Rest In Peace Flower

My assistant puppy raiser, Flower, passed away on Wednesday. She was 2 1/2 years old, very old for a rat. She had grown uncomfortable and had lost her sense of balance, unable to walk straight or figure out how to get to her water bottle. She was very cute. Her job was to teach my dogs to be kind to small creatures and also to be entertaining to me. I bought her on my birthday, after losing my last rat, Chaos, that morning. She helped to raise Lacey, Sunke, Belle, and Genevieve. She will be missed. In the photos, is also pictures of her sister, Thumper, who died about two years ago. Now they rest together in the backyard.

Flower as a Baby

Flower and Lacey

Flower and Sunke

At two years old...

Belle and Flower

Rainbow Bridge

Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.

When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge.

There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together.

There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable.

All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor; those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by.

The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind.

They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent; His eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster.

You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.

Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together....

Author unknown...

Happy Birthday, Diva!!!

My darling Diva (Genevieve) turned the big 1 on September 5th! We celebrated in Disneyland and she had an absolute blast. She got the day off from working. She mostly ran around the hotel room playing with her new toy. I think she had a supremely good day.

The next day she went to Disneyland and wore her button. She had A VERY good time at Goofy's Kitchen. The night before her birthday we went to Premium Seating of Fantasmic, where she got her own front row seat. I briefly considered asking the Cast Members there to sing "Happy Birthday" for her. LOL. There will be more on that in the trip report. There is even some YouTube videos!

Disneyland in August

This August we took ANOTHER trip to the Disneyland Resort for my birthday and my brother's birthday. For the first day we stayed at the Hilton, before moving into the Carousel View Suite. That room is my favorite by far! It has four beds and I get my own room with a TV and a king sized bed. We have an excellent view of the fireworks and the park, even the monorail as it goes by.

Considering the fact that it was August it was fairly mild weather but the crowds were pretty heavy.

This is the Wharf in Disney's California Adventure.

Genevieve outside of the Jungle Cruise.

Genevieve waits for Dumbo to be finished with her Mickey Mouse ears on. Isn't she cute?

So last ride of the night? What does it HAVE to be? Splash Mountain. Sammy can't see. Joey shouldn't speak. And, of course, I can't hear.

Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, See No Evil. Get it?

I made the idiotic mistake of sitting in the first seat, even if it is my favorite seat. Then we ALL made the mistake of sitting in a clump so that when the log hit the water after the drops it was hitting the water like a bomb. None of our weight was balanced and we slammed into the water like a boulder. The waves coming over the edges were the biggest I have ever seen.

What you don't notice in this photo is how totally SOAKED I am. I was washed. It's really not a good photo of me. My hair, shirt, and pants are soaked. The water that came over the edge of the log was at least a foot and a half high and drenched me. I made the idiotic mistake of sitting in the first seat, even if it is my favorite seat.

So my birthday arrives and my mother has suspiciously been talking about dressing up. My mother doesn't dress up, so for her to be discussing doing it something must have been up. There were many scenarios running through my head. Could we be going to the Blue Bayou? No. She knows I don't like the food and humidity there. Maybe a private tour? But we've already done the private tours and the VIP tours. What could be special?

Then she started saying we would need to go to the portrait area and I began to get a clue. We were going to Club 33. It was confirmed when Joe coolly walked up to the club door and notified them that our party is here. So it was the five of us (Belle, mom, Joe, Sam, and I) with our two Disneyland friends that went to lunch at Club 33!

Joey and I posed with our cake. Isn't the room decor just gorgeous? It truly was like eating in a museum, a very comfortable museum.

This is Sam, Joe, and I piled out on the balcony. We were standing just above the patio near Cafe Orleans. You should have seen the looks of terror on the faces of the people below us! The balcony didn't look very strong. Just kidding!

To eat we had chicken, Chateaubriand, and someone had lamb. It was all very delicious. We also had access to a buffet of various salads, cheese, breads, crackers, and desserts. My mom liked the unlimited crab legs and shrimp that was available. I was in love with the bread bar that had various olive oil dips to use. They also had a good pasta salad with a pesto on it. I love pesto. They had a s'more dessert. How did they know I love s'mores?

This is our "oh-so-delicious" cake from Disney Dining. It is a three-layer chocolate cake with chocolate mousse filling and a whipped cream frosting. It was EXCELLENT. It was the best cake I have ever had. I had it for dessert and breakfast, and a snack. It tasted great with coffee.

This is my piece of cake! Because?... Well. It says my name on it! Duh!

Belle didn't like the balcony but she came out for her photo-op anyway.

There's the Mark Twain from our vantage point.

You can just make out the door of Club 33 in the background from where I stood on the balcony.

We were allowed to explore the rest of the club and saw the "Trophy Room", which is essentially a bunch of taxidermy animals and other artifacts from abroad. I was a little horrified by some of the dead animals.

After lunch, we rode the Mark Twain around. Then we hit a few more rides before going over to Disney's California Adventure. We stayed there until the park closed at 10. We flew on Soarin' Over California and rode the Tower of Terror, as well as visited the Animation Academy. I experienced Turtle Talk with Crush for the first time and thought it was great. We tried to get our friend, Karen, to go on Tower of Terror but she adamantly refused!!! She said she would go on next trip.

Well... that's the end of my trip. Notice I took the leftover cake with me and had a last minute churro with my brand new Club 33 hat. I did do some serious shopping with my birthday fun card from Disneyland the next day but alas there were no more rides.

Giants Game!

The Giant's Game

On Tuesday my little brother managed to get tickets from my uncles to a Giant's game. This was my first professional baseball game. So my sister, my brother, his girlfriend, and I all piled in the station wagon and left for San Francisco. We stopped off in Livermore to get wings at Wing Stop and they had no wings!!! It's a WING stop! How do you not have wings? So we went to Chili's instead. The food and the company was great, even if our waiter was mediocre. As we got into San Francisco I belatedly realized how chilly the weather is there. As per usual I took photos from the car. This is AT&T park as seen from the bridge.

We got to the park just as they were calling out the Giant's line up.

We had really good seats at the game.

I'm not sure who is up to bat here. I think it may have been my favorite guy, Pablo Sandoval; for a big guy he can really move around the field. I was surprised

It wasn't very crowded in the park and I totally loved it. I hate being wall to wall with people I don't know.

I think the seventh inning stretch is a total necessity. It was freezing and I was so transfixed that I didn't get up and stretch. Those that know me, know that I cannot sit still for long periods of time. If I go again I'm going to convince somebody to dance wildly with me so we can get on the Jumbotron! Wouldn't that be awesome?

Overall, the game was great. It was like a sit down dinner with entertainment. If I had known all the food was going to be that close I would have said let's skip dinner and eat there. It's kind of like Medieval Times but more convenient. I was terrified that the ball would hit us though. I never realized that baseballs went into the crowd that often. They probably hit about twenty balls into the stands. During one trip to the bathroom a ball flew into the stands 5 rows in front of us. If I had been there it would have hit me! I know it!

Gone Disney!

Disneyland's Birthday Trip July 2009

Mickey rolled down the street leading the parade and of course security was there to keep back the screaming masses of fans.

The fire truck carried the performers from down in front of the castle back to the hub.

One thing we did during the four day trip was meet up with some members of an online Disney fan group. We all went to the Celebration Roundup BBQ. The food was great as usual and I met a Disney cast member that gave me a lot of cool decorations I have missed over the years. While I we are always down in Disneyland for Christmas and Halloween, I always miss the few while we are out. Of course we spend two weeks down in Disneyland from Christmas to New Year's we still miss the ones in November and early December. That was probably the highlight of my trip, now I can make a holiday display out of my new souvenirs.

Jessie and Genevieve met again. You can see how "un-friendly" Genevieve is, she was all over Jessie.

Of course the waiter brought Diva a bowl of water, what a pampered pooch.

This is a photo of Diva outside Small World taken before she retired for the day.

Unfortunately on this trip we actually went on Small World too. We climbed on board and didn't notice that they didn't put the white stick in the boat, denoting that the riders on this boat had wheel chairs to get on. So we got stuck on another magically annoying trip through the land of tiny creepy dolls that sing the same song over and over again. We can get rid of Guantanamo now. We should just send them through Small World a few times. How many trips do you think it would take for people to give up their country's secrets? Apparently 2.

Aunt Shirley refused to go on the Tower of Terror but Grandma loves this ride.

Genevieve waits for us to ride Pirates of the Caribbean. She enjoys watching the boats launch.

Diva has her Mickey Mouse ears on in the Court of Angels.

Genevieve: "Ahhh... the wind is blowing my ears back and I can smell the churros from here. The perfect day for Disneyland."

Aunt Shirley and Grandma rode Big Thunder Rail Road with us while my mom waited off with Genevieve. They were so terrified but they loved the ride.

Belle waits for Fantasmic in the Premium seating section.

Grandma, Aunt Shirley, Sam and I all rode the Matterhorn.

Before Photo: This is all of us prepared to ride Space Mountain. You notice how happy and calm they look? Onto the next photo.

After Photo: Sam and I waited until the last moment to pull bunny ears on grandma and Aunt Shirley. I cannot believe they were hanging on that hard!!!

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July!!!

I hope everyone is having a very happy patriotic holiday and the dogs are enjoying the fireworks!

I made a cake for a family get together and here it is. I will never again cover a whole cake in fondant without being paid to do it. I think I could have done this just as well without fondant. Uncle Sam is a French vanilla cake with a buttercream frosting but his hat is fondant. The top tier is a French vanilla cake with peach filling and the bottom tier is a chocolate cake with a fresh strawberry and jam filling.

Here's one of my little helpers with the cake! Isn't she cute?

The family (my siblings, mom, and I) went out to my grandparents farm for a BBQ and fireworks. Belle watched fireworks too.