Just jumping on the laptop to do a quick update about the rest of the day today. CHA is now over but it was a ton of fun! I hope I can go to the next one - I met a ton of cool people and we made some great contacts too.

We did in fact make it to the Disney Parks after we left CHA - we didn’t get their until 4 though so it only gave us 4 hours until both parks closed. We turned into power riders!!! Yah! Starting out at California Adventure Park, we hit up Tower of Terror first, then hurried over to Soarin over California. I am pleased to say the 2nd time around didn’t freak me out as much as the first time. I only gripped the side bar with one hand and the other I used to cling to Brent’s arm. After that we road the big rollercoaster (California Screamin’) twice in a row - SO much fun!! I had a major head rush after but it was worth it. I now want to visit Six Flags to ride all their rollercoasters! We managed to squeeze in one last ride before the park closed at 6 - we went on the Maliboomer ride - the one where you are seated in rows and they shoot you straight up, then drop you, then straight up again. At first it wouldn’t work properly, so they moved us to the other tower, then the ride was so short! What a waste of time, and it was not thrilling at all.

The best thing of all was the first time we went on the rollercoaster- the sun was just setting so we had this gorgeous sunset to look at - it just seemed so perfect.

Disneyland was still open until 8, so we rushed over there and went directly to Indian Jones - we basically just walked right on the ride, there were no lines! Fabulous!! Except the walk to the ride (from the entrance of the ride) was about twice as long as the actual ride itself! We got off that one and went directly onto Pirates of the Caribbean - sat in the front row of the boat. Note to self: never sit in the front of the boat. We got drenched during the first little hill - which is odd I thought cause we never got wet before on that ride. I guess it’s just the front row of the boat…maybe?

Space Mountain was next and it seemed so slow compared to California Screamin. Brent and Scott made me sit all by myself in the very front of the coaster. The ride attendant told them that they’d have more leg room if they sat in row 2, which was right behind me. I think she must have made a mistake cause I seemed to have a ton of leg room and then I turned around to see these 2 tall guys (Scott is 6′5 and Brent is 6′4) trying to cram themselves into the tiny car. It was too late for them to switch with me cause they pulled the bars up and off we went! Poor guys…hehe

We also rode Star Tours once and watched part of the parade - not by choice - but we were heading to Frontierland and we couldn’t get across to it as they blocked the street cause of the parade. We were stuck there so we watched and I’m glad we did as it was pretty good. Those floats are just fantastic - just the amount of detail on them is insane. We made it to one more ride before the park closed - Haunted Mansion. So in 4 hours we made it onto 10 rides. That’s not so bad.

Scott took us out for an awesome dinner to Catal in Downtown Disney - delicious!!!

Here we are on the Tower of Terror - sorry the photo is such bad quality. We are right in the front- see how I am clinging to Brent for dear life? lol

Brent and I on California Screamin’ Totally, absolutely love love LOVE this ride!

Here it is, the last day of CHA! This show has gone really well for us and we now have an exciting venture in our future which I cannot make public as of yet. But as soon as I can, I will tell everyone!!! Promise!!

We have been away from home for a week and a half now and we aren’t due home until Sunday or Monday still. I am so ready to go home - this trip has been a ton of fun but its also been incredibly exhausting. I thought I would enjoy getting many nights of uninterrupted sleep. No dogs to wake me up in the middle of the night when they jump on the bed. Or those wonderful times at 2am when Angus wakes me up scratching at the door to go out, then there I am out on the sidewalk with him in the cold telling him to hurry up so we can go back to bed. None of that lately, but isn’t it crazy that I actually miss all that?

Yesterday after the show, we went out to Downtown Disney to the CHA party that was being held at the House of Blues. The food was really good and it was a lot of fun. The entertainers they had were awesome - everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Now we are back at CHA for the last part of the show. It’s 1:20pm and already the booths are all starting to pack up, a lot of people have already left and the show was much quieter today then it was the other days. We are going to help pack up the NSA booth then Brent, Scott and I are heading over to California Adventure Park to ride the Tower of Terror and the rollercoaster - woohoo!!! Too bad the park closes at 6 tonight.

One more day left to spend at Disney - tomorrow- then we head out first thing Friday morning for our trek back to Canada. I can’t wait…. Let’s hope we don’t run into any more car problems.

Here are some more pics of the show! Enjoy - we have lots more to upload too so check back soon!

These are some of the displays at the K & Company booth - they had one of the most gorgeous booths out of all of them!

Some of the Basic Grey displays

Our last night in San Francisco but I can happily say that I saw enough. It’s a cool city but I didn’t fall in love with it like I have with other places. The only things I would have liked to do that we didn’t get to do today was visit Alcatraz and ride one of the trollies.

We started our day with a trip to Fisherman’s Wharf - what an incredibly huge tourist trap, but nonetheless, we had a good time. The sun was out but it was a bit hazey and down by the water it was a little on the cool side. I was hopeful (for warm California weather) and wore flip flops and no coat. Yeah, not the brightest idea. I hadn’t even thought about how much walking we would be doing and how much my feet would hurt after a few hours. Lesson learned for when we go to Disneyland - not to wear flip flops.

We walked all over - went in and out of the little shops lining the street, watching a couple hundred sea lions basking in the sun by Pier 39, and we ate lunch at the Boudin Bakery where I had clam chowder in a bread bowl, and Brent had chili in a bread bowl. It was SO yummy! I haven’t had such great clam chowder since I was in Boston MA years back. Brent wouldn’t even try it cause he doesn’t like clams, but I don’t like clams either and I still love clam chowder! Oh well, he just doesn’t know what he’s missing….

We also wanted to see the part of Lombard street that is the “Curviest Road in the World”. I’ve seen pictures of it and well, it really did look much cooler…in the pictures. I’m glad we saw it, I guess I just expected it to be much more exciting then it turned out to be. It wasn’t too far from Fisherman’s Wharf so we walked up there - UP there. Wow, the street we walked up was so steep. I have never walked up such a steep hill as this (except the times we hiked up mountain sides). We were such typical tourists - both of us holding our cameras, pulling out numerous maps trying to figure out where we were going. At least everyone around us was doing the same thing so we fit right in.

After several hours of walking around and seeing the same crappy tourist souvenirs in all the stores, we left and drove out to Ocean Beach - a beautiful beach with tons of sand. Brent took some pictures and we hung out there until we left to meet our friends for dinner. My friend Jen, who I was best friends with throughout my teenage years now lives in San Francisco (she works for Adobe/Macromedia). We met up with her and Peter (her husband) for dinner. Oh and they also took us to this store called Fry’s - this huge electronic/computer store - Brent really liked it there! We had an awesome dinner and the restaurant was sort of closing up around us. We were talking up a storm and hadn’t even realized how long we had been there and how late it suddenly was. I haven’t seen Jen for 3 years so it’s funny how as soon as I saw her it was like no time had gone by.

We leave first thing in the morning for our drive down to Anaheim, but we will be stopping along the way in Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara and some other places along the coast. Most likely we won’t have internet until Thursday night so probably no more blog entries until then.

Lunch at Boudin Bakery

The hill we walked up

At the top of the “Curviest Road in the World”

The sea lions

The Golden Gate Bridge in the distance

We’re in San Francisco!! We left for our trip yesterday (Sunday) morning at 7am - after only getting about 3 and a half hours of sleep. We were tired but excited and we wanted to leave early to avoid traffic at the border. As it was, there was absolutely no traffic at all and we sailed right through the border (we were the only car there). We continued on this way all through Washington State and we made it into Oregon by 11:30. We made a stop at a Walmart Supercenter (I love these! hehe, probably cause we don’t have the supercenters where we live). I asked Brent if he wanted to wait in the car and he did!! Yah! I secretly hid my delight and rushed into the huge store. It is so much better going alone then with a boyfriend who hates shopping (unless its for photography equipment). How annoying it can be having him hanging over my shoulder constantly asking “can we go yet?” “I want to go” “Let’s go!”. So to further avoid hassles, I purposely left my cell phone in the car with him. Now being unreachable, I didn’t have to deal with the calls “Are you coming?” “What’s taking so long?” “Can we go?” hehe… Free at last to get what I want, and to look at what I want. However it was only Walmart and no place more exciting, like the Premium Outlet Centers I am hoping to make it too on our way to Anaheim later this week. I picked up a few groceries and snacks to munch on in the car - there are so many different things down in the states that we don’t get in Canada! Unfortunetly most of them had to be frozen or refrigerated so I couldn’t buy any. After the food aisles, I sought out the scrapbooking aisle but they really didn’t have anything different than our regular Walmart at home has. Thinking I was going to cut this shopping trip short now as there wasn’t anything else I wanted to look at, I headed to the cashier, found the shortest line and waited. And waited and waited. The idiot in front of me forgot her pin number for her bank card and held the line up for about 20 minutes!!! ERGH! I always get in the wrong line!

We then continued on and I fell asleep for a bit - I woke up just as Brent was turning off the highway to stop for gas. I saw the sign that we were entering Sutherlin and I said “Oh! We’re in Sutherlin?? Christy works around here!” and then right across the street from the gas station I could see the scrapbook store where she works! I pointed it out but it was closed. We are going to try to stop by on our way back home and hopefully we’ll get to meet Christy! (scrap’n'chichi).

We were going to continue driving down the I-5 to California but at the last minute we had a change of plans and decided to drive through Oregon to the coast - to see the beaches and then drive down the coast to California. We thought it would be a nicer drive. Well it probably would have been if it hadn’t been DARK!!! Lovely. We thought it was going to be a lot quicker of a drive to the coast but it was quite long and the roads were curvy. By the time we finally made it to the coast - it was completely dark. We couldn’t even see the beaches. We drove through all these little little towns - everything was closed being Sunday night, and not once did we even see a Starbucks or a McDonalds. Dairy Queen though, seems that every small town we drove through had a Dairy Queen. We stopped at one and got ice cream and part way through mine I started to feel really sick. The next few hours were horrible - I was really sick and we had to make several abrupt stops along the way. I actually didn’t even feel better until half way through the day today, all morning I was still feeling queasy.

The coolest thing about our trip along the coast was the stars. Because there are no city lights, everything was basically pitch black, so ALL the stars showed up in the sky - I have never seen so many stars. Very cool!

We kept driving until we made it into California - (It was exactly 1000 km from our house to Gold Beach, Oregon.). We found a rest stop in Trinadad, CA around 10:30pm and we were exhausted so we pulled over to get some sleep. We were watching a DVD on the laptop for a few minutes but then the battery died so we were left in the darkness. Alright, so sleeping in the car was not as much fun as I thought it would be. It was horrible actually, no, it was REALLY horrible. My seat wouldn’t recline very far cause I insisted on bringing both suitcases and only one would fit in the trunk, so the other was in the backseat. It was really uncomfortable and then the temperature dropped significantly and we woke up freezing cold not even an hour later. Every 2 hours Brent would wake up, we’d be shivering away, and he’d turn the car on, blast the heat, then shut it off and fall asleep again. I was still not feeling great so I was finding it hard to sleep anyways. I think I spent most of the night wide awake, freezing cold. We left around 6 or 6:30 and it was then when I was finally able to fall asleep. I woke up an hour later when we arrived at the Avenue of the Giants - this scenic 31 mile drive through this huge Redwoods forest - some of the trees here were 600-700 years old. Since it was still dark out, Brent pulled the car over and we fell asleep again for another hour until it got light out. We then took the scenic drive through and kept driving along the coast. More small towns. And more small towns. And then we got to Napa Valley. This was beautiful! We went to a huge winery called Sterling Estate Winery - it was way up onto of a hill and we had to take a gondola up the hill to get to it. I realized I have a small problem with heights. The gondola was really high up at some points and it freaked me out. I never used to be such a wuss like this! However the ride coming down was a bit easier. I am not afraid of heights, I am afraid of falling from that height. Yeah that’s it.

Anyway the view from the top of the hill was gorgeous, it looked down over the entire valley. We got some pictures, then we went on the tour of the winery and sampled 5 different wines in the tasting room.

By the time we left the winery it was already 5pm, so we headed to San Francisco. Not wanting to repeat our car sleeping in experience, we decided we are staying in a hotel. We drove all around looking for a hotel but not knowing any of the areas, all we found were some scuzzy looking hotel and motels that neither of us wanted to stay in. Frustrated we stopped at Starbucks, got a couple drinks, and took the laptop in so we could go online to look for a hotel. We sat down, opened the laptop up, and just as we’re trying to connect to the internet, the battery dies. Just great. Obviously our brand new car charger for the laptop does not work, as it was plugged in all day.

We did eventually find a hotel but by the time we found one, had checked in and taken our stuff to our room, we still hadn’t eaten dinner and it was almost 10:30pm. We headed out to find a restaurant - we found TGIF Fridays, Chilies, and Red Robin - all closed!!! This was not going well. We didn’t want to resort to fast food but we were getting desperate now, nothing was open! Even the fast food places we found were closed. Unreal! The only place we managed to find open was Jack in the Box and they had a 24hr drive thru. Neither of us had ever eaten there before but desperate times call for desperate measures. It was actually not too bad.

So now its 1:00am so I am signing off here. The good news - we’re in San Francisco!! Woohoo!! Tomorrow we’ll be able to see what it looks like in daylight. I think we’re going to check out Fisherman’s Wharf and some other places, should be fun.

This was a drive through tree we came across in the Avenue of the Giants. Yes, we did actually drive the car through but it was tight!

This is what happens when someone has too much time on their hands…. on the same property as the drive through tree were these treehouses complete with a handcarved wooden bear family. I just had to take a picture. (I even walked inside of the larger treehouse)

Here are the gondolas we road in at the Sterling Winery. They are much higher in real life than they look in the picture

Looking down over the Napa Valley

This was a fun project I did last week- Photo Blocks!

If you’d like to know how to make these, check out the tutorial

Just in case you’re not sure how to do it, here you go! (click on the pics below to make them larger)

While you are writing a new post, click on the yellow button (in the tool bar) with a “v”

Make sure you have copied the link of your video from the youtube website, the link you need is found to the right of the video box. Copy the one that says URL

Then simply paste that URL code into the box that pops up when you press the yellow “v” button

Publish your entry and your video will show up in your blog! Have fun!

Ok how cool is it that we can post youtube videos in our blogs?

This is one of my favorites - this Polar Bear is hilarious!

I love photoshop!!! But I am such a beginner on it still, there is so much to learn. If anyone knows of a good photoshop CS2 book please let me know.

Anyway I was playing around last night trying to come up with a good logo for some t-shirts we’re having printed and this is what I came up with. Let me know what you think!!

Thanks to TraceyG for this idea!

Here are 3 lists I am going to continue to add things to for the next little while.

First list is what you want to do in your life that doesn’t cost. We all don’t have money and I’m sure there are things we would like to do before any thing bad happens. For example … jump in rain puddles

* Volunteer at an animal shelter or wildlife rehab center
* Hike the West Coast Trail
* Run a marathon or half marathon

Second list is what you want to do in your life with the practicality of money. In other words it’s not outrageous to save up.

* Visit my sister and her family more often
* Travel to Australia to visit Lisa and go snorkeling at the great barrier reef
* Go back to Hawaii
* Have kids (2)

Third, you are rich … money means nothing.

* Take my entire family to Florida so we can do the whole Disney thing
* Build my dream house
* Travel around the world
* Open up my own animal rescue center

Oh my goodness!!!!!!!!! One more week until we leave for Disneyland!! I mean… CHA!!! And Disneyland!!! WOOHOO!!! Already I have read 5 guidebooks on Disneyland and the Anaheim area. Everynight I take one to bed and I’m up until usually 2am reading away. I have been there before but its been about 14 years so a lot has changed and to be honest, reading about it, just gets me more excited. I know the couple nights before we leave, I will suddenly be transformed back to when I was a child, and I won’t be able to sleep out of excitement. However, then we have 2200 km to drive from here to Anaheim so I will be getting a couple sleepless nights and that won’t be from excitement, but rather from the endless trips to Starbucks along the way so we can stay awake to drive the I-5. Lol - ok I am laughing now, but will it be so funny then? I will be keeping track of it and typing away on the laptop so I can keep my blog updated. I have always wanted to do a road trip to California, but I wonder if it will be as glorious as I am anticipating. Probably not. If you have read some of my older blogs on our last trip, it wasn’t very glorious. Lol!! But its funny to look back on it!

Alright I have a confession. A few days ago I finally took our Christmas tree down and put all the decorations away. Yes I know, it was Jan 11 and our tree was still up. How pathetic. But it looked so pretty with all the lights on it. Ok, ok, we hadn’t turned the thing on since Christmas. So it was just plain laziness. But anyway, as I was taking off all the (hundreds it seemed) ornaments and then taking apart the tree and shoving it back into its box (why is it that they never fit back into the original box properly?), I was grumbling to myself. This is supposed to be fun! Why is it such a CHORE to put up and then take down all these decorations? Having to haul all the bins up from the garage then hauling them back down again. It’s actually quite a pain having to do it all. Then once I had all the decorations down and put away, the house looked even more like a disaster. Maybe it was just cause it looked bare. So I had to do a major clean. While I was vacuuming, I moved the couch and found about 10 missing christmas ornaments from the tree under there. Damn cat. She had taken all the ornaments off the lower portion of the tree and I caught her a couple times standing on the coffee table, leaning way over until she could touch the mid part of the tree. There was a smashed ornament behind the tree when I moved it, shattered to pieces, and I found another glass ornament (one of those really old beautiful vintage ones) under the couch! Amazingly it was not broken. I had even put all the breakable ones on the top half of the tree so she couldn’t get at them. It’s a good thing she didn’t break any of my most favorite ornaments or I tell you, one of those nine lives of hers would be gone in a flash!!

So now the house is back to normal, except now its back to arctic weather outside. Yes, it snowed again. Just as I was getting used to our regular mild winter - I was out in a long sleeved t shirt for most of last week and was not cold at all - it has to start to snow, and then freeze. It is SO cold out there. And the snow is powdery, which is unusual for snow here. Well its unusual for us to even get snow here in the first place. What is up with this weird weather we have had the last couple months? I don’t like it.

Well, its late…. Brent is in bed already, the dogs are waiting to go out, and I got another book on Disneyland at the library today. (I know, I am obsessed…no, just excited).