National Lampoon's Disneyland Vacation

Just hook it to my veins!

This past week I went on holiday to Disneyland and California Adventure and had a fantastic time. I've been going to Disneyland nearly every year (sometimes twice a year) since I was 5 months old but this might be my best trip ever. I went with my friends Heather, Jackie and Maddie and we met up with their friend Krista who works at the park.

Jackie had made a Disney playlist for the trip so on the car ride over we had a 6 hour Disney sing-along (which had every track from the Lion King in like, 5 different versions, haha). The first night I went to Downtown Disney while everyone else was off doing their thing and did some perusing. Krista got a 40% off employee discount so I wanted to get an idea of what I wanted to buy later.



Giant Mickey-o-lantern

We got to the park Monday morning at 8am (my half-birthday btw) and would end up staying all the way til close at 11pm. 15 HOURS OF DISNEY. It was a LONG day but a really good one, blessed even. The lines were super short all day and we didn't have to wait more than 20 minutes on any ride; most rides we only had to wait like, 5 minutes. I had heard about days like this from other people but had never experienced one myself. I think the reason why the park wasn't so crowded was due to the fact that it was "closing" at 6pm for Mickey's Halloween Party which ran from 6-11pm (Krista had gotten us tickets to that too). We went on all the rollercoasters at least 3 times each and pretty much got to do everything we wanted to do. We even had time to catch a few shows, parades, and the fireworks as well. One of the major highlights of the day, though, was I saw my very first DISNEYLAND CAT! I had heard about the feral cats that lived at the park about 5 years ago and in all the years I've been going to Disneyland, we'd never seen one. That morning I had been telling Heather about them and said that anyone who spotted one got 1 million points. About an hour later we were over by Big Thunder Ranch Barbeque when I see this massive black and white tomcat!! I whipped out my camera just in time to snap a pic of him looking right at me before he scurried away. It was totally unreal!

Big Thunder Railroad has been my favorite ride for a long time and I was so thrilled to get to ride it for the first time since its reopen. I loved the new explosion part near the end but was glad that they didn't change anything else. Being a Taurus, change isn't really my thing. My least favorite ride of the day, sadly, was Splash Mountain. I volunteered to sit in the front since no one else wanted to and I got more soaked than I've ever been. I think they raised the water levels on the ride when they renovated it because in 24 years of sitting in the front of the ride I've never gotten so drenched. It was like I'd had a bucket (a large bucket) of water dumped over me. It took the rest of the day for my to dry off. It was pretty miserable and I think that'll be the end of my days of sitting in the front on Splash Mountain.

The next morning we went to California Adventure, which I had never been to. It was perfect for a second day park but if I'm only there for one day, I'm going to choose the Magic Kingdom. They didn't open til 10am so we got to sleep in a little. Krista was totally on top of scheduling and getting fast passes. I was really impressed! We made sure we got our fast passes to the Cars ride since it's new and really popular then we walked over to the ferris wheel. This ferris wheel was cool because it has swinging carts; I'd never heard of swinging carts and it was really neat! Next was "California Screamin" which was their big rollercoaster. It was pretty intense and made me think of "The Demon" in Copenhagen.

One category that CA beats the Magic Kingdom in is FOOD. We ate SO well there. I had this delicious pesto 5-cheese ravioli with pine nuts for lunch, a frozen lemonade for my snack and a mandarin orange tofu rice bowl for dinner. Yum yum yum! Some kiddy rides that I enjoyed were the Toy Story Midway Mania, Ariel's Undersea Adventure, Silly Symphony Swings, and Monster's Inc. At dusk we went to see "Aladdin: A Musical Spectacular". Usually I don't go to any shows or watch any parades when I visit a theme park but I'm glad that Krista talked us into it because I think everyone really enjoyed them (plus it was nice to sit and relax for a while). The boy who played Aladdin was cute as heck too so that might have been the reason I enjoyed the show so much ;) I also liked Tower of Terror a lot. I'd been on it at Disney World but this one was better. Oh, and I forgot to talk about "Cars", which was awesome. The outside part of the ride where you race was designed I think to look like Zion National Park and it was just GORGEOUS!

My FAVORITE thing at California Adventure, however, was the World of Color. I hadn't heard anything about it so I didn't know what to expect but it was one of the most beautiful shows I've ever seen. It was a water and light show on Paradise Pier and they projected images from lots of Disney films onto the water. It was so lovely that I got a little emotional (I think all of us did). It just made me think of my childhood and how these films were such a huge part of my life ever since I was 5 years old. The Little Mermaid was the first Disney movie that I became absolutely OBSESSED with and it was also the same film that taught me how to sing. Next time any of you visit this park you MUST see this show! I demand it!

The last day of the trip we went to Newport Beach. I usually go to Huntington Beach when I go to California with my dad so I'd never been to this beach before but it was really nice. For it being October, the water wasn't really cold at all and I had so much fun playing in the sea. I just felt so happy and free. It was so wonderful. After the beach we met up with our friend Sharleen who's going to CalArts for graduate school. We hadn't seen her since August so it was so nice to see her face. I miss her a lot :(

I'd been a bit stressed about this trip since I'd never traveled with such a large group before but I'm happy to say that everything turned out great and I had a fabulous vacation. Now I'm super stoked about my next trip coming up in February. It hasn't been finalized yet so I'll tell you all about it once I have my plane ticket. Stay tuned!

Time Capsule 2014

Me in 2k14

So it's already been a whole year since the last time I did a Time Capsule post. This year feels like it went by faster than any other year, well, ever. Maybe because so many good things happened in 2014. Of course this year has had it's low points (that's part of the whole human experience) but as a whole it's been a fantastic year.

Now let's get into what Ms. Doom was into in the year 2014!

My Life in 2014:
Favorite Films I saw in the theatre: What If, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Pride, The Wind Rises
 What I was listening to: Phoenix, Taylor Swift, Vampire Weekend, Florence + the Machine, the Frozen soundtrack
What I was reading: A Song of Ice and Fire (books 3-5), Harry Potter 1-7, Before I Go to Sleep, Gone Girl, Pride and Prejudice, All Men are Jerks (until proven otherwise)
Shows I was watching: Game of Thrones, The X-files, Orange is the New Black, Adventure Time, Parade's End, Girls, The Big Bang Theory
Trends I was into: peter pan collars, rompers, wing eyeliner, high waisted shorts, jellies
Trends I hated: acid wash denim, pointy finger nails, 90s grunge fashion
What I was driving: Buick Regal
Who I was crushing on: Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hiddleston, Kit Harington, Daniel Radcliffe, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
Games I was playing: Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Hyrule Warriors, Ocarina of Time, Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask
Best Friends: Melissa, Rosalynn, Michelle , Ashley, Heather
Favorite Restaurant: Tea Lite Noodle Café
What I was looking forward to: My Disneyland trip and my trip to Thailand!
What I was most proud of: travelling all over Europe with my bff, being featured on the 100 Creatives List in the New Times, drawing again, and selling lots of art!
Dream Pets: tea cup piggy
Favorite color(s): mustard yellow, hot pink, turquoise, moss green
Most Used Words: omg!, bb, wowzers, bananas, so cute!
Favorite Food: Veggie Eggrolls on rice noodles with veggies and Hoisen sauce (yum!)
Pet Peeve: misogyny
People I admired: Melissa Winning, Chelsea Bloxsom, Kelly Anne-Boylan, ALB, Lauren Crow

September Wrap Up

(Doesn't have a title yet)
Pastel and paper
2014

Things have been a little bananas the past few weeks. I got the flu for the first time in a long time and have been a gigantic baby about it. I've been pretty healthy for the past year and a half so I was disappointed in my immune system for succumbing to illness. I called in sick to work on Wednesday (my first call-in since I started working there) and probably should've called out yesterday and the day before but since I'm only part time I don't get any sick days so I'd have to use up my vacation time which I'm not willing to do. That vacation time is MINE. And I already know what I want to do with it...(insert pause for dramatic effect)

My very dear friend Michelle has invited me to come along with her to Thailand this winter while she visits her mother. I am beyond excited about this! It doesn't even feel real. I've only had my passport for less than a year and I'm already going to knock another continent off my list! The flight will be hella long (24 hours) but it'll be worth it. I've always wanted to visit Bangkok; it's incredibly beautiful and from what I've read, there's lots and lots of things to do. Michelle's mother has an apartment there so we'll have a place to stay and a very good friend of mine, Shong, lives there and is going to show us around a bit. I'm SO looking forward to finally meeting him in real life. Shong was the very first fan of my comic strip "Marksville" and we've been internet friends for nearly 8 years. I've been wanting to meet him for so long and can't believe it's finally going to happen! Right now we're just waiting for Michelle's vacation time to get approved and then I'm going to talk to my boss about it. I should have more than enough PTO hours by that time (we plan on going the first week of February) so hopefully he won't have a problem with me requesting a week off.

Wedding Heirloom Embroidery (a gift)

Another exciting thing that's happened recently is my darling friend, Stacee, got married on Saturday and I was in her bridal party. It was my first time being a bridesmaid and I felt so honored that she asked me to be a part of her special day. The day of the wedding, though, we had a huge storm and it rained so hard I could barely drive. Michelle came along as my date and I thought I knew where I was going but as usual I had no clue and got us SO LOST! I realized things had gone awry when there were cows right outside the window. I had no memory of the venue being out in farm country when I'd gone there for the rehearsal. Michelle GPSed where we were and I had gone like 20 miles in the WRONG DIRECTION. Aiya! Luckily, we got there safe and sound (we saw so many wrecks and cars that had driven right off the road) but I felt pretty crummy being so late. But Stacee looked so BEAUTIFUL--OHMYGOODNESS! She looked like a princess. I wish I had pictures to post but I only took Instax photos. I'm usually the one taking 10 billion photos and get so busy with that that I don't really experience the moment as much as I should and I didn't want that to happen this time; I wanted to look at everything and remember everything with my own eyes instead of through a lens. So I'll just have to wait until Stacee's photos are on Facebook then snitch some. It was so nice being right there during the ceremony and getting to hear all of the vows and see all of the emotions and everything. I'd never been so close at a wedding before and you miss a lot of that stuff when you're sitting 20 feet away. It was so hard not to cry through the whole thing. I was so touched too when they brought me a vegetarian meal made just for me. Stacee is pure ANGEL!

In other news, I've been taking a bit of a break from my embroidery work the past 2 months and have been focusing on my illustration work. So far I've completed two full color pastel drawings in a series of kitten portraits (as seen above). I'm nearly done with the third and will be starting a fourth soon. I've been wanting to get more comfortable working in color so this has been a great opportunity for me to practice. So far I'm very happy with the progress I've made and feel like I'm learning more with each drawing. Once I have some decent photos of the rest of the drawings I'd like to start selling them as prints in my Etsy shop (www.iggystarpup.com) and then get them framed so I can perhaps show them around Phoenix. As much as I enjoy embroidery it's been a nice change to draw again. I love going to the art supply store to pick up new pastel colors. Soon I'm going to have every shade of Nu Pastel they have! After I'm finished with my kitten series I'd like to draw some other animals as well; right now I'm thinking a pug, bunny, and a deer. I could draw animals in pretty dresses forever to be honest.

I said in my last post that I was going to post some new hoops, so here's my newest pieces (they're all Adventure Time hoops). BUMPS!

Homies Help Homies
SOLD

Marceline the Vampire Queen
$33.00



Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum
$33.00

Earl of Lemongrab
$40.00

LSP "Every Party Is My Party"
SOLD