Is Disneyland Just for Kids?

All the pretty lights

I think I was in middle school the first time I went to Disneyland. I went with a friend's family, and we ran from ride to ride like psychopaths. When I was a cheerleader, Disneyland was our yearly team trip, and when I graduated from high school it was our Senior year grad night. I have many fond memories of waiting in endless lines for rides, buying candy from the old time sweet shop on main street, and searching for a souvenir cheap enough for me to buy with my meager allowance. That was before California Adventure, or Max Pass, and way before the Disneyland App or Star Wars Galaxy's Edge. It cost $20.00 to get in and that felt like a lot of money to teenage me. It's hard to believe it could have ever been that impossibly low, considering the current going low rate is  $104.00 for a weekday during off peak season (like now January-March ish) for a basic, 1 day pass. It goes up from there with the addition of Park Hopper, Max Pass, and all of these other add-ons that weren't even a thought of back then. We live pretty close to Disneyland Resort Anaheim, but I never thought too much about going again. MJ had never been, and talked about planning a trip for a while, but I wasn't so sure. Disneyland is for kids. What's the point of two adults going to Disneyland? Especially, given how expensive it is now.

Fun fact: the Sleeping Beauty castle is inspired by Neuschwanstein castle in Germany. We got to see the real thing three years ago. I've also seen the real Thunder Mountain in Sedona Arizona, so now I need to see the real Matterhorn in Switzerland. Forget about Space Mountain. Not that I could ever go or anything, but the idea of being in space freaks me out.

Queen for a Date

About once or twice a year we end up renting a hotel room and having a mini getaway downtown. In year's past we've done it for a holiday party, a dinner cruise, Halloween, or a celebration with friends. We don't live that far. We can and do use Uber, but sometimes it's fun to have the option of walking "home" and getting to live that downtown lifestyle for a night when we're planning to be out really late. Downtown San Diego is such a fun place to be, so why not? We always have a great time.

Lap of Luxury

Paradise!!!

A few months ago I booked a flight on Frontier Airlines to Vegas. They are very much like Spirit in that they are less expensive, but nickel and dime you to death on...well pretty much everything. The only thing that comes free on Frontier is what they call a personal item. So, basically your purse or a backpack small enough to fit underneath the seat in front of you. This was a basic Friday to Monday trip to my parents house, and I did not want to pay any extra money so I convinced myself that for the first time ever I would travel with only a backpack. My little sister can do it. I won't need much. I'll make it work.

NOT.

No hair products, no workout wear, no dressy clothes, no extra shoes. limited toiletries. No extras. Just your standard undergarments and a different shirt for every day. It was warm in Vegas so I only wanted to bring one pair of jeans and the rest would be shorts and tanks but it absolutely would not fit. After that, I realized right then and there for sure that I would never be the kind of person who could travel with a backpack no matter how lightly I thought I was packing. I accepted that, but I still wanted to be better about over packing so I was determined not to do it when packing for our trip to Mexico.

I was a little bit worried about the weather before we left. June to mid October is rainy season in Nuevo Vallarta, and the weather app was showing thunder showers every single day. It was raining when we left the Puerto Vallarta airport, but by the time we arrived at the resort it was gone. The first thing I noticed was the humidity. So, hot and so humid. My skin felt damp and moist anytime I was outside.

My Frozen Shoulder: One Year Later

This time last year I was recovering from a Manipulation Under Anesthesia with the hopes of unsticking my shoulder. I'd been dealing with pain from a torn rotator cuff since the Summer of 2016. The pain got worse and worse until it eventually froze in August 2017. In September I was diagnosed with Adhesive Capsulitis. When I say it froze, I quite literally mean that my shoulder joint froze. At it's worst, I could barely lift my arm enough to get a razor in to shave my arm pit. I could not lift my arm fully above my head or extend the angle of shoulder open past 90 degrees. I don't think I fully realized how much I needed my shoulder to rotate on ball and socket, until I lost my ability to do so. The human body is amazing and it was especially designed that way for a reason.

I Blinked And it Was Over

Flower Fields are so trendy right now

The last two months have been pretty great. I've basically just been living living my best life.

In March my mother in law was in town for two weeks, so we did that be a tourist in your own city thing. While she was here we had the the first big gathering at our house. Lots of people showed up. I think MJ invited everyone on his Facebook friends list. I got zero pictures. Not even one! There wasn't a moment to spare. Looking back on it, the day was really a blur. I sat down a few times, but spent most of the time mingling and making sure everything was in place. I think that's just kind of what happens when you are hosting. We had stuff to prep, guests to greet, and then the entire day flew by. Our lasts guest left a little after 6ish. I think. Then we had clean up. I was so tired, I almost fell out when my mother in law told me we were going whale watching the next day.

Why I haven't Been Blogging

Do you ever feel like you've run out of things to say? Lately I've been feeling like either I've said it already or someone else is already saying it. Then I wonder, what's the point? There are 50 billion blogs on the internet. Nobody cares!!

I'm not kidding when I say that I've been documenting my life since I was 9 years old. I have an extremely heavy plastic bin of diaries and spiral bound college ruled notebooks to prove it. They are currently being stored in the overhead storage in our garage and the older I get the more I wonder about the fate of those journals after I'm gone. I should probably go ahead and burn them. So many secrets, so many emotions, so many words. Every heartbreak, internal struggle, and joy painstakingly handwritten not only to look back on and remember later, but also as a means of therapy. Writing has always been so therapeutic for me. A way to release the raw and often times jumbled thoughts in my brain and arrange them into organized rows of words that help me exercise the pain and make sense of my feelings. I always feel better after writing it out, and I've always taken such joy in writing down words I don't want to say or that don't need to be said at all.