TaylorHaps

Happy Place

13-15 Dec 2019

I really need to live in a more sunny place. It was SO nice to be in California! I drove down on Friday, stopping briefly to say hi to Ada. Got to Disneyland by 3. Left on Sunday after sacrament meeting and some peaceful time on the beach. Got home at 1:45 am.

World of color right at the edge of the water. Best way to watch!

Ada Disney

22-24 November

I flew and ada drive down to meet me. I did most of the day alone and ada made it late Friday evening.

Christmas at Disneyland is a blast 🙂

Christmas parade

Ada and I found a waterfall by Pooh Corner that we had never seen!

Our first time at Oga’s Cantina…delicious and cool drinks 🙂

Christmas tree growing out of my head…check.

The themed decorations are my favorite! Christmas tree at the Jungle Cruise has bananas, fish, tropical birds, and shrunken heads 🙂

Fireworks Factory complete with singed wreath

Gag Warehouse has chattering teeth and rubber chickens in little Santa suits

Goofy’s Gym…sporting equipment

Red white and blue tinsel and camo for Sarge

Bright orange vinyl at the Cozy Cone

We got fun photos in Toon Town…should’ve sported my sunglasses 🙂

We are at Carthay Circle (Ada’s first time!). The key lime and raspberry drinks were amazing and the Vegetable Stack was weird and really delicious!

My darling daughter 🙂

Teo asked how we were doing so this was Ada’s response. She was kidding. I hope. 🙂

The holiday World of Color…a work of art 🙂

Disney Cruise

October 2019

Steve and I did a 7-night Caribbean Halloween cruise on the Disney fantasy. A colleague of his invited us to his wedding in Jamaica during this cruise so we decided to go. Amazing! Never want to do it any other way!

We got in late Thursday night (even later because of hours-late flight) and after a few hours of sleep went to Universal. Lines were really long and it wasn’t really that much fun. We didn’t get to do the new Hagrid ride. I thought all day about how much better disney is at theme parks. 🙂

The Gadget Ride got us SO WET! And I never thought I would be able to extricate myself from the tiny car…my knee was not happy!

Saturday morning we boarded the ship and disembarked the following Saturday. Then we went to Disney world Saturday night, Sunday, and Monday morning before our flight back that afternoon. Steve was definitely Disneyed-out by the end but I was in heaven. 🙂

On the bus ride from Orlando to Port Canaveral

Posed with Pluto while waiting for our boarding time

First order of business…lunch. The food was amazing!

Beautiful ship!

We met in the Tube as a whole big group to get schedules straight, socialize and eat, and get presents. 🙂 I can’t name everyone but on the bottom row left are Brian and Serafina. Steve and I are 2 of the tiny head bumps on the back row.

Heading out!

We had choppy seas the first night which made for queasy stomachs but the coolest waves in the adult splash pool!

Each night when we came back to our room, our cabin person had cleaned for a second time, turned down the bed, and left some cool towel/blanket structure and some mints 🙂

Used my sunglasses a few times 🙂

Night on the boat was equal parts cool and scary

Also a great time to miniature golf in the rain 🙂

Glass-bottom canoeing and snorkeling in Mexico was super cool

Cool freak storm as we left Cozumel

I am totally in love with dolphins. We got to ride belly to belly and get pushed by one in a boogie board. Won’t be forgetting that any time soon!

The second part of our day on Grand Cayman we spent snorkeling out to the Wreck of the Cali (just rented equipment and went right out without a guide). Super freaky and also cool

We stopped for lunch at Rackam’s (yummy snapper and conch fritters which weren’t my favorite) and a jewelry store where we picked up cute caymanite turtle earrings which we later made into necklaces

Costumes were a big deal. Marissa and Steve won the costume contest!

Denise and Gabbie were super cute as Buzz and Woody 🙂

The wedding was so beautiful!

We waited for quite a while for it to start and the sun was beating down on us so I and a few others went wading into the ocean 🙂

Brian and Seraphina in front of the amazing falls

The bus ride back to the port was long and the tour guide rambled so much! It was very interesting to see the real Falmouth though…quite different from the port

Coolest detective game on board! We worked on the 3 different cases all week

Disney cruises have you eat at the same table each night so that you have the same servers…they move with you from restaurant to restaurant. We ended up moving around a bit but really enjoyed sitting with this family, Betsy and her kids Deyla and Dimitri

Yes of course fireworks on a ship…Disney, remember?

The view from this hard-to-find adults-only room is breathtaking

Castaway Cay is so amazing! We went parasailing, snorkeling, did the Stingray Encounter, and especially loved the adult-only beach 🙂

I really enjoyed the entertainment. Super interesting variety acts! The disney shows Steve mostly didn’t like, but the Mickey confetti they blew over the audience at the end was, however, a resounding success. 🙂

At Animator’s Palette they turn everyone’s drawings into the evening’s entertainment. So cool!

Kennedy Space Center was so cool! It poured rain so that made it tricky but seeing the Saturn V rocket was worth braving any weather 🙂

Steve liked Star Wars Land…

…but did NOT like walking around Epcot doing the Perry adventure. 🙂

The magic carpet ride doesn’t exist in CA

Fantasmic was different but still fun

Mostly I like Disneyland better but it was fun to try all the things not found there and I really enjoyed the cool interactive games they have 🙂

Cincinnati

13-16 Nov 2019

I presented a workshop at the NSTA conference so I spent a few days there and saw some cool things. And hung out a bit in my crazy big hotel room.

It was freezing the first night!

The food at this gastropub made up for it. Delicious impossible burger. 🙂

The art museum was cool. They had some Goya, sculpture by Chagall which I didn’t even know was a thing, neat old maps, and an awesome Van Gogh I had never seen before

I left the conference early on Friday and walked to the Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Super sad but so well done

The eternal flame overlooks the waterfront

Walked lots through downtown often eating Graeter’s ice cream…ran into this mural of Cincinnatus on one ramble

HalloweenDisney

16-17 sept 2019

Way too early for Halloween it’s true. But this was the only time I could get a ticket for Oogie Boogie’s Halloween Bash. And it turns out it was the first one ever! So that’s exciting!

Fireworks with Mickey Holospex…can’t beat that

Coolest coco show!

Disney at last

27-30 Aug 2019

My pass was blocked all summer so I took my first conceivable opportunity to go. Plus I was reveling in my freedom to go places in late August. 🙂

Drove down and stopped to hang out with ada both there and back. Saw some shows. 🙂

Best seat in the house…lamplight lounge right on the water

Haunted mansion funnel cake

Pineapple donut

Impossible brunch burger 🙂

Summer fun

2019

I spent most of the summer deep cleaning and dejunking the house but we did manage a few fun things along the way

Teo’s birthday celebration at the summerfest parade capped by Little Caesars and a Krispy Kreme cake

Girls Camp this year had a Harry Potter theme…rocking the butter beer mustaches!

Went skydiving! It was so awesome! Teo went with me for his 18th birthday. Steve has always told me I could go when our kids were all 18 so there you go

July birthdays means lots of candles!

While Jim and Julia were visiting we visited cascade springs…beautiful!

So many fireworks on the 4th!

Annual sleepover of aunt Jen’s…included Harry Potter potions class this year. 🙂

Fun in cedar with Tracy Scott, Teri, and Ada…shows, good food and pedis 🙂

Christensen campout at palisade lake. We stayed in a cabin and rented boats and paddle boards 🙂

Blind pilot concert at the gallivan center!

We took Yamato, the Japanese student we hosted to cascade springs

And South Fork

And Squaw Peak

And Provo Beach

And Nunns Park for roasted hot dogs and s’mores

And of course, Yamato. Actually we didn’t eat there just posed. 🙂

JustMeDisney

10-14 June 2019

Flew Allegiant from Provo and camped (checked my tent and gear). Took public transportation there and a shuttle back.

I rode all of the rides! DCA on Tuesday by 2 and Disneyland on Wednesday by 10:20 (didn’t even take a break that day). Thursday was chill…found hidden mickeys, traded pins, rode what I wanted, talked to cast members about their jobs (I feel like working there would be perfect for me), and generally soaked in the place.

7:59 Soarin Over California…back for the month of June 🙂

9:22 Jessie’s Carousel…rode a snake (not sure how that works exactly, but okay) 😀

9:33 Mickey’s “Fun” Wheel…longest wait for the ride that scares me the most

11:13 Silly Symphony Swings…didn’t even get sick

11:26 Jumpin Jellyfish…the only actually dumb ride in the parks

11:30 Goofy’s Sky School…single rider, walked right on

11:36 Golden Zephyr…first time, not bad, cool flying over the lake

12:34 Grizzly Rapids…Single Rider took me 5 minutes instead of 55

1:20 Monsters Inc…LAST RIDE! threw in Sorcerer’s Workshop for good measure

1:50 Lamplight Lounge for impossible burger and the best donuts. Then back to the campsite for a swim and a nap. 😀

8:34 Dumbo…noticed for the first time all the cool things on the roofs in Fantasyland

8:39 King Arthur’s Carrousel…got to ride Jingles 🙂

9:12 Matterhorn Single-Rider…you can actually hit your hands on the ceiling on this ride while climbing the first hill

9:32 Chip N Dale’s Treehouse…a truly boring attraction

9:36 Railroad…not pictured (oops, missed one!)

9:50 Indy with FastPass…counted all the snakes on the walls (29!)

10:16 Pirates…sat on the back row and did most of the ride facing backward!

11:15 Splash Mountain with FastPass…you don’t get as wet being in front from the second seat 😦

11:38 Winnie the Pooh…turns out Piglet and Tigger love me 🙂

11:50 Canoes…found out from a cast member that a canoe with good rowers can totally beat the Mark TwaiGreat lunch

Great lunch tip…tuna sandwich from harbor galley but skip the bun and eat it on the homemade chips

12:42 Star Tours with FastPass…got to be the rebel spy!

1:11 Mark Twain…people can go up by the pilot…note to self, do that

2:32 Small World with FastPass…the toy store next door has the greatest pin board and I finally completed by jungle book set!

2:59 Roger Rabbit with FastPass…figured out how to keep the car mostly stationary instead of spinning madly around

3:18 Astro Blasters with FastPass…got my best score ever (374,000)!

3:32 Hyperspace Mountain…the single rider line was seriously 3 minutes long

3:46 Launch Bay…the upstairs has Galaxy’s Edge merch but it’s not as cool as the stuff inside the land

4:36 Tiki Room…discovered how comfortable the corner seat in the back row is

5:05 Finding Nemo Subs…don’t care for being encased in a metal tube underwater, especially when it leaked on me!

5:43 Snow White…love this ride because it’s actually scary

5:57 Castle Walk-through…just noticed that there are crowns on some of the castle spires!

6:48 Steamboat Willie Cinemas…they finally have benches inside!

6:55 Great Moments with Mr Lincoln…inspirational every time

7:26 Autopia…actually stood in a 15-minute line for this one but it just didn’t get shorter

7:56 Astro Orbiter…25 minute line on this one and it turns out they will actually stop the ride to check seatbelts!

After the fireworks I waited in this really cool Peter Pan line made of tables and chairs

10:15 Peter Pan…last ride baby! Did it all in 1 day. 🙂

It has been a long time since I ate something that turned my tongue instantly blue 🙂

Completed my inside out collection 🙂

I just love this place! I could totally work here 🙂

AlexAdaDisney

30 May-2 June 2019

Galaxy’s Edge on Opening Day! Awesome!!! We drove down Thursday and spent a few hours at Disneyland. Friday was our Star Wars day. We were expecting insane crowds but besides in the land itself, the place was dead. Felt like February.

Saturday we slept in and then hit universal. It was insanely busy so we did like 3 rides total but Harry Potter world alone was worth the trip.

Went back to Disney on Sunday and then drove back and got home in the wee hours of Monday. Dropped ada off in cedar on the way. 😦