'd come back later in the evening for more HS stuff.

THURSDAY: DH conference stuff, me hanging out. We'll have to leave for the airport around 2:30pm for our flight home.
 


DECEMBER GIRLS CANDLELIGHT PROCESSIONAL TRIP

So the details for this December trip are slowly coming together. This morning I managed to find that there were rooms available at Art of Animation for our 2 nights. I have booked a room for myself and my friend and let the other ladies know that they can try to book. It is slightly more than our Pop Century Room (about $15 more per person) but that's okay. Art of Animation is one of the resorts I have not stayed in so it would be cool to be there.

I have two CP meals planned right now and have requested everybody to decide on one of them so I can cancel the other one. One is at Coral Reef and one is at Chef de France.

It sounds like we are going to aim for an early Wednesday flight to maximize our time there. This would allow us to do 3 mostly full park days. Shades of Green has a great ticket we can use for that purpose...but now I'm having a slight dilemma. If I am purchasing a 3-park ticket for December and possibly a 2 park ticket for next week...well I'm about $200 away from purchasing an annual pass. The question is...am I planning on visiting any Disney parks in 2020? Because if the answer is yes to that, I should probably just buy the annual pass now. The thing is I'm just not sure, though I think there will be a trip in 2021 for my daughter's HS graduation at least, which is why I would have wanted an AP that would start perhaps this summer.

I hate that I am having to think all this through right now. What have I gotten myself into with these trips? This is not helping me work on my budget situation.

Anyway I will have a decision on this by next week for sure since whatever ticket we end up buying this Saturday will need to be extended by me before we leave if that's the plan.
 
An unplanned trip....live

So it's been a good day so far. I've been up for almost 12 hours now but I just had a very short nap to get me through the rest of the day.

So woke at 4am and at airport by about 4:45pm. Thankfully I figured out snafu number 1 with Spirit airlines last night so I didn't have to PAY to print my ticket at the airport. My ticket had no barcode...which Spirit lists as a known issue when opening it in GMAIL or OUTLOOK. What the heck?

My gate was pretty much the opposite of my husband's so we parted ways once my FIL dropped us off. I was eager to get food and a bottle of water for my flight but not much was open before 5am. Eventually I walked to another concourse and for my water and snacks. Kashi bar for breakfast!

Flight was uneventful and I landed only a minute or two after DH. I got to ride in the NEW Fake-o-Rail for the first time. I met him at luggage claim then off to our rental car and off to Shades...in the POURING rain the entire time.

The good news was it was an easy decision to not but a ticket and hit EPCOT as planned. I wouldn't have enjoyed walking around in that. Instead we grabbed a bite to eat at Shades of Green and then decided to catch a movie at Disney Springs. 10:50am showing of Zombieland Double Tap...only in regular and not dine-in theater though. All good.

When we emerged it had cleared up and even some sun..so we walked Disney Springs a bit and hit the bar at Jock Lindsey's...something I had wanted to try for a while. DH got a flight and I had a cocktail of some kind. The menu wasn't really calling out to me even though I was hungry. Instead I made a dinner reservation for Flying Fish for the evening. Can't wait. I'm starving!

So our remaining week schedule has shifted a bit but that's okay. I'm good with it being a bit fluid.

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Unplanned trip LIVE part 2

So headed out around 7:45am for my 8:30am volunteer shift at GKTW. Very quiet morning there at attractions and was done at 11:30am. Tomorrow I do a Disney Character Photo shift. Should be fun.

Came back and hung at the pool. I managed to move our Storybook ADR from 5:50pm to 4:05pm which was great. DH got back around 3pm and we headed to dinner around 3:45pm.

Such a fun meal and good food. I had prime rib and he had pork shank. Both were good. Apps were okay, loved the desserts especially the poison apple. Hung around just long enough to get all character photos including the queen who was EXCELLENT and scolded us a few times which was awesome. Wish I could share those photos but alas no Photopass account for me right now.

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here is me at GKTW this morning

and some dinner shots:
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we came back to SOG after dinner and watched the second half of the Ravens football game at Evergreens bar. At home our tradition is to celebrate Ravens touchdowns with shots of fireball. We continued that tradition today

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Ravens win meant a great evening for us. We headed back to the room and just chilled. We have an early day tomorrow followed by nothing. We have decided against HHN as DH doesn't want to stand in lines all night. I bought 1 day 1 park Disney tix today so we plan to do HS on Tuesday right now. All other plans have been cancelled so I need to figure out what I'll do the rest of my time.

Oh forgot to mention last night we had a great meal at Flying Fish and spent the rest of the evening riding the Skyliner around from EPCOT to HS and back. That was fun but not much to see at night. Hoping to ride again during the day this week.
 
Last full day today. Back on a plane home tomorrow. I am ready. Miss my kids.

Earlier this week got to spend several hours this morning hanging with this guy at GKTW:
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So awesome.

The place is great and these are genuine Disney characters.

Yesterday we had a very full day at not one but TWO Disney parks. Extra extra early morning magic hours rock! So worth it.

Also have crossed a few Disney bucket list items off including a visit to Trader Sam's Grog Grotto and the DVC Member Lounge at EPCOT and a meal at the Grand Floridian Cafe. Also rode Hagrids at Universal...twice.

So I'm mostly packed and trying to figure out what to do with my day tomorrow. Probably low key. My legs and especially one of my knees needs a break.

More details to come!
 
Sitting at the airport waiting for our full flight home. It has been a good last day but nothing exciting. I bought the tickets for my return trip in Decemeber and linked them to my people and made a bunch of Fastpasses as well. Next up is my flights for that. Did I mention the new Star Wars ride opens while we are there? No wonder I can't get rooms elsewhere.

Today I decided to hit the Disney Character Warehouse at opening...that was an interesting experience. Unfortunately wasn't close enough to the front of the line for the really good stuff but I got a cute Minnie backpack for about $15.

Met DH at Boardwalk and decided to hit Disney Springs for a bit before heading to the airport. We considered killing time by going to Splittsville but I was a but hungry and wanted Italian so we tried Maria and Enzos instead. It was good but so much food!

We have about 45 minutes until our flight and the dreaded cattle call will happen soon enough. We both forgot to check in early and got B40s so should be interesting if we get a seat together.

Ready to be home and back to work for one day tomorrow and then the weekend. Soon we will be planning the next trip in December I guess.
 
Hard to believe (again) that I'm only about five weeks out from my NEXT Disney trip. I'm very thankful to have this chance to travel and I hope it's a fun experience for all.

While I was at the Land O'Mouse last week I purchased 3-day tickets for our upcoming December trip for all of us. I've already gone ahead and booked Fastpasses for our 3 days there and have a tentative schedule in mind but it's subject to change as always. Saturday night we had dinner with a couple who are friends of ours and the wife is the one going on the trip with me as it's her daughter in the CP. She has pretty much said she's good with whatever I plan and totally trusts whatever we do and will just go along with it all. I know my other friend is the some way...we still have that mystery 4th person who we just aren't sure how she will handle our carefree and perhaps crazy touring schedule.

For right now, here is the tentative plan:

Wednesday: Early morning flight should have us in Orlando around 9:30am. We still have to book our flights, probably this week. I have a rental car to take us to our resort (right now it's Art of Animation) and then we will probably head to Magic Kingdom for the day. I have FPs booked for SpaceMT, BTMRR, and Peter Pan. I also have a late lunch/early dinner at The Plaza. MK is open until midnight...we'll see how long we can last since we will probably roll in around noon.

Thursday: Arrive as early as possible to EPCOT (EMH is 8am right now). I have FPs for Spaceship Earth, Mission: Space and Frozen. We have a Chef de France Candlelight Processsional Dinner package so we'll do that and then attend the 6:45pm show and see my friend's daugther sing with her chorus. We'll hang as long as we can at EPCOT.

Friday: Final day...am thinking of starting off at HS for the morning and hitting a few of the big ticket rides there. The new Star Wars ride will have opened the previous day so I'm curious to see if they end up adding some EMH to this park at some point as well (this is an EMH morning for MK). After a few rides at HS, we'll head over to Animal Kingdom where I have FPs for Na'vi River, Dinosaur and EE.

As I mentioned, Rise of the Resistance opens December 5th, which is the day we plan to be at EPCOT. It sounds pretty fabulous and I won't be surprised if there are soft openings even the day before. So it's very possible we may change our plans a bit just to try to see this new ride. Even though we aren't mega Star Wars fans it sound like the ride itself will be pretty amazing.
 
*** Life Update ***
Life...sure has a way of keeping us all entertained doesn't it? Earlier this week we celebrated my daughter turning 17 years old by taking her to dinner, then going to her last fall softball game (which was the first win for the team) and then coming home and doing cake and ice cream. Great!

Two days later, yesterday, AKA Halloween we celebrated my husband's 49th birthday. As we usually do, we headed out for an early dinner at a local hibatchi chain restaurant...so much delicious food cooked in front of you and fire! Lots of rice and protein leftovers taken home. As we were heading home around 6:30pm, planning for maybe doing a little bit of candy handing out and then our traditional late cake and ice cream for my husband...we went through an intersection not far from the restaurant...green light for us in a left turn lane onto a major highway...and then this:

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SIX of us inside our beloved tank 2008 Sequioia that we've owned for about 4 years. My 77yo FIL sitting behind my husband who was driving and taking the brunt of this. And having his own Frankenstein's Monster of a Halloween costume at the local E/R where he got his 3 stitches:

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On the positive side we all walked away from this (though we couldn't exit from the driver's side since that door wasn't opening and all side airbags had deployed. An ambulance was actually at the intersection and saw the entire thing so they were there immediately to treat us. The other driver also walked away from his little car. Why he ran a VERY VERY VERY stale red light is a mystery...I'm not even sure he tried to slow down as he hit us. My husband saw it coming but had no way to avoid it.

So there would be no birthday cake for us and no delicious fried rice leftovers either as they now reside inside the SUV that we won't be getting back for sure. We are still awaiting final adjudication and assignment of blame but we own a dash camera that will clearly show us going through a green light I'm sure.

What we will do next will take some sorting out. We don't owe anything on this vehicle so any money will have to go to a replacment and I'm not sure we want, or need, to replace this vehicle with the same one at this point. The plan is to take our time on figuring it all out, but I know my husband who just LIVES to shop for vehicles so we'll see how long he can hold out. One thing for sure it that a winter in Maryland is most likely going to mean ice and snow and the only other vehicle he has to drive is a convertible mustang. That won't work.

I will see we shared lots of laughs in the E/R last night as my FIL got stiched up. Hopefully we'll do the birthday cake celebration today instead.

I still can't believe that this is now makes the 4th accident in the last 3 years that my 19yo was involved in (he was only at fault for one, driving for 3 of them), 4th accident for his 15yo brother in 15 years (3 of them with airbag deployments) and 4th accident for my 17yo daughter (3 of them with airbag deployments). I think my kids have been in more accidents than I have in my 30+ years of driving at this point! That's crazy. This was only my second one with airbag deployment and having a vehicle totalled, both were side impact and both not my fault.

I'm afraid all of our friends are going to never want to get in vehicles with us again.
 

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