Doug's birthday

For Doug's birthday we decided to go to Disneyland. Since he got in for free, and we'd received a $100 gift card for using Rent.com's services when we moved into our apartment, it was do-able with our budget. We got up at 5 am yesterday morning and drove down. We got Mcdonalds for breakfast (sausage mcgriddles mmmmm), and made it there before the gates open. We went on the space mountain ghost galaxy twice (it was really creepy), went on the train cause I never had before (I didn't know Disneyland had the grand canyon and dinosaurs there!), went on the Columbia boat on the river. We stayed until 11:30 and then drove home. It was an exhaustingly awesome day all around.

There were so many festive decorations. They did an awesome job capturing the Halloween feel

The button explains it. Haha when she gave Doug his button, the woman turned to me and said, "You're naked in the button area." So she gave me this one. haha

Waiting for the gates to open. It was one of the first times we were there when it opened!

Doug got one of the top ten scores of the day (number 9). After he got off he told me that he knew the secret to getting a lot of points. I asked him why he didn't tell me! Haha he thought he had.

"The Tiki tiki tiki tiki tiki room!" Neither of us had been in here (that we could remember), so we checked it out. We had the song stuck in our heads the rest of the day

The Haunted Mansion decked out in Nightmare Before Christmas style

Waiting in line for the haunted mansion

In front of the Mickey Jack-o-lantern.

Matterhorn. There were a lot of kids crying when they got off. It was sad.

I guess he can't be king of England

Doug made me go on splash mountain. It was quite warm out, so I figured if we got a little wet, it could feel refreshing

"this is your fault!"

We got absolutely soaked. It took 6 hours before we were dry again

The castle all lit up. It was so pretty! And the fireworks show was amazing!

Pumpkin Carving

Last weekend Doug and I had our friends over to carve pumpkins. We also made caramel apples. We kept the seeds and roasted them in my family's recipe, and they were really good.

Guts and seeds

Andrew's almost done cleaning the inside of the pumpkin

It takes me forever to clean out my pumpkin. But then again I always seem to get the spaghetti type of pumpkin, all stringy and it just wouldn't stop peeling on the inside

Finally finished!

I'm never really good at carving faces, so I went with words instead

In the dark.
Andrew's, Doug's, James', Kaity's, and mine

All of us with our pumpkins



Then we made caramel apples. They were soo good. But I think we heated the caramel too hot because it kept slid off the apples.

Then we had a mini dance party!

Unfortunately the pumpkins only lasted till tuesday until they rotted. But that was ok. It was more about the experience. Plus we didn't really have a good place to display them for other people to see

Pennsylvania

Doug and myself, my parents, Devonna, Joe, and Reagan all got to go out to Pennsylvania a couple weeks ago to celebrate my grandparent's 50th Wedding anniversary. It was Doug's first time on the east coast and had so much fun there. He got to shoot guns with my dad and uncle, we went to Hershey World, the Cabela store, and Doug even got to go to a drive through liquor store with my Uncle. We roughed it in a motorhome and the freezing cold temperatures (We're Californians, so we're wimps). But we did have a bonfire almost every night we were there. Plus there was homemade apple pie, fresh apple sauce, and always a potful of coffee!

They had a ride that showed how they made chocolate in a very Walt Disney fashion; singing cows and everything.

Reagan liked the candy pillows. He's small enough to do this still

He's really into taking everything out of a drawer, or cupboard, or shelf, and then putting it back

5 lbs. of chocolate. $40 dollars. No thanks, I'll buy my chocolate in smaller increments :)

Trying to burn off some of his energy before going back in the car



Hershey Kiss lamposts in Hershey, PA

Cabela store. It was huge. Carried everything from shoes to hunting clothes, to firearms, to fishing gear. Everything for the outdoorsmen. Plus lots of animals that were stuffed from elephants, tigers, zebras, deer, and bears.

In front of a fake mountain with a bunch of stuffed animals all over it. Wolves and bears, goats, etc.

Polar Bears!

We went to a local hardware store and they had a stuffed giraffe in the middle of the store that the store owner had shot

We went for a walk down the canal which also runs next to a river. We got to experience fall with all of the colors. It was 4 miles of beautiful scenery

Sitting outside next to the fire on our laptops. Everyone kept making fun of us

Reagan came out with us when we shot clay pigeons with shotguns. He didn't really care about the noise. He didn't like wearing the headphones though

Family Portrait

Shooting cans of soda with the BB gun

It was a great trip, but we did have to hit the ground running by jumping right back into work and school. We're just trying not to get sick and stay on top of school and make ends meet. But life has been good :)