Welcome to our home!

So I know David and I have been living in our new home since February and I'm just now getting pictures posted, but better late than never. I will proceed to take you through it, starting with the front.

I had to take quite a few shots to encompass the entire thing. So hopefully these will give you the whole picture.

And this is closer to our red front door.

Now I will proceed to take you through the rooms as though I was literally giving you a tour, which means I won't show a room downstairs and then randomly post another room upstairs, because that would be physically impossible in reality.

First, here is our entry way. There are a couple steps up to the main floor.

Yes, we do have a fish tank to the side. David already had some, which were being kept at his parents until we found a home. Now we have both contributed to decorating it, giving it a theme, and adding more fish as time has gone by.

Turning to the right is our front room or living room.

The piano came from David's parents. They had two pianos in their home, so they aren't missing it. I had it tuned and now it doesn't sound half bad. It's been nice to finally own one.

Moving forward, we have our dining room.

Here is another view that isn't quite so bright.

And we're moving, we're moving, past the dining room, on to the kitchen.

As you can see, we have a lovely overhang that allows us to look down into the family room.

 

Moving forward, turning around, this is another view of the kitchen. I wasn't fond of the black and white checkerboard in the beginning, but I think it might be growing on me. The cupboard space is really nice. But I could still use a little more countertop. One day we'll make some changes, but it is quite manageable in the meantime, much better than the other options we had for homes. I could hardly stand those kitchens.

Now we are on our way out of the kitchen. As you can see, it leads us back to the entryway.

So if we turn left, you will see stairs leading down to our family room.

We spend most of our time down here. So far it has stayed fairly cool on warmer days.

The following are more views of the family room.

Next to the tv is a door that leads to the laundry room. The door beyond that is the garage. We don't need to go in there. Nothing to see.

Step in the laundry room, turn left. Here is a half bathroom.

Back in the family room is another door next to the stairs. This is a closet that lies beneath the other stairway leading to the second floor. I've begun to find a use for it. I'm sure Harry Potter wouldn't have minded this broom cupboard. Quite roomy!

Back upstairs, we will now proceed to the second floor.

One thing you'll find throughout the whole top floor is that there are a lot of mirrors. But at the top of the stairs to the left are our spare rooms.

This room is the sparest of all. We sort of dubbed it our arts and crafts room, but I don't expect it to be used that often before it is occupied by our kids. For now, it's more of a guest room.

This has been transformed into David's office, which is currently getting a ceiling fan installed.

It is also his exercise room. The machine will hopefully be moved to a more convenient location.

On to the other rooms.

To the left is the upstairs bathroom.

I'm not fond of the shower doors. Not gonna lie. One day I hope we replace them.

Turning around. To the right of the stairs is Lucy's room.

Her room was one of those things that made me most excited about moving. Obviously, one of the reasons had to do with sleeping arrangements. Lucy is now accustomed to sleeping alone. The other is that her room, unlike the one in our apartment, is solely dedicated to holding her stuff and not our other boxes, spare furniture, or junk. Because now we have storage room for all of that.

(The rocking horse came from an enthusiastic great grandma, by the way.)

In our apartment, I couldn't even hang her clothes up. I had to keep them in boxes. Now it's easier for me to see which clothes fit her yet.

Her crib stuff came from David's mom as a gift.

Now, on to the last room, between the bathroom and Lucy's, is the master bedroom.

We still have our air mattress. David wants to construct our bed with his own hands and it is at the top of his list of wood-building projects, which is good because I think our mattress will one day say it's had enough!

The closet isn't very big, but it was one of those things that I decided I could live with. After this long, I think I can.

Now to the backyard. As you can see, we have a huge oak tree, which causes some concern should we ever have a natural disaster. Unfortunately, before we take it out, they have to send a notice to the whole area to see if anyone would protest. Not to mention, even if we could proceed in taking it out, the law requires that we put another one in. I'm not too happy with that law.

We have planted fruit trees along the back, such as orange, plum, peach, cherry, and a cocktail tree that has peach, apricot, and a third fruit which I believe is nectarine.

On the sides of the house, we have these elephant-size gates. The previous owner had deadbolts on them, but they didn't give us a key for them. David spent several days trying to cut them because they were that durable. He was so impressed by them, we bought the same ones. Only difference is we now have a key for them.

So now you've officially toured our new house. Once again, sorry I took so long to post pictures.

Disneyland!

New Year's Eve, David and I barely stayed awake, so you could say it kind of passed us by. However, we did start the year right by visiting the place where dreams come true!

David went to Anaheim for a conference for work and he took us along. The hotel we stayed in was just down the street from Disneyland, of course. So we thought why not go visit.

During the day in the beginning of the week, David attended his conference, and then the evenings we explored Downtown Disney. One of my favorite stores we visited was the Lego store.

There were even more designs  than that, but my camera was full. So those pictures are on David's phone. But even the outside walls of the store were completely covered with legos that were depictions of scenes from Disney films. The entire rooftop had the dragon from Sleeping Beauty spewing fire at Prince Phillip on the ground.

 After David's conference was finished on Wednesday, we decided to take Lucy to the beach for the first time. It was cold and foggy, so we weren't able to catch any dazzling sunset or enjoy warm sand, but we made the most of it. Lucy seemed to enjoy herself despite the weather conditions. David made sure of it.

On Thursday, we finally entered the park to get on some rides. Splash mountain was the first one we went to. David waited with Lucy and I went alone. There was hardly any line and I ended up riding the boat by myself. I regret not getting a picture of the moment I made the final drop. They had the pictures on display on computer screens on the way back from the ride, and I didn't think to take my camera. Mine looked hilarious having only one person in it next to other boats that had been full. I didn't make the same mistake on the other rides though.

In between rides, we visited the museums. This appears to be the stained-glass window from Beauty and the Beast.

Some of the rides we took Lucy on that we thought might be too much for her turned out to be fun, such as the Pirates of the Carribean, where the boat drops unexpectedly in the dark. Others that we thought she would enjoy didn't please her at all such as It's a Small World and the Tiki Tiki Room. And then others put her to sleep like The Little Mermaid, Finding Nemo, and Pinnochio.

David's mom came up the last couple of days to help take care of Lucy so that we could enjoy some of the bigger rides. The last time I got on a roller coaster was when I graduated from high school when the whole senior class went to Lagoon. I have been to an amusement park since then but couldn't ride due to being pregnant, so I got to be the bag carrier and babysitter for when the kids weren't tall enough. At least I could be useful. Anyway, getting back on a roller coaster felt wonderful, and I really enjoyed myself.

The more popular ride was cars, so the line was usually pretty long. However, I'm impressed with how Disneyland's lines do not feel as long as they are. You can't see the end from the beginning and all along the way they have structures and designs that do pretty well in bringing you into the movie the ride is based on. Cars, for instance, had a line that took you through canyon walls covered with old posters and with 50s music playing. You even had to go through Radiator Springs just to get to the line. I wouldn't be surprised if one of their number one goals for designing the park was that their visitors walked away remembering the rides and not the time spent waiting to embark them.

They also had a line meant for single passengers. This line was usually faster because they almost always had one spot left on every car that they could fill without worrying about splitting up a group of people. David and I took this line to get on cars. Unfortunately we couldn't sit together, but we dealt with it. The first two pictures are mine while David is in the third.

The picture below is blurry because the screens were outside. It's of our ride on the "Screamin'".

One good thing about going to Disneyland in January is the park isn't as full as other times of the year, I assume. The bad thing is it is freezing cold, even in Anaheim, which is in southern California. There was constantly a biting wind and we found ourselves standing in sunlight as much as possible. Poor Lucy's hands were the hardest to keep warm, despite our efforts to cover them. It didn't do anything to put mitts on them when she continued to get them soaked with her slobber. We could only hold them in our own hands when we were with her.

One ride I enjoyed was the Hollywood Tower. Supposedly it's based off of an episode on "The Twilight Zone" where people go into the elevator and are mysteriously transported to another dimension. When we finally got on, we could see our reflection in the mirror before animated volts of electricity appeared and selectively made each of us disappear. It was pretty cool. I don't know how they were able to make it so convincing. Then of course they shoot you up and drop you several times. Out of all the rides, this felt the weirdest. To fall several feet with a single strap around your waist is definitely a unique sensation.

 David and I are in the top right corner.

We hoped to see the firework display that they showed every night, but they had to cancel it because of high winds. The same thing happened with the World of Color, another show that has had lots of good reviews. Nothing kept us from seeing the Broadway show of Aladdin, however. They had to change the storyline a little to make it shorter, but the music remained the same. Unfortunately, Lucy decided to be cranky at one point during the show. David and I, obviously new parents, were sitting front and center. I had no choice but to take Lucy, say "'scuse me" and "pardon me" to half of my row as I waddled sideways in front of them, and run to the back of the theater where I ended up pacing with Lucy for the rest of the show. When Aladdin refused to keep his promise to free Genie, a baby cried in the audience. For all David knew, who was now sitting alone, it could've been Lucy. I knew it wasn't since I was with her. But at that moment, Genie decided to ad-lib and he told Aladdin, "You made that baby cry. You babycryer." The audience laughed and it took Aladdin quite a bit of time to compose himself because he was trying so hard not to laugh.
One ride that was a little too much for me was "Space Mountain." It's basically an entire roller coaster inside a building. The ride is nearly pitch black except for specks of light that spin all around you to represent stars. So with the darkness, the spinning lights, and a fast-moving roller coaster that turns you every which way, it was very disorienting. I got a headache just trying to keep straight what was up or down. And yet we still rode it twice (David's wish, not mine).

Last of all, we took Lucy to see Mickey Mouse. It's hard to warm up to all the Disney characters throughout the park when all you can think about is what kind of weirdo could possibly be inside that costume. But I won't go against documenting it for Lucy, who I'm sure will be excited to see the picture one day before she gets distrustful and cynical like me. We were also curious to see whether she would cry when she saw him, just like she cried in the rides that were both boring and harmless. In the end, she did not cry. In fact, I think she even smiled a few times, and she tried to touch Mickey's nose.

Mickey has obviously dealt with a lot of children before now. He was quite the pro.

 Here, he played a game of peek-a-boo with Lucy, which seemed to entertain her quite a bit.

Soon after, we went home. Did we have fun? Yeah, I'd say we had fun.