Disney Contest - Day 3

Bahaha, this contest has me cracking up all day long as I get your emails.  Thanks for participating guys.  I thought I had most everybody on that second picture yesterday and then late in the day three people got it exactly right!  (It was the Matterhorn! You can see all the answers posted on yesterday's post now.)  So much for making it harder... :)  I always knew I had genius friends, but really this is taking things to a whole other level. 

On to today's repeat of the rules and new pics!


Okay, same rules apply today, so here they are for those who didn't see the first post.  Pics below.

1. I am going to post a picture of something- somewhere- within the Disneyland Resort (INCLUDES Cars Land as a possibility). If you guess where in the park you think it is, and at least get within the same general area (Fantasyland, Cars Land, etc.) then you get your name in the drawing once. If you can tell me EXACTLY which ride/store/attraction the object belongs to, you'll get your name in twice.
2. You get 24 hours to guess. After that I'm going to post the answer so you can't guess any more- and I'll know by the date I receive your email.  So remember to check back every day for a new picture(s). I plan to do 2-3 pics a day until probably Thursday (my birthday, in case you didn't remember) then announce a winner on Friday.
3. Do NOT post your guess in the comments on this blog. You are still free to comment, I don't want to ever EVER discourage comments, so still feel free to comment and talk to me- but don't post your guesses here because I don't want to ruin it for other readers. I want everyone to have a fair chance.
4. Please EMAIL your guesses to me at amynash (no periods or spaces or anything funky) at gmail dot com.  Feel free to wish me a happy birthday along with your guess as it is now officially BIRTHDAY WEEK after all!!!  :)

 Picture #1:

 

Answer:  The Canoes in Critter Country (I also accepted Frontierland because up until last night I thought these were the same thing) on the Rivers of America.

 

Picture #2:

 

Answer:  Mater's Junkyard Jamboree in Cars Land (which is Clara's new all-time favorite ride and she hasn't stopped talking about it yet - we went on it 4 times)

 

 

Picture #3:

 

 

Answer:  Autopia in Tomorrowland

 

 

 

May the odds be ever in your favor!

Disney Contest - Day 2

You guys!  How are you all so smart?!  I was seriously impressed with how many people got those answers right because I was thinking they were tough!  It was super fun getting your emails and guesses though.  If you want to see the answers, I updated the previous post with zoomed out pictures and the answers.  I won't have zoomed out photos for all the pics I am using but where I do have them I will post them. 

Okay, same rules apply today, so here they are for those who didn't see the first post.  Pics below.

1. I am going to post a picture of something- somewhere- within the Disneyland Resort (INCLUDES Cars Land as a possibility). If you guess where in the park you think it is, and at least get within the same general area (Fantasyland, Cars Land, etc.) then you get your name in the drawing once. If you can tell me EXACTLY which ride/store/attraction the object belongs to, you'll get your name in twice.
2. You get 24 hours to guess. After that I'm going to post the answer so you can't guess any more- and I'll know by the date I receive your email.  So remember to check back every day for a new picture(s). I plan to do 2-3 pics a day until probably Thursday (my birthday, in case you didn't remember) then announce a winner on Friday.
3. Do NOT post your guess in the comments on this blog. You are still free to comment, I don't want to ever EVER discourage comments, so still feel free to comment and talk to me- but don't post your guesses here because I don't want to ruin it for other readers. I want everyone to have a fair chance.
4. Please EMAIL your guesses to me at amynash (no periods or spaces or anything funky) at gmail dot com.  Feel free to wish me a happy birthday along with your guess as it is now officially BIRTHDAY WEEK after all!!!  :)

Picture #1:

 

Answer:  Sleeping Beauty's Castle, Fantasyland

 

 Picture #2:

 

Answer:  The Matterhorn, Fantasyland

 

 

Picture #3:

 

Answer:  Mortimer's Market on Buena Vista Street in California Adventure (nobody got the "exact" name of the market but a couple of people definitely knew enough to explain what they were talking about so they got the points)

 

 

I won't lie, I'm hoping to trip a few more of you up with these pics today - teehee...

May the odds be ever in your favor!

Disney Contest!! With Prizes!!

Alrighty friends, we just got back from a sort of impromptu trip to Disneyland thanks to the government shut-down of Yosemite National Park which we always go to this time of year.  Paul had the time off already and his parents were coming out so we figured we might as well do something fun and Disneyland is always a good idea, right?  And I tell you, Disneyland is a magical place.  And we want to share some of the magic.

I will post too many photos of us and Clara soon enough BUT a friend of mine went to Disneyland earlier this year and had the genius idea of doing a contest on her blog where she posted random/obscure photos from Disneyland OR California Adventure each day for like a week and then had a couple of prizes that she picked up at Disneyland to give away.  I had SO much fun participating (and okay, okay, I won for most number of correct guesses) so I decided that the next time we went I was going to try to remember to take lots of random photos too and do the same thing.  I asked her if she was okay with me copying her contest before we left and she said no problem so I took her at her word and am even copying and pasting most of her rules below because I'm too lazy to make them up on my own. 

So without further ado, here is how this is going to work:

1. I am going to post a picture of something- somewhere- within the Disneyland Resort (INCLUDES Cars Land as a possibility). If you guess where in the park you think it is, and at least get within the same general area (Fantasyland, Cars Land, etc.) then you get your name in the drawing once. If you can tell me EXACTLY which ride/store/attraction the object belongs to, you'll get your name in twice.
2. You get 24 hours to guess. After that I'm going to post the answer so you can't guess any more- and I'll know by the date I receive your email.  So remember to check back every day for a new picture(s). I plan to do 2-3 pics a day until probably Thursday (my birthday, in case you didn't remember) then announce a winner on Friday.
3. Do NOT post your guess in the comments on this blog. You are still free to comment, I don't want to ever EVER discourage comments, so still feel free to comment and talk to me- but don't post your guesses here because I don't want to ruin it for other readers. I want everyone to have a fair chance.
4. Please EMAIL your guesses to me at amynash (no periods or spaces or anything funky) at gmail dot com.  Feel free to wish me a happy birthday along with your guess as it is now officially BIRTHDAY WEEK after all!!!  :)

I have some that I am pretty positive will be practically IMPOSSIBLE to guess and some that I think most anybody who has been to Disneyland once or twice will be able to guess.  You can cheat if you really think it is THAT important, but that seems a little overly competitive, don't you think? 

Paul and I picked out 3 really awesome prizes (for reals, they are good prizes and we had fun picking them out) from some of the shops along Main Street at Disneyland.  Each time you guess correctly, we will put your name on a slip of paper and at the end of the contest all those little slips will go in Clara's Mickey ears and we will let her choose two winners.  Then there will also be a prize for the person with the most correct guesses overall.   

Okee Dokee, are you as excited as I am about this?  Probably not.  But hopefully you still play anyway!  Here are the first 3 mystery images:

Picture #1:

 

Answer:  Jolly Holiday Bakery and Café, Main Street

 

 

Picture #2:

 

Answer:  The Golden Horseshoe, Frontierland

 

 

 Picture #3:

 

Answer:  Haunted Mansion, New Orleans Square

 

 

May the odds be ever in your favor!

Pumpkin Patch

Oh how we love October and Halloween around here.  On Saturday we went to the Spina Farms Pumpkin patch to get some pumpkin décor for our home.  We had fun admiring all the different types of pumpkins at this pumpkin patch and looking for just the right ones to put in the wheelbarrow. 

 

For a solid week leading up to our visit to the pumpkin patch, Clara would tell me daily about how she was going to ride a pony and how she was going to like it so much.  I'm not sure how she got that idea because we've shown her the pictures from last year where she cried the entire ride, but she was adamant about riding the pony.  Even when we pulled into the parking lot and she saw the pony she was all enthusiastic about her upcoming equestrian excursion.  I think she really buys into the power of positive thinking.  But sure enough, she got clingy waiting in line and fake-cried through at least part of her ride and afterwards said firmly "mine not like to ride pony".  At least she was sort of brave about it.  Here is her face right at the start of her little loop.  That bottom lip is crumpled up like she is trying to hold herself together for the ordeal ahead.

This picture is more than halfway through and you can see she was still looking worried but had pulled herself together enough to just get through it.

Annnnddd, here come the waterworks of relief that the ordeal was over.  It is sad, but funny, and for reals, I just love, love, love her.  As soon as the pony (his name was Poncho) stopped she wrapped her arms around my neck as I pulled her off the saddle, then she sniffled and said "bye-bye pony" and told the saintly man who leads crying children around the same dusty lap all day long "thank you".

Once the pony ride was out of the way, it was time to get serious about selecting pumpkins.  Clara was really interested in these gray pumpkins, which were super fascinating.  She kept trying to heft them up herself.

It worked better when daddy helped. 

She decorated some of the white pumpkins with fistfuls of hay she scooped from the ground.

And Clara and Paul made a pumpkin snowman.

I always go for the tall, strangely shaped pumpkins.  They're my favorite.  It came down to these two and I chose the one of the left for its slight curviness.

We would have walked away with tons of pumpkins if we had kept all the ones that Clara kept putting in the cart.  She particularly liked these variegated bulbous ones.

One reason we really enjoy the Spina Farms pumpkin patch is that it doesn't have any of the bounce houses that are at most of the pumpkin patches that spring up in empty parking lots near us.  Instead they have old-fashioned attractions like hay rides, giant orange Adirondacks, miniature hay maze and gigantic jack-o-lanterns to play in. 

This is the second year in a row that Paul's parents have been able to go pick pumpkins with us, which is an awesome little tradition that is happening.  Clara certainly loves it.

Clara and I did the hay maze together this year and she was actually pretty good about it although I don't know that she entirely grasped the point.

 

And at the end, she found a round little pumpkin, perfectly sized for her to take home with us.

X-ray, Gym Buddy, and hey! It's October!

This poor little neglected blog of ours.  Let's see, time for some updates, eh?

I had this really terrible cough for a couple of weeks that was so bad that I honestly believed I fractured a rib.  Seriously, I have been dealing with the weirdest, most persistent sharp pain in my upper rib cage that hasn't gone away in 2 solid weeks and I finally caved and went to the doctor about it feeling like such a dummy.  (In my defense, I totally googled rib fractures and they CAN happen just from coughing and my symptoms seemed right in line with everything I read.)  The doctor ordered an x-ray and everything.  It was my first ever, which was kind of awesome.  But nope, my ribs are just fine, which is good news for my bones (Yay for not having early osteoporosis!) but lame news for my ego and sore chestal region that is STILL bothering me.  Grrrr...  Any suggestions people?

A friend has started going to the gym with me and it was so fun having a buddy on the treadmill next to me three days this week.  Except I was all embarrassed about my labored breathing and inability to run thanks to the stupid non-fractured rib thing.  The first day we spent the hour talking about exercise and nutrition habits and then I went home and ate a Klondike bar.  (Insert face-palm.)  I'm totally planning to be better this next week though. 

Paul and I went to the mall and shopped for new phone cases this week during our babysitting swap with the neighbors since we each just got new phones (the iPhone 5s).  Paul got his through work.  Mine is a late mothers day/anniversary/early birthday present and I'm very happy about it.  It was a fun date and we went to a movie afterwards.  I love date night.

Paul is taking birthday month very seriously this year and I am feeling very special.  He played with my hair for like 30 minutes of conference today and even braided part of it for me just for kicks.  I seriously love that.  He is my favorite.

Clara's favorite book these days is "The Ugly Pumpkin" about (spoiler alert) a squash that doesn't know it is a squash and instead just thinks it is an ugly pumpkin.  It is hilarious and awesome and I totally recommend buying it and adding it to your Halloween collection.  Clara randomly repeats the line "Oh my gosh! I'm a squash!" throughout the day.

And finally, this whole government shut-down thing is so super lame.  There are way more important reasons to complain about it, but I'm seriously going to whine that it is fouling up our annual Yosemite trip which was supposedly happening this next week and which we have been looking forward to for months and months.  I'm pretty peeved.  Paul already has the time off work though so we feel like we ought to do something fun with those days (and his parents are already out here too so we might as well, right?).  The idea of Disneyland came up today and maybe, just maybe we'll do it...  Although we are all still sort of holding out hope that Congress will get its act together in the next three or four days so Yosemite can still happen.