My favorite picture taken this summer...

All I have
And all I do
Cannot compare
To the love of you

You make me feel alive
You are my highest high
All I can do is smile
When I look in my little girl's eyes

When I look in my little girl's eyes

You're my star
And when I'm far
You're not alone
'Cause your heart's my home

You are my biggest prize
So beautiful and so wise
I can see the woman from within my child
When I look in my little girl's eyes

When I look in my little girl's eyes

You make me feel alive
And you are my highest high
All I want to do when I come into the room is see her smile
When I look in my little girl's eyes

When I look in my little girl's eyes

-Lenny Kravitz

the latest

carson is officially a super cool dude now. look what we got him for his birthday...



since the day carson turned 3 was our last day in disneyland, we didn't get to doing his birthday party until last weekend. it was very fun! my friend who lives under the stairs and i had our kids parties together to kill two birds with one stone. we had 28 people here but everyone cleared out at a decent time so that was cool.

every year on my birthday i would get a chocolate mayonaisse cake baked by my mother. it is my faaaaaaaaaavorite cake, so moist and full of chocolatey goodness. i've almost always bought riley's cakes but thought i would start making them chocolate mayo cakes every year on their birthdays. i did it with rileys birthday last april for the first time and plan to keep it up for EVAH! even when my kids are turning 45 i'll be baking them a cake. anyway, too bad my cake decorating skills aren't as good as my baking skills (not that they are anything to write home about, either). usually the cake ends up falling apart, especially on chads birthday. this time it stuck together, carson wanted a thomas cake so VOILA!



on a side note, someone found this blog by doing a search for mercyndol. surprise surprise.

The Tower of Terror

Just a real quick post before I have to get ready for Carson's birthday party in 3 hours!

One of the best rides at California Adventures is the Tower of Terror...



It's set up as an old school Hollywood Hotel from the Psycho era. Once you get in they usher you into a small room with about 30 of your new best friends. The room has wood floors around the perimeter, about a foot wide, and the middle is carpeted. We get in the room and I'm standing beside Sara, and Riley is in front of me. The lights go out and a movie comes on a television set up high in the corner. The movie tells the backstory of the hotel and how all these people went missing inside the elevator. While the movie is playing Sara says to me "Hold onto Riley & stay on the carpet because the room is going to drop." Keep in mind that we are just standing in a room, nothing is holding us down, we aren't attached to anything. My mind is racing as I look around. How can we possibly be safe? How can I protect Riley? She is standing in front of me and I instinctively pull her to me and put my arms around her to try to help steady her when the room drops. But this is Disneyland, for gods sake...they would not make a ride unsafe like this. Still, I think the best thing to do is just get off, and I'm thinking I'm going to look like a total wuss as I pull myself and Riley off this ride. Just then, the movie ends and the door to an elevator opens. I'm somewhat confused and as I see Sara laughing at me I realize she had me. Damn I was all panicky for nothing and totally missed what the movie was even freaking about! We head into the elevator, buckle up and man, that is a hella fun ride!

Of course because the cost of 5 day parkhoppers for adults is $165 US and kids are $135 US I did not feel the need to spend extra $ purchasing pictures that are taken at the top of the Tower of Terror, and instead took pictures of the pictures with my handy dandy digicam.

Early Admission

Tuesday morning Chad slept in and I took the kids to use our one early admission pass into Disneyland. (You can get in at 7am instead of 8am.) We did Kiddieland and Toon Town while Chad was as snug as a bug in a rug. Riley was stoked because it was our third day in Disneyland, which meant she could finally start spending that $100 she earned being my slave for the month of July. She spent $4 on the Tinkerbell pen she is holding in this photo, taken that morning in front of one of my favorite spots.



After we went on the Dumbo ride. Because you're only allowed 2 people in each flying elephant, Riley sat in the elephant in front of Carson and I, where she left the $4 Tinkerbell pen. Oh well, at least we have a picture of it!



The carousel was a big hit with both kids. I even almost got non fake looking smiles out of them on it.





Toon Town opened at 8am sharp, so we headed over there to check out Mickey and Minnie's house, and take Carson on Gadget's Go Coaster, which he seriously hated and I think I scarred him for life from roller coasters. But, he finally got a picture with Goofy!

Waste Not

Just testing to see if once I add haloscan and then post again if haloscan will stick around.

Since I don't want to waste a post, here's some more pictures from Disneyland, which I know you're dying to see...

This is the view from our hotel during daylight hours.



My fave character photo...Buzz doing the Y...



Only my kids could go to the HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH and still have a totally fake ass smile on the teacups.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Some more pictures from Californ-i-a

Our first day in Disneyland was July 31st, which happened to be Chad's 35th birthday. Although he was sure he turned 36, I think he still might think he's really 36.

Here's Chad pushing the stroller and walking with Riley, walking right down the middle of Main Street, USA.



The first character we bumped into was Goofy, right after Riley and Carson bought their autograph books. Carson wouldn't go near him but Riley did and got autographs for both of them.



But Carson got over his fear of giant characters real fast once he saw Tigger...

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Disneyland 2005

Here are some pictures from our trip to California if you so desire to see them.

We left on July 29th, 2005, crossing the border into the states at 6:38pm. We met up with Sara & Doug in Maple Valley, WA, then headed south to California. Sara & I were sleeping in the car at night and the guys were sleeping in the day, we were driving straight through. Sometime when it was dark I woke up listening to Chad and Doug yakking on the two way radios. The conversation goes something like this...

"Dude, did you see the name of the city we're in?"

"I know, huh"

"Let's move here"

"Yeah, Beavertown sounds like a GREAT place to live"

I open my eyes and point out, it's BeaverTON, you dumbasses.

We got to our hotel at around 7pm, so a full 24 hours later. This is the view from our hotel room at sunset. It was stunningly gorgeous. However I must warn you, we stayed at the Fairfield Marriott in Anaheim, and I do not recommend it if you have small children. Carson and another little girl the same age both got through the rails on the balcony. Carson from the third floor and the other little gal on the 7th! Fortunately in both cases an adult was close by, I pulled Carson back over so quickly and was shaking for an hour at least. As Sara chillingly pointed out, it would have been history repeating itself, since I fell off a two story balcony when I was two.



After spending 24 hours couped up in the car, Chad and the kids enjoyed a dip in the pool, which is a LOT smaller than it looks in the photo on the website. OK, so Chad really doesn't look like he's enjoying himself as much as Riley is, but whatev...

update on dorkalie

Wow, it's been a while since I posted here, hey? Things have really changed since last April. First and foremost being my business started to really take off and multiply, so I can afford the surgery myself and don't need donations. Although I may continue to add some geeky ass pictures here, strictly for your amusement. I am getting the surgery in November, I could have had it sooner but we went on our first 'real' family vacation instead, and took our kids to Disneyland three weeks ago. It was our first family vacation that we didn't have a tent in. If anyone wants their donation returned, no problem, if not it will still go towards my eye surgery!

Anyway I'm going to start a new blog to share pictures and updates of our fam with our family and friends. Here's the link... http://corsfam.blogspot.com/, hope you'll stop in and don't forget to comment!

Uh, scratch that, I'll just use this one :)