The One with Halloween Morning at Disneyland

Halloween day gets two posts - cuz it was a big day!

This will probably be our last time ever going to Disneyland during Halloween Time so I'm going to go into depth about our trip. Plus, there were a few "firsts", and that's always fun to document. 

We woke up Halloween morning to an appropriately foggy atmosphere. Oooo-eeeee-ooooo spooky!

I was originally just going to go by myself with Fox and Jane (my first time actually by myself with no other friends to help) but when I was a few blocks away Chris called and said, "Come back come back! My rotation was cancelled!" Hooray! Having Chris come made the day so much more fun, easy, and relaxing. We made it to the park right as it opened at 8am. 

Picture of a picture of us in front of the giant Mickey pumpkin that I instagrammed.

It wasn't crowded at all! Hooray! There wasn't even a line to get on Peter Pan - we just hopped right on! That's my favorite kind of day at Disneyland :)

We bopped along all the little kid rides in about 20 minutes. Score.
Snow White. Note to self: this little girl's sparkly tulle witch tutu was sooo cute; make one for Jane.

Pinocchio's Daring Journey.

King Arthur's Carousel.

Dumbo the Flying Elephant.

Birds on a wire captured while riding Dumbo.

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. 

Alice in Wonderland. Jane fell asleep in my arms on the Alice ride. Also, it broke down just as we exited and had to wait for staff to come and let everyone out of their buggy. I'm having bad luck with that lately!

We did NOT go on Tea Cups, I was still nauseated after Dumbo. And we did NOT go on It's a Small World because it's closed for decorating it for Christmas.

We DID take turns going on the Matterhorn! It's the first roller coaster I've been on in over a year!!! It was fun. But it hurt my bum :)

Then we ventured over to Mickey's Toon Town.


Guess what?! Guess what?! Fox is tall enough to go on Gadget's Go Coaster!!!!!!

We both took a turn taking Fox on the ride. He didn't laugh or cry so we'll be making this roller coaster a part of our regular ride routine!


Even the Finding Nemo line was short enough that we decided to go on it.

Fox has been requesting to watch Nemo lately so he enjoyed the ride.

After Nemo we went on Astro Blasters. The guy in front of us got over 999,999 points - the highest you can get, a level 7! I have NO idea how. I wanted to ask him, but didn't have the guts.

After that Chris wanted to go on Star Tours 3D for the first time since its renovation so I hung out with Fox in the gift shop, let him get some Toy Story action figures, and played with them outside.

We were pretty hungry at this point so we got lunch and enjoyed watching the Jedi Training show.

Then I went on Space Mountain for the first time in a looooong time! It's one of my faves, especially when it's "Ghost Galaxy" for Halloween!

Jane needed to eat but rather than try and nurse her in public we found the Baby Care Center.

It was so cutely decorated - all shabby chic-like.

Nursing was kinda weird - there were four wicker chairs lined up behind a panel and I just took a seat and did my thing. I was glad for the privacy though!
We got our second wind and headed over to Adventureland to do all that fun stuff. First stop, Jungle Cruise. As we were standing in line Jane had a blowout...


I brought an extra onesie for Jane but it was too cold to wear only that so I put her into Fox's jammies that I brought in case he needed an extra pair of clothes (which luckily he didn't end up needing).

After changing Jane we passed under Tarzan's Treehouse.

Then we went on Pirates of the Caribbean. Fox has really been in to pirates and skeletons lately and singing, "Yo ho yo ho, adgahdgoa sga me." (The "adgahdgoa sga " are made up words.)

New Orleans Square is already decked out for Christmas!


Next we went on the Haunted Mansion.

It never gets old :)

We meandered over to Winnie the Pooh.

At lunch we noticed that Fox is tall enough to ride Autopia and probably has been for awhile (the requirement is 32" and the roller coaster we went on earlier was 35". Who knew?), but it was closed during lunch. So we headed back and it was open! I couldn't go on it with Jane, so I stood around and snapped pictures of the big event. Fox is growing everyday and getting to go on fun rides!


After Autopia we were exhausted and felt good about everything we'd done in such a short time so we called it a day.

Goodbye Disneyland at Halloween Time! I hope we meet again some day!

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The One with Tip Toe's 19th (and Probably Last) Birthday

I've had my fair share of pets in my 27 years of life. Probably more than 60... From a flock of zebra finches to a warren of rabbits, from a herd of guinea pigs to a school of fish, so on and so forth. My very first "pet" was a pair of tadpoles my dad found on a bike ride or something when I was about 7. I named them Blacky and Snacky. They died while being taken care of by our neighbor when we were on vacation. My second pet was a guinea pig named Tanmerry. 

My third pet was/is our cat named Tip Toe. 

At the end of October 1994, my aunt and uncle found abandoned kittens in their yard. Being the sweet and caring for animals people that they are, they took the kittens in and hand fed them. I desperately wanted one but the 'rents said no. My uncle had to take the kittens to work with him every day to feed them and since he shared an office with my dad, eventually my dad gave in to their cuteness and let me get one. I remember before we went and picked her up we stopped off at a bread store and I swear we spent five hours shopping for ingredients... I named my kitty Tip Toe because that was what I decided I would name my first kitty when I was about 5 years old.

Today is Tip Toe's 19th birthday!

Today my mom took Tip Toe to the vet and found out she most likely has cancer. 

Nobody/nothing lives forever, but it's still hard to imagine life without Tip Toe! It feels like she's been around forever!

Granted she's not the nicest of cats. In fact, I'd say she's downright mean. But every once in awhile she can be affectionate; only towards my mom these days.

Once upon a time I read somewhere that the reason cats like to sit on your things is they want to feel important. If that's the case, then Tip Toe wants to be queen of the castle!

Tip Toe has already outlived Sneakers our beloved Sheltie. 

Now she's battling life against Gypsy the Australian Shepherd!

One of my most favorite pictures of Tip Toe. She's ready for dinner and waiting patiently!

Every time I've been home over the last several years, Tip Toe has gotten skinnier and skinnier and skinnier.

Today at the vet she only weighed 5 pounds :( They ran a bunch of tests, results to be known tomorrow. The vet thinks she has cancer of the intestines, hence she's so darn skinny even though she eats her weight, quite literally, in food every day.

I'm not looking forward to the circle of Tip Toe's life coming to an end. But I do believe our pets go to heaven so we will be reunited!

Happy 19th birthday Tip Toe! You're such a pretty kitty!

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