Make A Wish Trip - Day Four

Saturday, Day 4 began at Give Kids The World Village with a ride on a horse. Twice a week horses are brought in for rides and wagon rides. Paige rode a pretty mare named Ginger who Paige describes as a "very nice horse" and "cute". 

From there we headed out to Universal Studios, where we met up with Curious George.

And Jaws. 

Paige and Jim then went on the "Men in Black" ride (which Paige gave a two thumbs up rating) and then to The Simpsons Ride (Paige described that one as "awesome"). 

Next was visiting with Shrek, Donkey and Princess Fiona. We were on our way to get ice cream, and Donkey asked Paige if she would bring him some mint chocolate chip ice cream. Shrek asked for eyeball ice cream with a side of weed rat (Paige asked I add that she thought Shrek's request sounded yucky).

We were all a bit tired and hot when we left Universal.

Which gave Paige the perfect excuse to dance in their fountains located near the entrance.

It took about 4 minutes before she was soaking wet (which must have felt great because it was 95 plus degrees...again).

We got back to Give Kids the World Village and took a quick swim. Paige loves to go swimming, but what she really loves to do is jump in the pool. 

Believe it or not, the house where we are staying is on Paige's Way.

Saturday night is Mayor Clayton's Birthday Party at Give Kids the World with practically everything a kid could ask for in a party. Music, dancing, cake, face painting and other fun stuff. Here Paige is decorating her own My Little Pony.  Tons of volunteers help out at this with the face painting, making snow cones, serving up ice cream (Paige had some ice cream after the party), running the train around the village and dressing up as Mayor Clayton and Miss Merry. 

A view of Give Kids the World Village, with the Amberville Train Station in the background. All the other people you see in these photos are either volunteers or other families staying here. 

Dance Party!

During each child's visit at Give Kids the World, Mayor Clayton or Miss Merry will stop by to tuck them in. Last night Mayor Clayton was still busy with his birthday party, so Miss Merry stopped by our villa to tuck in Paige. Two thumbs up.

Every day we've been here Paige has received a surprise gift left for her by the Fairy. So far we've received stuffed animals, games, books, silly bandz and cards. And that's on top of the gift she got to pick out a few nights ago at Christmas. These wonderful people at Give Kids the World really do everything possible to make the kids stay here magical. 

Make A Wish Trip - Day Three

Several times a week, characters from Disney and Universal Studios make special trips to Give Kids the World (GKTW) Village just to meet with the families staying there. On Saturday, Paige and Jim met with Scooby Doo and Shaggy, who stopped by GKTW for a few hours for photos. 

We then headed off to Disney World for our second day in the park, and rode Space Mountain (Paige, who loves fast roller coasters, just thought it was okay).  After that ride, we bumped into Chip and Dale for a few photos. They, like most characters, had a long line of people waiting to get their pictures taken, but because of Make A Wish, we walked right up and got our photos right away. 

We then went on Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, and Paige loved that she could shoot at the bad guys with her laser gun. And back to the carousel. 

We then headed over to Epcot.

We rode The Seas with Nemo & Friends ride, and hung out in the small aquarium waiting to see Turtle Talk with Crush. 

This show was great, and the highlight of my day. In case you've never seen the movie Finding Nemo, Crush is the 'surfer dude' turtle who helps Nemo find his way through the ocean. Turtle Talk is an interactive show with Crush - the kids sit on the floor in the front of the room, right in front of a giant screen, where Crush swims around and talks with them (imagine a G rated version of Jeff Spicoli from the movie 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High' with a great sense of humor who says 'dude' in every sentence).

Before we went into the show, Jim approached one of the cast members asking if Crush might be able to talk with Paige, letting them know she is a Make A Wish kid. They sat her in the front row for the 15 minute show and Crush asked to talk with the girl in the 'blue shell' (she was wearing her blue Make A Wish shirt). The cast member (the guy in the red shirt in the photo, below) gave P a microphone. Crush asked P what her name was and where she was from and who she was here with. When she said 'Dad' they gave a microphone to Jim who also got to answer silly questions from Crush (I was glad she forgot about me since I was getting a bit emotional and had a lump in my throat). Crush talked to Jim and P for about half the show. I had tears in my eyes. It was if she was alone in the room talking to Crush. 

While at Disney we chose to go two 'character dinners' where certain Disney characters mingle with you as you eat your meal. Friday night we went to a "princess dinner" (located inside the Grand Floridian Hotel). We had packed a change of clothes for Paige, knowing she'd probably need one after a 95 degree day but forgot to pack a change of clothes for ourselves. Whoops. 

FYI if you're visiting Disney and are looking for a relaxing meal, this is probably a bad choice as a character comes out to walk around every 7 to 8 minutes. They have a knack for stopping at your table when you have a mouthful of food. Like every other Disney character they really played their parts well and spent several minutes at our table. 

The first character to come talk to us was the Wicked Stepmother, aka Lady Tremaine. She was interviewing Paige about her housekeeping skills. I don't think Paige heard a word she said.

Our next visitor was Anastasia, one of Cinderella's two step sisters. 

Rounding out the Trio was the second stepsister, Drizella. I complimented her on her subtle makeup. 

We had a fantastic waitress who brought P a huge cupcake. Just as she was finishing eating all of the frosting, we had another visitor...

Cinderella. Paige (literally) couldn't take her eyes off of her. 

Then along came Prince Charming. Paige was enamored with Prince Charming. She stared at Cinderella but was practically beaming at Prince Charming (who is signing her autograph book in this photo).

Soon after, music started up, Cinderella danced with Prince Charming and then they invited the kids in the room to dance as well. 

After the dancing was done and the characters had retired (to wherever Disney characters go to rest) our waitress asked Paige how she was doing and if she wanted a banana split. I thought she was joking (after   having been given the cupcake earlier). Minutes later she came out with a banana split. 

Before I sign off, I wanted to add two things about our trip down here to Florida.

During our flight, a flight attendant stopped by to talk to Paige and ask her what she was looking forward to at Disney World - P told her the roller coasters.

After we had landed in Orlando and were waiting for the plane to make it to the gate, the flight attendant made an announcement to the entire plane that there was a special passenger on board named Paige who was headed to Disney for a few weeks and was looking forward to riding all of the roller coasters. Paige looked at me with a huge grin after she realized the attendant was talking about her.

Less than a minute after we walked into the airport, another passenger from our plane came up to us and wished Paige a fun trip. She handed Paige a dollar bill (I assumed it was a dollar bill) and told Jim and me that she is a nurse and has a special place in her heart for kids. Only after we thanked her did we find out she had given P a $50 bill. 

Going back to the beginning of our trip, in Lincolnshire IL, I had mentioned in an earlier post that a professional photographer (who specializes in covering fires all over Chicagoland) followed us from the fire station to the airport. He also has a blog, and included Paige in it. Here is the link to his blog:  Chicago Area Fire. Once there, scroll down to his May 18 entry. At the end of the entry is a link to his photography site where you can view all 286 photos Tim Olk took. 

Make A Wish Trip - Day Two

While in FL, Make A Wish gave us three days at Disney, two days at Universal Studios and one day at Sea World. We thought we would begin our trip with a day at Disney World - specifically, the Magic Kingdom. 

The Make A Wish families are also given special passes while at those parks which let the park employees know that they are "Wish Kids" and to give them special treatment. Part of that special treatment is that we don't wait in line for pretty much anything.

We were still not too clear on how this worked yesterday when we got to the park. After wandering around for a few minutes we saw that Pluto was taking photos with kids and families, and there was a short line to wait for turns with Pluto. Anytime a character is doing a 'meet and greet' they also have a Disney employee with them as the characters don't speak. About 15 minutes later we were near the front of the line when Pluto began pointing at Paige and then tapping his chest, trying to get the employee's attention. 

Turns out Pluto saw Paige's Make A Wish button (pinned onto her shirt on her chest) and knew she was not supposed to be waiting in line to see him. The Disney employee (they are all called 'cast members') came got us out of line and brought us up to Pluto for some photos, giving Paige several hugs and high fives in the process. 

Daisy, another character, was doing a similar meet and greet several feet away (with a long line of families waiting to see her). We were taken over to her for some photos, and Daisy spent several minutes with Paige dancing around and excitedly pointing to Paige's shoes (which had little pink flowers on them). 

As we headed towards the castle, we stopped in one of many stores to check out all the fun things for sale.

One of the many things I forgot in the "Day One" blog was the overwhelming generosity of everyone at Lincolnshire Riverwoods Fire Protection District and Lincolnshire Riverwoods Fire Fighters Union who gave Paige money and gift cards to buy fun stuff while at Disney. I'm talking lots of money and gift cards. So thanks to their generosity Paige has been spending some quality time in the Disney stores picking out fun things. So far she has a neat Princess pink baseball hat (we made her choose a hat to keep from getting a sunburn), several packages of Disney pins and a Pluto stuffed animal (that she has not put down).

We then made it to Cinderella's Castle in time for one of their shows. Paige was wide eyed watching the princes and princesses sing and dance around to music. Jim and I were trying to figure out how hot these   actors had to be in their heavy costumes and how they could look so happy dancing around in the sun on a 90 degree day. 

We wandered off and went on the Alladin ride. Several minutes later Paige got to meet Jamine and Alladin who were about to go on a break (leaving several people in line who had to wait until they got back) but happily met with Paige before they left. As with all the Disney characters, they spent several minutes with Paige talking to her and posing for photos.

I probably shouldn't admit this but I'm a fan of Saturday Night Live. As Paige was chatting away with Jasmine and Alladin I couldn't help but think about a funny Alladin skit on SNL.

Last week at Paige's stress test, Mr. Mike (P's exercise physiologist aka super Disney fan) told us that we could buy Disney pins and Paige could approach any Disney employee and ask to trade for one of theirs.    So we bought her a Tinkerbell lanyard and a few pins (thank you, local 4224) and every now and then she'd ask an employee to trade.

We were about to go into the Pirates of the Caribbean ride when we saw three employees talking, so Paige approached them and asked to trade. They immediately stopped what they were doing and all began talking to her. They were actually each trying to outdo the next and have her trade with them instead of the other employee - here they are in the photo showing her all of the pins they had on their lanyards.

The employee in the blue shirt (you can only see part of his shirt and shoe in this photo) asked me how our day was going, and if we were having a nice trip, and I told him we were.

After he left, the guy in the green checkered shirt turned to me and confided the 'blue shirt' guy is a Disney VP and was walking around checking things out, and seemed very relieved to see the big cheese keep walking. Who knew. 

Our next stop was the Jungle Cruise (and like every ride we were zipped in with no wait), and we were seated at the front of the boat. As we entered the dark cave, the guide asked Paige if she'd like to drive the boat, which she happily did with a big smile on her face. 

We were walking through Frontierland when we saw Woody and Jessie from Toy Story. Another long line that we didn't have to wait in. Paige would not let go of Woody's hand.

One great thing that Make A Wish did was rent Paige a stroller for our stay. With the hot sun and warm temperatures, she spent more than half the day in the stroller which saved quite a bit of energy (hers, not ours). I have never seen so many strollers in my entire life than I have at DisneyWorld. 

Next it was onto Thunder Mountain Railroad, a fun roller coaster. For those of you that don't know Paige well, she loves roller coasters. The faster the better. Jim was riding in the car ahead of us and spent the better part of the ride facing backwards taking our picture. Somehow her Make A Wish pin came off during the ride (here it is still on her lanyard), we never did find it. Not a big deal, the Disney employees always ask to see our special pass before letting us go into the rides the back way (and not the pin, it is only for more decoration).

Paige loves carousels almost as much as she loves roller coasters. Here she had just gotten off the carousel, which sits right in the shadow of the castle. As a 'horse person' I have a bad habit of scrutinizing carousel horses as oftentimes they totally get all the tack wrong (that would be saddles and bridles for you non-horsey people). Not with these horses - as with everything else Disney, they were right on the money. 

Can't leave the park without getting a token photo in front of the castle.

I haven't gone into too much detail about where we are staying, Give Kids the World Village (GKTW), mostly because we haven't spent too much time there (yet), other than sleeping, but will tell you all about this amazing place within the next few days. 

Every Thursday night is Christmas at GKTW. Santa comes to give presents to all the kids, a snow machines blows in snow and there are horse drawn carriage rides and a big party. Or, should I say 'par-tay'.

So just in case Paige didn't already have an amazing enough day at Disney World, she got to hang with Santa last night where she presented him with a picture she colored herself and he gave her a present. 

She then went outside where she hung out with one of Santa's reindeer, danced around, played in the snow and enjoyed some cotton candy. Before she went swimming (and finally to bed). 

To give you an idea of how amazing this place is, we have our own 2 bedroom, 2 bath villa (with a kitchen, living room, washer and dryer and a front porch with rocking chairs) all to ourselves. Each day a fairy leaves a present for Paige while we are gone. There is a ice cream parlor open all day (and families are encouraged to let the kids have ice cream for breakfast at least once during their stay) and a carousel that runs all day long. Plus two pools, pony rides twice a week, putt putt golf, a movie theatre and an amazing playground. Plus activities and parties every day. 

Make A Wish Trip - Day One

We were told by various people that we'd have some (pleasant) surprises along the way during this trip. That was a major understatement, and we're not even done with day one yet.

When we learned that the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Wisconsin had granted Paige her wish (for a Disney World trip full of princesses), Jim approached Chief Kruger at Lincolnshire Riverwoods Fire Protection District and his local firefighters union asking them if they wanted to be involved with the wish - specifically, if Paige might be able to ride to the airport on a fire engine, and if the union might consider buying Paige a custom made set of turnout gear, they both said yes, they would be glad to help out.

Paige knew none of this, we only told her we were driving to the airport (Chicago O'Hare) today and we needed to stop by the station to pick up something Jim had forgotten at work the day before.

When we arrived at the station today, Paige, Jim and I were all very surprised to find the conference room at Station 53 full of people throwing her a send off party. The room had been decorated with streamers and princess-y things, a lunch had been catered and a beautiful princess cake (worthy of a Food Network show) was waiting. Firefighters (both on and off duty), family members and other local fire service folks were all there, and Paige was presented with the (really, really neat) custom made turnout gear (plus a helmet) with "Spicka" and "LRFPD" on the back, just like Daddy's. 

All the kids were super excited to get the cake!!!

The McCaughey, Spicka and Brown girls trying to stay out of trouble.

When Paige was born, the local union bought Paige a firefighter teddy bear at Build A Bear workshop, which spent many days with us in the NICU and PICU. She brought that same bear along today to the station where she had to crawl through an obstacle course for a rescue. Here is Jason Stockton guiding her through the course. 

A pretend fire to put out, and then...

...rescuing the bear (after she threw him over the last barrier, I don't think that was part of the drill).

And then it was time to take aim at a pinata.

Candy!

I have no idea what was going on here, but shortly afterwards the tones went off and Paige Spicka was dispatched to report to Engine 51 to go to O'Hare.

Paige got all set up in her booster seat Engine 51. She was trying to figure out if pulling any of the ropes or cords hanging from the ceiling would sound the horn.

Got the headset all ready to talk to everyone during the trip.

If it weren't for the pony tail this could be Norlin (sorry, Eric, Jim made me write that).

We headed out, Paige enjoying the view from the front seat.

This is when things got really interesting. As we got closer to O'Hare (which is inside Chicago city limits), we were all surprised to see that the Chicago Fire Department was waiting to escort us the final mile or two to the airport. Lights flashing and everything. 

Not just one vehicle, but three. All for Paige. 

The Chicago Police Department was also waiting for us, they had blocked off an area for all 4 vehicles to park.

The Chicago FD guys met us at the curb and gave Paige a royal welcome. She was loving this. I have to admit I got a bit emotional here. All these guys we have never met went far out of their way to do this for P just to make her day all that more special. And they all made her feel like #1. And us, too. 

We were then escorted inside by Mike, our personal United Airlines representative, who took us to a private room and got our boarding passes all lined up. Mike then escorted us through security (we went right to the front of the line in less than 30 seconds - I don't think Paige appreciated this but Jim and I sure did). 

We were then met by more Chicago FD guys who escorted us the rest of the way. Wow!

As soon as we cleared security there was a transport cart (or whatever those things are called) waiting for us. Keep in mind it was the 3 of us, the Chicago FD, a Chicago police officer (or two, I forget) and Mike, our United guy plus a few more United people, all there just to escort us. 

As we were about to step onto the cart, another passenger approached us, practically running, demanding that this was her cart. I'm not sure what happened next but I'm thinking the police and security convinced her pretty quickly that she was mistaken and that this cart belonged to Paige and the Chicago FD.  And off we went.

As we drove through the concourse Paige practiced her princess wave. Several people waved right back. She was in seventh heaven.

Mike (our United guy) got us set up in the First Class waiting area, but before we could say goodbye to the Chicago FD Paige got to talk a little on the radio. Once I figure out (from Jim) what she was saying I'll update this, but it went on for several minutes. 

From here we spent some time relaxing in the First Class lounge with cookies and soda - we had not been there more than 10 minutes when Jim Cook, Jason Swidler, Mike Guhrman and Cory Powers (all firefighters from the LRFPD) came in to join us. I still have no idea how they got past security (I'm sure we'll find out shortly) but it was nice to have company. Who knows what the other passengers in the First Class lounge were thinking but it probably had to do with something like "when is the riff raff going to leave this lounge?"

We were then escorted to our gate by our United representative - we were the first passengers to walk onto the plane and were invited to go meet the pilots and hang out in the cockpit. Really. All 3 of us.

Paige spent the next about 8 to 10 minutes sitting in the captain's chair (or whatever it's called) goofing around. The pilot and co-pilot invited her to play around with almost everything. She even tried to honk the horn (news flash, Boeing 737's don't have horns).  When she asked the pilot what the steering wheel (yes I know that is not what it's called, good gracious its 11pm and I've been up since 5, cut me some slack here), did, he told her if you pull it up it makes the houses look smaller. Good to know our pilot has a sense of humor. 

Trying to figure out how to change the radio station.

The pilots had Paige request and then print up the weather report for Orlando. 

I'm guessing United Airlines is not advertising the fact that they let 6 year old passengers 

confirm the weather reports for their pilots. 

Back to reality - we departed on time, got to Orlando early (and had a very smooth landing, thanks guys) and ran into Mickey Mouse at the airport.

A nice Make A Wish volunteer met us at baggage claim and escorted us to the car rental counter. Where we got to pick out any SUV we wanted and were told to bring it back with no gas (it currently has a full tank). Ok, we can do that. 

So we made it to Give Kids the World Village about 7pm and got all settled. Wow, forget about Disney, this place is amazing. Pools, playgrounds, carousels and more fun things to do than anyone could imagine. Here is our villa, where we will be for the next 6 days. More photos to follow.