Bitter Harpy Press: Happy New Year! or Disney Christmas in July

Happy New year everyone! What? Like you've never been seven months late for something? Whatever. The beginning of this year was super awesome! My big brother and his wife planned on taking their family to Disneyland and at the last minute there was an open space in the van. I had told them before I couldn't go because I had a coworker who had asked for the time off already so we couldnt both take it. Well, she moved to another department so I was able to go. I called and asked if I could take that spot.

They came to pick me up on Saturday, Dec 30 at the crack o dawn and we headed out!

It's just the nature of the Baker clan to have a few mishaps. This was the first one. The dumping of our super awesome holiday snack. Dangit!

One of our pit stops was Mesquite. Shayla is now old enough to gamble- so we stopped for a bit and played some slots. The first (and last) time I hit Vegas I left $1.75 richer than I started. In Mesquite- I lost it all. I had $9 in my wallet and I lost all of it. I tried my hand at roulette just to say I've done it. I've done it. I lost it. Don't ever need to do it again. But Shayla won! So I guess there really is something to beginner's luck!

Alex was pretty into it too.

As we were heading south, the traffic was pretty gross- but going north it was even worse. It was like everyone in California was headed to Vegas for New Years! We were quite happy not to be going the other direction.

We stopped in one other spot for a potty break- and to our suprise they had a display of awesome movie cars! We were probably more excited about that than anything.

Lisa was most excited to see the car from Grease!

Traffic really slowed us down. We were going to wait till Anaheim to eat- but we were starving. Shayla googled pizza and found this place in Victorville. Oh my gosh it was so freaking ghetto. We were pretty sure we were going to get shot. Any time a place has bars on the windows... I felt a little like I was back in Jersey for a bit.

The highlight of that little detour was that we were on a stretch of Route 66. I didn't take a picture because we really just wanted to get the heck out of there. Five minutes after we ate and got back on the road, we found a totally blissful, food-filled oasis about five minutes down the road. We didn't let Shayla navigate after that. Haha!

We didn't have anything planned for that evening. We were just going to get to the hotel and hang out and rest up for the next day. But a friend of mine had told me about this band that he was obsessing over- He'd played me a few of their songs and when he found out that they would be playing in Downtown Disney- he totally geeked out all over me and said I had to go! Well.. we wern't really doing anything else. So I asked Randy if he would drop me off at Downtown Disney and I would go check out this weird band.

I am totally fine doing things alone- but Macy said she'd come with me. And then Kim caved and said she'd come. We got there shortly before their last set.

The band is called Steam Powered Giraffe. They are a steam punk band. They are robots! Well... they're actualy not bad. Some of their songs are super catchy and I had listened to them enough beforehand that I was able to sing along with them.

My sister was like, "what the heck are we watching?" But I thought it was awesome. haha!

I'm not even going to try to explain the music to you. Decide for yourself. But you have to admit their harmonies are fantastic!

It was a ridiculously fun way to start our trip! Randy and Lisa came back and picked us up and we went home and got settled into our huge room that all 8 of us were sharing. Good thing we love eac other!

The next day started out with another mishap. If you know me at all, you know I never go anywhere without my water bottle. As we were sitting around at the hotel, waiting for bus time... I dropped my water bottle and broke it. The very first day. Ugggh!

When our bus came I got to sit next to Jenna. I'm not sure who was more excited to go to Downtown Disney, Jenna or me. We'll call it a tie.

Our first day there we just went to Downtown Disney. None of us had ever been there during the holidays so it was really fun to see it all decked out for Christmas. We just wandered the stores and had fun.

We had Jenna in a wheelchair just so she would't get worn out. We did a TON of walking that week and she would have tired out so much faster if she'd walked the whole time.

Kim and Macy are basically Buzz and Woody- they're buddies! So They made matching shirts to wear together.

And Macy collects nutcrackers so she was pretty much in love with this guy.

And then there's me.

When we went to DIsneyland as a family in 2009, I took pics of Shayla and Macy by these big stars- so to the best of our memory we had to recreate those photos! A few things have changed.

Image may contain: 2 people, people smiling, outdoor

Our only real plan for that day was dinner at Goofy's Kitchen. It's a Baker tradition.

We were there a little early and they weren't quite ready for us so we wandered around the Disneyland Hotel a little bit.

Seriously though, the CHristmas decor was just so fun! Here's an idea for this year's gingerbread house! Yeah?

yeah. no.

I saw this had and thought of JoAnna. She'd passed away just a few months before and we're all still missing her. JoAnna is my little brother's baby sister-in-law. Too young. So sad. But it was nice to see this fun little reminder of her.

We went back to see if our reservation was ready yet.

I loved the Goofy treee that they had. There is just no deteail left out.

A goldfish bowl in a christmas tree? Haha! How goofy! :D

And then we got to mean the man... er... dog himself! Chef Goofy!

I look absolutly horrendous in these pictures... but I posted this one becuase what the heck was I doing with my feet? I'm not a flippin ballerina?!

If you've never been to Goofy's Kitchen I highly recommend it. And it was super fun seeing it all decked out for Christmas.

We had a few visitors at our table. The most notable was Pluto. We may have gotten into a bit of a fight. and he MAY have sent me to stand in the corner to think about what I did...

But we made up. At least long enough to take a picture. He vowed to keep an eye on me... not one more whisker out of line...

The dessert section was out of control! There were so many yummy things to choose from. I ened up sharing most of this. But the little mint whoopie pie was yumm-o!

Chip and Dale stopped by for a minute too! It's always fun to mingle with characters.

I'm not entirely sure if these videos will work- but we'll try anyway. Jenna loved dancing with Minnie. All the characters were so good with her.

Because it was New Years I bought everyone New Years garb and then my mom and Kim helped me Disney-fy them a little bit! We got asked all over the place where we got our hats.

Here is the whole group- Minus Alex. He was taking the picture.

So he took a separate one of himself. He'd lost his hat. (and by "lost" I mean it fell and he ran over it with Jenna's wheelchair.)

Of all the times I've been to Disneyland, I've never taken time to walk through all the different buildings of the Disneyland Hotel. Each one had a tree representing a land in the Magic Kingdom.

These ones were Adventureland.

Fantasyland.

And I'm pretty sure this one was Frontierland but it was too long ago and the picture is too little on my computer. haha!

It was also fun that every spare patch of soil had poinsettias planted in it. Unlike the frigid climates of Idaho and Utah, California can sustain the life of Poinsettias outside. So they were everywhere. It was awesome!

I found this guy as we were wandering the grounds. I'm not entirly sure what is going on with the mohawk looking business, but it's Mickey, so it's automatically awesome.

We still had a lot of time to kill before midnight so they boys went to see Star Wars and the girls all went to see The Greatest Showman. So good!

Our movie got out a lot sooner than the boys' so we wandered the shops some more and just took in all the decorations.

If you are ever finding yourself needing to buy be a gift, (birthday, Christmas, Tuesday...) then any merchandise you see here will give you an idea of what to get me.

If you'll stop and take a look at the purse that Kim is wearing... It was Melanie's. It was just a funnny little black purse that she decorated with duct tape to make it Disney. Kim brought it with her so we'd have a little bit of Nonee with us.

And then of course Buzz and Woody found Buzz and Woody.

We found this adorable cart that was selling macrons (not to be confused with Macaroons). They were almost too adorable to eat!

Almost.

We got a whole bunch of differnet ones and each took a bite so we could sample all of them. Oh my gosh they were amazing.

What a fun way to kill time! When the boys' movie was over Randy and Lisa took Jenna back to the hotel to get some sleep. The hotel had left us a little bottle of Martinellis sparkling cider and some glasses so Randy and Lisa toasted the new year in together at the hotel. The rest of us went to sit in the space between park entrances. We sat around and talked about all our favorite memories of 2017 and what we were hoping 2018 would bring. Then we counted down the new year and got to see the fireworks over the castle.