It's been a long, looooooong time since my last post about Mary Poppins - and I still haven't gotten around to posting about our last Disney trip! It's been an extremely busy year and I'll try to fill in best I can working backwards...

My son Derek just got back from his two week, People to People trip to Paris and London. For those of you who aren't familiar with the program, it was started by Dwight D. Eisenhower when he was President, and works towards getting kids from 5th grade to high school traveling around the world, learning new cultures, and sharing their culture with others. It's an amazing journey that took Derek through Paris, Normandy, Oxford, Parliment, and so much more. 2 weeks of non-stop activity. He returned immediately wanting to go on the next trip to Australia. Given the cost of these trips... I think he needs to get a job.

If others are interested for their kids, and I strongly recommend the program, you can find more details at the Student Ambassador web site.

I'll let Derek post himself if he wants to share about his experiences.

Prior to him leaving, in fact it was the night before, we took a trip into Chicago to see the D23 Mary Poppins musical. The seats were amazing, we ended up with 4 copies of the DVD (? - 1 per ticket? Really?), Mary Poppins pins (!), and we got to meet a few members of the cast afterwards, including Mary (now dressed in t-shirt and jeans) and Bert. The show itself was much longer than I thought it would be, but the singing and dancing was great and the musical really took it's cue from the book rather than the movie, so there's a different, edgier feel to it. At one point Mary battles with an older, evil nanny sent to replace her, and Mary casts her into a cage and banishes her to hell. Yup, that's what I consider "edgy". All in all a great show. I was little more disappointed in meeting the cast afterward - not that the cast wasn't great, but there were no pictures and no autographes allowed. Contrast that with the D23 event in New York, where both were allowed and you can understand my disappointment.

I'd still do it again in a minute though. Just for the pins. :)

Busy summer... the house has been pretty much booked a few weeks each month, which has been nice. I'll be putting a "end of month" sale up on my VRBO site today to book the last week in July (the only week not booked). September and October are still wide open for bookings as well. Being my first year, I'm just learning the ropes as to when to decrease prices and when to increase, as well as being able to gauge the pricing pulse of the area. From an economic standpoint, Disney is holding steady in attendance, and though they've had some great incentives the prices at their resorts have actually increased over last year. If anyone has ideas on what they'd like to find in a rental property, I'm all ears... :)