Halloweentown

I think Halloween time at Disneyland is my most favorite time of the year there.  I love Christmas too but Halloween is more fun.

The entire park is decorated and some of the rides switch over to the special holiday ones.

Since we have passes we hit the park up on a weekday.  We picked Nick up from school early (which he loves) and took him for the afternoon.  It was slow and we got on every ride we wanted too.

Nick loves taking the horse drawn trolley from the front gate up to the castle.

Where we found these really cool pumpkins!

And one of his favorite rides - the Rocket Ships

And then we headed over to the new Star Tours ride.  This just reopened and has quickly become a fave for the entire family.  Definitely worth the wait and today, the wait was about 20 minutes.  Thats a short wait for this ride!

And when we walked out......we ran into a Storm Trooper.  We had just picked up a new light saber (or lifesaver as Nick calls it) to replace the one we bought in the spring.  We got it home and there were no batteries or battery cover so it didn't light up or make sound.  We made sure this one worked before we left the store.

Nick ran up to the Storm Trooper and then saw his gun and started to back away.  Right before he darted back over to my side he said 'I have a lifesaver!' to the Storm Trooper.  He pretended to be scared and played like he was afraid of Nick.  I love good characters!

Then we headed over to Frontierland to check out the pumpkins over there ......

And we ran into Woody!

The Haunted Mansion is a must!  They turn it into the Nightmare Before Christmas.

And we can't leave without a ride on the teacups!

A parting shot of the castle.....

And the pumpkin characters at the gates.

Interview with a 4 year old

I never posted this interview yet because I'm still working on the layout.  I have a bunch of crafty stuff to share from the past few weeks, but I'll share that later.

Here is the list of questions I asked Nick when he turned 4.

My Favorite Food

My favorite sport

My favorite tv show

Coolest person you know

Favorite thing about school

My favorite Color

When I grow up I want to be 

My favorite song

My favorite snack

My friends

My favorite toy

Just finishing up the layout with this list and I'll be back to share!

Back to school

Photography school that is.

I purchased a Groupon earlier this year for some photo classes.  It was about to expire so I snuck in a quick lesson this past weekend.  I learned a lot about my camera and took it off manual for the first time in....well, since I bought it.

Normally I do a lot of post-processing on my photos after I upload them but these are are SOOC.

The class was held at the Montage Resort in Laguna Beach which sets a dramatic backdrop with the beaches, the coves, the flowers and tide pools.

Hello from San Diego

Back on Labor Day weekend, a friend flew out to stay for a couple of days.  She was one of my sorority sisters in college and we haven't seen each other in years.  A LOT of years.

It was fun to catch up.  She and her boyfriend stayed in San Diego for the weekend and we drove down to meet up with them.

Their hotel was right next to the Gaslamp Quarter and we walked around a little bit before stopping for lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory.

I was bad about taking pictures this time around because we ended up talking non-stop for 3 hours.  Bryan and Alex were not amused.  I caught them laughing at us a couple of times.  And then Liana and I ordered some drinks at the hotel bar and we ended talking even faster.  Imagine two Italians sitting at a bar with fruity drinks and you have the two of us.

Here are a few pictures I managed to take.

Sadly, this one came out blurry.  The waitress took it for us.  Oh well.