Veterans Day

We honor all who serve our country currently and in the past, On this day we take time to recognize and express our sincere appreciation for all you've done and given for the sake of others.

As the wife of a husband who served 6 years in the US Navy submarine force, the daughter of a father who was 13 years in the US Airforce flying low level reconnaissance, including photos during the Cuban missile crisis in the 1960's.  The niece of many uncles from both sides of the family that served in various services, including 1 of 8 of my father's brothers who served in WWII - my uncle Arthur who died at Anzio Beach.
  I currently have nephews and cousins all serving our country, again in several of the different service branches.  I am thankful to all known and not known to me who have willingly given their time and service to all of us who cherish the many blessings of this nation.

God bless you all.

Piece de Resistance

Garland at entrance to New Orleans Square

My final post on Disney Christmas decorating is the New Orleans Square area of Disney's main park. It's an area where the decorations introduce a LOT of eye candy.  Yet despite all the extra decor it isn't overdone, but just has you standing there pointing and looking at some other detail that makes a lamp post, stair rail, balcony or ally way look really special. My pictures are collections of daytime then evening shots.  The evening one's clearly show the rain and I was a bit challenged to keep my lens from getting too wet.

Nighttime shot of same

I don't do a lot displays of collections personally, but Christmas has always been a time that we as a family really like pulling out the stops to decorate our house.  So while no where near the volume and detail of Disney decor, I use these visits to find inspiration I can "borrow" and adjust to our homes decor. Enjoy-

Close ups of some decoration

Have a great day.

California Adventure Decorating

As promised a follow up post from our Disney day out.  With this being Carslands first Christmas it was interesting to see the creative ways the decorators came up with to decorate for Christmas and stay with the Cars movie theme.

Garlands hanging across the road with tire wreaths and wrench ornaments

Luigi's Tire Tree, Main Street and Radiator Springs Garage/Townhall



The Cozy Cone decorated for Christmas complete with cone tree

Several "trees"- Rt 66 SIgn Tree, Mator's Tire Tree and Fillmore's Peace Sign Welded Tree
 

Tow Mater's Decorated Junkyard and Tow Mater coming down main street

We then walked around the back of the Carsland area past the main race ride that still has 2 hour lines, so needless to say we haven't been on this yet, and headed towards the Paradise Pier area of the park.

Hannah getting a ride from dad, the ferris wheel and Cam and Lauren on Toy Story ride

Some of the decorations around the pier area, plus a look at the very cloudy sky!

They had a Christmas bear the girls got a picture with


It was a fun day and I love that despite how early it is in the season the effort Disney goes to, to decorate.  I will post tomorrow from my favorite Christmasy decorated part of Disney's parks.  New Orleans Square. Decorations here are truly lovely, and inspire ideas for expanding my own decorating during the holiday season!

BYE FOR NOW.



 

A Very Disney Day

California Adventure Entrance

With all the activities we've had going on lately, we decided it was time to take a break and head to Disneyland.  Woke up yesterday morning to unforcasted showers, so we had to take extra supplies with us to deal with what seemed a mixed bag of weather possibilities.  And we definately had that!
It went from cloudy and cool, to suddenly bright, hazy and warm, then back to breezy, cool and late in the day quite rainy!  Didn't stop our fun though and with it being a Thursday plus the weather the crowd was quite thin, so zipping around the two parks was easy and just the way we (especially mom) like it.

Started at Disney's California Adventure.  This has recently undergone a major facelift and had the addition of Carsland.  All the Halloween stuff is down that Kevin and I saw 2 weeks ago when we were there for our anniversary supper at Napa Rose restaurant.  Instead we had Christmas!!
Christmas music was already playing at this park and their decorations were up everywhere. I'll do another post with pictures of these.  Decorating at the main park is still in process, beginning with exhibits at the back, so Christmas music wasn't playing here yet.

We tried a new ride, Luigi's Flying Tires.  Your tire inflates and you ride on streams of air.  To move these giant tires you have to lean.  Kevin and Lauren were in one and Cameron and Hannah another. They had a lot of fun.  Lauren's squeals of delight could be heard even over the noise of the ride.  The sun came out in a major way at this point and I'm trying to take photos at the only observation point that happened to be facing directly into the sun, so the pictures are a bit washed out, but you can still get an idea from the smiles on their faces.

We enjoyed lunch at a new pizza place and were serenaded by a great little Irish band.

Hannah's quite toothless, but happy smile with Dad

Ariel's Grotto is a favorite of the girls to ride on.  You sit in your clamshell and travel through scenes of the movie and listen to its songs.  Managed to get a couple of photos of us on this.  It's dark in there so the flash is a bit of a surprise to your vision : )

We then walked over to and around the Main Disney Park.  After going on several rides we were in Tomorrowland waiting for the Nemo ride when the sky darkened and the sprinkles of rain began.  By the time we got off this ride it had turned to full on showers.  So we boarded the monorail to sit it out.

Downtown Disney from the Monorail window

It's A Small World through a now rain covered Monorail window

As the day progressed and sun began to go down we were cold and damp, so it was time for a coffee and hot chocolate break.  After walking a bit so I could get some pictures of the decorations that were up in New Orleans Square, it was time to get a little dinner then call it a day.

Truly enjoyed our Disney day out and the break from school and projects.  Having the annual passes makes it nice to just be able to schedule a quick hop over to the parks.  Even nicer are the weekday visits when the crowds are smaller, it makes the day is so much more enjoyable.

Bye - Good thing my camera battery died shortly after this

So today, back to our regularly scheduled program.  Have a great day.

Healthy and Not So Much

Decided with the extended warmth we've had to plant 3 varieties of heirloom beans.  They are the Anasazi, Cranberry and a large white bean called the Mortgage Lifter.  Each of the beans is supposed to be high in fiber, protein and vitamins.  Plus each beans flavor has been touted as good for working with the flavor of meals, particularly Southwest Style foods.   I've planted them in the garden and then as back up  I have some in the greenhouse too so time will tell the results.

Anasazi Beans



Mortgage Lifter

Their names are interesting, with the Cranberry getting it's name for the colorful shells.  The Anasazi is supposed to have been found in a jar from the ancient Anasazi Indian sites, think this is popular folklore and it's just a bean local to that vacinity.  The Mortgage Lifter is a plain, but large white bean that got it's title, as during the depression a farmer about to lose his place had a bumper crop of these and was able to sell them and save his farm.  True?  I don't know, but it adds to an otherwise plain bean : )    Okay, so that's the healthy part of this post.  To be continued as the beans grow.

Now for the "not so much part",  I found this little beauty at Costco a little while back and being on special just couldn't resist!!

We have been craving warm cookies and honestly I haven't felt like baking -  so this solved the situation for all.  It may not be the healthiest of foods I've served my family lately, but we have been enjoying them.  It's been amusing to watch as the smell of them cooking will cause Cameron to come out of his room, affectionatly referred to a "the Cam Cave" and following his nose drift into the kitchen with a goofy grin as he anticipates a treat.  Aw, lifes simple pleasures.

Voting

This is Cameron's first Presidential Election to vote in and he was really excited about it.  We always get our ballots by absentee ballot because of the number of propositions that are always attached to the elections.  It's simply easier to sit in the comfort of our home with resource material for understanding these sometimes complicated propositions and determining exactly what the implications will be for the State and us in order to try and vote in a more informed manner.

Then we'll take and drop off our completed ballots at the polling place near our home.

Obviously not our polling place, but a fun shot of Cam 

Cameron was first eligible to vote last November for local and State issues, but this time on a national level has him feeling quite grown up.  After completing his ballot he used his IPad to take a picture of his ballot tab and posted to Facebook. He and Kevin will drop the ballots off this morning.

Can remember when Amber first voted, these are some of those "rights of passage" we train our kids up for.  We used this as a civics lesson for Hannah who has more understanding, while Lauren is still a bit in the dark at this stage.  Her time of will come, for now we concentrate with both girls on the beginnings of the countries history as we spend time learning of the Pilgrims in preparation for Thanksgiving so they can know what it's for and why we celebrate. 

Have a great day - get out and celebrate your freedom to vote!   Be blessed - Lynda

Taking Stock of My Preparedness Factor

Counting items to add to my "to do" list

I am a self confessed newsaholic!!  It can be like white noise in the background, but it's on most of the time.  A serious time of fasting for me has to include news.  Sad really, but if this were true confession time this is mine.  So with all the coverage on currently with regard to hurricane Sandy, I had to sit and take stock of my emergency preparedness.

You know everytime we have even a little shaker there's always talk here in So Cal about "the BIG one".  I've had my emergency supplies, food, water, first aid kits, batteries, tents, etc for some time.  Yet as I watch "civilized" people quickly going into meltdown mode when the conveniences and real needs aren't there, it makes you take time to think, am I really prepared?

Now I confess, unless there's a super fire threat, we won't be planning for a "bug out" option.  Sheltering in place makes the most sense.  I have food stores, a LARGE water storage tank as we are on a well, back up cooking supplies in the form of grills and camping stove, along with fuel needs for these. We are on propane, so stove and oven will still work provided supply hasn't been blown in a truly large earthquake that damages our tanks or lines.

I've had to admit we are far more used to and dependent on internet and cable than I supposed.  Got a test of this with my serious computer issues last month and this past weekend when literally some small bug severed the fiber optic line that came into our house and took out home phone, cable and internet.  So, have to get our solar operated radio on the ready in case it's needed.  This also has a cell phone charger and after watching coverage of New Yorkers standing in long lines and actually having to use pay phones because they can't charge their smart phones, this now seems more important than when I first bought the thing.

Okay, where do I really fall short currently?  Though we have a generator, because of lack of use gas gummed up the fuel line and parts and Kevin's not been able to really get it up and running.  This becomes a priority to get it in and fixed.   Having some gas stored is a must so when we need the generator we'll have it.  To keep it "fresh" we can use on the chipper/ shredder or tractor then replace immediately.  I always try to keep fuel full in the vehicles and doing this did help us wait out the HUGE, yet temporary gas spike we in California experienced recently.  The generator, once fixed, can help keep the refrigerator and freezer going and refresh the water in the tank from the well.  Gravity flow will allow us to get it out from there, but we would have to go into camping mode for awhile to get by. 

We have a fireplace and wood to burn, though our home in So Cal doesn't get snow it does get cold in the winter, especially for us thin blooded desert dwellers  : )  Lighting is covered with lots of flashlights and batteries, candles and a couple of solar flashlights or crank ones.  Seriously though, as I look at the extended time our East Coast neighbors will be dealing with outages, looking into more usable light sources for extended time periods of outages seems far more important now. 

 I have stocks of the extras you don't want to have to run to the store for as well - toilet paper, toothpaste, soap and the like.  We can go a long time with my storage here, but I think I need to add to things like paper plates and disposable cutlery and cups.  Though I have some, for a truly extended time period I'd need more and I really don't want to have to boil water for washing a lot of dishes.

We are better prepared than some, but the reality of watching these tragic images and the need to survive without all we in our society have become so accustomed to, makes me really take time to take stock of how prepared am I, and what can I do to be more so?   There's no anticipating every possibility  that life or nature might throw your way, but in the areas we can do something it seems even wiser now to prepare than to regret it when you need it most.  

How about you, are you prepared for even small cuts in the regular services you are used to?