Birthday Trip 2016!

Hey guys! As some of you probably know, Patrick took me to Disneyland for my 24th birthday this year and both of us got some great photos that I wanted to share with you all, as well as a little about the weekend itself (even if this post is super belated)!

Normally in February southern California isn't particularly warm-- in fact, we thought that my birthday weekend would be a great time to go to Disneyland because the parks are usually dead during the cold, rainy winter. However, apparently we booked our trip for the hottest weekend of the winter. It was in the low to mid 80's the entire time we were there, which brought the people out and also made us both grumpy (to those of you who said we'd hate the cold, rainy Portland weather-- HA. WE LOVE IT. THE WARM IS TERRIBLE GIVE ME THE COLD AND WET), but we still really enjoyed the trip!

We flew in on Friday morning and went straight to the parks to wander around for a bit. By 1pm we were both tired, cranky, and really hot, so we headed to the hotel for an early check-in, a shower, and a nap. For dinner we went to my favorite restaurant in Anaheim (outside of Disneyland)-- Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.! We even got to see our favorite waiter, Gabe, who unexpectedly picked up a shift for someone else!

We were super excited to see that the 60th Anniversary decorations are still up! I really hope that they keep the shiny castle shingles :)

It's A Small World

Where we got engaged! I don't think I'll ever be able to eat there again because nothing can top that day

 

On Saturday we expected the park to be moderately busy because of the weather... But not nearly as busy as it was (apparently there was some sort of Annual Passholder Event). I was already struggling to wake up and no amount of caffeine in the world was helping, so a busy park probably would have given me a panic attack. We rode the shuttle bus into the park, saw how long the lines for bag check were, and decided to stay put on the bus so that it could drop us right back off at the parking lot. Instead, we ended up going to San Clemente to walk the beach trails a bit, then we stopped at the Mission Viejo mall to wander around, and finally we stopped at In-N-Out for lunch before heading back to the hotel so that I could nap and try to get my energy level up. Saturday was a bit of a bust, since I woke up with a strange fever and felt miserable for hours (which may have been related to my inability to "wake up"), but we did go out to a nice dinner at McCormick & Schmick's after I was feeling better!

Our view from North Beach in San Clemente

It was gorgeous! We spent most of the time watching the surfers.

Our delicious lunch. I've been craving In-N-Out for months and insisted on it when we went down for this trip.

Animal style everything.

Before dinner

On Sunday we got a lazy start to the day. I woke up to two birthday cards from Patrick and a card from our cats, then we got ready and spent most of the day in the parks! We ended up leaving midday to go back to the hotel so that we could check in for our flights and get ready for dinner because jeans and a t shirt won't cut it for Carthay Circle! We had a fabulous dinner at Carthay out on the second floor patio, which we had mostly to ourselves during our entire meal! Afterwards we wandered around a bit and found our darling friends Lena and Victoria who we haven't seen since we moved.

I have to say that the best part about the trip for me is how much I missed Oregon. Did you read that correctly? You sure did. Being there reinforced how much I love Oregon and how much I truly disliked living in California. I know that it seems to be a dream of a lot of people to move there but it was definitely not a good fit for me. I like nice people and decent drivers and decently priced gas (or, well, decently priced everything) and weather that changes-- that is not what you get in California! Oregon, I love you!

I can't wear the regular Mickey head earrings because they're made of metal that I'm allergic to so I finally gave in got a pair of the more expensive ones for my birthday.

We happened to be in DCA at just the right time so we got to watch the Pixar Parade!

Patrick and I went on a wild goose chase to find this damn BB-8 sipper but I have to admit, it is pretty cute.

Our view from our table at Carthay!

My button, dress, and nails all glowed in the black light on the Monster's Inc. ride! 

Lena and Victoria! We were so excited to see them!

Before the night ended we waited to watch World of Color but it was cancelled due to high winds, so instead we ran to The Little Mermaid ride and ended the night on that note :)

I think that the most exciting thing about being 24 is that for the last year (being 23), I was the same age as my Babcia (great-grandmother), whose birthday is on leap year so she has only had 23 "real" birthdays. For the next 20 days I will be older than her, then we will be the same age again for just under a year because she has another "real" birthday this year, and then I will be older than her for the rest of my life! It's amusing to me, at least!

I have to say that overall I had an incredible birthday, spending it with the man I love and taking full advantage of "birthday rules". Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday!

The D23 Expo in Anaheim!

Hey everyone! We're out of town right now and we've just done something pretty cool that I'm so excited to share with you all. 

Just before Patrick and I have our big move, we had a trip booked months and months in advance to attend the D23 Expo in Anaheim! For those who don't know, D23 is a Disney membership fan club. You pay annual dues and for that members get extra perks such as discounted tickets to the Expo, exclusive merchandise in the parks and online, sneak peaks of things coming up, a monthly newsletter, etc. 

This year, we decided to go to the D23 Expo! The Expo runs from Friday through Sunday and has all sorts of stuff: cosplayers (basically regular people like you and me who either purchase or make their own costumes for things such as conventions and dress as characters and sometimes invent original characters and outfits), exclusive D23 merchandise, panels with actors and actresses from current shows that you can view, exclusive sneak peak trailers, small museum-esque exhibits, entire displays where you can see what is coming out in the next few months/years, artist booths, antique and collectors items vendors, Disney merchandise mini "stores", photo-ops with actors and actresses, mini concerts, celebrity appearances, and more! 

While I was more interested in being comfortable than fashionable (such is my life), Patrick decided that this year he wanted to go as Anger from Inside Out (very fitting, isn't it?), which required painting his face and arms red. We got ready, walked to the convention center, arrived around 9:30am, and waited in line until around 10:00am. It was a horrible, agonizing 30 minutes in the sun-- by the time we got in, my hands were so swollen from the heat and standing still that I could not get my wedding ring off for almost three hours, and at its worst point, my finger was turning red and I was moments away from a panic attack all morning because I was afraid I'd have to have my ring cut off. Thankfully once we got inside it was very cool and we were able to walk around and re-distribute the fluid in our bodies so I didn't have to have my ring or my finger cut off (but I did need a band aid for a blister on my heel at one point)!

We made the decision months ago when we bought our tickets that we would only go on Saturday, which we are glad we did since this was our first convention. The Expo was enormous! It took us three separate "trips" (with breaks for resting and food in between) to get through the entire convention.

Anger from Inside Out

(Isn't that a nice tie? I added the red triangles on that tie at 10pm with craft paint, a pen, a brochure, and a makeup brush)

You can see my Marvel Comics backpack (which I bought at Wal Mart) here which I brought to go with my Iron Man dress (which I bought in Disneyland). 

The cast of Girl Meets World! Patrick mostly took photos of Ben Savage for me (I was too short to take the pictures above the crowd) because I'm more of a BMW fan than a GMW fan, simply because I am currently re-watching BMW so that I can begin watching GMW, so I don't know the newer characters as well.

Christy Carlson Romano (Ren from Even Stevens). At the table next to her we also saw Sean Astin (Mikey from The Goonies, Samwise Gamgee from Lord of the Rings, etc). I desperately wanted to meet him but the line was hours long so I shuffled away with a little bit of sadness (The Goonies is one of my two favorite movies and I actually have a LOTR tattoo, obviously because I also love those movies so much).

The highlight of my day-- I got to meet Richard, aka Aurora, a cross playing cosplayer, freelance makeup artist, and costume designer that I follow on Tumblr! I was so excited about this-- I love meeting Tumblr users in real life, as you can see from this post where I met Tim! When I saw that Richard was going to be there, I definitely had my eye out, and thankfully we got to meet him! 

Wall-E!

Disgust (Victoria), Sadness (Bobbie), and Anger (Patrick). I considered going as Bing Bong but I didn't have enough time to get the costume together by the time I had the idea to do it-- maybe next year!

The merchandise we bought! I'm a little bit in love with the purse (it's made of seat belts and the colored bits are prints of vintage Disneyland ride tickets)

Anger picking Yoda's nose.

We loved this Crock Pot, but it isn't in production yet! The creators of it are trying to get Pixar and Crock Pot to collaborate and release this item. If you love is as much as Patrick and I do, use the hashtags #Pixar and #CrockPot (separate tags) together on the same post on any public social media on the internet so the companies see it and know that there are people interested in purchasing it!

Cinderella's Lego Slipper

That's my secret... I'm always angry. 

Going off on a little bit of a tangent here, I just want to express how frustrating it is to be a female who loves The Hulk. Every single item that I own with JUST Hulk on it is a men's item because almost every single women's item with The Hulk on it doesn't even really have The Hulk-- they all have She-Hulk. Any women's items with The Incredible Hulk on them that I've found either feature all of the Avengers or are online where I can't try them on! It is the most frustrating thing! The Hulk is my favorite Marvel character (and favorite super hero, for that matter) and it breaks my heart that-- even though I love my cozy, oversized men's t shirts-- I can't have anything with my favorite character on it simply because The Hulk isn't "for girls"... but She-Hulk is. 

Anger, too, is always angry.

Wreck It Ralph!

An actual playable Fix It Felix arcade game

Winning Fix It Felix

One of the most unique and hilarious cosplays we saw all day, a tour guide and a tourist on The Jungle Cruise (complete with boat on wheels!)

Lego Buzz Lightyear!

Lego Woody!

Who's your friend who likes to play?

This is one of the clay figures that they used to animate Bing Bong from Inside Out (probably my favorite Disney character aside from The Hulk, who I put in a completely separate category because he is Marvel before he is Disney)

A Pizza Planet truck! I always wish that they would put an actual Pizza Planet arcade/pizza place in Disneyland.

There was a huge wall with all of the D23 Gold and Silver members names' printed on it (in alphabetical order, thankfully), so we took a photo of Patrick's.

Though there is a lot that I didn't highlight because I simply didn't find it relevant to me, Patrick feels that I should include that there other cool things there such as signings with Dick Van Dyke and Ed Asner. There were also announcements during the convention that gave us new information. For example, parts of Tomorrowland are going to be re-done with a Star Wars theme and they let us know that Orlando Bloom will be in the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Ellen Degeneres also made an appearance after we had already left, showcasing the long-awaited Finding Dory movie. 

The D23 Expo was so amazing and we saw so much cool stuff that we could otherwise never have seen anywhere else. We look forward to doing it again in the future (hopefully with more comfortable shoes this time!). We spent Friday in Disneyland since it will be my last time going for a while since we are moving out of state, we spent Saturday at the Expo, and Sunday will be spent in Downtown Disney for leisurely shopping and probably lunch. Afterwards, we will be heading to Pasadena (about a 40-45 minute drive from Anaheim) until Thursday while Patrick is working with a client. It will be nice to spend some time in a place that isn't packed to the ceiling with boxes and I'm enjoying our trip so far and expect that some quiet time away from home next week will do us good (even if it is for work).



As a side note, today was the first annual Gasser Family Reunion which I had to miss because we had already planned this trip! My grandfather had me send "flat selves" of Patrick and I to Michigan so that we could "attend" the reunion.

Flat Brook and Flat Patrick before they were mailed off to Michigan!

(The characters are my own design, which I printed, colored, and pasted to manila folders for stabilization)

Here we are with my sisters

Photo courtesy of Gerry Gasser

I'm sorry to say that we missed it even though we had fun here in Anaheim. I hope to be able to attend next year!