10 Things About Me
1. My name is Diana but people constantly call me Diane. I am so used to it that I barely even notice anymore.
2. I hate to fly. I know it can be explained by physics, but the thought of a huge chunk of metal flying through the air completely bewilders me. I will do it but I don’t enjoy it.
3. I homeschool my 3 daughters. We have so much fun together and we love to vacation during the school year with lower crowds & prices.
4. I love Diet Dr. Pepper. I know it is not good for me but I just can’t help it. (ETA: I have significantly reduced my soda intake over the last year and feel really good about that!)
5. I also love hot tea. I drink it at least once a day, sometimes more. As a kid, I remember my mom drinking lots of hot tea and I thought it was so weird. Now I get it.
6. I am an architect. I went to college for 7 years, then worked full time for 5 and passed 9 exams to get my license and then 1 month later quit my job to become a full time mom. I have never regretted it for a second.
7. I love the color turquoise.
8. I laugh at everything. My husband makes fun of me all the time. He really is a funny guy but even if he wasn’t, I guarantee you I would still laugh at everything he said. I even laugh at the Jungle Cruise skipper (and no one else does of course – except for my 8 year old).
9. I was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 38. You can read about my journey here.
10. I LOVE the Sound of Music. Love, love, love it. I have been watching it since I was a girl and it never gets old. I dream about visiting Austria one day and visiting some of the locations where it was filmed………if I can ever make myself stay on an airplane that long.
Wow! You homeschool???? We have something more in common than Disney, I guess. I homeschooled my oldest two…a son who just graduated from Engineering and a daughter who just finished her first year of college in Engineering. I am now starting all over again with our youngest, who just turned six. We have finished Kindergarten and I am currently planning Grade 1.
I also LOVE Coke (I also know it’s not good for me!), dislike tea, besides being raised Canadian, where everybody drank tea, and also do not drink coffee (I maybe get one coffee a year at a place like Starbucks if I am hanging out with someone and they stop).
Thanks so much for sharing you list. I loved reading it and getting a picture of the person behind the blog.
I’m glad you enjoyed it! This is only my 2nd year homeschooling so you could probably give me all sorts of advice! We really love the flexible schedule and it definitely allows us to cruise more often.
I would be happy to help, if you had any questions or were looking for suggestions. I have had a pretty wide range of experiences. For the first two kids I followed a strict diet of Sonlight. The program was great, but for as awesome as it was, I always felt like we were missing out on the “fun learning” and never had time to fit it in. I LOVED all of the stuff in the Timberdoodle catalogue, but it wasn’t really presented in any organized fashion at that time (i.e. a guide to show you how to schedule their products). They do have that now. Lots of time passed…tons of things changed and improved in the homeschool world, and then I started over.
For my youngest, I decided that we weren’t going to miss out on the fun. I have definitely deviated from the rigorous SL program and become much more eclectic. I still use my Sonlight readers and read alouds, but if there is a book we hated the first time, I just don’t read it this time…and I don’t feel bad about it. Likewise, if there is a book I would love to share with my son, then I just add it to our schedule. This time around I seek out the fun stuff (usually from Timberdoodle) and make sure I add in tons of things like miniLUK, games, art kits, puzzles, thinking skills, dot-to-dots, and whatever else we feel like doing. I still make a daily/weekly schedule, which I relatively firmly adhere to, but I make sure there is a balance in what we do each day. I am enjoying my teaching and my day so much more now…and my son seems to really enjoy it as well.
I know there are tons of homeschoolers in Texas, so you likely have people you connect with, but I am absolutely open to any questions you might have for me. I used to act as an unofficial “advisor” for the people in my old homeschool group in Oregon, but after moving, we don’t really have any homeschoolers around anymore to discuss curriculum and other stuff with. (If you want, you are welcome to email me privately. I don’t get notifications sent to me when you respond, even with marking that selection, so I generally just come back to your site to check.)
Like you , we have loved homeschooling for the fact that we can be flexible in our travels. My husband has taken the older two on business trips, we have taken them to Ireland, and of course there is always Disney!
How are you guys faring in the rain now? I can’t get over the devastation and deaths I have been reading about down there.
Michelle, thanks for letting me know you weren’t getting the notifications. I changed some settings and I hope the problem is fixed. I will send you an email regarding homeschooling stuff. I would love to chat more about that! Yes, the flooding is devastating and many are suffering heartbreaking losses. I feel bad about making light of it in my blog post that I wrote before all of the terrible stuff started happening yesterday. All of my friends and family are fine. We are north of Austin and the major flooding is downtown and south of Austin, as well as in Houston. We were huddled in the bathtub yesterday after a tornado was spotted near our house but luckily we had no damage. It is supposed to rain more Thursday – Monday so let’s hope and pray that this doesn’t get worse.
Thanks for your great posts!
Loved reading your input on the Disney Wonder Merrytime Cruise.
We are going on our first Disney cruise in December and have 3 homeschooling girls too!
Blessings on your journey!
Thank you Megan! I’m glad you enjoyed the posts. If you have any more specific questions regarding your cruise, please don’t hesitate to email me. Also, I LOVE meeting other moms of 3 girls, especially ones that homeschool! Thanks for commenting!
Hi, my family (6 adults and 5 children {ages 5-15} are going on our first Disney cruise in June 2017. I just yesterday booked our cabins on the Dream for the 4 night cruise from the Cape. We are crazy Disney “everything kind of folks .
My husband and I will be celebrating our 50th anniversary next year and we want to share the occasion with our children and grands!!
I’m a retired early childhood teacher. With this being said,I love to be really prepared for my family on trips. I want to digest as much information in order to make our trip wonderful. Please direct me to all sites and let me pick your Disney mind for tips , hints etc. Thanks in advance.
Hi Junnie! I like to be super prepared for trips as well. I suggest reading everything on my blog as well as visiting the cruise section of the disboards here: http://www.disboards.com/forums/disney-cruise-line-forum.9/ Between these 2 websites, you should find out everything you need to know for your cruise. If you have any specific questions that you can’t find an answer to, please don’t hesitate to email me at disneycruisemomblog@gmail.com.
Hi Diana,
I am reading your blog from Israel where I live! Yesterday I found your blog through another Disney blog page. I am also a Disney lover, both WDW and DCL. Because we live so far away it’s a bit harder to get my fix, though! We took our 4 kids on a Disney cruise in 2012 (NY-Canada) and in 2014 I cruised Western Caribbean with 5 girlfriends.
The amazing thing is that after reading your blog yesterday, including your journey with cancer, this morning I got a text message that my sister in law here in Israel has DCIS. She is in her mid 40s. Mammograms are not done routinely here until age 50 but “for some reason” she decided that she needed one earlier. So today they are at the hospital for “the meeting” I guess to decide her treatment. She also has three girls ages 8,10 and 13. I think it was not by chance that I explored your blog yesterday.
Hope that you are doing well and looking forward to hearing about your next cruise(s)!
Laurie, thank you for reaching out to me and letting me know about your sister-in-law. I know that it was not a coincidence that you were led to my blog. The only reason I shared my cancer story is because I had a gut feeling that it would at some point help someone who is in a similar situation. I am so happy to hear that it did. I know your sister-in-law (and your entire family) are probably very scared right now, but I hope you can find some peace and reassurance in my words. If indeed the only thing she has is DCIS (I had an MRI after my mammogram to make sure nothing else was hiding in there), then her prognosis is excellent. If you are going to be diagnosed with breast cancer, then this is the diagnosis that you want to get. DCIS is cancer that has not and cannot leave the milk ducts, so that eliminates the fear that it may have (or will) spread to other parts of her body like most cancers. I won’t go into too many details because I know she will hear all of this from the doctors today, but DCIS has a 99% survival rate and she will almost certainly be just fine. After my DCIS was removed, the pathology actually showed that a tiny spot (2 mm) was invasive cancer which can spread, but they checked my lymph nodes and they were clear. However, this means that I need to take a estrogen-blocking pill for 5 years in the remote chance that a stray cancer cell did make its way to another part of my body. The pill will basically starve the cancer cells by preventing them from receiving estrogen, which is what feeds them. I am stunned (but not really) about the similarities in our stories. Getting a mammogram only on a gut feeling, 3 daughters almost the same ages, etc. I know that God placed it on my heart to share my story and that he is in control. Please keep me updated on your sister-in-law as things progress! Now about you: I am fascinated by the fact that you live in Israel! How long have you lived there? How old are your kids? Do you travel to other parts of the world often? I have so many questions, but will leave it at 3 for now. Hope to hear from you soon!
Hi Diana! I also hate to fly (but can do it), homeschool my son, and love Disney, turquoise, and The Sound of Music. My vice is Coke Zero. My main obsession is WDW (DVC, AP, Disney blogger and podcaster), but we will be taking our 2nd Disney cruise next year. Your blog has some great tips!
Hi Heather! We sound like kindred spirits!!! I will definitely check out your blog. Which cruise will you be taking next year?
4-night Bahamian out of Port Canaveral sailing 4/16. Can’t wait!
I will be doing my first Disney cruise 2018 on the Disney dream I was wondering is it best to arrive early to the port also I will be traveling alone no kids my daughter will be off to collage and my husband work for the school and cant take time off so alittle treat for myself I mean big treat lol I will go to walt Disney world for one week then off to the cruise any suggesting for first timers for both walt Disney world and Disney cruise also I will be goin the month of December the first week.
Hi Adrina! When you do your online check in for your cruise, you will be asked to choose a port arrival time. I suggest arriving at that time. The terminal opens at 10:30, so that is the earliest you could arrive, but your port arrival time could be anywhere from 10:30-2:00 or so.