Trip Report Part IV

Friends of the Hundred Acre Wood

A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise.
- Winnie the Pooh
How fitting of an idea: after a wonderful lunch with a friend, enjoying a wonderful visit with our friends of the Hundred Acre Wood. You know (sing with me), "Pooh Bear, Winnie the Pooh Bear", and friends. Pooh, Eeyore and the bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy Tigger have the silliest little habit of hanging around to take photos during the better part of the day over in Critter Country, and that is just no something that you can easily pass up.






And wouldn't you know it, everyone's favorite "stuffed with fluff" bear has a ride to call his very own. I always keep forgetting that it's safely tucked away in Critter Country which feels so remote from the rest of the park because of the solitary access route as you pass by the Haunted Mansion. Then again, there is a very good reason why I usually avoid Critter Country at all costs and it's name is Splash Mountain! Let's just put it this way: I sucked it up and went for a splash back in March for the first time, and as far as I'm concerned it's a once in a lifetime kind of deal! There is absolutely no need to purposefully get too close to something that would literally make your hair go white in seconds.

But Winnie the Pooh is perfectly harmless in every way, and I can now add it to my list of 'have-riddens' at Disneyland.




I absolutely love that you get to enjoy the entire ride through your own personal beehive. The name of ours? Kanga, of course.

But the fun doesn't stop there. Anyone with a sweet tooth (and we all know this includes me) has got to stop by Pooh's Corner, no questions asked. I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I could just walk in and start picking what special treats I wanted to try. I behaved myself on this occasion, however, knowing full well that I would regret any rash decision to start indulging in the sweets full speed ahead. I could look, but I just couldn't touch. I'm getting teary-eyed just thinking about it. And as you'll see, Halloween at Disneyland really is just around the corner!







Talk about a delicious afternoon!

Coming up: A final tour through Adventureland.

Happy Birthday to me!!

This is my birthday song
It isn't very long
We've been celebrating my birthday since we got to Disneyland on Tuesday, but today was my actual birthday! And there is no doubt about it, it's the best birthday I have ever had - well except for that actual birth day. That one seems kind of important.

The kicker in why I made the decision to come for my actual birthday rather than celebrate my birthday any old time I came down here was because of the "free admission on your birthday" promotion that has been going on in 2009. Or in my case a $72 gift card since I already had admission for 5 whole days.


Of course I already spent the full gift card! And I still have more shopping to do tomorrow with the rest of my birthday money. I don't know what to do with myself!


And yes, those are my awesome birthday cards on display in our hotel in the background. I bought a purse, a necklace (shock, right?), and a Precious Moments Snow White figurine that I have had my eyes on since March! She wont be alone by the time I come home either.

It's D-Day!

And by D-Day, in case you were wondering, I mean Disneyland Day. Dre and I are just about to pack up the car and high tail it out of here! I-5, here we come! But I do have on question for you: How many suitcases does it take 2 girls for 5 nights and 6 days in Disneyland?


Why, this many of course!

It's early, but we are ready!

1 day to go

As of 10:30 this morning, I am officially on vacation!! In less than 24 hours Andrea and I will actually be in Disneyland! And in just about 12 hours we'll actually be hitting the road.

It's finally here.

And we're busy with the last minute preparations. I swear, every five minutes or so I keep thinking of something that I left at home. And of course the plan was to be here at Dre's for the rest of the day until the small scale birthday dinner with my parents at Fudruckers. But we'll figure it all out somehow, right?

2 days to go - and a Meme

Considering it's already 5 p.m. right now, I really think it's safe to say I only have one day left. I'm hoping to be asleep no later than 7:30 tomorrow so I can be ready to wake up around 1 a.m. or so on Tuesday. It's crazy! I'm finally almost done with the packing. I just have to round up all of the electronics that we'll need. There sure is a lot! When did it start to take over our loves, huh? There are the chargers for the cameras, my cell phone, my laptop and of course all of the countless cords necessary to transfer all of my photos over every day. It adds up pretty fast. You almost need a whole suitcase dedicated strictly to electronics.

And you can't forget the iPod! Dre and I have spent the past couple of days gathering all the music we want for the drive and it's got me stoked. We even added some songs from the Glee Cast to the playlist. I'm sad we'll be missing the season premiere of Glee on Wednesday after So You Think You Can Dance, but may be if we haul you-know-what back to the hotel we may still be able to catch it. I can't help it. FOX is working it's tail off to promote this show and I have fallen into the trap headfirst, but I don't mind.

I am a Gleek.


And because I'm bored, here's a Meme my mom filled out on Facebook and I was too lazy to do then:

Yes or No - Share
You can ONLY answer Yes or No.

You are NOT ALLOWED to explain ANYTHING unless someone messages or comments you and asks. -- and believe me, the temptation to explain some of these will be overwhelming nothing is exactly as it seems.


Shot a gun? No

Skinny-dipped? No

Gave someone stitches? No

Ridden a surfboard? No

Drank straight from a liquor bottle? Yes

Had surgery? No

Taken by ambulance to hospital? No

Peed on a bush? No

Donated Blood? No

Grabbed electric fence? No

Eaten Alligator/Crocodile meat? No

Killed an animal when not hunting? No

Snuck into a movie without paying? No

Written graffiti? No

Still love someone you shouldn't? No

Been in handcuffs? No

I am completely uninteresting, huh?

It's time to start the countdown

6!! Only 6 days until all the fun of my birthday extravaganza at Disneyland begin. And now, because you haven't had enough of me telling you how many days to go, you get to read all about it. I'm going through some major planning withdrawals right now, and I'm falling too far behind. Why on earth haven't I started packing anything yet?! Aren't the obsessive compulsive pack rat who takes close to two whole weeks to pack everything to make sure nothing is skipped over because she got tired of winding up down a toothbrush and pajamas wherever she went? Today will be the day, I tell you.

I know we're getting together on Thursday so I can catch up on the end of season 2 of True Blood, but we also have to tackle the all-important playlist on my iPod to make for the drive to Anaheim as well as the drive home, which is guaranteed to include a couple of Dre-Jazz staples like "the man song" which is our affectionate term for a track off the Mulan soundtrack better known as "I'll Make a Man Out of You". Speaking of, we were recently asked by someone what it is about that song and why women seem to like it so much. It turns out that his wife has pretty much the same reaction we do whenever we hear the song. In the words of Dre ...

Donny Osmond + Machismo =
I know that outside of the packing and the playlist there isn't a whole lot to do, but I'm just antsy and feel like I should be doing something. I keep going over everything in my head:

- Park Hoppers? Check. Thanks to Disney's summer promotion we get 2 days free with the purchase of our 3 day hoppers (Disney speak for tickets). Getting them through the Credit Union also ended up saving us another $20-40 if we had purchased them through Disney.

- Hotel Reservation? Check. We're staying at the Howard Johnson on Harbor Blvd. again, which is a few minutes walking distance to the park gates. We even scored on their entertainment rate this time. What is an entertainment rate? It's a 50% discount that they offer on select dates if you have a valid Entertainment Card, which is the discount card that comes with the Entertainment Book. So we've got our room booked at $57/night.

- Entertainment Card? Check. This is one that I almost let slip my mind. Oh, how sorry I would have been! But a quick search on eBay, $1.50, and 3 days later I officially have our little piece of plastic that is saving us so much money.

- Priority Seating? Check. Here's another Disney term that you probably haven't heard before. Priority Seating is similar to a typical dining reservation, and can be made 60 days in advance. Rather than waiting until I could call and make them all at once I had so much fun calling each day that we reached 60 days out from when we had planned our dining! We made a total of 4 different PS: Blue Bayou (the restaurant that is inside Pirates of the Caribbean), Ariel's Grotto (character meal), Goofy's Kitchen (character meal), and Minnie & Friend's (character meal).

Dre and I did the Minnie & Friend's Breakfast in the park back in March:





Fairy Godmother loved the color of my nail polish.

Dale almost knocked my ears off.



- Free admission on my birthday? un-Check. I may not be getting the free admission on my birthday because we already have 5 day Park Hoppers, but that doesn't mean I am not loving this year's birthday promotion!! I've registered and printed out my voucher, now all I have to do is take my ID and Park Hopper to get my Birthday Fun Card. So much better than the free admission. They give me $72 to go spend in the parks. How awesome is that?! It's going to be so hard to decide what I want to buy, but I'm sure that I'll manage. I wonder if I can also use my 10% coupon. Hmmm.

Be prepared. I am not done talking about Disneyland. Not by a long shot!

Oh, and remember! I wont be home on my actual birthday or a few days before - but I will shamelessly beg for some awesome voice mail on my cell phone of everyone singing me happy birthday.

For the love of a working laptop!

Maybe it's a sign that I am an addict (whoddathunk it) but the past month or so without my laptop has been an absolute nightmare! It was great of Heather and mom to share theirs but it just wasn't the same. I think what hurt the most was having no Photoshop. Having no PS meant that I couldn't really even open my photos since I shoot in RAW and I need a special application in PS to even be able to open them, let alone editing them how I need to. No I have hundreds of photos from Texas alone that I finally have a chance to go through and edit. It's like the Disneyland experience all over again. Now the only trouble is finding the USB cord for my card reader. I haven't used it in so long that I forget where I put it last.

And just because mine is officially "next" in the house, my birthday is in 36 days!! One month from Monday. It's so exciting. More so than any year before seeing as I will actually be spending my birthday at Disneyland!! I can't help it, I will be writing about it a lot. Heck, Dre and I will actually be setting foot at the resort in only 34 days. That really isn't very far away when you think about it. I just have a month of school and work (complete with a new process in how to do my job rolling out this month that I have to learn) to get through. I can do it! Yes I can!

Now it is off to Dre's to catch up on True Blood!

Happy Fourth!

I haven't quite found a moment to write anything since I got home from Texas last week. Have I really been home for one week already? A big part of me wishes I was still there. I don't miss the insane heat, and I certainly don't miss the humidty that made me feel like I was swallowing trying to breathe through a fishbowl, but I was nowhere near ready to say goodbye to everybody - not by a long shot. But I am home again. I'm back where the roads are the right color and traffic lights are standing on their own rather than hanging from wires. I'm back where the days may be hot, but the nights can still be pretty darn cool and I can actually dry off in the sun.

The big things that are going on right now involve one of my favorite places in the world and one of my least favorite places in the world: Disneyland and DVC. Take a stab at guessing which one is which, I'm sure it wont be that hard.

1. Disneyland. The folks on the DIS have a saying for what I'm going through. It's called the Disneyland Snowball Effect (or as dad said the other day, it's a Snow-White Effect): even the smallest of trips will snowball into an even bigger and better Disneyland vacation. Throw in the free admission on your birthday and is it any suprprise that I'm planning to go back for my 23rd birthday in September? Of course not!! I am now exactly 66 days away from our arrival which means just over 2 months until I'm there! Planning is going to start kicking into a higher gear in 6 days when I can start making our reservations for dining options while we're there. Right now 2 other friends will be joining me with another possibly along for the ride if she can get the time off from work approved. I really can't wait, and I'm sure everyone else can't either - even if it's just because me being there will stop me from talking about it for a short while. I can't help it!!

2. DVC. I finally registered for the Fall 2009 semester the other day. It's really hard to find the right time for classes with my work schedule, especially when you take into consideration how long each class is. I'm taking Biology with a Lab that's a good 3-4 hour chunk out of the day and doesn't leave any time really for another class, and the same thing with the Art class that I'll be taking now that I know I'm working towards my Associate's Degree in Digital Media. I've also added in a dance class to start taking care of me P.E. requirements all thanks to one of my favorite shows - So You Think You Can Dance. It's something I would love to give a try and I've got my fingers crossed that I'll enjoy it.

I wish I could say that I was doing something fun today, like watching fireworks tonight. But unfortunately, that wont be the case. Mom and dad went downtown to watch the parade this morning but I didn't go and since I have to be at work all night tonight I will be trading in a little sleep and time to get ready for my shift for the chance to watch fireworks again. At least I got to see some while I was in Texas right? On the bright side, we're supposed to have food provided for us overnight since they are BBQ'ing for the dayside team. I'm really looking forward to that. I love free food.

Fun day Friday

There's really no other way to describe today other than plain old fun! Everybody hit the boardwalk today for rides, games, and food. I'd been to the Kemah Boardwalk briefly before the last time I was out here in 2004 but we never hit the rides side of the boardwalk, only the food and shopping. Heck, I don't even know if there were any rides there the last time I was here; who knows?


I really wish I was more of a thrill-seeker. There wouldn't really be much for me to do if I had been on my own since I don't do those kinds of rides at all. Disneyland rides I can do; carnival rides I cannot do. But of course with a whole gaggle of little kids tagging along there was plenty for me to do. The whole bunch did ride this little train though. And what a long train ride that was - it wasn't just a quickie let's all go in a circle real fast kind of train ride. We went all around the boardwalk and even doubled back at least once. The kids really loved these little tunnels and caves that had a kind of Old West theme to them.






Uncle Brian, Bamma and I ended up going off on our own for a little bit to go through the shops at the other end of the boardwalk while Denise, Heidi and the kids went on a few more rides and then dissapeared into this little water-spout play area to cool off. I do want to know who's brilliant idea it was that there should be thousands of options in souveniers as far as shot glasses are concerned, but can I find a single water globe? Of course not. I'm really bummed about that. I need to find one somewhere. The Zoo had a couple of really dinky ones and that's all I've been able to find so far. In case you can't tell, I collect water globes (or snow globes, if that's what you prefer to call them). When we were done we met up with the gang to watch the kids running through the water, having the time of their life.



And shocker alert. I took Austin off Denise's hands for a little bit and fed him his bottle.




So much fun already and the day wasn't even half over!! Austin wasn't the only one who needed to eat so we all made our way over to Joe's Crab Shack for some yummy-yummy lunch. It was very good food, and believe it or not I actually ordered something that wasn't salmon (which I've had no less than 3 times since I got here). The only downside was that they didn't have an BBQ sauce that wasn't super spicy. I love my BBQ sauce with just about anything, but I can't take the heat!






The plan was to head back to Bamma's house after everyone was done with their last round-about with the rides so we could all enjoy some time in the pool before the dinner with everybody followed by a night out on Uncle Mark's boat to watch the fireworks out in the bay at the boardwalk. It's cray how warm the water in the pool is just from being heated by the sun all day long. Going swimming in a pool is more like taking a nice long bath in the biggest tub you've ever seen than anything else. Denise took a lot more photos than I got. I can't wait to see them.


I think anybody who knows me also knows that I am not a fan of boats; they probably also know that I'm not a fan of fireworks either. This whole idea of going out on Uncle Mark's boat to watch the fireworks wasn't really my idea of the best way to find entertainment for the night, but I was along for the ride. It turns out there's somebody else who doesn't like boats: Mikala. I think I have now witnessed first hand what it must have been like those very few times I ever went on a boat with my family when I was younger. I vaguely remember them, and I just remember that it didn't go over very well for me. I will admit, the rocking of the boat on the itty bitty waves was not my highlight of the night, but I didn't freak out. To be honest, I enjoyed it a lot. We got to watch the sunset, the fireworks, and it's not a bad view at all!