Well it has come and it has gone for another year! I arrived home yesterday from a whirlwind 6 days and 5 nights in sunny California, Anaheim or Disneyland Resort to be exact! Just like a little kid waiting for Christmas morning, I anxiously awaited my second trip to Disneyland. I could barely sleep the night before I left, which made for a VERY long traveling and park day!
My flight was at 8:35 AM on Tuesday July 7th. We arrived at LAX at 11:10, hopped aboard the Disneyland Resort shuttle, settled in to watching Chicken Run on the way and watching out the window at all the things zooming by as we were whisked away to the Disneyland Hotel.
Check in was a breeze this year for me, I had no horrible repeat of the year before, but unfortunately my one roommate had that experience and spent the morning sitting in the lobby from 7 AM until we got there. Poor poor girl :(
I got to get my picture taken with some fun characters during check in!
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Goofy and Chip! At least I think it's Chip ... LOL |
After check in we waited in our room for our 4th roomie and then we hit the parks! Wow is all I can say! That day was so jam packed, we rode Splash Mountain, Finding Nemo, Matterhorn Bobsleds, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, It's a Small World, and Pirates of the Caribbean. We walked around Toon Town checking out all the things in there and I believe that is all! It is all such a blur I tell you. Then we watched Fantasmic that night. I saw so many sights it was awesome!
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Peter Pan fighting Captain Hook |
The next morning we headed back in to the parks minus one roommate. I'm jealous because she got to attend leadership, but I loved the parks don't get me wrong!! On this day we saw so many characters dressed up in their Diamond Celebration garb! We didn't wait in the lineups though because they were so long already at this point, but in the first part we saw Cinderella, Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Chip and Dale, Goofy and Pluto.
I love their Diamond Celebration outfits! And seeing them all together right as we walked in was great!
We saw Alice and the Mad Hatter. We saw Maleficent and Mary Poppins. And we got our pictures with Jasmine and Genie!
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Jasmine and Genie |
I got to eat a Dole Whip finally! It truly was a great day and even the sunburn I got didn't dampen my spirits. Later that night after our team meeting, we went back in to the park and hit up California Adventure. We didn't get to do too much though because we got in there late. It gets so dark so early down in California, I'm used to daylight until about 10:30ish, but to have it so dark that they set off fireworks at before 11 is weird to see!
California Adventure closes at 10 PM each night, so we got in line for Radiator Racers I believe it was called! I now know why that line was 90 minutes long, but we should have been smart and rode another ride first before getting in the line! You can get in line anytime before 10 and they will let you ride, so if you walk in the line at 9:50, you're going to be able to ride :)
Thursday morning marked the start of Convention officially for me. We anxiously waited to get our hands on the brand new Annual Inspirations. The skits they created for us were so great! The theme was Up! So everything was centered around the movie! Mr Fredricksen and Russell came out to say hi!
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Mr Fredricksen and Russell |
During the skits they were giving away product to those of us out in the crowd. It all depended on the base and bling necklace that we were given in our registration package. Well my necklace won me a Paper Fundamentals paper pack, a package of Fundamentals Stickers pack and a package of Fundamentals Assortments. They are so great I can't wait to share with you the projects I will be making with these!
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I won! |
Friday was more fun with creative sessions and business classes. Learned some really great stuff and made some really fun projects! This day I decided to walk to 7/11 ... yes I said 7/11! It took me off the resort down a really nice tree-lined street!
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Palm tree lined street |
It was a nice walk and I ended up going to the CVS Pharmacy across the street from 7/11. When I got back, we got ready for the dinner and awards banquet.
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Dinner friends |
And after the dinner we went for a Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Rum drink at Trader Sam's! I'm not sure why this was a good idea considering that we were getting up at 5 AM the next morning to walk a 5K! But we woke up and walked through Disneyland and most of California Adventure. One of our roommates had fallen on Thursday evening while out and about in the parks, so it was a slow adventure. We made it to about 3.5 or 4 K when her ankle started to give out, so we detoured out and made our way to Starbucks. We then finished off the day with more Convention fun. We attended the dance/crop and watched a couple get engaged and listened to Monica's husband sing! We also created some more fun new projects as well.
Sunday morning came too early and we found ourselves climbing back on the Disneyland Shuttle heading back to LAX and our plane ride home. It was nice to walk through the doors though at the end of the flight into my husbands arms. One of these trips he will join me just to see how much fun we have at Convention!