New Ride, New Lunar Year P/TR || Updated 2.24.20

Exciting times! I hope your trip (which has already started) is just wonderful, and that you're able to do all your "musts" and most of your "would like to's!" We (my husband and I, no kids!) will be there also, on Friday and Saturday, and hope to ride ROTR, of course! :)
 
Exciting times! I hope your trip (which has already started) is just wonderful, and that you're able to do all your "musts" and most of your "would like to's!" We (my husband and I, no kids!) will be there also, on Friday and Saturday, and hope to ride ROTR, of course! :)
Thank you, I hope so as well :) Oh, it would be cool if we saw each other on Friday! Are you a local?
Basically, ROTR is more like "May the odds be ever in your favor"
 
Thank you, I hope so as well :) Oh, it would be cool if we saw each other on Friday! Are you a local?
Basically, ROTR is more like "May the odds be ever in your favor"
Yes, it certainly is! I am not local, I’m from Arizona. I have a flex pass this year though, so I am in town a lot! :-)
 
I FINALLY FINISHED THE EARRINGS!!
I've been working on these earrings for the past few days. I did the prototype last week. Finally DONE.
4WaBEl.jpg


I don't really own anything red but I want to be festive for the Lunar New Year party, so I made these :)
Ear shape is made from card stock and cut from my Cricut, with 7 layers, 4 of them with holes to put the earring in. The metal part that actually goes in the ear were old earring posts, so I had to nestle them into that card stock. Anyways ...
The red is fabric stretched & glued and then a layer of gold shimmer nail polish. The tassels were made with thread.

Wow, love the earings.
 




Sounds like a really fun trip!

No, I cannot believe that Mochi was in a shelter for 2 years. But it all worked out in the end because you found her :)

I always thought it'd be interesting to go for Lunar New Year celebrations.

And those southwest prices really can't be beat! We always fly southwest when we can, I love them.
 
Eager to hear how it went!!
 
Sorry for the delay guys. I caught a nasty sinus cold a few days after we came back. Blame Rich, he gave it to me :p
 
Small update on the update ... I'm planning on getting my first entry up sometime this weekend. I'm starting to get better from my sinus cold but Rich got laid off today :sad2: His 1 year anniversary with them was this past Friday. Eugh.
So that and being sick, just a bit much on the plate to get something up before the weekend.
Wish us luck!
 
Punches just keep coming. Finally can sit up withought my head threatening to explode but something is wrong with my video card. Rich knows the details but I can't see the photos to be able to sort. He did get a new job and starts tomorrow, so we will probably get the computer fixed within the next two weeks.
Eugh. I can share a few spoiler photos that we snapped on the smart phone :)
IMG_3554.JPGIMG_3556.JPGIMG_3557.JPGIMG_3558.JPG
 
Everybody ready? I really hope everything was worth the wait!

Uploading photos to a photo hosting site so that I may post in here and start this TR!
 
Travel Day
Jan. 22nd​

Our day started ... well, sporadically. We are normally night people and Mochi was just not used to us going to bed early, so she kept waking us up through the night seeking some cuddles.

75322627-556026043515-3877995043222454272-o.jpg

Mochi just wanted her cuddle time

71830869-556004551585-8424240040825061376-o.jpg

... and maybe some noms


Don't worry, we woke up at exactly 9am so we could feed our fur baby. We also ate some exciting breakfast of oatmeal before doing some last minute packing. We tried to leave on time at 9:30am but, we were running a tad late (oops!). With Mochi in her carrier, we ended up leaving about 15 minutes later then intended, but dropping her off at her kitty hotel (boarding) went pretty smooth. We notified them that her 9th birthday is tomorrow and made sure that she was able to get some extra treats. The guy that was taking her to the kitty condo area just kind of took her carrier and went through the doors. I started having a wee bit of anxiety wash over me and requested that we say goodbye to her.
Very efficient, but, she has to know that we love her before dumping her for a few days, right?

Onto the airport! Which was just a few minutes from the pet boarding. We had decided to park the car at the airport because our return flight will be getting back so late that it would be hard to get an Uber/Lyft. To save about $10, we chose to pre-pay for parking, which when we went to scan the paper with the barcode on it ... the gate didn't go up! :faint: Well, we just did not have time to mess around with the scanner so we just pressed that lovely button to spit out a ticket and off to find a parking spot.
It took us a bit to find a spot but not horribly long, maybe 10 minutes or so, I found a nice spot real close to the elevators! Then, it took me about another couple minutes to take off my plastic bags from my shoes. Yes. I had plastic bags around my shoes so that they wouldn't get dirty until I was in the airport. They had NEVER BEEN WORN, new from box! Okay, I'm not crazy, really ... you'll understand in the next paragraph.

Going through security was a breeze, terminal 2 of MSP isn't really busy and usually has pretty short lines. The TSA guy was pretty rude though, it was like a constant stream of "do this, do that, you're not doing that right" as the line was moving. I have never experienced that before. Then, onto our gate! We only had a short moment to snap a photo to let people know on social media that we were actually doing something exciting ...

1-1Wed.jpg

Frozen shoes! See? I'm not crazy.


The cute hat is our adventure hat, known fondly as Jane Hat, that debuted on our Transatlantic Cruise a few years ago (TR link in my signature). You will see it pop up a few times here.

A few minutes after this photo, it was already time for boarding!! Did we time this well or what? Okay, no, not really because if anything was delayed by more than 15 minutes and we probably would have missed our flight ... but we did't! So yay!
We flew Southwest and were boarding group A, so we had to line up as soon as they announced boarding. We had a row to ourselves and made our selves comfy for the 4 hour flight to Oakland. I played a bit of SIMS 3 on my laptop while Rich just read a whole bunch of comics that he downloaded on his phone before we left.
The flight left a few minutes before our scheduled 11:25am departure

The flight went smoothly and was able to use my free drink coupons that Southwest sent me (out of the blue!). Then we had about another 4 hours to hang out in the airport while we waited for the last leg of our trip; Oakland to Long Beach.
While not an eventful hour and 20 minute flight, we did get a row to ourselves again and were privy to a beautiful sunset flying down the coast :)

2-1Wed.jpg

And of course, I had to document my shoes again, because, well, they are awesome and I went through a lot to get them!

3-1Wed.jpg

Ta da!

I believe we landed on time at 6:05pm. Long Beach airport is a small airport and we deplaned right on the tarmac. Rich thought this was pretty dang awesome. There is an enclosed terminal for waiting and a few shops, but then you go outside and the baggage claim is there. Yup, right outside. There IS a huge wall because of security as such, with a cover over it, but not fully enclosed at all. Again, Rich found this quite amusing. We did have to stop for a potty break and we were directed to the check-in area, which is the original/historic LGB terminal, with small tiles and some mosaics on the floor.

Then OUT to catch an Uber! The airport is so small, it's really easy to get to the rideshare area, it is literally right across the street to the entrance of the terminal.

LGB-Directory-Parking-Map2018.png

See that green sliver in front of the Airport Terminal? That is where you get picked up (it's labled 'Rideshare') on the map.

Oh, but keep in mind, there is only ONE crosswalk to get to that median, and it's not near where you come out from baggage, it's closer to the terminal entrance doors.

Our Uber was right near the airport, so it only took him a few minutes to pick us up. Though, it was annoying that he pulled up at the first available spot on the median instead of where we were (at the very end). So yeah, that was a bit annoying, but he was a good driver, very clean car. Since we left the airport around 6:30pm-ish, we were hitting rush hour driving to our hotel, so it took us about 45 minutes to get there.

We arrived at the Tropicana Inn & Suites intact and paid $29.32 (pre-tip) to get there. Not too shabby!
Check in went really well, the hotel is right across from the entrance to Disneyland, so that was pretty awesome. We quickly got our keys and headed up to the 3rd floor. The room was pretty dang awesome, it was a King and in a special area of the hotel, only 4 rooms are in this area and only 2 rooms have a view like this:

4-1Wed.jpg

So pretty


Here is a map that they front desk gives you to find your room. I found this on google image search, so ignore the green and the red circles. The purple circles are elevators.

red-was-valet-designated.jpg


Our room is where the 272 is marked on the map (across from the elevator near the bottom of the page), but on the 3rd floor.
It's a pretty awesome place and was assigned to us because I requested a fairly quiet room, well, as quiet as a hotel across from Disneyland can be.

We excitedly started unpacking, looking forward to picking up some food after a long day. Just as we were emptying the last of the suitcases, to our horror, we heard a baby cry. Okay, yeah, it's a family destination, there will be kids and babies, they make noise.
But no, no no no.
This cry sounded like it was RIGHT NEXT TO US. Yes, there is a wall right next to us, but that wall muted nothing. NOTHING. An adult female picked up the baby and tried to comfort it with some terrible singing. This lady sounded drunk, let me tell you.
All of it was LOUD. Very loud. Again, like there was absolutely no wall there and we were standing right next to the kid.
Our eyes locked, widened, in terror, like a deer in headlights about to meet its doom. We noped right on out of there and went to the front desk.

Don't worry, we didn't make a scene, it was not anyone's fault that the walls were so dang thin .. except the person that approved a piece of cardboard to act as a wall in a hotel. We politely asked how long the family will be staying next door, we could handle it for one night. Nope, they will be there for the next 3 nights. The front desk lady was very nice and offered us another room, but it was 2 queens and towards the back of the parking lot. We kind of hemmed and hawed about it for a bit while she checked in a family.
After she was done checking them in, we went over and she offered another room, it was closer with only one shared wall. We said 'OKAY!'. We didn't care if it had two beds, only one connecting wall sounded awesome.
So, we went back to the room and packed up, listening to the baby cry sporadically while doing so.

A mini tour of the room we vacated

Alas, we never ended up taking a video/photos of our new room, we were just so tired. However, I believe we definitely got an upgrade because ... well, it had a private balcony that faced the pool!

Going back to the map ...
red-was-valet-designated.jpg

See the lobby in the bottom right? See the stairs right above? See the rooms to the right of the stairs? Yeah, our room was right at the end closer to the stairs (257).

Basically, you go up the stairs, take a left around into a cooridor, which is open to the stairs. There are rooms on either side of you (basically walking along the dotted line on the map) and our room was the first on the left, past an employee storage room. These rooms were directly over the road that drove out of the parking lot, past the lobby.

It was awesome. Again, this layout was definitely not the ones you see online. I really wish we would have had to wits to take a tour for you guys. But, at this point, we were just crazy tired ... and a bit hangry.
Popped down to the Panera Bread just a 2 minute walk down the street. We were so tired, not so tired that we couldn't unpack, though.
Oddly enough, there weren't blackout curtains on the window (that faced the whole complex). In our delirium, we just kind of threw an extra sheet over the whole dang window, valance and all ... it was rather dusty.
We finally ended the day at 10:30pm California time (12:30am our home time).




Whew! The next day will definitely have a lot more photos ;)
 
Travel Day
Jan. 22nd​

Our day started ... well, sporadically. We are normally night people and Mochi was just not used to us going to bed early, so she kept waking us up through the night seeking some cuddles.

75322627-556026043515-3877995043222454272-o.jpg

Mochi just wanted her cuddle time

71830869-556004551585-8424240040825061376-o.jpg

... and maybe some noms


Don't worry, we woke up at exactly 9am so we could feed our fur baby. We also ate some exciting breakfast of oatmeal before doing some last minute packing. We tried to leave on time at 9:30am but, we were running a tad late (oops!). With Mochi in her carrier, we ended up leaving about 15 minutes later then intended, but dropping her off at her kitty hotel (boarding) went pretty smooth. We notified them that her 9th birthday is tomorrow and made sure that she was able to get some extra treats. The guy that was taking her to the kitty condo area just kind of took her carrier and went through the doors. I started having a wee bit of anxiety wash over me and requested that we say goodbye to her.
Very efficient, but, she has to know that we love her before dumping her for a few days, right?

Onto the airport! Which was just a few minutes from the pet boarding. We had decided to park the car at the airport because our return flight will be getting back so late that it would be hard to get an Uber/Lyft. To save about $10, we chose to pre-pay for parking, which when we went to scan the paper with the barcode on it ... the gate didn't go up! :faint: Well, we just did not have time to mess around with the scanner so we just pressed that lovely button to spit out a ticket and off to find a parking spot.
It took us a bit to find a spot but not horribly long, maybe 10 minutes or so, I found a nice spot real close to the elevators! Then, it took me about another couple minutes to take off my plastic bags from my shoes. Yes. I had plastic bags around my shoes so that they wouldn't get dirty until I was in the airport. They had NEVER BEEN WORN, new from box! Okay, I'm not crazy, really ... you'll understand in the next paragraph.

Going through security was a breeze, terminal 2 of MSP isn't really busy and usually has pretty short lines. The TSA guy was pretty rude though, it was like a constant stream of "do this, do that, you're not doing that right" as the line was moving. I have never experienced that before. Then, onto our gate! We only had a short moment to snap a photo to let people know on social media that we were actually doing something exciting ...

1-1Wed.jpg

Frozen shoes! See? I'm not crazy.


The cute hat is our adventure hat, known fondly as Jane Hat, that debuted on our Transatlantic Cruise a few years ago (TR link in my signature). You will see it pop up a few times here.

A few minutes after this photo, it was already time for boarding!! Did we time this well or what? Okay, no, not really because if anything was delayed by more than 15 minutes and we probably would have missed our flight ... but we did't! So yay!
We flew Southwest and were boarding group A, so we had to line up as soon as they announced boarding. We had a row to ourselves and made our selves comfy for the 4 hour flight to Oakland. I played a bit of SIMS 3 on my laptop while Rich just read a whole bunch of comics that he downloaded on his phone before we left.
The flight left a few minutes before our scheduled 11:25am departure

The flight went smoothly and was able to use my free drink coupons that Southwest sent me (out of the blue!). Then we had about another 4 hours to hang out in the airport while we waited for the last leg of our trip; Oakland to Long Beach.
While not an eventful hour and 20 minute flight, we did get a row to ourselves again and were privy to a beautiful sunset flying down the coast :)

2-1Wed.jpg

And of course, I had to document my shoes again, because, well, they are awesome and I went through a lot to get them!

3-1Wed.jpg

Ta da!

I believe we landed on time at 6:05pm. Long Beach airport is a small airport and we deplaned right on the tarmac. Rich thought this was pretty dang awesome. There is an enclosed terminal for waiting and a few shops, but then you go outside and the baggage claim is there. Yup, right outside. There IS a huge wall because of security as such, with a cover over it, but not fully enclosed at all. Again, Rich found this quite amusing. We did have to stop for a potty break and we were directed to the check-in area, which is the original/historic LGB terminal, with small tiles and some mosaics on the floor.

Then OUT to catch an Uber! The airport is so small, it's really easy to get to the rideshare area, it is literally right across the street to the entrance of the terminal.

LGB-Directory-Parking-Map2018.png

See that green sliver in front of the Airport Terminal? That is where you get picked up (it's labled 'Rideshare') on the map.

Oh, but keep in mind, there is only ONE crosswalk to get to that median, and it's not near where you come out from baggage, it's closer to the terminal entrance doors.

Our Uber was right near the airport, so it only took him a few minutes to pick us up. Though, it was annoying that he pulled up at the first available spot on the median instead of where we were (at the very end). So yeah, that was a bit annoying, but he was a good driver, very clean car. Since we left the airport around 6:30pm-ish, we were hitting rush hour driving to our hotel, so it took us about 45 minutes to get there.

We arrived at the Tropicana Inn & Suites intact and paid $29.32 (pre-tip) to get there. Not too shabby!
Check in went really well, the hotel is right across from the entrance to Disneyland, so that was pretty awesome. We quickly got our keys and headed up to the 3rd floor. The room was pretty dang awesome, it was a King and in a special area of the hotel, only 4 rooms are in this area and only 2 rooms have a view like this:

4-1Wed.jpg

So pretty


Here is a map that they front desk gives you to find your room. I found this on google image search, so ignore the green and the red circles. The purple circles are elevators.

red-was-valet-designated.jpg


Our room is where the 272 is marked on the map (across from the elevator near the bottom of the page), but on the 3rd floor.
It's a pretty awesome place and was assigned to us because I requested a fairly quiet room, well, as quiet as a hotel across from Disneyland can be.

We excitedly started unpacking, looking forward to picking up some food after a long day. Just as we were emptying the last of the suitcases, to our horror, we heard a baby cry. Okay, yeah, it's a family destination, there will be kids and babies, they make noise.
But no, no no no.
This cry sounded like it was RIGHT NEXT TO US. Yes, there is a wall right next to us, but that wall muted nothing. NOTHING. An adult female picked up the baby and tried to comfort it with some terrible singing. This lady sounded drunk, let me tell you.
All of it was LOUD. Very loud. Again, like there was absolutely no wall there and we were standing right next to the kid.
Our eyes locked, widened, in terror, like a deer in headlights about to meet its doom. We noped right on out of there and went to the front desk.

Don't worry, we didn't make a scene, it was not anyone's fault that the walls were so dang thin .. except the person that approved a piece of cardboard to act as a wall in a hotel. We politely asked how long the family will be staying next door, we could handle it for one night. Nope, they will be there for the next 3 nights. The front desk lady was very nice and offered us another room, but it was 2 queens and towards the back of the parking lot. We kind of hemmed and hawed about it for a bit while she checked in a family.
After she was done checking them in, we went over and she offered another room, it was closer with only one shared wall. We said 'OKAY!'. We didn't care if it had two beds, only one connecting wall sounded awesome.
So, we went back to the room and packed up, listening to the baby cry sporadically while doing so.

A mini tour of the room we vacated

Alas, we never ended up taking a video/photos of our new room, we were just so tired. However, I believe we definitely got an upgrade because ... well, it had a private balcony that faced the pool!

Going back to the map ...
red-was-valet-designated.jpg

See the lobby in the bottom right? See the stairs right above? See the rooms to the right of the stairs? Yeah, our room was right at the end closer to the stairs (257).

Basically, you go up the stairs, take a left around into a cooridor, which is open to the stairs. There are rooms on either side of you (basically walking along the dotted line on the map) and our room was the first on the left, past an employee storage room. These rooms were directly over the road that drove out of the parking lot, past the lobby.

It was awesome. Again, this layout was definitely not the ones you see online. I really wish we would have had to wits to take a tour for you guys. But, at this point, we were just crazy tired ... and a bit hangry.
Popped down to the Panera Bread just a 2 minute walk down the street. We were so tired, not so tired that we couldn't unpack, though.
Oddly enough, there weren't blackout curtains on the window (that faced the whole complex). In our delirium, we just kind of threw an extra sheet over the whole dang window, valance and all ... it was rather dusty.
We finally ended the day at 10:30pm California time (12:30am our home time).




Whew! The next day will definitely have a lot more photos ;)
Yikes! I know exactly how you feel about the baby crying. I would have also asked for another room. I'm a super light sleeper and that would have made for a very grumpy person at Disneyland! Glad they were able to accommodate you -- and a room with a balcony?! Awesome!
 
Yikes! I know exactly how you feel about the baby crying. I would have also asked for another room. I'm a super light sleeper and that would have made for a very grumpy person at Disneyland! Glad they were able to accommodate you -- and a room with a balcony?! Awesome!
Yeah, I am too, ear plugs with sleeping mask and night meds and all! Yeah, the lady at the front desk was a bit uneasy at first but I think she relaxed a bit when she knew we weren't blaming her.
I wish we could have enjoyed the balcony more (spoiler), but we just were so tired, plus the door knob was broken.
 
Just a heads up, I have two finals due in the next two weeks. Then I have thesis research data to comb through, then write about and then determine (in less then a week) if I can complete my Master's thesis in time for June graduation.
My updates will be sporadic due to this.
Hope you guys understand :flower3:
 
Just a heads up, I have two finals due in the next two weeks. Then I have thesis research data to comb through, then write about and then determine (in less then a week) if I can complete my Master's thesis in time for June graduation.
My updates will be sporadic due to this.
Hope you guys understand :flower3:


Good luck on the finals and writing the Thesis.
 
Haven't forgotten about this, guys :)
Lots of usual and unusual distractions, mostly making masks when not thesising.
Especially with no sight of parks opening anytime soon, I really want to put quality time into trying to pull you guys into the memories with me.
I hope to do an update within a week :)
 

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