Beautiful flowers as always at California Adventure.

Over by the Sky Cellar ivy climbing up the side of the building.

I tried taking several different views of the Mickey Ferris Wheel. I love taking photos with water reflection in them.

More water reflection.

Nope, I don’t get tired of it.

A new Asian fast food restaurant in Pacific Wharf, California Adventure.

Loved their dragon plaque.

How Disney keeps such a big area like Cars Land under wraps is beyond me. I rode Screamin’ to get a better view. Wow.

A new chocolate store is opening in Disneyland’s California Adventure. Yum.

It’s always easy to get on Ariel’s Underwater Sea Adventure in Disney’s California Adventure. Lots to take in in such a short time.

All kinds of fish antics going on here.

Pretty cute characters though.

Have to love a King no matter where he’s at!

Finally, Ariel!

It wouldn’t be complete without Ursula, and she’s a big one!

The finale of Ariel and Prince Eric kissing.

As if you couldn’t get enough of Ariel, she appeared on Disneyland’s Main Street as I headed out of the park.

I love horses, especially Clydesdales!

Surprisingly enough the parks weren’t that busy today, as evident by all the trams lined up in the parking lot.

Since the new tile floors were installed I’ve been using my scooter in the house a lot more. That said, the biggest problem has been getting it up into the house or taking it outside to go down to the store with the 2 steps we have going into the house. Even though this scooter can be broken apart in 5 pieces I don’t think my back would want to be part of that, so my sweet hubby bought a cool ramp to make that all easier. The neat thing about this ramp is it can be broken into 2 pieces and then folded to be transported.

The next thing to do was have Jerry try the ramp out first because I was too scared to. ha! Of course he made it look easy, so I had to get up the nerve to use it myself.

As you can see by the look on my face I’m not so sure about this. Eventually though I got used to the noise it made when you’re on it, which sounds like it’s going to fall apart underneath me, and have been getting in and out of house with ease now. YES!

When we’ve had Yuki she first had some issues with the ramp and was jumping around it whenever we were taking her in or out of the house. After a bit of coaxing and patience she is used to the noise too. Now I’m trying to get her used to walking beside my scooter, something I think will take a bit more time!

As always I enjoy all the work Disney’s Master Gardener’s put into keeping Disneyland and California Adventure parks full of colorful flower and foilage. With our weather being so cyclic it’s easy to see why spring has arrived early, especially at the parks. Such a delight to the senses!

Whenever I go to the parks I love to pay attention to the small things. Disney is all about attention to detail and if taken enough time I feel surrounded by just that, joy in all the little things that make the parks interesting every time I go. I’m also drawn to not only Disney merchandise that reminds me of loved ones, a small porcelain bird that I know my husband Jerry would love, a ceramic Captain for my good friend Bill Bell, maybe even a Mickey Fireman for Jeremy, Teresa Hord’s husband. For all my girlsfriends who have children, a silhouette framed and hanging in The Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe, where there’s also a colorful stained glass window sporting a penquin waiter. Hi Steve Wilson and David Meyers! Sometimes overlooked doorways that say “Animation Department, Staff Entrance” are just waiting to be opened by one of their outstanding new Animators, Frank Pepito! And a small nod to my father, George, who when on a trip to Disneyland with our family once commented on all the wonderful, oranate ironwork all throughout the parks.

A lot of new changes are coming to both Disneyland Resort and California Adventure. During my visit today I noticed small flags above the entrance to Disneyland. Anyone have any information about these? It would be interesting to know the story behind them. The resurfacing and paint job of the Matterhorn is finally showing through the scaffold covering the outside of this large man made mountain. The Carthay Circle theater is looking quite beautiful as it rises above the outer walls of the construction area. Peaking out from behind the theater looms the Hollywood Tower Hotel. A refurbished building on the Hollywood Backlot stands tall with it’s disquinshed new colors, bearing the name of the Argyle Building. And another large screen printed cover hides the Blue Ribbon Bakery building over on Main Street in Disneyland. Definately lots of changes.

One of my favorite “extra’s” that Disney does during new construction in California Adventure, and maybe often ignored, are posters painted on the wooden walls that are put up to hide all the new creations going on in the park. Some posters proudly announcing a few of their well known rides such as Screamin’ or HTH with illustrations each with Disney’s unquie brand of enthusiasm. For me they practically jump off the wood and shout, stop and look at me. Talented artists took the time to create each and every one of these unique paintings. The posters also show illustrations of the many exciting changes undergoing construction and make me anxious to see them come to life. Such wonderful and exciting changes to look forward to.

Pluto quickly strolled off of Main Street in Disneyland leaving behind children and adults calling out his name for one last photo reminded me of one of the first photos we have of our son Matt near Cinderella’s Castle standing next to Pluto. Those photos have faded, though not the memories. I’ve never seen this character over in Bugs Land, his name is Heimlich from the Disney movie “A Bugs Life”. Seeing him munching on candy corn reminds me of a few of my friends who share my passion for sweets, right Beth and Maria Ah, the memories of eating too many Valentine hearts, or a melted box of See’s candy! haha! And who could live without the Little Green Men (also referred to as “LGMs”) in the movie Toy Story. I dare Kathleen Fuller to take a photo of her entire collection of these 3 eyed aliens and post it! Peaking out from the trees in A Bugs Land is a frazzled looking walking stick, “Slim”. He reminds me of how I feel and walk lately, well except for the slim part! haha! And can you just imagine a Disneyland without Tinkerbell. Shame. On. You. for even thinking about that. Nods to my sweet friend Pauline and daughter Valerie who both have given me many a beloved Tink Never last, never least, are 2 young girls wearing matching pink dresses walking hand in hand in the land of magic. Love you my sweet sis’s, Dee and Jill. In case other dear friends and family feel left out, never fear. I have a vast collection of Disneyland/California Adventure photos (another photo? said Jerry!) that reminds me of each and every one of you. Until next time……

Both of these cards were also made using my Cricut Expressions machine. The tree card on the left was made from the Serenade Solutions. It has become one of my favorite tree images because of the variety of leaves or flowers you can cut to place on the tree. The fleur-de-lis card on the right is from the Cricut Cartridge Accent Essentials, another favorite cartridge of mine. I’m fond of the simplistic design and soft colors.

The motorcycle and recliner cards were fun to design. Both of these images are from the Fathers Day Lite Cartridge. I cut the motorcycle out of a shimmery line of papers from Wal Mart!

This ninja cut is from the Silhouette Store and a very simple cut to create and take up off the sticky mat. I wasn’t sure how to use it in a card, but eventually thought of the phrase on the inside which I think fits perfectly.

I simply LOVE this hippie stamp that I bought from Stampin’ EJ, who you can find on Facebook and at Deborah’s Cottage in Costa Mesa, The flourishes are from my Sizzix collection as are the flowers as well. I cut the numbers “29″ with one of the font images on my Cricut Cartridge collection, I just don’t recall the exact one.

Another cut from the Silhouette Store, which may be one of my easiest cuts at that! I love how thees smaller images have a large impact.

This last car card is from the Silhouette on line store, and can be made in 2 ways. One as an image placed on top of a card, the other as a cut out car shape which is pretty adorable. And now back to my craft room…….

Happy Birthday to our wonderful son Jason who turns, I know it’s hard to believe, 33 today! Wow! Wishing him the best of birthdays and looking forward to our next get together! love you hon

Browsing through our collected pictures over the years I realized choosing those to share was harder than I thought. Every picture seemed too important to leave out, as it should be. It was then I decided to create a few collages of only a small part of our 40 years together. Mind you, these collages contain just our immediate family. To encompass all that we have lived through, all we have held dear and lost would be impossible. It would also take a lot of explaining, and who has time for that?

We both have been fortunate to live and stay in California. Something I know we love and appreciate, though I’m not saying anywhere else in the U.S. doesn’t have it’s charm. We’ve grown accustomed to the warmer climate (dang it was cold here last week, wasn’t it?), having all the amenities’ close by (can you believe that commute?), and since the last 28 years, living comfortably in a nice home. We’ve learned (ok, still learning) the grace of living harmoniously. We’ve seen the wrinkles on our faces and the graying and thinning of our hair happen at a slow, consistent pace. Our hearing is pretty much shot too. It is here where I will offer advice, because I know this much works: If you haven’t understood but a few words your spouse has just said to you, fake it. I’d say you have a pretty good chance of making them believe you’ve heard every single word. Last but not least, tell them you’ve just faked it. That kind of honesty earns you points!

Jerry and I have created and loved three beautiful boys, Jimmy, Jason and Matthew. We’ve mourned the loss of our oldest and held the younger two close to our hearts, though not always close in distance. They’ve all made us proud, teaching us how to handle a life not so fortunate and often accomplishing more than we know we ever will in our lifetimes. Children are a wonderful extension of ourselves, we watch them struggle with our weakness and find joy in our strengths. They teach us more than we realize and make us grateful in so many ways. It’s hard to believe James would have been 39 years old, that Jason is almost 33 years old, and Matthew fast approaching the big 30. Is that right Matt? Geezzzz…oh, sorry hon On that note, Happy 40th anniversary to ourselves, and love, as always. to my family.

Looking for the 2011 Fuller Times?

It’s here,

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year everyone!

So I was just a little bored today…..OK, I’m lying, I was super tired but still felt the need to make The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond’s famous pot roast which I just saw her demonstrate on her new Saturday cooking show “The Pioneer Woman Cooks”. The show airs this fall on Saturdays, on Food Network at 11:30 Eastern Time/10:30 Central time. Ree is just as cute on camera as she is on her website. If you haven’t read her blog about her romance with her husband you really should. If anything it will make you want to go all country, at least for a day.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/09/2008_the_year_of_the_pot_roast/

So, as I was saying, super tired, gathering my cooking/food supplies and reach up into the cabinet above the fridge to bring down the large crockpot. We used to have a small crockpot, but after trying to cram entire meals into the super small one we had I broke down and bought a large one at Costco and haven’t been sorry since. Well, till now. I used to store the crockpot in the cabinet below our kitchen counter, but because my knees have recently decided that they are not a necessary appendage I moved the storage place where I thought it would be easier for me to get at. Certainly makes me look more attractive, reaching and stretching my body into a long lean machine to get……Right! laugh out loud or lol as it is popular to say!! When I stored the pot under the counter I always had to stick my a** in the air getting down on the floor and trying to get back up was just ridiculous, on all fours in the kitchen doesn’t look good no matter what the age!

With my body stretched high I grabbed the crockpot in both hands and started to bring it down when the lid, which I’ve always placed upside down in the pot, decided to slide off like molasses slides into the cookie bowl. All in slow motion I did a dance with the crockpot above my head, trying to recatch the lid in the pot and not drop the pot itself. When the heavy glass lid bounched off the top of my head I basically gave up and agreed to let the floor win. And now you know the rest of the story, the lid fell on the new tile floor and broke. But what you don’t know is how cool it looked when it did that.

Once the lid found it’s first target, my head, I gave up and emmediately saw a beautiful array of stars and a fuzzy blue sky. In that state I was somehow miraculously able to slow down time and watch the whole process of a large piece of glass beautifully breaking into a million little pieces. I likened it to watching a puzzle in reverse, the light from the kitchen window glistened on the clear glass pieces as they shattered and flew. And boy did they fly. That’s the one thing about a tile floor. You can slide easier on it in a pair of socks then you could on ice skates on a newly frozen pond. Dropped grapes literally roll into an unseen abiss. Maybe they join the socks that get lost during every load of laundry. Who knows, but they are never to be seen again. And dogs, wow! Now that is fun!! Throw a ball and watch your animal run like crazy in the same spot, then take off like a demon and slide right past their target. It’s hard not to be a little cruel and use your animal as a bit of lesiurely Sunday entertainment. The couch always feels softer and more cuddly when someone else is making you laugh.

Moving on to the Pioneer Woman’s Pot Roast recipe. First things first though. Cleaning up glass on tile. It is definately easier than trying to clean up a spilled mess on carpet, but it does seem more time consuming because of the glass flying factor. So now that the kitchen, TV room, and living room floors were swept and vacuumed I finally moved on to preparing the food for the roast. I will just say, after all is said and done this roast was delicious!! Now that’s what I’m talking about!!!

To begin with I’ve never seen so many children at Soup before. They seemed to outnumber the adults 10 to 1. The sign was up by the register to “please wait to be seated”. We saw the outdoor patio looked mostly empty so we asked the manager if we could go ahead and pick our seats out there instead of waiting. After a kind yes the manager carried my tray for me making it a bit easier to navigate the maze like pattern of people all around us. We set our plates pilled high of salad down on the table and started walking towards the food bar to gather the rest of our glutinous meal.

The food bar area is much like an intersection if you will, without the stop signs or light signals. Since there are no guidelines to show you where to wait your turn, the true colors of a persons character emerge like your last drink on its way back up your esphogus. With the kids out numbering adults 10 to 1, I decided it was best to proceed with caution. Children were filling their glasses with every single flavor of soda possible, waiting knee deep in line for the apple cobbler Jerry said he never saw (I sent him out for refills and dessert too afraid to venture out on my own), and eating macaroni and cheese from the pasta bar with their sticky fingers. How many ways can I say “eewwww”? The line for the multi-flavored soda fountain was 5 to 6 people deep with a young boy in front of me as I waited my turn. Just as it was this boys turn to fill his glass he turned around, looked at me and offered to let me go ahead of him! I snapped myself out of the shock that had quickly set in and kindly told him, “thank you so very much, that was very kind, you go ahead.” See I have manners and apparently one child at Souplantation that night did too.

Balancing my full drink and tray with one hand, using my cane in the other I gathered my soup bowls and starteded heading over to the soup line. There was only one person ahead of me so I felt fairly confident I could take those few steps to the counter and set my tray down without tripping then sending my high calorie drink flying all over an underdressed teenager. While cautiously walking I saw the long row of deep stainless steel barrels of soup and was trying to decide “diet” or “just this once”, when out of the corner of my eye I saw 2 girls, probably 10 and 7 years old, running at a small gallop right towards me. There wasn’t enough time or any way possible to move my sorry ass out of the way quick enough, and as far as the girls were concerned I was invisible. Before I could say “woah nelly”, while really meaning, “what the hell?” both girls ran smack into my left side stomping on both my feet. The scene that followed was quite awesome as I contorted like an acrobat on a high wire, my cane flailing around my body as if to protect me, I handled my tray as if I were a pro juggler. And then it was over. The 10 and 7 year old were in front of me laughing and giggling as if they tripped over their favortie stuffed toy. And I was behind them quite shaken and in disbelief. Moving faster than I should have and before I could control my tonque, I loudly exclaimed “That was incredibly rude what you just did. Both of you need to get out of line now.” Much to my surprise they cleared the area ahead of me and I felt a bit of calm come over my body. Well, that’s not entirely true. I was still amazed that there was not a single word uttered, no apology, no eye contact, the girls just moved out of line like a couple of blind sheep being guided by a limp, old herding dog. Willing myself to calm down I once again started to focus on the soup, with “just this once” now turned into “I sure as hell deserve this” in the line up of delectible choices. While lifting the first full ladel of tomato onion into my bowl I felt my elbow get slighty knudged from the left. Looking over my shoulder I saw the same two girls, chattering a mile a minute while going about their business and again completely ignoring me and the fact that they were all over my personal space and then some. My frustration quickly resurfaced and all images of my contorted angry face got left behind while I said even louder “Girls, get out of this line, go back to your seats and let this nice lady waiting behind you help herself first.” What happened to my mouth next I’m sure showed up on my face like a huge gaping tunnel a semi could have driven through. Immediately following my comment about letting the “nice lady” I had just suggested the girls let go ahead of them, said woman sarcasticly and with a slight snicker uttered, “that’s alright, they’re with me”.My mouth opened wide in a repeat preformance of Semi’s Going Through Huge Tunnel’s. “Oh!” I said to Ms Nice Lady watching her stand with her hand on her old lady jeans. “Did you see they just trampled over me?” Again with a snicker, this blonde, short haired woman looking more like the wicked witch of the west than I, said “No, I didn’t”. How dare I insult her by saying her child misbehaved while she was busy overfilling her plate and no where near her kids. By now with almost a complete lack of words I felt would be useful or appropriate I replied with what was now my turn to say snickerlying “Oh, I see, that explains everything!”, and turned away trying to finish filling my soup.

From there on out the Snickety MoWitch and her two stampeding girls were behind me filling their trays with soup, potatoes, bread, you name it. I tried hard not to notice anything about them wanting to push this whole scenario out of my mind as quickly as possible. I skipped filling my tray with the “you deserve it” because honestly I’d already made myself a mountainous salad to eat,and moved on to cautiously making my way back to our table on the patio. Feeling strangely happy to leave Souplantation’s famous all you can eat Soup,bread,pasta, and dessert bar I silently made a mental note to never go to a resturant at 6:30 again! Ever! I proceeded slowly to the outside patio table where my husband was waiting for me.

From our patio table I was facing a window in which I could clearly see into the resturant as well as the door right beside the window that seperated the two areas. During our entire dinner that glass door became what I now refer to it as “the revolving door of nicety”. I decided right then and there these people in the outside patio area must have taken a class in “treat others as you would like them to treat you”. In other words everyone that had any ounce of decency had come out to join us. They were there to celebrate my mature and responsible action to a couple of wild unattentended children. Well, not exactly, but this story does sound better like that doesn’t it? Still, to share this end of the story I must admit every single man, lady, girl or boy with the exception of one young asian boy who clearly thought he was a king in a foreign country by showing his strength by keeping his hands in his pockets at all time, opened or held open the glass door that led them into the resturant. In fact I probably heard more “please, you first”, or “why, thank you” and “you’re welcome” more than I had in the last year while dinning in public. In fact the next time we eat at Souplantation, and we will, that is where Jerry and I are going to sit. Because only the nice people are allowed to use the revolving door of nicety.