Just another story caught up in another photograph I found

During crazy Christmas family extravaganza of 2010, the grown-ups decided to pull out a box of old pictures...which was so much fun.
Aside from a bunch of pictures of some really stern looking German people, (which my mom has been able to trace back to the mid 1800's), there were baby pictures of my mom and my uncles, photos that gave me insight to what my mom's life was like as a teenager (there were lots of sheep), and some precious shots of us cousins with the g'parents from way back in the diaper days!
I love sorting through old pictures, and I'm afraid that my generation has gotten so digital that my grandkids aren't going to have anything to sort through. 50 years from now when I have my own crazy family Christmas gatherings, they're just going to sit in front of my computer and click through thousands pictures. Plus, I'm not really sure that I want my grandkids to see all my pictures...
I love my digital camera and its convenience. No film + immediate results means I can take several versions of the same picture until I get the exact one I want, it's great!! But I think that there is something to be said of using an old 35mm (or whatever). Film definitely limits the amount of pictures you can take, but I think it also allows you to be more selective in your photography. For instance, do I really need to take 20 pictures of Sleeping Beauty's castle EVERY TIME I GO TO DISNEYLAND?? Probably not...
I'm sure with film cameras, there were quite a few moments missed, but there were also some significant moments captured.
I had my mom make some copies for me of a few pictures of my grandparents, and they are just so classic

This my grandparents leaving for their honeymoon, something about this picture reminds me of a couple of old fashioned movie stars being caught my the paparazzi!

And here's my grandpa!
When we were going through pictures and I commented about how handsome my grandpa was...my gramma's reply was "yeah he was"...oh, Gramma

Trick-or-Treat!

After weeks -nay- months of deliberation...I have finally landed on a Halloween costume!! I don't think it has ever taken me this long to come up with something. Mostly because when my mom used to sew our costumes, my sister and I had to come up with our ideas pretty early so mom could be sure they were done in time, and this is a habit that has stuck with me even since mom stopped making our costumes. When it comes to dressing up, I have definitely run the gamut, using both my mad sewing skills and my arsenal of dance costumes. I have been pretty much everything from a hobo to a princess, from a sock hopper to a hippie, from a mouseketeer to a drag queen (yes, I was a girl dressed as a boy dressed as girl). Last year I was Sleeping Beauty, but the Brier Rose version. For a brief moment I thought Marge McDougall from Promises, Promises would be fun, but very few would know who I was. Then I kept bouncing between a Harry Potter version of myself (a.k.a. if I were a Hogwarts student), a candy corn (since I already had a yellow skirt), or just 'I dunno' and wear my pink wig and top hat...like an extra from Moulin Rouge or something. Then Saturday, like a bolt of lightening, it hit me. The perfect costume...
Lucy van Pelt!!! I am so excited! I'm sure I could run the risk of people not knowing who I am, but some might, and I will...so I don't care. I got this black wig and I'm working on styling it kinda curly-ish on the ends, I bought socks at Target yesterday that have ruffles on them, and a blue dress with some black buttons and I'm good to go!

And now you shall deal with me, O prince...

(excuse my shift key) but Maleficent is the most bad@$$ Disney villain of ALL TIME!!!
Easily my favorite villain, and definitely up there with my top 5 favorite Disney characters ever! She's just so...evil, but in such an intriguing way. She is just so subtly evil, she doesn't really raise her voice or lose her temper. She has this quiet, calm evil about her that is just so much scarier than anything else. She is in complete control...and she can turn into a freaking DRAGON!!! No wonder she's the self proclaimed 'Mistress of all Evil' and the star villain in Fantasmic! You'd think there'd be mugs upon mugs dedicated to her. But no. The bad guys very rarely get their mug on a mug. Except during Halloween time at Disneyland. The villains run rampant throughout the park. Their misdeeds are celebrated, and they get to be featured on souvenirs!
It was during one October jaunt to the park that I bought this mug. It says "You're Wicked Awesome" which is quite lame; but it has Jafar, Cruella, Captain Hook, Ursula, Scar, MALEFICENT, and the Evil Queen on it. Maleficent is clearly the star of this mug, because she is color and everyone else is in black and white. She is 3D and everyone else is flat against the mug. Because she rules all!

This is the last of my Disneyland mugs, I promise.
Although, I can't promise I won't come back with another one when I go in two weeks!
I've got a two-day trip planned with my best friend (and Disney partner for life) AllyJo! We've booked our room and we're all ready for 'the time we went in September'*. I am most excited for World of Color!!


*Three years ago, we went in October (not the October I bought this mug), but even still we refer to it as 'that time we went in October' so we decided, to avoid confusion, we can't go together in October anymore