out & about

The Merriest Place On Earth

‘ello, lovelies!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving weekend that was filled with delicious mounds of food, great company, and sweet deals! And if you didn’t celebrate it, I hope your weekend was full of delicious mounds of food, great company, and sweet deals anyway, because food is awesome  and so are cool people, and everyone did some sort of shopping this weekend, riiight? Plus Cyber Monday is tomorrow. AH!

Like I mentioned in my last couple of posts, my boyfriend and I went to Disneyland for a few days to celebrate our one year anniversary!!! We even got some “Happy Anniversary” buttons and wore them the whole time we were there, and so many people wished us a happy anniversary, or congratulated us — the latter we were kind of thrown off by. I mean, you congratulate a couple when they get engaged or married, right? But surviving a whole year is an accomplishment in and of itself because relationships are HARD WORK — and, not to get too into my relationship, but Tim and I pretty much only get to see each other during the weekend, or every other weekend, so to be able to stick together through long distance and other obstacles is pretty amazing. Therefore, congratulations were well deserved!

Disneyland during the holiday season is quite a spectacular site — everything is way more shinier and sparklier and the whole place is much more magical than usual. What do I mean by “much more magical than usual,” you ask? Isn’t Disneyland ALWAYS magical? Well, yes. Of course it is! But with all the holiday decorations and trees that have ornaments bigger than my head and Sleeping Beauty Castle all decked out in pretty lights and faux snow… all those details make it possible for Disneyland to be WAY MORE MAGICAL than usual. And the Haunted Mansion gets a The Nightmare Before Christmas makeover which is one of the top reasons why I think Disneyland is at its best during this time of year. 🙂

So, the rest of this post shall be a photo spam! I’ll sprinkle in some wordy bits throughout, but I hope you enjoy these photos as much I enjoyed my time spent at the Happiest Merriest Place on Earth!

I took so many pictures of this dude. I think this is probably the best shot of the bunch.

I spy Sparky from Frankenweenie. Do you?

Jukebox made out of old car parts. If you look closely, there are car radios inside!

Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree is the only ride in Cars Land that we got to go on, and despite the annoying soundtrack (I feel so bad for the folks who operate that ride), it was really fun! The line to get fast passes for Radiator Springs was just as long as the line for the actual ride itself. Ridonkulous, right?! I didn’t want to wait 3 hours to get a ticket to go on a ride at a later time and then go back and wait an extra 30-45 minutes to go on the ride. Y’know what I’m sayin’?

I’m not a huge Cars fan, but Cars Land was beautifully executed! We had lunch at Flo’s V8 Cafe and I had an Apple Cheddar Pie that was pretty damn tasty. Next time I go in January I’ll be sure to take more pictures of Cars Land. I was too caught up in the atmosphere to snap some photos.

I wanted to be a Can-Can dancer when I was little because of the ones on It’s a Small World. They’ve always been my favorite.

My sister has been raving about the deep fried pickles at the Carnation Cafe on Main Street. I HATE pickles. However, I discovered that when they’re deep fried they are delicious. So weird. Tim ordered them because he figured I’d never have tried them if he didn’t.  And I swear if I lived closer to Disneyland I would go there all the time and have a blog dedicated to their food!

I felt that my blue and green tartan blazer matched well with the decor inside Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. I’d also like to note that this ride is extremely effed up — you end up dying of drunk driving and the ride ends with you going to hell! Seriously. I still enjoy it though.

It literally hurt to take this picture. The sun in our eyes was no bueno.

Tim kicked my ass on the Toy Story Mania ride. 😦 It’s okay though, I always kick his on the Buzzlight Year ride — it evens out.

There were a few costumes from Once Upon a Time displayed in the Hollywood Backlot (California Adventure), but the glare on the window made it impossible to take pictures. I’m kind of questioning if they were the ones actually used on the show anyway because Charming’s costume looked horrifically dinky when Josh Dallas looks all kinds burly.  So here’s a picture of the book! Or maybe it’s a replica. I don’t know. o,0

F*ck yes, Lego Prince Phillip!

Tim and I decided to do a special World of Color dining thingy at Wine Country Trattoria — you get to eat a fancy dinner that includes an appetizer, entree, dessert, a complimentary drink, and tickets for the reserved section of World of Color. While making reservations the woman was telling us that adults could get a special alcoholic beverage that has a glowing cube, and since kids like the glowing cube, they have special cups for kids and glowy things — The Little Mermaid for girls and Lightning McQueen for boys. I totally ordered the kid’s drink because I wanted the cup. Our waitress was really thrown off by my ordering it. Haha! Glowy Ariel is kind of creepy though. And I think I left her at the hotel. 😦

The reserved area we were assigned was smack dab in the middle! But then a nice Cast Member (in case you don’t know, that’s what Disneyland employees are called) on the lower deck told Tim and I that he could let us go to the front row for an even better view. He felt that we had an unfair advantage since folks would be coming in and we’d have to look over their heads. And he also noticed our “Happy Anniversary” buttons and said he wanted our anniversary to be special. 😀

I was also freeeeezing because my dumb ass wore a skirt in the evening, so I was really excited about the part of the show with the pyrotechnics. Insta-warmth! Except when all the pyrotechnics went off, there were also tons of misty bits. So… yeah.

I’ve been wanting to take a picture with Winnie the Pooh while wearing my Doctor Pooh shirt  for nearly a year, and I FINALLY did it on our last day there! I thought Pooh Bear was coming in for a hug because he had his arms spread out, but then he stopped and pointed at my shirt and started clapping. And then he blew me kisses as I was leaving. I love Winnie the Pooh ❤

Eeyore poked our buttons as a means to say “Happy Anniversary!” to us. At least I think that’s what he was doing. You can never tell with that guy on account of him being perpetually gloomy and all.

And that concludes my photo spam! Hope you all enjoyed. 🙂

Cheers,
Nina

geek style · out & about

The Happiest Place on Earth

I got back from my super amazingly fantastical 4-day Disneyland adventure last night around 2:30 am! Or technically, earlier this morning. My back is killing me (Tim had to put Icy Hot patches on me, and I’ve been downing Aleve like there’s no tomorrow), my feet are sore, and there’s slight chaffage between my thighs, but I already miss Disneyland oh-so-terribly. 😦 And despite the fact that we were there for 4 days, we still didn’t do everything we wanted to do. BUT, we also got annual passes, so we have a whole year to go back as many times as we can!!!

Some pretty interesting things happened during our stay — the cast of Modern Family were shooting on location for an upcoming episode. We spotted them on Main Street! And on Saturday, we used our Magic Morning passes to get into the park an hour early, and around 9:30 we headed over to California Adventure to get Fast Passes for World of Color, but we noticed that the park was damn near empty — a rarity for a Saturday at Disneyland. We were stopped by some cast members at the entrance/exit and they told us that there’s a “situation” going on outside of the park, so they weren’t letting anyone in OR out. Basically, we were trapped inside Disneyland which is probably the greatest place anyone could be trapped at. We got to enjoy 3 hours of short lines! But I do feel bad for the folks who had to wait inside the parking lot to get in. :/ Oh yeah, Disneyland closed at 2 am that night too. CRAZYNESS.

I got to see my sister and her boyfriend briefly since they were at the park for the One More Disney Day event a few days before we got there.
We asked a cast member to take our photo — he ended up making us do 3 poses.
I saw someone wearing the SAME EXACT Hello Kitty cardigan and leaf print dress as me. WHAT ARE THE ODDS???
Meeko wears a bow tie now. Bow ties are cool.
These are not the droids you are looking for.
Disneyland was a ghost town on Saturday morning. It was amazing!
Eric Stonestreet (Cameron!) from Modern Family.
This looks like an engagement photo. Hehe. 🙂
The World of Color show is by far one of my favorite things about California Adventure.
At elecTRONica with Sam and Aaron.
Aladdin and Jasmine on It’s a Small World.
Tim and I with the ultimate couple: Mickey and Minnie.
Another one of my favorite things at California Adventure is the sketch class.
Prince Eric & Ariel.
Matchy-matchy with the Sleeping Beauty duds.
In case you haven’t thrown up over the cute couply pictures we took.
Captain EO is so delightfully 80s. ❤

I can’t wait to go back for my next visit!!!!!!