Autumn time... and fun things....

Don't you love Autumn time?? I love it when it's still kind of warm during the day but there's a little nip in the air... and the leaves start to turn orange, yellow and red.. It's beautiful. I hate to think of winter coming and snow so I try to enjoy each fall day as much as I can. And with the fall comes harvesting my garden... I've canned beans, italian tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, spicy tomatoe chutney, and tonight I canned my first batch of homemade apple pie filling with apples from our one little apple tree... YUM!

 I've even canned some plum jam from the plums I got from the neighbors tree. My dream would be to have a little country style bakery with cookies and cupcakes for sale.... and a few different kinds of homemade breads... and I would have canned jams, pie fillings, and other yummy things in cute jars with fabric and ribbons tied around the top. I would make holiday crafts to sell along with headbands made from both fabric and some crocheted ones and other fun things.... Don't you love to dream??? (if that really came true would I have time to make all that stuff???)
Anyway... It seems ever since I got back from Disneyland my days have been busy... either with working at the office 9 to 10 hours days or when I get off at the normal time, I'm canning... or cleaning ... or crafting.
And since Halloween is upon us I had to get out my 'spookalies' and decorate my house....

Robert P. Grimley came back..(the P stands for 'putrid')and so far he is behaving himself.. last year during a really stormy night, he flipped around and was knocking to be let in..( kind of freaked me and Andrew out a little).... along with Uncle Felix and Aunt Merna in the flower bed.... and I've added a few "spooky" things inside as well...

I replaced my candles that are usually on this plate with a skull... and I got this idea of a website I ran across...

and I got this idea off another website.... I had a shadow box frame in my craft room that I hadn't done anything with, some fun scrapbook paper, and a spider cutout leftover from a halloween bouquet that Sarah had recieved, and of course my cricut.......

Then one afternoon I went with Andrew to Rexburg to get an apartment and classes picked out for his semester at BYU-I and I hung out in Porters while he talked to his school advisor. They had fun wooden letters and halloween paper, so I got some and this is what I did....

I painted the sides of the letters dark brownish black and then modpodged the cute paper on, once it was dry I sanded the edges and then tied the letters together with black ribbon... kind of cute I think...
I also got small wooden blocks to paint and modpodge scrapbook paper on, and was going to cut the letters "s p o o k y" out in vinyl lettering for them but I haven't had time for that yet.... maybe next year???
Now I'm thinking of making treats for my office on Monday.. I'm thinking of making eggnog flavored cupcakes with vanilla pudding filling (colored red for quagulated blood)and a eggnog cream cheese frosting decorated like this....

and I want to make these peanut butterfinger eyeballs....

and if I have time I would like to make guacamole and chips and serve it like this...

I even got a small pumpkin to carve if I decide to do that.... Don't you just love Halloween..... I just wish it was still like the good ole days when kids would go trick or treating house to house instead of at trunk or treats.... but I guess that it is safer to trunk or treat these days....
OH! I almost forgot! I made a cake for a friend at works daughter....

She wanted to have a princess party... and loves music and stuff.. so this is what I did, my friend bought the tiara that's on top.. it was soooooo fun to make!!! I even made my own fondant and flavored it lemon, and the bottom layer was key lime with keylime white chocolate frosting under the fondant, and the top layer was lemon cake with raspberry filling and a lemon raspberry white chocolate frosting under the lemon fondant.... yumm! and yes those are music notes I made out of gumpaste haning off the wires... (not little black ducks)...
Sarah also came to visit this last weekend.. we had lots of fun crafting, going to lunch together, just talking, playing scrabble with my mom and dad, and watching Harry Potter every night... we didn't quite get through all of them.. Sarah had never been interested in Harry Potter until now so we tried to catch her up. I am always happiest when everyone is home and we're all together... it's like Heaven on earth!
Whew... what a fun filled month this has been....
Now to get ready and anticipate Thanksgiving and Christmas.......

Disneyland trip continued.....

Sorry it's been a while and I haven't finished my Disneyland post... I had to work a lot of overtime lately.. I think I worked 50 hours last week.. on the holiday and on Saturday... Ugh. Anyway on to happier memories.
So after we had spent our Friday at Disneyland, we decided to spend our Saturday at Disney's California Adventure Park... But first Jim had to get some homework done.... oh the agony of waiting....but finally we could go.
We had heard the we HAD to go see the "World of Color" Fountain show, and that you had to get fast past tickets early in the day if you wanted to get a good spot, so that is where we went to first thing... we got tickets into the 9:30 showing....more on that later....
There are a lot of things still under construction at California Adventures... but they had this new Ariel's Undersea adventure ride that we went on first... it was awesome... you got to ride in seashell cars

It was like the movie of the Little Mermaid come to life.....

Sarah would have loved it......

just get a load of King Tritan's muscles.....

Awesome isn't it??
Then, we started walking around the pier.. and we saw Jim's favorite ride...(inside joke, I will have to tell the story behind the 'jumping jelly fish' ride in person...) Jim behaved himself since there were a lot of "special" kids around and we didn't want to offend anyone.

Then we wandered around some more.. they have a new Toy Story ride, where you get in cars and have laser guns, you have to wear 3-D glasses, and you go around and play arcade games... and it keeps track of your score... Jim beat me by a mile...

Here I am sporting my 3-d glasses....the lines were kind of long for this ride, I was bored and took a pic of myself... not too flattering though.
Then I decided to be brave and ride Mickey's Fun Wheel.. (it's a HUGE Ferris Wheel) we even got in one  of the swinging gondolas... I thought I was gonna have a cow!!! Jim was fine and took lovely pictures while we were stuck at the top... of the lovely scenery....

                               and of me hanging on for dear life with a horrified look on my face....

After that we got an icecream.... then decided to ride on King Triton's carousel...we were the only adults on it that weren't helping little children.....

I rode on a lovely barnacled whale... (Jim said I had to cuz everytime I go to the dermotologist to get my moles checked, I show him one that I'm worried about and he says "oh that's nothing to worry about, it's just a human barnacle....and Jim say's I'm just an old barge) so I felt I had something in common with the barnacled whale....

Jim rode the cute little happy gold fish next to my whale.......

Then we walked around a bit more... and headed over to the Hollywood Pictures backlot...we looked in a few shops. We had promised to bring the kids a surprise of some kind...

we passed by this hot dog place and got a kick out of the sign...hahaha.
Then we went on to the Twilght Zone's Tower of Terror.. we thought we'd give it a shot.. inside it looks kind of creepy, like a haunted motel....

You get in an elevator lined with seats facing the door, and it tells a creepy story of some people that were killed and disappeared in an elevator and you make your way upwards while doing this, every once in a while the doors open and you see creepy things in the hallway.. then when you are at the very top, the doors open and you can see outside and realize how high up in the air you are, then they shut and you drop suddenly... ahhh! Then it goes up again and down a couple of more times... I swear I didn't know if we were going up, down or sideways... I felt suspended in air at one point... this is what it looks like from the outside...

Then I felt a little woozy after that one... so we went for a calmer ride "mike and sully to the rescue" it was cute.. just like Monsters Inc.

This is my favorite part where the yellow guy says "it picked me up with it's lazer beam eyes and shook me like a doll".... (I used to think it said shook me like a dog)

Jim said I was beginning to sound like "Roz" since I was just getting over a cold and from screaming so much....
After that we got corndogs.... yummo! I'd been craving those foot long corndogs since we had taken the kids 10 years earlier... but they weren't quite the same.. not as big.
Then we rode on "Soarin' Over California" it simulates flying in a airplane..

and after that we were quite tired.... so we watched a few people get soaked on Grizzly Bear rapids but didn't feel like getting wet ourselves cuz we were going to stay late and watch the World of Color. So we decided to head out of the park and go to down town Disney.... that was fun... we watched them make caramel apples at one shop... I want to make the Jack Skelington ones for Halloween....

We bought Andy a "Nightmare before Christmas" sweatshirt and Sarah a 'little Mermaid" T-shirt and got a pretzel and lemonade at "Wetzel's Preztel's" then headed on back to California adventures after riding the tram all around the parks...
It was time to wait for "The World of Color" we started standing in line a half n hour before they even let us in the area.... then it was another hour long wait.... but we got a pretty good spot... next time I would pick directly in front and center of the ferris wheel..we were slightly off to the side... but Jim took this cool video of  Mickey's fun wheel' changing colors....

It was a long wait... but so worth it! The fountain show is awesome. They play music from different Disney shows while showing bits and pieces of the different movies on the water of the fountains. Warning tho' if you are way up front you get hit with the mist of the fountains.... my hair was frizzely afterwards. Pictures don't do the fountains justice.... it's amazing.!

After that show it was pretty late, so we went back to our motel for the night... Jim still had homework to do. One of the valet's at our motel helped us get a yummy pizza for only 8 bucks!! We ate then went to bed with plans to hit all of our favorite rides at Disneyland on Sunday which would be our last day there.

We got up on Sunday morning, and Jim had to study.. he had a test he had to take by midnight that same day. I wasn't feeling well either, so we relaxed a bit until about noon. Then we caught the shuttle and headed off to Disneyland. We had decided to get fast passes for our favorite rides.... We did the haunted mansion again.... then got a fast pass for Space Mountain, and Splash mountain... we wandered around a bit too, back in the area where the Thunder Mountain Train roller coaster place is they have a BBQ restaurant and they had all these pumpkins and displays out... it was a good photo moment...

my hair was terrible that day!!
We waited in line for the Indiana Jones ride one more time... then went to splash mountain and waited in line.. that was a way long line... we got lucky and got the front of our log (not sure if that was really lucky or not) we got soaked!!!

As you can see, Jim was nice enough to let me sit behind him... so he took most of the water... I posed for this pic so good (a girl I work with said she wanted a pic of me on Splash Mountain screaming) we had to buy it... After that ride we were just in time to go on it again with our fast passes... so we did... we didn't think we would be lucky enought to get the very front of the log again... but we did. Jim almost made me take the very front... but he had pity on me when we got up there and let me sit behind him again... Good grief there wasn't a dry spot on us!! The people behind us said they had been on that ride TONS and have never gotten that wet... I think it was because there was all adults in the car, no kids...
We were soaked but wanted to use our fast pass to Space Mountain so we dripped across the park to that ride... It's sooo awesome! By then, Jim was freezing... and I was still feeling plucky.. so we said goodbye to Disneyland... got the kids some presents, and went back to the Motel for a hot shower and left over pizza and cheesecake. Jim was able to take his test and he passed!!
We got up Monday morning, ate breakfast and sadly packed the car. It was time to head for home..... we had sooo much fun! I highly reccommend going to Disneyland with just your spouse.....it's fun with kids too and I want to go again and take Sarah and Andy one more time before they get families of their own.
We drove all day, and got stuck in traffic in Las Vegas, we stopped and ate at Winger's in St. George, but went on to Cedar City for the night. We figured the closer we were to Sarah and Provo, the longer we would get to visit with her.
Tuesday we got up and made it to Provo by 1 in the afternoon! We picked Sarah up and took her to lunch! She LOVED the Ariel shirt I bought her! We ate at Red Robin and made her jealous with all of our pictures from Disneyland. Then we went back to her place and visited some more. Sarah's roomie has this little dog that she named "Boogie". He's a cute little dog... but I didn't like his name... He looked more like a Luther Von Pelt... Louie for short... so now that's what Sarah and I call him...

Aren't we all cute? After giving Sarah LOTS of hugs... we had to head for home.... I must admit it was kind of nice to get home after all. We gave Andy some hugs... he survived on his own the whole week he was home alone. He LOVED his Jack Skelington sweatshirt.
And the weather was beautiful... we had a lovely autumn evening...

I love it when the moon is smiling... almost like "heaven is smiling upon us!"

We went to Disneyland..... just the two of us !

Jim and I had both been feeling like we needed to get away somewhere.... we had taken small trips to Salt Lake City over a weekend now and then through out the summer, but we really needed to get away. We hadn't been on a vacation since our honeymoon, other than when we went to Grandma Margie's funeral, but that doesn't count as a vacation.
So we thought... let's go to Disneyland!! I asked for time off and got it and Jim took a week of vacation. And we looked up a package through Get Away Today... and before we booked it, I was feeling sad the kids weren't going... and rather than hear me whine about the kids not being there the whole time, Jim finally said, ok, ask the kids if they want to go... but guess what? Andy didn't want to ! Can you believe it??? He would rather go on a road trip with his friend Micah to the Comic Con in Tucson Arizona than Disneyland with his parents... I asked Sarah, she wanted to go but would feel like a third wheel with us, and worried that Jim wouldn't have fun with her and me giggling all the time. So it was just Jim and me..... We packed our suitcases Tuesday, the 13th... then Wednesday, the 14th of September, as soon as I got home from work, we packed the car, and off we went! We wanted to drive as far as we could so we could get to Disneyland on Thursday, the 15th. We drove for like what seemed forever, and finally made it to Cedar City at about 12:30 in the morning!

After a good nights rest at the Crystal Inn, and a free breakfast in the morning, we were on the road again!

We did stop in St. George for a bit, and then got stuck in a traffic jam by Whiskey Pete's

It took 2 hours to go 2 miles.... I'm not kidding!!

I didn't think we'd ever get moving again.... good thing we didn't have to use the restroom!! (All though from the looks of my face it I was getting worried...)Hahaha!
Finally we got moving again... and made it to Aneheim with no other troubles!! Wee hoo!!

We had booked our vacation through GetAway Today... I highly reccommend that.... We booked our room at the Hilton Suites... it was 2 miles away from Disneyland and had a shuttle that would take you there every half  hour. Our hotel room was like a mini apartment.....

Jim at the computer desk... he still had to keep up with his online classes... that was a little stressful...

The living room (which had a pull out couch bed... the kids could have totatlly come)

The bedroom..... the bed was soooo comfortable..... I love fluffy white down comforters....

The bathroom........yes.. it had a tub and a shower....

and the commode was around the corner from the vanity... this was to be our home away from home for the next 4 days... we thought we could handle that... plus it had a fridge, sink, and microwave against the wall opposite the desk... I forgot to take a pic of that...

After freshening up a bit after our long day of driving... we went to get something to eat..... We found an outside mall (reminded me of the Gateway mall in Salt Lake City) that had California Pizza Kitchen, Cheesecake Factory, Bubba's shrimp house, and a few other places... we opted for California Pizza Kitchen.....

Waiting for our food... we were starving... we ordered Avacodo Spring rolls, and BBQ Bacon and Chicken Pizza.....

                                   it finally came.... these Avacado rolls were sooooo good!

I'm going to try to make them at home sometime... Yummo!

This is a shot of Jim from one end of the mall... we had decided to get cheesecake from the cheesecake factory to take back to the motel for later.... There were all sorts of pic moments... but Jim isn't one to sit by a statue and take a funny picture (at least if there are people around) like me and Sarah do.... Back to the motel we went... Tomorrow DISNEYLAND!! WOOHOO!
We woke up early and went to breakfast... this is a picture taken while looking down at the lobby where breakfast was served from where our room was on the 8th floor.... scary if you are scared of heights....

our motel had a continental breakfast that had fried potatos, scrambled eggs, fruit, sausage, bacon, any kind of bread you wanted, someone to make omlettes for you, cereal, yogurt, you name it... they had just about everything. YUM! So we ate (quite a bit) then caught the shuttle bus to Disneyland.

                                                      Do we look excited or what???

We finally got to Disneyland... here is a picture looked down main street.............

I loved that everything was decorated for Halloween... the first thing we did was take the train ride around Disneyland...we couldn't believe we were here!!!

After that we walked around a bit and went over to Future land. The first ride we went on was 'Star Tours' for Jim since he is a big fan of Star Wars.... the wait was about 40 minutes... but we weren't in a hurry.

It was awesome... but kind of turbulent... which made Jim feel a little queasy (probably from our big breakfast...) so we opted for a calmer ride which ended up being the 3D show of 'Captain EO' a tribute to Michael Jackson ( I have never wanted to walk out of something so bad) but we stayed... just if you go to Disneyland you can pass that one up. Here we are waiting to go into the theater.....

After that disappointment we walked around future land a bit more. We were going to ride in the auto cars, but when we got almost to our turn the ride broke down. BUT we got a Fast Past to any ride we wanted for anytime during that day. Woohoo!! we put it to good use later.

So then we went walking around some more and headed to Fantasy land.... where I insisted we go on "it's a small world" That was my favorite ride that I can remember from my childhood.....

Doesn't Jim look happy??? I loved all the shrubbery and things outside the ride.......

And if you looked close while going through the ride you could find dolls made to look like characters from Disney films... we saw Aladdin and Jasmine on a flying carpet, Pinocchio

 and the little mermaid which wasn't too hard to spot.....

That was the only time we went on that ride... Jim said he couldn't take hearing the "It's a small world" song again over and over and over...LOL.
Then we walked over to the "New Orleans" area. Jack Skeleton was out getting his picture taken with everyone. The 'Haunted Mansion' had been decked out for Halloween like "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and we were lucky enough to go on the very first weekend it was open... it was PACKED!!! I think we waited in line for an hour and a half.... but it was sooooo worth it. We would definitely have to get a fast pass for it and ride again....

As you can see I had plenty of time for pictures while waiting in line.... isn't it awesome??!!! Loved it... and then we went inside.....

Did I already say how awesome it was???  we would definelty go on this ride again.. but with a FAST pass.
Then we walked over to Frontier Land....  and rode Big Thunder the Train roller coaster which made me a litte queasy... we didn't go on that one again. Then we headed over to Critter Country (I think that's what it iscalled) and rode on Splash Mountain. We didn't get too wet this time, mostly our shoes... and they had a new Winnie-the-Pooh ride so we just had to see what that was all about..

you got to ride around in a large beehive... it was a cute ride. I love Winnie the Pooh.
Then we went back to New Orleans and part of the main roads to find someplace to eat. We got some fish and chips that were okay. Here's a pic of the crowd.....

After eating, we headed over to the Indiana Jones ride, but on our way got side tracked by Tarzan's Treehouse...

I was a little scared anyway by being up in the air so high (my fear of heights) and then while posing for this pic the leopard growled and at the same time a puff of air hit me in the neck (it's  supposed to feel like he is swiping his paw at you) it scared me and I screamed... We also rode the River Boat ride. It's been there forever but our tour guide this time was a gay guy named "Josh" who told jokes around the whole thing and that made it hilarious......

Then we did the Indiana Jones ride..... and after that we made our way out to main street where people were lining up to watch Mickey's Music Celebration parade so we stayed.... awesome!! Don't you love parades at Disney?? I loved the princesses float best, and Ariels float.... awesome!!

after the parade we went over to future world again to use our FAST past (the one we got since the auto car ride broke down) on Space Mountain... the line had a wait time of 70 minutes... it had been 'changed' for Halloween too!! Thank heavens we had our fast pass... while waiting in that line we met a kid that was a cancer survivor from Utah, the 'Make a Wish Foundation' had sent him and his parents to Disneyland.. kind of made my heart hurt. There were a lot of 'special' needs kids there as well. It's awesome that they get to go to Disneyland. We had a good chat with him and then we got to ride Space mountain!! Awesome!!! It had eerie music playing and scary things all through out the ride done especially for Halloween.... LOVED it!

Awesome huh?? had to find a pic online to show you what was in there... the ride goes way too fast to take a picture, you would lose your camera....

After that it was pretty late, but we went on the Matterhorn (not sure how to spell that) it was fun but one ride we didn't need to ride again. Then we went over and staked out a spot along mainstreet to watch the "Dreams do come true" firework show. It was impressive... but what impressed me most was the girl that got to be "Tinkerbell" and harnessed to wires to fly over the whole thing and wave her magic wand... what a rush that must be. You couldn't pay me enough to do that.

After that it was pretty late and we were way tired and it was way crowded... so we headed back to our motel for the night.  What an awesome day. This trip will be continued since this is a rather long post .... Tomorrow we hit "California Adventures" ... woo hoooo!!!