Lightning vs. Leafs

The whole reason we went to Canada was to watch the Tampa Bay Lightning play in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa.

Game 1 - Lightning vs. Toronto Maple Leafs

I wore a Lightning hat, but no jersey. I didn't want to stand out as a 'visitor'.

The Lightning totally dominated! Check it out, 6-2.
After the game, I was taking photo of the team all congratulating Dwayne Roloson (goalie) on an awesome game.

Little did I know that 2 Leafs fans were pummeling each other a few rows over. I finally looked up, and both guys were all bloody. I should've been taking photos of that!

Let me tell you something, Canadians are super patriotic. My hat goes off to them. When "O Canada!" played before the game, everybody sang along! I must admit, it is a catchy tune.

Niagara Falls

(that's me with the American side of the falls in the background. I must admit, the Canadian falls were way cooler than the USA's.)

I haven't been to Niagra Falls in forever. It's not one of those rip roaring, fun filled things to do, but it's one of those famous places you can say you've been to.

It was also FREEZING! It was in the 30s, plus the fall are a giant mist machine. That mist hits your face and partially freezes. My hands were totally frozen by the end of the day.

We spend about 4 hours walking back and forth down the sidewalk looking at the falls. By 4pm we were ready to get going. Then we found out that at 8pm, the falls light up!

We went back and forth, trying to decide if we wanted to kill ANOTHER 4 hours and stick around until 8pm. We figured that we'll never be here again, so why not. We sat in Tim Horton's for about an hour, aimlessly wandered around for another 3 hours, and finally the light show started!

Looking back, it wasn't a glorious light show. Or maybe I was just tired and cold. This is probably the best photo I got of the entire show.

Really?!? So I shouldn't climb over the railing and plummet to my death?

Hockey Hall of Fame

Our first stop in Toronto was the Hockey Hall of Fame.

(get used to my purple puffy vest. It's the only coat I own, and I wore it day and night!)

I must admit, the Hall of Fame was pretty cool. They had the Stanley Cup out and available for all to see an touch.

Here is a close up of the 2003-2004 Tampa Bay Lightning championship team.

Here is how the hall displays their Hall of Famers. I must admit, its way better than the silly looking plaques that the Baseball Hall of Fame uses.

This stud is Jaques Plante, the first goalie to wear a mask.

Since it was "March Break" in Toronto, the hall of fame had some special things going on. The coolest part was all the area mascots roaming around.

Here is a photo of me with Chuck the Puck!

DIY pants into a skirt

So here I have a pair of pants that are a little tight around the thighs. Since the waist fits just fine, I decided to try my hand at turning pants into a skirt!

Step 1: Cut the legs in half.

Step 2: Take the top half and cut around the inside of the legs. I actually used a seem ripper to rip the seams out. It was much cleaner than just cutting, although it took 10 times as long.

Step 3: Take 1 of the legs and cut it open. I didn't bother to seam rip this part.

Steps 4-?: I didn't take photos of. Ooops!

Basically you take the bottom leg part and sew it in a V shape in the front. You can see the upside down V in the final product below.

I assumed it would need to sew another upside down V in the back, but when I tried it on (with the back flapping in the breeze), I realize I could just sew up the back and call it a day!

A new bottom hem, and I'm done!

The Magic, The Memories and You!

Check out (most) of the new Magic Kingdom castle show.

Jonathan managed to record most of it before his flip cam battery died.

I think my favorite part is around the 2:25 mark. Although the train scene is pretty neat. And the consensus is that the rocket scene rocks!

You aren't digital scrapbooking yet?

I haven't tried to convince anybody to start digital scrapbooking lately ... so here goes:

Put down those scissors and glue and boot up your computer! It's so much cheeper (you can reuse "elements" and "papers" over and over again). You can match colors PERFECTLY with photoshop. And it's less 'stuff' to have in your house.

Here is my gallery on MouseScrappers. Come look around and see the cool stuff you can create with just a computer.

Speed Scrapping Marathon - Jan 7-9

Get your scrapbooking shoes on, because MouseScrappers is hosting a Speed Scrap Marathon!

I'm hosting on at 6pm EST on Saturday, January 8. It's my first time running a speed scrap, so we'll see how I handle the 'speedy' pressure!

Castaway Cay

We barely made it to Castaway Cay because it was so windy. In fact, the captain had to rearrange the entire itinerary. We made it there a day late, but we still made it!

Thankfully, the wind died down so it was comfortable. It was still kind-of chilly though.

The island had some Christmas decorations, but not too many. I was actually mildly disappointed at the lack of decor.

Although the tram was sure in the Christmas spirit!

Must be Santa ...

One morning, as I was walking around deck 4 watching the boat dock, I ran into Santa in the lobby. Unfortunately I looked homeless, and I hadn't showered yet, but hey - it's Santa!!!

I also ran into a different looking Santa in Nassau, Bahamas.

I just notice something funny about these 2 photos. Photo with Santa in the lobby - I'm unshowered. Photo with plastic dark Santa, I'm showered. Yet, I look pretty much the same, and I seem to be wearing almost the same clothing. Gross ...

Jodi Benson!

Jonathan, his parents and I just got off a wonderful (and cold!) 4-night Disney cruise.

Check out who else was cruising with us ... Jodi Benson, the voice of The Little Mermaid.

We bumped into her in the lobby, then again in the lunch buffet line (where we got our photo with her. She mentioned she was doing a show and autograph signing the next day (for a private group, but hey, she invited us!) so we went to that too.

She was so sweet and nice. And her voice was amazing! She same songs from a bunch of broadway shows and 90's Disney movies. We really got lucky that this private group was on the same cruise as us! I felt quasi-guilty crashing their private concert, but heck, Jodi 'personally' invited us! (ha ha ha!)

More Harry Potter Land!

More random photos from HP land!

Jonathan's new toy

My Black Friday deal was a ladder from Lowes (see my 365 photo-a-day album on facebook).

Jonathan's black Friday deal was a flip cam. I guess he uses them at work alot, so he was familiar with how awesome they are.

He's been playing around by taking short videos at the Osborn lights (at Disney), and he walked around HP land at Universal all day.

I caught him in action a couple times. Hee hee. Here he is standing outside of the 3 Broomsticks restaurant. See the actual 3 broomsticks above his head? There's also a "wanted - Serius Black" poster to his right.

More Harry Potter Land!

Harry Potter Land is a cross between Hogsmead and Hogwarts. Some HP purists say things like, "there's no Olivanders wand shop in Hogsmead!!!", but I didn't care. I don't really pay attending to many minor details when I'm reading.

It was really fun just to wander around and look in all the shop windows.

Here you can see an overview of the 'land'. HoneyDukes is the sweet shop (chocolate frogs, etc ...) and one of the outdoor Butterbeer carts.

And, it's snowing in Florida!!!! (nah, it's all fake)

Butterbeer!

Hog's Head - home of the Butterbeer! (and other alcoholic drinks, but who cares about those)

One of the attractions at Harry Potter land is the food! They serve butterbeer, pumpkin juice, chocolate frogs and more! The main attraction is the butterbeer. It tasted like a sweeter cream soda, and we LOVED IT!

We had 4 through out the day. It comes in 'frozen', which is a slushie consistency and 'regular'. Frozen was by far the best!

Pumpkin juice was NASTY!!! Normally if I order something, and it's gross, I'll choke it down just b/c I paid for it. This crap I couldn't even choke down. It was downright disgusting.

Butterbeer #1 (frozen). There is some delightful foam on the top that makes a fantastic mustache!

Butterbeer #2 (regular)

Butterbeer #3 (frozen again!)

Butterbeer #4 (one more for the road in the souvenir mug!)

Harry Potter land

Jonathan had a free ticket to Universal Studios that expires at the end of this 2010. We calculated the perfect day to go would be 12/5/10. The Christmas decorations would be up, and it's the perfect time in-between Thanksgiving and Christmas so the parks would be dead.

Were our calculations correct?

Heck yes they were!

Did you hear news stories about people waiting for hours and hours and hours to ride the new ride? (That's not an exaggeration - when "Harry Potter land" first opened this summer you had to wait multiple hours just to GET IN to the land, much less do anything.

We walked right on the ride. No waiting, no nothing ... walked right on.

The ride is inside the giant Hogwarts castle. The queue line is fully decorated like the inside of the castle, so I honestly wanted to wait a little tiny bit so I could look at all the details.

Later on in the day we walked thru the queue line again. This time the line was a whopping 15 minutes (ha!). When we got to the front we said, "we don't want to ride please", and went thru the chicken exit.

The ride is pretty cool, but it's 1/2 looking at stuff and 1/2 virtual reality. My inner ear can't handle that virtual stuff. Even Jonathan was a little queazy afterwards.

The ride was kind-of scary. A dragon and a bunch of dementors are in your face (I mean, inches away!).

More on HP land (better known as "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter") later!

Laundry Strike - over!

Well, I survived my laundry strike. Now I'll be doing laundry for the next week and a half.

I made it 70 days.

I could've made it a tad longer, but I just didn't want to. I had a dress and a couple skirts left, but day 71 just felt like a jeans day. So I washed 'em and wore 'em.

Now I'm back to picking what ever the heck I want out of my closet, and it feels so good!!

Laundry Strike - Day 69-70

Day 69 - Skirt Tuesday! And it's also freezing outside. So I figured skirt (bare legs) + sweater = warmth. I was dead wrong. Also, why have I never worn this skirt before. I love it!!!

Day 70 - Hippy shirt day! I'm quickly running out of things that match.

Laundry Strike - Day 66-68

Day 66 - Normally I would be wearing my jeans, thermal and thift store sweater (it's cold in Florida!), but I spilled coffee grinds all over them! Have you ever seen those free compost grinds that Starbucks gives away? Well, be careful if you take a bag ...

Day 67 - Wedding wear! Since it's chilly, I'm glad I own 1 almost long sleeve dress.

Day 68 - Since I woke up at the crack of dawn to get a new tire on my car, AND I'm out of jeans, it's sweatpants day at Walmart!

Laundry Strike - Day 64-65

Day 64 - I am rapidly running out of clothing! Could this outfit be any more blah?!?
Day 65 - This is one of my favorite shirts. I like the color, and I like the 3/4 sleeves. Why did I wait so long to wear it?!?

Laundry Strike - Day 60-63

Day 60 - Holy moly, I made it to week 2!

Day 61 - Making some new friends at the Magic Kingdom. Seriously, how cute is Flynn Ryder (character from the new movie Tangled)?

Day 61 - Ok, ok ... you got me. I'm wearing the same shorts as the day before. But I didn't watch them (hence, the laundry strike is still on!). And I'm just running in and out of Walmart ...

Day 62 - Skirt Tuesday. This is the skirt I made a couple months ago.