Disneyland 2011

Wil, Ori and I headed off to Disneyland while Bel was in Hong Kong & Thailand with my parents.  Luckily, we had the chance to meet up with our favourite people: Mike, Nina and Linda. Once again, we flew with Allegiant Air out of Bellingham as they had the best prices.  For transportation from LAX to the hotel and return, we used the Disneyland Resort Express as they run regularly, are reliable, and since they are luxury motor coaches, I don’t have to worry about a carseat for Ori.  It was especially attractive once I found a $5 discount coupon (per person) on the Anaheim Orange County Visitor & Convention Bureau  website. Once again, we stayed at the Sheraton Anaheim Hotelas we loved the restaurant service staff (especially Zeke), and the fact that the hotel had private shuttle buses to and from the park.  Though I found that the restaurant service staff to be as fantastic as last time, I was less impressed with the front desk staff.  When I asked the front desk if they had packing or duct tape I could use (long story), they said that I can come and pick it up any time.  Yet when we went down to get it, they told us that they had none and never had any.  The worst was the Concierge (male).  I had asked if he could contact the Disneyland Resort Express for pickup, and he told me that since I already had pre-paid tickets, that there is nothing he could do.  He just told me to call Grayline and confirm it myself.    So I made arrangements to use my cousin’s phone (so I wouldn’t incur long distance charges from mine or hotel phone charges).  The next day as I was waiting for the park shuttle, I noticed a courtesy phone in the lobby where I could’ve used to call Grayline to confirm my pickup.  Hmmmmm….the concierge made no mention that this was something I could’ve done.  Oh well…

Disneyland Castle Christmas 2011

 

Disneyland itself was wonderful!  The park was so beautifully decorated with Christmas lights and trees.  The lighting of the castle was spectacular as were the fireworks.  At specific times, it “snowed” on Main Street and near the castle — it was funny to see how excited people got to see snow. I guess since I’m from “up north”, I’m not as impressed with it as we see snow at least once a year.

 

 

 

Here is a picture of Ori eating a Mickey shaped ice cream.  This is one of the things that we always buy in Disneyland.

For some reason, if it’s Mickey shaped then we have to have it (or I do…).  Needless to say, on this trip alone, we’ve had Mickey shaped marshmallows (well it was a snow Mickey), chocolate truffles, cake, pretzels, ice cream and a beignet.   I’m not sure what it is, but no matter how gimmicky it may sound, it appeals to me and calls me out to buy it….

 

 

 

 

 

 

Character Sightings:

Winnie the Pooh Christmas

 

Of course, a trip to Disneyland is never complete without posing with some of our favourite characters. Winnie the Pooh is absolutely adorable with his winter hat.

No matter how old I get, I still love Pooh.

 

 

 

 

 

Stitch

 

 

And Stitch decided to brave the cold and join us.  Isn’t he so cute?

After complaining about how I never got to see him last time (October 2009), we made sure to visit the character breakfast he was most likely to be at — so we got to see him!

And wouldn’t you know it, we spotted him in California park as well.  So here we are on our second visit with Stitch!

 

And of course, what is Disneyland without rides?  I have to say that Ori certainly got her “fearless” genes from Wil.

California Screaming

One of her two favourite rides was California Screaming (a high-speed roller coaster with a loopy-loop).   Everytime she went on (almost every day at least once ..the last day there, she went on three times!), she was in the front seat!  Crazy daredevil!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ori’s second most favourite ride was the Tower of Terror.

Tower of Terror

This simulates you being in an elevator where the cables break and you fall to your death…except that it can’t seem to decide whether to let you fall or not.  So you basically go up and shoot down and then up and down…over and over and over again.

My little adrenaline junkie LOVED this ride.  She would ride it over and over and over again.  On our last day there, she was on FOUR times…the last three times in a row.

What really made her day was that on one of her rides, the bellboy started singing Happy Birthday to her, and then the entire car full of strangers continued the song throughout the ride.  And when the bellboy opened the door at the end, he finished off the song,  How cool is that?

 

 

 

 

Terror on the Tower of Terror

While I can say that I have not been on California Screaming, I am sad to say that I have indeed been on the Tower of Terror.   All I can say is “NEVER EVER AGAIN!!!”  I have never been on a ride that have so thoroughly terrorized me to the point of having tears in my eyes. I’m surprised that I didn’t suffer a massive heart attack from the fear.  Here is a picture of us from that ride…  As you can see, my cousin Mike thought it would be funny to bug me throughout the ride just to scare me that much more!

 

 

Disneyland Christmas

Thank you so much to Nina, Mike and Linda who met up with us.  We miss you!

Spa Conversation with a 7-year old

Ori sometimes truly cracks me up.  The other day as we were walking, Ori has this conversation with Wil:

Ori “Bel and I need to go the spa”.

Wil “What do you and Bel need to go to a spa for?  You’re just a little girl”.

Ori “To get spa stuff like a manicure and pedicure!”

LOL…as if that wasn’t bad enough.  Later that night we had gone out for dinner.  After dinner, Ori lies and Wil and asks her her tummy and head to be rubbed.  As Wil massages her scalp and rubs her tummy, Ori says “Ahhhh…I don’t need to go the spa.  I have my own personal spa worker!”

 

2nd Sketch for Sketches in Thyme

Whew…I forgot how nice it was to scrapbook on a regular basis.  So being a guest designer at Sketches in Thyme  this month sure has been keeping me busy.  Here is my 2nd sketch. 

I thought I would dig into my stash and only use whatever I had at home.  I found this cute paper from Doodlebug that I bought eons ago, and some lime green Thickers that I loved but never knew what to do with until now.  I hand-drew the pumpkins from two different colours of Bazzil and then hand-drew the purple bats – I copied the designs from the Doodlebug paper so it all coordinates.

BTW — these are pictures of Bel from her 2nd Halloween (she was around 1 1/2 years old).  It was the first time she had ever had candy and she loved it!

 

 

October Guest Maven at Sketches in Thyme

I’m excited to be the October Guest Maven at Sketches in Thyme.   When they sent me the first sketch, I knew immediately that I wanted to do a layout with the Echo Park papers that I purchased a few weeks ago.  I loved how the bright colours of the paper perfectly matched the bright colours of the amusement park, and perfectly suited the mood I wanted to convey in the photos.

I wanted a row of tickets to go across the bottom of the page but couldn’t find any in my house at 10pm on a Sunday night.  So I decided to make my own.  I cut a strip of paper (12 x 1.5 inches) and then perforated them every 2 inches (with my Cutterpede cutter blade).  Then I carefully hand-drew the lines and wording using a variety of Zig pens.

For the sun, I just cut out a circle, and then using two different yellow cardstock, I cut out triangles.  I alternated the two colours around the circle, mimicking the sun in the pattern paper.

 

Supplies used:  Echo Park Summer Days, Bazzill, Zig Pens, Quickutz License Alpha, small circle punch, Cutterpede Perforated Blade, small balloon punch

 

Kids…

My girls make me giggle sometimes with some of the things that they say and do.

The other night, we’re having dinner with my in-laws.  Bel was talking about males and females, but referring to them as boys and girls.  So she started talking about her male teacher (she has two teachers due to job sharing), and said that her “boy” teacher was really excited about the hockey game.  So my brother-in-law tried to teach her that she should use the word male instead of boy.  He says to Bel, “Are you sure he’s a boy?”  Bel looks at him and says “Yes, he’s a ‘boy’ just like you’re a ‘boy’” while using her fingers to show the quotation marks when she says “boy”.  LOL..reminds me of Joey from Friends who didn’t know how and when to use the quotation marks!

And then yesterday in the car, a driver cut us off and almost hit us.  Forgetting the kids were in the car, Wil yells “You Jackass!”.  Giggles come from the back, and Ori goes “Daddy, you said Jackass”.  Wil goes “Yes, I shouldn’t have said it…” and before he can finish his sentence, you hear a bit of a scuffle from the backseat and Ori says to Bel “Stop it you Jackass!”….sigh….let’s just say that two someones got a scolding…Wil told Ori to stop it, and I had to say something to Wil.  LOL…I still giggle when I think back to that little voice…

Sketches in Thyme – Design Team Call

I’ve been fairly inactive with scrapbooking for the past year and a half.  Unfortunately life has been crazy.  First with being a VERY active PAC member, spending all my free hours coordinating fundraising activities so that the school had enough money for a brand new playground structure (we did it!!).  Then with the ins and outs of a brand-new job.

Now that I finally have a little room to breathe, I’m finding that I’m getting the urge to scrapbook and create!  So during my lunch hours, I’ve been browsing websites to get those creative juices flowing.  In doing this, I found this site that you scrapbookers may be interested in.

Sketches in Thyme is a fabulous website that posts a different sketch every Thursday and offers challenges theirs readers to create and submit their layouts.  They are also currently looking for Design Team Members for May – August.  Click on the link to check it out!

http://sketchesinthyme.blogspot.com/2011/04/sketches-in-thyme-dt-call.html or posted below:

A Sketches in Thyme DT Call!!!

 

The 4 month term for our talented design team ends the end of April, and we are looking for new members to join our Sketches in Thyme design team! If you enjoy creating layouts from sketches, partipating in blogs and motivating others to take part in fantastic challenges, this might be your chance to be a part of our fantastic Design Team! Your term would run May-August, and you would be asked to complete 3 layouts per month. If you would like a chance to be considered, here’s what you need to do:

1-Create a new layout based on our sketch below.

2-Post about our DT call on your blog, along with your take on our sketch.

3-Leave a comment here telling us that you would like to be considered for the DT, along with a link to your blog post! 

The deadline for this call is April 22nd, and our new Design Team will be announced on April 28th! We look forward to seeing what you come up with!!

 

So their sketch inspired me to create a layout based on the above:

Sketches for Thyme – Design Team Layout

 I raided my stash for this particular project.  I find that pictures work better with different shades of colour, so though I had a recent purchase of Little Yellow Bicycle paper that is similar to the one above, the shade of blue just didn’t do the photo justice.   For the acrylic heart, it didn’t stand out enough on the page initially, so I painted it white with acrylic paint.  As I wanted the texture to stand out a bit, I used a stiff bristle brush to dab the paint on, rather than brush it (with strokes).  Then to really make it shine, I outlines with Stickles.

   

I wanted to emphasize the “cold” in the title so added snowflake punches layered together and then added a different colour Stickles for each layer.  

  

I also changed the sketch slightly so on the horizontal photo, I added snowflake rain drops to 3 corners of the picture instead of all to the side — mostly because when I added them to the side of the photo, it detracted from my daughter’s face, whereas doing it my way seemed to make it stand out more.

 

Here’s to more time for scrapbooking!

Spring Break

Whew…who knew that a week off at spring break would be so NOT relaxing. It’s been a week of playdates, dentist and eye appointments, a lot of shopping and 2 birthday dinners and a lunch. I think I need a week off to recover from having a week off!

Though it’s been crazy, I’ve really enjoyed some alone time with the kids. It’s been nice to spend time with them and just listening to the crazy things that they come up with.

Ori: “It doesn’t matter if we win or lose (the board game), as long as I win!”

Bel: “I’m NOT a girly girl” (as she wants a pair of BLACK Converse high-tops when I pointed out the pink ones)

Ori & Bel: “Awww…we never get to buy anything!” (coming right after the grandparents bought them each a teddy bear from Build-A-Bear)

Bel: “Grandpa will do anything I say if I ask him to…”

Yup…sometimes I truly wonder about them…