Mad Hatters

After enjoying (and shedding a few happy tears!) at World of Color, we wandered through a few stores on our way out of Disneyland. We found the perfect hats for a photo op:

World of Color, At Last!!

On our trip, I was most looking forward to seeing Disneyland's new World of Color light show! We got to the park a little later than planned, so Kristen and I made a bee-line for the biggest Disney store in the place, World of Disney. We had about a half hour to shop and even under pressure, I did pretty well for myself! :) Then we raced over to meet the guys at Ariel's Grotto for dinner. Sneaky Disney gives priority viewing to people who eat at Ariel's Grotto. After a super yummy dinner, we made our way to the lagoon to claim our spot. We were over an hour early, but the time went fast with people watching and pre-show entertainment. I tried to take some pictures of the cool puppets that were dancing around, but they aren't good at all:
And I tried to catch the ferris wheel Mickey head:Finally it was time, and totally worth the wait! I'll even admit to tearing up a few times, because Disney does that to me:



We finished the night with Bruce's favorite ride, Toy Story Mania. But, honestly, 5 hours in the park didn't even begin to scratch my Disney itch, and I'm thinking of when I can get down there again!

Kingdom Kong 3D

Universal Studios has a new King Kong addition to their Backlot Tour that we hadn't seen, so on Saturday we drove up to Burbank. Universal was very kind to give us Front-of-the Line Passes. Here's Bruce getting ready for the whole experience at Universal's City Walk:Now, the last time I went on the Backlot Tour was when I was a kid, living on SoCal. Maybe I was 6. I remember big foam boulders rolling towards the tram car and thinking, "Well, this is lame." And some parts of the tour are still that way. But not the King Kong part. It was very cool and completely worth seeing. I felt like this:When Peter was little, he would call that huge gorilla, "Kingdom Kong", which always made me laugh. One other backlot thrill, they filmed parts of The Mummy on the backlot, and as we all know, The Mummy is one of the best movies ever made. :)We also saw the new Simpson's Ride while we were there, which is kind of like Star Tours and the old Back To The Future rides. I didn't see too much of that ride, since I was laughing too hard at Bruce sitting next to me. He made more noise than my mom does on Star Tours! One of the most fun things of the day was finding a family of 4 and giving them our Front-of-the-Line passes. We chose a very nice, if heavily tattooed family, who were pretty blown away and very grateful!

Mexicans and Mormons

When you travel with our friend Wade, you travel by your stomach, so as soon as we landed in SD we went to lunch at the Old Town Mexican Cafe. They have great, and I mean great, Mexican food. We gorged ourselves on the best guacamole ever, except for Brian's. His is much better. Just a few steps away is the newly remodeled Mormon Battalion Visitor's Center. It was really great and beautifully done with interactive exhibits, artifacts and even gold panning. They even took a souvenir picture of us! There were people from Canada and Europe in our tour group, and a ward's YM/YW with their leaders. Pretty cute. We were really glad we went!If you notice, in this picture, my hair is getting ready to explode into it's "Whoa, I'm in a humid climate and I must puff out to my maximum diameter!" mode. Sigh...

7-Layer Dip to the Pants

The hubby and I had the chance to go to San Diego on Friday with our good friends, Wade and Kristen, to be wined and dined by the Visitor's Bureau of that most beautiful town. They put us up on the 36th floor of the Manchester Grand Hyatt, (aka. The Ritziest Hotel in Town), and took us to a Padre's game at Petco Park.

So, there we were in the highest Tower Box (See that big brick tower? We were in that highest box):Looking right down on the batter's box:Looking up at the huge bank of lights above our heads:
Eating our meal of hot dogs, pasta salad, 7-layer dip and treats, schmoozing with hotel and travel reps, when a particularly exciting over-the-fence catch happened. Bruce got so excited that he jumped out of his seat, cheering! And promptly flipped his whole plate of food into his lap. Mostly the pasta salad and 7-layer dip part. Chaos! Luckily, in the excitement of the moment, not too many people noticed and he got himself cleaned up pretty fast. I was laughing my head off, and immediately text-ed my kids to tell them about their Dad's mishap. What made it so much more funny was the fact that Bruce can't get through a ball game without slopping something on himself, usually mustard or nacho cheese.

Baseball is so much more fun to watch in person. Here's an attempt at a shot of Petco Park from the 36th floor:Picture quality is going to be a bit sketchy since I'm using my back-up point-and-shoot until my 3rd arm comes back from the camera spa.

Pit Crew

Sometimes it seems like a waste of time to get our horses all cleaned up for a horse show. After all, most horses love to sleep in their poo. Sophie's favorite pillow was a pile of poo. They don't care if they're dirty. But when your horse is all clean and shiny, then it all seems more worth it. Thank heavens I've never had a white horse! I'd go insane. We even make their hooves look nice before going into the ring, because we think it might make a difference to the judge. We are all pros at hoof painting.

Last second buffing and shining for Joleen and Archie. Notice Archie's look of long-suffering. Kari calls this the "Pit Crew":Rocko was much better behaved at the 2nd Rose Ranch show- no horses playing next to the ring to distract him! I know he doesn't look very happy in this picture, but it's those ear plugs- they make him look like a mule.

Homegrown Tomatoes and other Goodies

My garden has started producing, and it's great!! The blackberries are ready- some are bigger than my thumb! I took these pictures last week, before the loss of my camera.Is there anything better than home-grown tomatoes? I don't think so!
These guys like them too!