Mickey's Halloween Party 2012

A little over a week ago my husband and I went to Mickey's Halloween Party at Disneyland.  It's become tradition for us and we've gone the last several years. It's interesting to see how it's grown since we first went in 2007. Back then the parties took place at California Adventure and since then the parties have evolved and have even moved over to Disneyland.  
We always have a nice time although I must admit we do miss the days when the parties were less popular and you felt like you had the park to yourself (the California Adventure party days).  Last year was our wedding and I had family in town for it so some of us were able to all go together to the Halloween party the day after the wedding!  We went a second time with friends right after our wedding week and we had a great time with them as well!
This year we waited until the last minute to get our tickets but were able to get some for the Friday before Halloween.  One of the things I love about the parties is that grown ups are also allowed to wear costumes as long as they abide by Disney's rules. I wish that grown ups could always wear costumes to Disneyland but I'm glad that we can at least to the parties.
This year we didn't want to spend a lot of money on costumes so we decided to put them together ourselves and dressed like Anita and Roger from 101 Dalmatians. A lot more people realized who we were than I thought would so I think we did pretty good!

When we walked in, it seemed uncrowded except for a really, really long line that lead to Maleficent!  I had never seen Maleficent outside of Fantasmic so it was a fun character to see.

Cotton Candy Corn!

I have a short and sweet post for you today!  I talked about the Halloween Carnival but saved this treat I found there for last!  Inside the Big Thunder Ranch Jamboree they had a cart selling some Halloween themed snacks but what stood out to me was the Cotton Candy Corn!

Cotton Candy Corn!!!

It's like Disneyland got in my head and created a special treat just for me!  I love cotton candy and I love candy corn!  The two combined into one = one very happy ME!

I hope to buy some more before Halloween!  What's your favorite Halloween sweet treat?

Halloween Carnival Continued- Games, Pumpkins, and more!

Just past the Conjure A Villain tent in the Halloween Carnival at Big Thunder Ranch Jamboree, there is an area where you can play games with Mickey and Mickey!  They looked adorable in their Halloween costumes!

The game they were playing while we were there was Ring Toss!  The game fit the Halloween theme because you got to throw the rings onto one of several witch hats.  Minnie noticed that her hat fit right in so she pretended to be part of the game!

Minnie's hat fits right in!  She even put a ring around it!

It's always fun to interact with the characters and when we were there it wasn't too crowded and kind of quiet except for the fun entertainment provided by Haunted Billy Hill and the Hillbillies.

In the Halloween Carnival we were also able to check out the carved pumpkins that were on display.  They were amazing!   Perhaps I can use one for inspiration for our pumpkin at home!  (But more likely I will stick to my usual pumpkin's face made up of triangles and circles, haha)

Ichabod Crane and Mickey!

Wow!

Wonderland pumpkins!

I think I've seen about everything when I see an elephant...pumpkin!

Do any of you plan to carve pumpkins at home?  What are you going to carve this year?  Feel free to email me a photo at nerissa@sodisney.com!  Perhaps I can post them here! 

My First Blogging Conference- Bloggy Boot Camp!

Today's post is a little different! Instead of writing about my usual Disney adventures, I am going to write about a blogging one!  It's not Disney themed but I'll include a fun drawing of me in Mickey ears at the end I promise!

This past weekend I was able to attend my first blogging conference, Bloggy Boot Camp.  My friend Mindy from Budget Fairy Tale invited me to come with and I was really glad I did!  I learned a lot and am hoping to eventually apply some of what I learned to my blogging!

For the first half of the conference and lunch there was assigned seating.  I was a little nervous about this
because I can be kind of shy but I'm really glad it was set up that way!  It helped us all get to meet more people.  I was really happy I'd gotten some business cards made so I could share my info.  I'm looking forward to going through the business cards I collected and checking out the blogs of all the talented people I met!

The conference was made up of some great presentations! I won't go into detail of all the presentations but will mention a few of the many highlights!

conference time!

1.  Laurie from Tip Junkie gave us the Top Ten Tips for Blogging Success!  It was very informative!  She mentioned how you should not second guess an idea and that stuck with me because that's something I tend to do A LOT. I loved this quote she mentioned by Vince Lombardi, "The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not lack of knowledge, but rather lack of will."

2.  Cynthia of NapWarden talked about blog design and showed us examples of some amazing ones!  I hope to do some tweaks on my blog's design over the next few months.

3. Trina from Gaming Angels talked about Gadgets and Apps to Make Your Blogging Life Easier.  I got to meet Trina before and after the presentation and she was cool to talk to! (She even had a Disney Dooney & Bourke purse!) I liked her presentation because she gave us some tips on blogging on the go.  I don't get to spend a lot of time at home so it was great to hear about some ways to be able to stay "social" while away from that home computer or heavy laptop.

4. Lunch was also assigned seating and I got to meet some more bloggers there and eat a 3 course meal!

This is what bloggers eat- nom nom nom.

5. After lunch for me was the Business of Blogging and the Legal Basics of Blogging, both of of which provided useful info. The last speaker was Elziabeth Jayne Liu who spoke about her own experience getting into blogging. 

6. At the end we were able to attend a wine tasting party where we got to try wines by Mirassou Winery.  I tried the Moscato and stuck to it.  It was a sweet wine that was very tasty!  While there I got to meet more bloggers as well!

mmmmm is for moscato

I started this blog over two years ago and I've always been a bit shy about telling people about it.  I mostly just tell family and friends but I had been nervous about telling others. I've even started two other blogs (Pixie Dust Nails and So Disney! Wedding) since then and have kept rather silent about those as well.  This past weekend I handed out several cards with my websites on it and I think that was probably the most people I've ever told about my blogs at one time. It was different and even a little scary but nice at the same time.  I should push myself to do that more!  All the amazing women who spoke at the conference have accomplished a lot and I noticed that they all had one major thing in common- all their stories started out with the same person believing in them- themselves. They had confidence in their ideas and abilities.  That was one of the main things I took home with me from this conference, the knowledge that before you succeed you must believe you can.

Many thanks to SITS Girls for putting together a great conference!  And special thanks to my friend Mindy who invited me along!

conference break!

I'll end this post with that drawing I promised.  I did a quick sketch of myself and put it on the back of my business card!  Don't we look alike?  ;-)

 

Halloween Carnival- Conjure A Villain!

A couple weekends ago I was able to check out the Halloween Carnival at the Big Thunder Ranch Jamboree!  I took a lot of photos there and will split it into a couple posts! 

I always like the Big Thunder Ranch Jamboree because it's usually pretty quiet back there and is a great spot to meet characters without as much of a line.  For Halloween it was transformed into a Halloween Carnival!

On my way over there I saw several signs! 

 

 I walked by the petting zoo and smiled when I saw that the goats had on Halloween bandanas!

I walked into the Halloween Carnival and saw a ticket booth!

To my left there was a big tent with posters around it that had Disney villains on them!

The posters had a couple of villains on them that I wanted to meet like Maleficent and Jafar and it definitely made me curious especially when I saw that the front of the tent said "Conjure A Villain!"

The line actually seemed pretty long and I went to go look around the rest of the carnival.  I was going to leave but there were lots of loud sounds coming from the tent and curiosity got the best of me and I waited in line to go into the tent!  Once you go in you end up in this room that has an empty box at the front of it:

There is a boiling cauldron and a Cast Member picks one of the guests to go over to it and help conjure up a villain!

Once the guest does the conjuring there is some loud thunder and effects and we find that Cruella has magically appeared in the box! 

I'd seen Cruella before but it was fun to see her appear!  Afterwards everyone got in line and we got to take photos with her.  It was fun to see her interact with everyone.  She shouted hello at a little girl's Hello Kitty shirt and said that the kitty was rude for not saying hello back, and that it should be called "rude kitty" not Hello Kitty.  It was funny!

I really thought the Conjure A Villain tent was cute but I do wish you knew which villain you were going to meet or when certain villains are going to be there.  Either way I had a nice time and will probably do it again sometime!  Have you done the Conjure A Villain tent yet?  Which villain did you see?  I'm curious as to which other villains get conjured up! 

HAPPY 30TH EPCOT!

Today is EPCOT's 30th birthday!

I love EPCOT and really wish I could have gone there this week to celebrate!  Since we couldn't be there, my husband and I decided to celebrate at home by trying to make one of our favorite drinks we get there while we are visiting.

Over in the France pavilion they have a stand where you can get a Grand Marnier Orange Slush or Grey Goose Citron Lemonade Slush.  They are delicious and perfect for a hot day!  Today we attempted to recreate the Grand Marnier one using a Jamba Juice "Orange Dream Machine" fruit smoothie mix, ice, and Grand Marnier.  It wasn't quite exact but it was closer than a previous attempt to make the Grey Goose slush.  We had a good time drinking them while going through our photos from visits to EPCOT.

Happy birthday EPCOT!  Thanks for all the happy memories!

Halloween Time and Halloween Merchandise!

Halloween Time starts tomorrow at Disneyland!  I love this time of year at the parks so I'm excited!  One of the reasons I like it is because of the Haunted Mansion's Nightmare Before Christmas transformation!  Here are a few photos of it about 2 weeks ago when Haunted Mansion was closed for the change.  Tomorrow the gates will again be open and we will be able to revisit Jack Skellington and his friends!

 

 

Halloween merchandise has already been on the shelves for a couple weeks now.  They have some cool stuff this year!

 

Need to buy these!

Spooky!

Love their Halloween outfits!

Halloween decor in the stores!

I really want one of these!

I know it's a bit early for Halloween but a couple years ago I adjusted my holiday schedule to match Disney's.  :)  In fact I've got my Halloween decorations out and ready to go!  ;-)
Have a happy Friday and a great weekend everyone!

One More Disney Day

I wrote this quite a while ago and just noticed I somehow never posted it!  Better late than never!  Here is what I did with my one more Disney Day this year!  

At the end of February my husband and I were able to check out Leap Day at Disneyland!  We both had work that day so we decided we'd check out the very late hours.  That's what we were most excited about anyway because the park isn't usually open past midnight and we thought maybe it'd be less crowded because it was so late.  (We were sooo wrong about that!)

We both got home from work, had dinner, and watched some television before taking a nap at 10pm.  A little after midnight I got up, took a quick shower, and dressed warm before heading off to Disneyland!

We got there a little before 1am and there was a really long line at the bag check!  We heard people in the lines talking about the park being at capacity!  We were already there though so we figured we'd go to the gate and just see what the cast member tells us.

At the gate, the Cast Member was friendly as she told us we came at the right time!  The park had been at capacity not long before but they had just started letting people in again.  We were delighted that we were able to get in!  The park was VERY crowded and I could totally see why they had closed their gates earlier that night.

We made our way through the crowds of people over to Tomorrowland to check out what kind of wait times the rides had.

115 Minute Wait for Space Mountain!

There was a 115 minute wait for Space Mountain and the other rides had long lines too!  Our theory that the park would be less crowded because of the late hour was way off!

Me realizing I won't be doing many rides tonight!

At this point we decided to wander a bit and check out the rest of the park.

We walked by Tomorrowland Terrace and saw the DJ there that night and that it was jam packed full of people dancing! (Well more like swaying- it was too crowded for them to really bust a move!)

We headed towards Carnation Plaza where Mickey and his pals were supposed to be in pajamas!  I really wanted to get a photo with them because I've never seen them dressed like that before so we hopped in line.

We waited and waited... the line was long but lucky for us the characters were very interactive and entertaining to watch while we moved through the line.

I loved Minnie's slippers!

After waiting for about an hour it was our turn to meet the characters!  I had our 2011 Duffy with me so he got to be in the photo too!

It was around 2:30am in the morning after we met the characters.  We headed over to Fantasyland to see if we could find a ride to do there with less of a wait. Snow White's Scary Adventures had a line that was the longest I've ever seen it!

Line for Snow White's Scary Adventures

The line just keeps going!

We were about to give up on getting a ride in that night when I noticed the carousel wasn't too crowded.  We were able to go for a ride before heading out!

3AM Carousel Ride!

View of castle from carousel

On our way out I stopped for a quick nap!

Naptime at Disneyland, 3:30AM

As we walked towards Main Street I was surprised by how crowded the park still was!

CROWDED Main Street 3:45AM

It was about 4AM when we were about to leave but we spotted a short line to see Goofy and Pluto so we stopped by to say hi!

Pajama Party!

Once we exited the park we saw that the area between DCA and Disneyland was pretty empty so we snapped a quick photo in front of DCA's new entrance.

I went to bed around 4:30AM and was able to get a couple hours sleep before work the next day.  I was really tired but it was so worth it!  Despite the large crowds I had a great time!  If they have One More Disney Day for the next leap year I'll definitely stop by again!