Early Christmas

While we were at church today, Tobey and Scout decided they couldn't wait for Christmas any longer. They decided to unwrap the presents under the tree and shred/eat/play with their contents.


Only one thing was ruined, a few others may have dog spit on them, but I'll just let you all sit and wonder if yours is one of the choice few :)

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Lights

After my aunt's wedding dinner at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, we took a quick walk thru temple square. I wanted to experiment with some of my new camera apps, but it was too darn cold! We took just one picture and then retreated indoors.


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As Christmasy as we get

Our tree is up, this is quite an accomplishment for us.


This is probably the extent of our decorations this year. I do collect nativities, but you can only cram so many on one tiny coffee table before it looks trashy. And last year Scout decided that she wanted the stable animals to all be her friends and they would never stay put (and some ended up with some pretty intense battle wounds). So TaDa! Here is Christmas @ the Hilton's.

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D-Land Delayed

So we went to Disneyland October 20-23. Don't know why it's taken me so long to post, but here are a few pictures.
*warning-we went by ourselves so get ready for a heavy onslaught of self portraits :)

After a very, very long drive we finally made it! Even the entrance was decked-out



Best. Meal. Ever! First thing we did was share an order of fried chicken at the Plaza Inn. It was the BEST fried chicken I have ever tasted and the portions were huge! This filled us both up. We need to share meals more in the future, if we each eat only 1/2 a meal, then we have to eat 2x as often, which means we get to try even more amazing things :)



Lots of Halloween decorations, this is the hearse in front of the Haunted Mansion



Big Thunder Ranch had dozens of hand-carved pumpkins and the artists were so talented. Here are just a few












Another new taste sensation, cream cheese filled pretzel. It was a yummy salty pretzel on the outside with cream cheese leaning dangerously close to frosting on the inside



Haunted Mansion Holiday is one of my favorite rides. Even though it's super dark, I just had to get a photo of Scary Teddy, he is SO cute! (don't worry my flash was off, no fellow riders were disturbed in the taking of this picture)



Dalan found a great John Lasseter shirt, but it was $74. Maybe next time Mr.



Halloween tree: inspired by Ray Bradbury



Dalan getting creative with dinner. We decided to save money, we could only eat one meal @ the park each day (hence another great reason for sharing and getting to eat twice). Our hotel had a fridge so I made some breadsticks, spaghetti, burritos, muffins, etc before-hand. We just forgot our can opener for the sauce, oops!



At the train station waiting for the LillyBelle. It's a special car, the caboose on one of the regular railroad cars, named for Walt's wife. You go on a trip around the whole park and get an exclusive conductor who tells you some of the history of the Disneyland Railroad as well as the Disney family.



Dalan was so excited to get his ticket



Verne, our conductor. He was basically awesome.



Us inside the car



Outside of the LillyBelle







At the castle



Messing around with a new HDR app



We spent awhile at the Wishing Well to get away from the crowds



Court of Angels in New Orleans Square. On our first day it was decorated for Halloween and on our second day they pulled out the Christmas decor



Dapper Dans performance at the Main Street Fire Station. They sang a rendition of This Is Halloween, it was great! They are so talented. Their full-time grown-up job is to sing in a barbershop quartet at Disneyland



Sourdough soup bowl @ the Pacific Wharf. Not my favorite. I didn't get a picture, but the loaded baked potato soup at the Carnation Cafe is to die for!



Waiting for Aladdin. Such a fun show, I highly recommend it :)



Teacups



Dalan was a good sport and went on It's a Small World with me. I just really, really wanted to see Stitch!




Haunted Mansion Holiday



Quick FYI I spent forever curling my hair in the morning, and this is what was left after only 2 hours



My most favoritest ride ever, The Jungle Cruise! One day I will be a skipper, just you wait.



Tasty roast beef sandwich from Carnation Cafe. The bowl at the top of the picture was the loaded baked potato soup you've already heard about



Flower Mickey in his Superhero Halloween costume



Someone who was surprisingly happy to see us when we got home



Next Disney Escapade in exactly 30 days. Woo!

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Perry

Over the last few weeks I have developed a liking for Perry the Platypus. This is completely random (especially since I had never even seen an episode on Phineas and Ferb), but look at how cute he is!



I actually watched 3 episodes this evening, so i now consider myself a Perry-expert. Here is an excerpt from his wiki page:

Perry is the pet platypus for the blended Flynn-Fletcher family, and is perceived as mindless and domesticated. In secret, however, he lives a double life as a member of an all-animal espionage organization referred to as The O.W.C.A. ("Organization Without a Cool Acronym"). Many entrances to this organization are usually found all around the house; such as the side of the house, most notably the tree that the boys sit under and many other everyday objects that seem to elude the family's attention. He engages in daily battles with Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz, a mad scientist who desires to take over the Tri-state area with obscure contraptions.

I would like to reiterate two things from above. 1. Organization Without a Cool Acronym and 2. Doofenshmirtz. Here is an image of Perry or Agent P.



So basically, Perry is The Shit. Yes I just typed that, there were no other words to encompass what I needed to say. If you don't like it, I suggest you leave. If you do like it, I recommend you watch this clip:

http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#/watch?v=G44Lono1xkc

Sorry, you probably have to click the link. I can't seem to get the embed to work on the iPad, and to do it on the computer would mean getting out of this extra comfy blanket/pillow nest I have built. So yeah.

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Black & White

Today while we were waiting for our oil change, we walked over to the mall and played a game of giant chess.





Turns out, I am very, very bad at chess.

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Something I Pinned, and Then Actually Did

Maybe this should be a weekly installment. I, like many others, am crazy addicted to Pinterest it has made recipes/cooking in our house an absolute DREAM. I find lots of other useful things there too. Things to make, things to buy, things to make our daily lives more organized and MUCH easier. I 'installed one such thing today, and am very very very happy with the results.

The original inspiration:

source

My in-home predicament:

New and Improved:

Instead of hooks I decided to go w/ a magnet. I purchased the magnetic knife rack ($14.99) and the metal-handled measuring cups ($3.99 & $2.99) from IKEA. The knife rack actually came with attachments that needed to be screwed into the backing, but I'm never a fan of making permanent changes like that. My new best friends 3M Command Strips did the job just fine :)

September Menu

I finished this months menu a few days late. After the fiasco that was the August 2011 menu, I'm just glad to have created anything for September at all. Trip to Disneyland = Pure meal planning chaos (totally worthwhile meal planning chaos, but still....). Here is our dinner fare for the month of September:

A few things I've learned about Menu-ing

-Pinterest is an absolute DREAM when it comes to organizing recipes. I'm to the point I need to break mine into sub-categories. It is so nice to have all of the recipes for the month in one place. Dalan is able to look at the schedule and pull up the recipe on his iPad if he feels so inclined to help with dinner. I've even reached the point where I will find my favorite recipes from books etc. online so they can be included in my Pinterest board.

-Creating my shopping lists monthly is a disaster. I will never ever ever ever ever do this again, ever.

-It is actually really nice to have the time to cook in the evening, it helps me unwind from work, and usually Dalan will help me out, so we get some extra time to talk about our days etc.

-I'm trying to schedule more veggie side-dishes, which brings me to my next point:

-Carrot Fries are DE-LISH!

-Next time we go to Disneyland (in about 5 weeks!!) I will be scheduling our meals. Our hotel has a fridge and microwave, so I will be bringing, pasta salad, burritos, etc. Hopefully this will keep our trip cheaper and healthier :).

Thats about all from the Hilton menu-front, any amazing dishes you've tried recently?

One thing I forgot to mention

We purchased ANNUAL PASSES!!!

SO, if anyone is looking to go to Disneyland in the future, we would totally love to tag along and split the gas bill :)

Disneyland!!

We had SO much fun on our trip!!

We stayed the first night in Vegas. We had lunch at Earl of Sandwich, it was tasty! Then we checked into the Excalibur and it was YUCKY. It was super dirty, had a smell, and our shower wouldn't drain. We called them about the drain, and they said they were sending someone to fix it. 4-hours later (after everyone had fallen asleep) they finally showed up and after waking us all up it was fixed. THEN an hour later, the front desk called and said that the maintenance guy told them that there was a Do Not Disturb sign up, but they were ready to fix it..... jerks. But before that, we headed to the Aquarium at Mandalay Bay, Meg was in heaven and I was surprised with how big it was and how many different kinds of fish/sharks/turtles etc. they had.

The next day we headed to California, first we stopped at Laguna Beach. Not the best beach I've been to, but there were some pretty waves.

After some serious searching on Urban Spoon and Yelp we decided to try dinner at Rofino's. It was pretty intimidating at first, we had a difficult time finding it, and it wasn't in the 'cleanest' part of the town. We also had to wait for a really long time, but it was totally worth it, they had great breadsticks and our food was delish too!

And I'll just tell the rest with pictures:

Waiting at the entrance, we were like #10 in line!

With our tickets!

After we went thru the gates we had to wait again at the ropes.

Mad Tea Party

Shout out to Hali!

Dalan is having a hard time keeping it together until June.

My Ellie Pin souvenir

Day #2

In line @ Star Tours

Not quite Husband, maybe next time

Waiting at the ropes for DCA

Lunch @ Corn Dog Castle

woot!

Anniversary dinner, sweetest hubby ever!

Waiting for World of Color

Star Tours Again, we found REX!!!

BEST. RIDE. EVER.

Pretty soggy after Splash Mountain

When I was pressing my Eeyore penny I turned around and there he was!

Dalan & Lightning

According the Prince Adam's Library, these are the characters we are most like

Tangled Tower

Standing at the Geological Center of Disneyland

Drive home :(