dreamin' of a bright christmas.

     I have been waiting for these two weeks for so long! While Jason has over a month off from school, I was lucky to get two weeks off from work for the holidays. This year, it was time to go to California to visit Jason’s family. After having a big winter storm in New York, I was even more ready for the warm sun in California.

     The real party began on Christmas Eve when we went to, where else, but Disneyland. Jason and I went with Jason’s dad and sister, Jessica and we all had so much fun. We started out with a plan to hit Cars Land first since none of us had ever been to this brand new section of the park. Cars Land was seriously adorable! It looked just like Radiator Springs from the first movie. Unfortunately, we couldn’t waste any time wondering the land because we had to get to the very back to ride Radiator Springs Racers. Even though we got to the park as soon as it opened and we went to Cars Land first, this was still by far the LONGEST line we waited in all day. The ride was really cool – we climbed into one of the cars from the movie and drove through different scenes and finally, raced another car to the end of the track.

So excited for Disney

They look just like the characters in the movie!

The Family at Cars Land

     Afterward, we stuck around California Adventure where most of the big rides are located. Personally, I thought it was a little early in the morning for all the thrills, but I managed to make it through. California Screamin’, true to it’s name, always makes me scream from the moment we take off and I always stumble off wiping tears from my eyes, but it’s so fun. From there we rode more rides and hopped over to Disneyland where we journeyed through the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Indiana Jones.

I was so happy to be at Disney again

Happiest Place on Earth

Mary Poppins and Burt!

Giant Christmas tree in Disneyland

Indiana Jones

The Haunted Mansion was decked out in Nightmare Before Christmas stuff

     I’ve wanted to get “ears” for so long, but I could never decide which ones I wanted. Finally, during this visit, I made up my mind that I absolutely had to get some. I decided to get some that I would always love, something classic; I got Miss Minnie Mouse – I really liked her polka dots. I even convinced Jason to get some ears! He went classic too and got Donald Duck - they’re really pretty cute.

Me and Sis

New found love for Minnie

Where it all began

Donald! He was so funny. . . and short

Duck season

     Christmas was fantastic! Jason and I really enjoyed giving our gifts that we put a lot of effort into picking out (or making). We also really enjoyed spending quality time with Jason’s extended family that we don’t get to see very often. It was nice catching up and seeing everybody.

Sandy had a great Christmas

Sandy loves me

Christmas morning

Mom liked the "C" I made her

     Several days later, I was so excited when Jessica asked me if I wanted to go to the San Diego Zoo. Uh, Duh! I haven’t been to a zoo in such a long time and if I have a choice of zoo to go to, of course I’d pick the largest and best zoo in the world. We three kids left in the morning to drive to San Diego and circled the parking lot a couple of times before deciding to be like everyone else and just park down the street.

I couldn't wait to see all the animals

     Once we got into the park, we started mapping out our plan around the zoo as we watched the bright pink flamingoes flap their wings, nip at each other, and bawk at the sky. Unfortunately, to get where we wanted to go, we had to go through the monkeys . . . I don’t like monkeys – they scare me. It must be because I used to have a reoccurring dream of monkeys tying my arms up and tickling me. Anyway, the scariest monkey actually was our favorite. Although I’d never want to encounter one in the wild, the Mandrill’s vivid blue face and red nose were amazing.

Their bright pink feathers were gorgeous!

Such interesting birds

This must be what the mean by "devilishly good looks"

     This zoo was incredible! I don’t know if the animals are just so happy there or maybe it was the way each of their territories were set up, but none of the animals were hiding! They were just out in the open and so easy to see and enjoy! (Except the tiger, we visited him right at lunchtime so he just paced back and forth by the door) The elephants were fantastic – there were at least five and they were so active. We of course loved the giraffes and there was a little one! Jason still has a weird fascination with the rhinos, which I’ll never understand. Oh! And the Koala’s! They were probably my favorite. The only thing I was a little disappointed we didn’t see were the pandas. I didn’t realize it was such a huge deal that they had pandas, but I should have figured it out when we saw the gigantic line to see them. There was seriously at least an hour wait to get to them and there were just simply too many other furry friends to see. Oh, how I loved that zoo.

Storks are so much larger than I imagined

There were no Red Foxes, but these brother and sister Arctic Foxes were so playful and cute

I have never seen so many elephants!

Jase and Jess

The elephants were so active!

I wanted to hug the koalas

Sleepy Koala

I wonder what a Rhinos skin feels like

This girl was so happy to see the giraffes

Peek!

     The other cool thing we did was go to the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a lot of time to explore because we had family plans, but the building itself was beautiful and of course the view of LA was phenomenal. We could even see the Hollywood sign from where we were. Inside the observatory, we watched as a giant pendulum swung from the ceiling keeping time. We also saw a demonstration of an electric coil, which was pretty cool.

We had to walk quite a ways to the Observatory

It was so cool to see the Hollywood sign from where we were

Hollywood

One day we'll hike to the sign

Walking up the Observatory

Looking out over LA

Inside the dome is a very large telescope

Griffith Observatory

This large pendulum swings at a constant speed and keeps track of time

The ball of the pendulum weighs 240 pounds!

Many movies were filmed at this observatory; Rebel without a Cause was the most famous

     Besides these things, we just spent a lot of time together as a family watching movies, doing puzzles, playing games, eating out, shopping, and getting our nails done (oh wait, that was just me and Jess). It was just such a nice way to empty my brain and leave my worries at home and just chill. . .  in the 75 degree weather.  

parading around on thanksgiving.

     We checked a HUGE thing off of our bucket list this Thanksgiving: we went to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade! It would be downright ridiculous if we did not take advantage of living in New York and not get to see the parade at least once. What made our experience more fun was having my parents in town for the holiday. I still can't believe we convinced them to wake up early, in the freezing cold to go to the parade.

     We were really lucky with the way things turned out. Jason ended up talking to one of his friends from class who had been to the parade before and he offered to take all four of our chairs down early to save our places. We were expecting good seats, but not great seats! Seriously, you couldn't pay for a better spot. We had front row seats to all of the action.

     After waking up at 3:30 AM, taking the train to Grand Central and a subway to Columbus Circle, we waited two more hours in the 30 degree weather before all the excitement started. I thought I was going to just sit back in my chair the whole time, but I couldn't help but stand up and cheer as the floats and balloons came by. It also helped to keep us warm. 

Waiting for the parade to start

Trying to keep warm 

Jason's way of keeping warm

     With the seats we had, the balloons were close, but because of the strong winds that day, the balloons were even closer. Some of the balloons took a beating. Poor Spider-man's arm was torn and flopping around and we heard later that Sonic the Hedgehog got stuck in a tree. Sonic was one of our favorites balloons. We also really liked classic Snoopy, Julius the sock monkey, and of course, Spongebob Squarepants. Snoopy and Spongebob were a little different this year, a Santa hat was added to Spongebob and Snoopy wasn't wearing his pilot goggles. What the parade really needed was Perry the Platypus.

    Although I'm never really impressed by floats, there were a few that we actually loved. There was a Despicable Me themed float with Gru and his Minions and we also liked the Cirque du Soleil float with acrobats flippin' and bouncin' around. Other than that, we really focused on WHO was on the floats. We saw Jimmy Fallon, Richard Simmons, Ariana Grande (who was freezing her earmuffs off), Florida Georgia Line, Cheryl Lloyd, Kellie Pickler, and Kristen Chenoweth. When the Goo Goo Dolls rolled by, Jason yelled "I love you, Johnny!" And Johnny Rzeznik, the frontman of the band turned and pointed to him! It was pretty great. Since we didn't get to see any performances, I was actually happy to listen to the bands play Christmas and hit songs.

Jason's favorite balloon

Snoopy and Woodstock

Sonic the Hedgehog 

Sonic the Hedgehog 

Taking a trip to Sesame Street

Jimmy Fallon

Hello Kitty 

Richard Simmons on a turtle? 

Julius, the Sock Monkey 

Sock Monkey sporting a jetpack

Marching Bands a plenty

Ronald McDonald 

They had just as much fun as we did

The Sponge

Spiderman, Spiderman does whatever a spider can

The Big Apple

Gotta catch 'em all

My fellow Minions

My whole head would fit in his belly button

Confetti everywhere

This elf left his shelf

Papa Smurf

Santa's coming! 

     Overall, it was a fantastic experience and I would definitely say it was worth the wait and frostbite. After getting back to Tuckahoe, we took a long nap and ate a traditional turkey dinner at the restaurant An American Bistro. It was the perfect end to a busy day.

Thanksgiving dinner 

Thanksgiving dinner