Crafted, Shoreline Village + Disneyland

Yesterday was a full day for us: we visited Crafted at the Port of Los Angeles, had lunch in Long Beach and walked over to Shoreline Village, came home to rest and watch a movie, then headed back out to Disneyland for a late night dinner with my family.

Let's start back on Friday though...
The space shuttle Endeavour flew over Los Angeles on it's journey to LAX before being housed at the California Science Center. It didn't fly over me at work up in the San Fernando Valley, but Chris works really close to LAX and he caught a glimpse of it from the top of the parking structure by his work.

Friday night I also finished up my long process of making these chocolate chip cookies I read about on Kate Miss' blog. I've also read about them on Cupcakes & Cashmere but they take such a long time to make that I've never tackled them until now. They take 36 HOURS! I somehow disciplined myself and resisted the urge to eat the cookie dough while it was just sitting in my fridge. I do have to say, they're pretty darn good.

I need a smaller ice cream scoop...

Crafted at the Port of Los Angeles

Kelly told me about this place last week. It's a large indoor craft marketplace down in San Pedro. Set inside an old warehouse, sellers set up booths where they can sell their homemade crafts and goods such as home decor, jewelry, sauces, apparel, wood work, and more. They are still growing so there was a lot of empty space, but the booths that were there were pretty neat to look at. Kelly and Katy met Chris and I there around noon - it didn't take too long to look at everything, and I came away with some neat necklaces.

My purchases :)

Doofazoid, me + Doofazoid Jr.

Crafted is really close to some other San Pedro attractions like Ports O' Call, the Maritime Museum, and the USS Iowa. We'll have to visit those places during another weekend.

Long Beach + Shoreline Village

Perhaps my favorite building in the whole world

We said goodbye to Kelly and Katy and went over the two bridges to Long Beach for lunch at Famous Dave's and a walk around Shoreline Village.

Chris + his new Prestige Worldwide (link has some NSFW language) t-shirt

My tight black pants and I were not expecting 90 degree heat :/

The Queen Mary is in the distance to the left

Disneyland 

After sweating all my makeup off down in Long Beach we retreated back to Marina del Rey and watched "Katy Perry: Part of Me" and yes, we BOTH watched this documentary that chronicled Katy Perry's 2011 tour. I even shed a tear or two (during the part about her divorce from Russell Brand). 

Kelly called me and wanted to see if Chris and I wanted to meet them at Disneyland around eight o'clock for some dinner.

Ticket entrance to the park

A lot busier than last time we were here (check out my previous blog post)

Waiting for a table at the Carnation Cafe

Dinosaur panorama while on the Disneyland train

View from the train looking toward California Adventure

And that's all for this weekend! 

xx, Chrissy

Halloween Time at Disneyland

Yesterday Chris and I made an impromptu trip to Disneyland. They've just started their Halloween season and we wanted to see all the decorations. So, as soon as we got home from work we situated the pup and made our way through typical Monday afternoon traffic across six (!!!) freeways to Anaheim (and yes, it is the shortest route – it takes us about 40 minutes with no traffic).

I hadn’t had breakfast or lunch so I was starving! As soon as we passed through the gates I was on a direct path toward food. We had dinner at the newly renovated Carnation Café on Main Street. I had the Baked Potato Soup (no sour cream!) and some French fries (my body was craving carbs) and Chris ordered the Buttermilk Fried Chicken Breast served with Mashed Potatoes, Milk Gravy, and Edamame-Succotash.

We wandered around for a little while, though Adventureland *heads up to those visiting the parks soon, Indiana Jones is closed for refurbishment until December 8^th*, over to the Haunted Mansion which is decorated for the Halloween/Christmas season with the “A Nightmare Before Christmas” theme.  It was a little too crowded and still light out (best time to see the mansion is at night), so we kept wandering…

Dia de los Muertos in Frontierland

Splash Mountain in the distance behind the Rivers of America

…and we ended up in front of the castle…

"Oh hai. I'm chillin' by the castle."

…and into Fantasyland. The “Soundsational” parade  was going on and there was no line for the Mad Tea Party teacups, so we hopped on.

The parade was still going on when the ride was over and we got in the short line for the Alice in Wonderland attraction.

The parade was STILL going on afterward, so we watched the tail end of it before continuing our “wandering”.

Chimney Sweeps!

It was getting dark and therefore we made our way back toward New Orleans Square via Frontierland to snap some pictures ofthe “Halloween Tree”. The “Halloween Tree” pays homage to the book, The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury, who has a connection to the Jones side of our family. 

Finally it was time for the Haunted Mansion! The wait time wasn’t too bad, maybe 20-30 minutes (more on this later), and we were soon back in the “A Nightmare Before Christmas” we’ve missed since last holiday season.

The park closed at 9:00pm last night which was fine with us (it’s still a work night!). I made a quick stop at the Gipson Girl Ice Cream Parlor on Main Street, and another stop in front of the Mickey pumpkin for a picture before heading home.

Disneyland also changes Space Mountain for Halloween into Ghost Galaxy at Space Mountain  but Chris and I think it’s kind of…meh. Check out the link to see more of what it’s about. The line for this ride is always long (in my personal encounters) and it’s not worth it. Speaking of lines and wait times, a lot of you may know that Chris and I have been active with a Disney community called MouseWait. If you have a smartphone and ever visit the Disney parks (Disneyland and/or Walt Disney World), I STRONGLY encourage you to download the free app, MouseWait. It has wait times, menus, and tons of other resources (because of MouseWait, I saw that Jack Black and Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters were both there last night) to use to get the most out of the parks. It also has a Lounge (which is sort of a chat room), and that’s where we’ve made a lot of friends. I don’t think we’ve gone to the park and not spotted someone we know [note: I saw Jen Culin with some of her friends, and Big D and Katie with their family – “Hiii!”] So anyway, that’s sometimes how Chris and I decide if we want to venture to Anaheim – we open our app and look at the wait times.

Screenshot of Disneyland wait times using the MouseWait app

We were home just in time to hop into bed and tune into our usual ten o’clock “American Dad!” show :P

Oh, and another funny thing – on the tram ride back to the car, I was looking through Facebook and saw that my mom and Kelly were also at Disneyland and they ate at Carnation Café too! I had no clue they were there, we hadn’t “checked” ourselves in on Facebook (it was date night) so I wasn't notified! It’s a small world after all…

From Mom's Facebook - Kelly in front of the "Halloween Tree"

Catching Up

We went to Las Vegas a couple of weekends ago. Jet Blue was having a flight sale and we also got a cheap deal via a Mirage email. I learned about something called the Twenty Dollar Trick. When you check into a hotel you simply slip the front desk clerk a $20 bill with your credit card, while asking "Do you have any complimentary upgrades available?" The general rule of thumb is that the front desk clerk will check for upgrades and if they cannot find anything they will return the $20 tip, making it risk free! It worked for us! We had booked just a standard room and we got bumped up to the top floor (well, the top below the floors with the suites), strip view, with a bottle of champagne :) We had a pretty good time, didn't win a large sum of money (but didn't lose a large sum either), saw Legends in Concert over at Harrah's, and mainly just walked around in the 105 degree heat! Legends was pretty cool - we saw Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake, the Blues Brothers, Tina Turner, and the King: Elvis Presley. When we go to Vegas, we usually check out the Tix 4 Tonight kiosks they have along the strip to see what shows they have available for a discounted price.

I ALWAYS get detained at the airport. Full pat down - either 1) I look like a terrorist 2) They like to touch my hot bod'

Above the Vegas strip

Our room

 

View of the Mirage volcano

It was HOT

Chris and The Rock

Legends auditorium 

My Celine Dion sweatshirt from the Celine Dion store in Caesar's (originally $90, got it for $20) - currently waiting for cool weather!!

Lunch inside the Forum shops

Back home at the Long Beach airport

The night before our flight to Vegas Chris went to the Summer Slaughter Tour in Anaheim. You couldn't pay me to go...it's loud, scary music. But he had fun and it was an all day concert.

Lately we've just been hanging out near home. Nothing exciting. A trip or two to Disneyland, and some shopping. 

Naples, Downtown Disney (Images taken using Hipstamatic)

Kelly and me

Main Street U.S.A.

The 4th Jones sister, Kim, and I at Disney's Califonia Adventure Mad T Party (image c/o  Kim's Instagram)

Kelly and Kim at the Mad T Party (Image c/o Kim's Instagram)

Brucey staring and whining at me to take him out

I've gotten Chris hooked on "Arrested Development" - a lot of it is filmed in Marina del Rey

Getting my hair blown out at BlowLux

Chris and Mimi la Rue chilling in my parent's living room

The other night we did go to another movie screening for an upcoming film called, "Identity Thief" with Jason Bateman (Arrested Development, Horrible Bosses) and Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids, Mike and Molly) over at the Sony Pictures Studios. It was such a funny movie, Jason and Melissa made up a hysterical duo. Chris and I were asked to stay after the film to participate in a movie discussion and we got to meet Jason! He's so cute, I love him! I think Chris does too...The movie is scheduled to come out in February or March of next year.

View inside the Sony Pictures Studios Backstage Theater (image c/o  http://urlgrl.tumblr.com )

Even though it's September, it feels like summer has finally arrived to the coast. But it's still a lot cooler here than down in Orange County, or our old place in Woodland Hills! 

We're trying to think of some cool ideas to do during the next couple of weekends...any ideas??