CA Adventures - part 1

After meeting lil Brady, I headed west...far west, like...7 hour flight west...to sunny...and by sunny, I mean cold-rainy-freezing, California.

Again, for some reason I booked a flight that had a stop in Denver...in February...but thankfully good weather prevailed and there were no delays.

I landed at LAX and my friend Angie (remember her, she and her husband housed me during all my hurricane evacuations thus far) picked me up and we noshed on some amazing healthy CA fare:

It looked prettier before I started eating it, but it's a kale and red cabbage salad with blackened tempeh. Tempeh is the amazingly delicious result of culturing and control-fermenting soybeans until it makes a solid "cake". This is thin cut into strips and cooked. Pretty much tasted like a soybean cake. Super yummy.

We grabbed a hotel in Anaheim (since Angie and Andrew live pretty far from our intended destination the next day and Angie's mom had a free hotel stay that she kindly gave to us) and woke up early to go to...

Disneyland!!!!

I love love LOVE this place. And it's becoming sort of a tradition with Angie and I (this was our third time going together). I was a bit nervous about how the back would hold up with all the walking and rides, but it did phenomenally well! Thank you God! We alternated motion-y rides (like Indiana Jones) with non-motion-y rides (Pirates of the Caribbean). Angie and Andrew birthday-surprised me by having already purchased my ticket! And it included a park hopper pass to California Adventures! I had never been there before and there were two things I was told I "must see": Soarin' California and the musical of Aladdin (my ALL TIME favorite Disney cartoon). Both were awesome (the musical was really impressive- about 45 minutes long, hilarious, and awesome special effects).

The library from Beauty and the Beast in California Adventures. You can determine which Disney character you are most like. Apparently, Angie is like Mulan and I am like Jane (from Tarzan). Interesting.

Warming our hands at the Disney fireplace :)

It was downright chilly the entire time we were there, interspersed with rain, which always abated...mostly. We didn't have umbrellas...so when the rain decided to downpour at 9pm...we called it quits...but still managed to get in a solid 13 hours of the Happiest Place on Earth :)

Posing like Buzz and Woody (except the camera was zoomed in too much and you really can see what THEY were posing like, but believe, me, we look JUST like them)

(I did avoid Space Mountain and the roller coaster in California Adventures, but the back did great on the Thunder Mountain coaster- love that ride).

Mad as a Hatter :)

Disneyland has a 4 page, front and back printed, gluten free menu. It was awesome! I could eat so much stuff there and everyone was really helpful (although Angie started calling me high-matinenance every time a manager stepped out to speak with me before preparing my food). But seriously, I had a grilled chicken sandwich and a BUN (gf of course!) for lunch and an awesome veggie enchiladas for dinner. And ice cream. But not for breakfast, because apparently Disneyland doesn't believe in selling ice cream at breakfast time. Odd, no? Oh well :)