free at last

after a long year full of countless hospital visits, various medical procedures, and attempts at rehab to get herself back to normal, the hub's beloved g-wan passed away yesterday.  she'd been laid up for a really long time, had a couple of close calls, and finally enough was enough.

she was always very kind to me, and treated the teen as family from the beginning.  there were always handwritten cards in the mail for both girls, often with a few dollars tucked in that would make me smile every time.  she and mr. g-wan were the kind of grandparents who took the hub and brother wan off on fun trips when they were little - they'd go on cruises, visit disney world, hang out at their cabin up in the mountains.  she could be gruff and a little grumpy at times, but she was always happy to welcome you to her home with a smile.  and the bean loved her and said a prayer for her every single night.

after looking through the archives, i've only confirmed what i already knew:  take photos with your loved ones.  even if you don't love being in front of a camera, suck it up for the two seconds it takes to snap a picture.  although i don't seem to have a single photo with g-wan, at least we have these:

bye for now, g-wan.  we're so happy that you're free from all the physical pain you endured over the last few years, and hey - say hi to the "other" g-wan for us, okay?  we love you both.

yeah, i still ain't no video girl

remember how the teen and i headed down to disneyland after dropping the bean off at school so that i could make my video for round 2 of the disney moms panel application process?

yeah...so i kept thinking about what i wanted to do and say in the video, and i had come up with a handful of talking points to address the question i'd been given.  i thought about last year's video, which we'd thought had come out so well, but still hadn't landed me a spot in the next round.  and i remembered that a lot of videos that folks had submitted last year were super simple - just them and the camera, speaking from the heart, keeping it light and easy breezy.

that's when i decided that perhaps going all out and completely disney-fying my video wasn't the right way to go about it.  maybe this year, i'd make it super simple.  i ran the idea by the teen and decided that this year's video would be the polar opposite of last year - no gimmicks, no tricks, no props.  just me, wearing a plain top, in front of a white wall and being myself.  after all, the whole point is to show them who i am.  so that's what i did.

in the meantime, we were already at disneyland - parked in a pretty decent spot, passes in hand and on our way to board the tram to the entrance.  with no more pressure to film that damn video and several good, long hours to just hang out together, it turned into a great time  - just me and my firstborn.

because we were there relatively early, we headed right over to what remains one of the most popular attractions in the entire disneyland resort - radiator springs racers in cars land.  fastpasses were still available but printed with a time much later than we could stay, and the standby line was already up to a 45-minute wait.  but the single rider line was completely empty.  we literally walked right up to the ride and were boarded in about 3 minutes.  and we even got to ride in the same car!

it was so much fun, we did it again.  this time though, we got separated.

next up - the tower of terror.  we were seated and screaming our heads off in about ten minutes.  too bad we got completely blocked in the photo.

over at disneyland, we hit up another favorite - the matterhorn.  our luck held out as a newly refurbished car was pushed out onto the track and filled completely with single riders.

look, our heads are in olaf's butt!

and my kid magically grew a tail.

how cute is baby cruella?  so young, yet already so devilish.

the wait for space mountain was longer than it would've taken for the fastpass time to come around.  we'd snagged one right when we walked into the park, and then managed to squeeze in a bit of fun before heading back for our ride.

after watching our most favorite show ever - mickey and the magical map - we had time to squeeze in one last ride before heading home.  with no wait, star tours was the winner.

and one last photo op:

we got back just in time to watch the bean cheer at the last football game of the season.

she was pretty excited to see her sister there (instead of at work, like usual).

and as for me, when we got home, i squeezed in a few minutes of alone time with the camera and then the computer as i made my video and completed the application questions.  instead of agonizing over every single word and dragging out the process, i just blazed right through all of my answers.  after a couple of reviews for punctuation and spell check, i was done.  i uploaded my video (which was a few seconds under the time limit and featured the end-of-the-day version of me, complete with slightly disheveled hair, way less than perfect makeup and gray roots), read through my answers one more time, and hit "submit."

  

and now i wait.  we'll see how it goes, but i'm cool either way.  a few crossed fingers would be welcome, though!

spreading the disney magic

so do you remember last year, when i joined the thousands of hopefuls in applying for a highly coveted spot on the disney moms panel?

yup - i went for it again.

this was actually quite a while ago - early september, to be exact.  and apparently, there were so many applicants this time that it took them a month and a half to get through them all.  there were a handful of essay questions, and not only were they watching for content, but accuracy and spelling and grammar and all that kind of good stuff.  plus, i'm thinking they wanted to see some sort of personality come through on that screen.  like, here's one of the questions from round one - i pulled out all the cheese and dorkiness i could muster to answer it:

huh.  reading that again, i would have totally passed me over in a hot minute.  what a goober, man.

knowing the insane odds of actually earning a spot on the panel - and nobody knows how many openings there are - i pretty much tried to bury all thoughts of advancing further.  yeah, i'm still part of the closed facebook group comprised of "disney MP hopefuls," and it's fun to read everyone's excitement and anxiousness, but i just sat back and enjoyed the anticipation.

gary, the poor guy who pulled the short straw and had to manage the insanity of social media for the group last year, is still our go-to via social media.  he would tweet out cryptic clues and little bits of encouragement for the applicants, and it was fun to watch everyone run into the facebook board to share for those who aren't on twitter.  every tweet was dissected and discussed and ripped into about a million pieces in an attempt to decipher its meaning, and sometimes they were successful.  other times, hilariously way off.  and then finally, he was able to tell us this:

and later that day, the pixie dust was a-flyin'.  thank goodness the panel judges didn't agree with my assessment of my answers to the round 1 questions, because:

but now...another video.  ack!  how i hate seeing and hearing myself on video.  pictures, sure.  i'm a total picture whore, which i'm not sure if you knew or not.  and the applications are due on monday.

today, i'm off to work on that video.  i sure hope i can pull off a decent one.  it'd be fun to advance to the next round this year...

be a leader

the journey to girl scouting continues!

this time, it was my very first official leader meeting with the rest of my local troop heads.  it's a once a month gathering for my service unit, with a representative from the greater los angeles girl scouts' office present.  the agenda i'd received via e-mail asked everyone to wear pink in honor of breast cancer awareness month, and would you believe it - despite the fact that pink is my very favorite color, my closet is desperately lacking.  luckily, i managed to find something that would work.

i was a little nervous, but at least it wasn't hard to find:

inside, there were a bunch of chairs formed in a large circle and i wondered if we were going to do the girl scout friendship circle.  haha, i thought that was just for the girls, but i'd go along with whatever.  and i was kind of secretly stoked to find that i had my own official nametag already.

before the meeting started, i perused the wares around the room.  a large binder full of local activities caught my eye, as did the catalog of official girl scout gear.

there was a display of free craft supplies to take and share.  i couldn't help but smirk at the clippers patches that apparently couldn't even be given away.

and they were finishing off a collection of feminine hygiene supplies for a local home set up for female veterans and their kids.

the meeting was interesting and informative, and didn't last too terribly long.  they typically last for about an hour, although this one ran a little later because we got to listen to a guest speaker.  a representative from the home benefiting from the collection of supplies was present to give us more information about it, and it was interesting and touching to hear.

they do a raffle at every meeting for some little girl scouts trinkets, and this month it was pink scarves and a fluffy blanket.  i didn't win, but i still have a chance next month.

afterwards, my fellow leaders and i helped ourselves to the table of nuts and snacks.  we hadn't formed our troop in time for the fall product sale, but at least we could sample them so we'd know what we had for next year.  i highly recommend the tomato basic-seasoned peanuts.  SO GOOD.

our first parents' meeting is next week, and we got to take a peek at the room we'll be using.

if i thought i was nervous for this meeting, just wait for that one where i actually have to speak in front of people.  oh shit.

might as well jump. jump!

i know that ideas for cookie designs are pretty much endless, but it still amazes me when someone approaches me with a new idea to work on.  this time, it was a birthday party at a bounce house.  after  my usual google routine, i found something that looked like it would work.  bonus:  it was fairly simple.  check it out:

first, i flooded square cookies with plain white frosting as the base.  then i took the first color and drew a little rectangle in the middle:

with the next color, i added a line on top and on the bottom.

just a little off to the side went a triangle:

on the left with color number 2 went a column, and then a sliver of the top of the column on the right rear.

i picked up the the first color again to form the bottom step, and then i used the 4th color to make the "hat" on top of the first column and the base of the second column.  can you see the basic shape now?

one more time with that first color to create the illusion of the 4th column in the back:

outlining.

final step - the net in the middle.

all done!  it was pretty easy, once i got the first few out of the way.  what do you think?

celebrating halloween, disney-style

with some free time on sunday, the girls and i decided to head down to disneyland and check out the halloween activities at big thunder ranch.  but first, we stopped to watch the frozen pre-parade show since we'd managed to time our arrival just right.

that face just kills me.  i crack up every time i look at it.

so this "show" is really just a float that comes down the route before the parade actually starts.  it's got an animatronics version of olaf on the front of it, and then anna and elsa are perched atop, waving at the crowds below.

they play an instrumental version of "let it go" as the princesses glide down the street, so of course i had it stuck in my head for the rest of the day.  oy.

it was pretty crowded that day, being a sunday while a holiday overlay decorated the entire park.  we had just an hour and a half before the halloween carnival back in big thunder ranch was over, and we found a shitton of people when we got there.

there was a meet & greet area where you could take pictures with one of several different disney villains.

characters were roaming the area dressed in halloween costumes:

 and there were some really cool pumpkins on display.

the girls decided to head over and decorate some masks and finger puppets.

photobombed by minnie.

one more photo op on the way out:

in a little corner next to rancho del zocalo, the mexican restaurant in the park, there was a little display for dia de los muertos - the day of the dead.

and a rare disney freebie - face painting.

we caught the 4D preview of disney's next movie, "big hero 6."

and got to enjoy one ride of the bean's choice - buzz lightyear's astro blasters.  i always end up riding solo here because the cars only accommodate two at a time.  i don't look too unhappy about it, though, huh?

and then a couple of these wrapped up to go for dinner:

not bad for a 3-hour window of free time, huh?