Disneyland [photo blog]

The third and final part of our Winter adventure was to Disneyland and California Adventure theme parks in Anaheim, CA.

Day 1:
After S finished his interview in LA, picked me up from Santa Monica beach and drove us to Anaheim, we checked into our hotel and went to Downtown Disney for the night. There, we walked around to explore the different shops and had dinner with two great friends: Kelsey and Lyle. I don't think I have seen either of these two since their wedding last May, so I was very excited to get together with them for dinner at my favorite Disney restaurant: Tortilla Joes.

Legoland Store: Beauty and the Beast

Legoland Store: Toy Story 

Legoland Store: Aladdin

Day 2: Disneyland!

:)

Finding Nemo Ride 

I'M GUNNA WRECK IT! 

Pooooooh Bear

Evening Christmas Parade 

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

Santa's Sleigh!

Day 3: Disney's California Adventure theme park (+ the new "Cars Land")

In line for the new Car's Ride
{side note: we had fast passes, but the
 normal line was 2.5 hours!!!}

Art Class

S's Frankenweenie drawing

My Tigger and Franekweenie drawings

The magic room/The Beast's Library

Jessie 

Such a great end to our vacation....I love Disneyland.

Los Angeles Vacation

After leaving Boston, S and I headed back to one of our favorite places: LA. We arrived around noon, got our rental car, and started thinking about what we wanted as our first meal back in Los Angeles. After living there for four years, we each had our personal favorites and not enough time to re-visit them all. In the end, we decided with a California Classic: In-n-out Burger!

"Our first family car" 

Driving through LA....*sigh*

yum. 

After we re-fueled our bodies, we headed to our hotel: The Beverly Inn. This inn was very...interesting. In one sense, it was great, because it was in the heart of Beverly Hills, but in every other aspect, it was a crap hole. Seriously though, this inn was falling apart. I'm glad we only spent one night there...

After we checked in, S got ready for his residency interview dinner, while I stayed back in the room and took a nap. After he was done with dinner, we decided to take a little trip back to Westwood to visit some of our favorite sites, get me dinner at one of the best/worst Thai food restaurants you could ever choose to eat at (Mr. Noodle), and have desert at the infamous Diddy Riese! We then ended up simply walking the streets of Westwood for a while, reminiscing about college. We also drove to my old apartment, S's old fraternity house, and my old sorority house! As silly as it sounds, I think this was the highlight of my entire trip. It was so great to be back in Westwood...I didn't realized how much I missed it. 

[Shout out: P*Posse and Sunday Night Dinners]

<3 <3 <3

S's Frat: Delta Sigma Phi

My sorority: Gamma Phi Beta

The next day, while S had his interview, I checked out of the hotel and headed to Santa Monica beach for a relaxing afternoon. After navigating through the bus system without any major problems, I spent about 3 hours at the beach. I spent about 2 1/2 of these hours simply laying in the sand, listening to music and taking pictures. I spent the other 30 minutes walking up and down the Santa Monica Pier. It was so ridiculously relaxing...I could probably have laid on that beach all day long!  

When S finished up at his interview, he drove into Santa Monica, picked me up and we headed off for our last adventure: Disneyland!

Disney World Vacation

I havent blogged in quite some time because I have been so busy with finals and with my december vacation to Florida! After thanksgiving, we had 6 exams, 4 lab quizzes, and several assignments to complete before the semester was over. So, I was a busy bee! Instead of boring you all with the details of studying and finals week, I will just tell all of you in the blog world that I ended the semester pretty well, with an overall average of just about an 87%. So, I am very happy with my first semester performance.

What I think is more fun to talk about in this blog post is my trip to Disney World!!! S and I have been planning this trip for quite some time and I can't believe it finally came and went. We left from Flint at noon on Friday, had a connecting flight in Atlanta, and finally arrived in Florida at around 7 PM (our layover was crazy long!). We stayed at the All Stars Movies resort for 4 nights and got to visit 3 of the 4 parks: Epcot, Disney's Hollywood Studios, and The Magic Kingdom!  I haven't been to Disney World since I was 10 years old and S had never been there, so it was really fun to explore the parks together! :)

Here are some highlights of the trip and some fun character pictures:

S and I never get to spend time together other than little weekend visits where we are both studying the whole time, so it was so great to have this time alone together. It was the perfect way to start the holiday season and a fabulous end to a wonderful year! Happy Holidays everyone! :)

Disney Mania

My first non-medical school post in quite some time...

Anyone who knows me how ridiculously obsessed I am with anything Disney-related. I am a 5-year old at heart and always will be. So, some nights (like tonight), I forgo my obligations and stay in to watch Disney marathons...its fabulous.

Tonights selections:
1) Beauty and the Beast
2) The Little Mermaid
3) Rock-A-Doodle (Not a disney movie, but still Disney-like!)

Also...My roommate Jess introduced me to this amazing video that I just had to share:

Its amazing. 

Oh...and some exciting news...S and I are going to Disney World in December!!! I'm so excited. :) 

Disneyland

Anyone who knows me knows how obsessed I am with Disneyland. For the four years that I was at UCLA, I had an annual pass and went to Disneyland basically any time that I could get a free day. Well, since I have been home in Northern California, I have made only two trips: one right after Thanksgiving and one two weeks ago with Elk Grove High School. As a coach of the drill team, one of the major perks of the job is a free trip to Disneyland. Yes, I had to "chaperone" the girls, but, to tell you the truth, those chaperoning duties probably lasted about 2 hours per day. The rest of the time, I could enjoy myself with my fellow coach, Jeannette, and the team.

The team left on Wednesday morning at 5 AM to drive down on a charter bus. Being the fabulous chaperone I am (sarcasm), I was not on the bus due to my work schedule. Since this was high school spring break, I was stuck at Wackford teaching Lifeguarding/CPR classes until Thursday afternoon. After my class got out on Thursday, I immediately went to the airport and flew out to Orange County. I arrived to Disneyland at 8:45 PM and met a few of the girls at Rainforest Cafe. Then, finally at around 11 PM, I went into the park for one ride--Buzz Lightyear AstroBlasters! Even though I missed the vast majority of the day, I still had a great time in those few hours.

The next day, we woke up fairly early, enjoyed the complementary breakfast buffet at Embassy Suites, and headed to the park. The majority of the day was "free time" except for the hours of 2 PM-5 PM. During that time, the team performed in the afternoon Disneyland parade. Performing in the parade was a tradition for the four years that I was on the team. However, over the past 5 or so years, that tradition stopped. So, it was exciting to be apart of this again---especially because it was a new experience for every girl on the team.

I don't have pictures as of yet, but once I get them developed, I will be sure to add them! One of the picture highlights: a team picture on the Tower of Terror. :)

Disneyland, I love you. I will miss you when I move to Michigan, but don't fret...I WILL make a trip down either during winter or spring break. In the meantime, I will be looking forward to my next trip by having this picture as the background on my work computer: