A new member to our Family

We recently added a new addition to our family. A new baby husky!!! Her name is Roxy and she is now 7 weeks old. When I first brought her home our older husky, Thor, hated her! He snapped at her and bit her; I thought that they would never get a long. After about a week and a half he realized that the new puppy was here to stay. Slowly we started letting him get close to her to sniff her and get used to her but, the second he tried anything funny we took him away. As a mom to both of them I felt really bad because Roxy couldn’t play and I felt bad for constantly scolding Thor.

Just this past weekend we were able to start letting them play together! Thor doesn’t realize that he is so much bigger than her so he tramples over her every now and she will cry. Our trainer told us not to baby Roxy too much because then she will think that every time she cries someone will come to save her; that is so hard to do because they sound so sad! I’m so happy that Thor now has a friend to play with but, potty training our new puppy is already getting old. Because we couldn’t leave her with Thor when they first met we lost precious training moments because she would just go wherever she could. I must say that I have really got my moneys worth when we got the steam cleaner! Hopefully very soon we Roxy will start learning that she needs to go outside.




I love puppies but, I hate the potty training, Roxy is already growing so fast and before I know it she will be getting so big! Thor will be happy once she is bigger so he can play rougher with her but, I will be sad because then I can’t hold her anymore. I wish that they could just stay little forever.

Fun Facts of Disneyland…

All recorded music and sounds that you hear in the rides and throughout the park constantly run. It is more costly for Disneyland to shut the sound off and restart the system every day. The only time sound actually gets shut off is when there is an Emergency stop or large system failure, ie a massive power loss, emergency shut down or other sorts of emergencies. Most notable is It's a small world - the dolls may stop moving, but the music still plays and the Haunted Mansion - The buggies stop and the animatronics still move and the voiceover says there is a ghoul in the system with no music, but the when music does resume after the voiceover, it has been playing on. There was no pause in it at all. Luckily for cleaning and maintenance crews, they can turn it down so they won't go mad.

Main Street U.S.A

1. In one of the original plans for the park Walt Disney had the entrance of the park so you would have to walk over the train bream using stairs then you would walk through the train station and back down the stairs and on Main Street.

2. The ground is red in the entrance to give a red- carpet effect, but the real reason is that Walt wanted guests to feel as though they were stepping into a movie and they were the stars. So, like in Hollywood, he made the ground at the entrance red.

3. Ever notice how when standing on the sidewalks, it's difficult to see the Castle because the trees are in the way? The trees are deliberately placed in that fashion so that you look into the shops, where you are drawn inside! Conversely, if you're on the Street, the trees should be blocking your view of the shops, so you keep moving onward towards the Castle (weinie as Walt liked to say)! Note too, that the pavement is black on Main Street (and only Main Street). Why? Black pavement gets hot, which keeps people on the move. The pavement changes to calmer, cooler colours in the other lands. The idea behind this, I've been told by Disney Tour Guides, is to get people into the park, rather than bottlenecking the main entrance corridor.

Adventure Land

Indiana Jones - The Indiana Jones Adventure Ride cost the Disney folks about $100 million to make and took 7 years to design & build. The ride is physically big. The carefully prepared and aged artifacts and all the high tech necessary to operate the ride are housed in a 3 story building, (mostly underground) as long, and as wide as a football field. You can see part of the green building from the parking lot. You have to walk 1 KM before you board the ride itself. They did this so you could get a feel for the ride before even boarding it. The Disney ImaginEARS even brought in old National Geographic magazines for design ideas. They had to make the ride believable, controlled, and make it so no one else knows how they did it. The Troop Transports- Every 18 seconds one of the 7 ton, 12 passenger troop transports leaves for the journey. Each Transport has its own personality. There are 24 speakers per vehicle, 2 per person. They can travel up to 20 feet a second (but never do), have high beams & low beams, travel on rubber tires, and are front wheel drive.

New Orleans Square

Pirates of the Caribbean - Pirates of the Caribbean was originally going to be a walk through ride substantiated in "Disneyland Inside Story" by Randy Bright. Walt originally wanted to make it a walk through attraction but everyone advised against it because no one would want to walk through the attraction. Also "It's a Small World" was also planned this way. Walt finally made It's a Small World a boat ride. And, when they built Pirates, they used the same flat bottom boats as Small World.

Haunted Mansion - Walt Disney wanted the story to be told by the ravens in the attraction, although a few of the imaginers’ decided and convinced Walt that children would remember a story rather than the objects popping up at them., and it would scare them too much.

Critter Country

Splash Mountain- Originally Splash Mountain was supposed to be a water tunnel, but that couldn't be accomplished. Michael Eisner really wanted it to be as dry a ride as possible and stated "This is not Knott's Berry Farm!" (Referring to their log ride and Big Foot Rapids) That is why you still do not get completely drenched on Splash Mountain.

Frontierland - Big Thunder Mountain actually has a storyline to it. The mountain received it's name from an old Indian tale warning that if anyone was to deface this sacred mountain, a huge disaster would occur. The beginning of the ride is to show the natural beauty of the mountain and it's caverns. Yet it becomes pretty obvious that miners have now taken over the once peaceful mountain. The Indians' warning becomes reality when a huge earthquake strikes. The same storyline follows in WDW, with a flood replacing the earthquake.

FantasyLand

Matterhorn- When Disneyland first opened the Matterhorn wasn't there. It was just a patch of orange trees. The 1/100 scale 147 foot tall Matterhorn at Disneyland is set in exact geographical alignment with the real Matterhorn in Switzerland.
There is a basketball court in the top of the Matterhorn (there's a room up there that's about a half-court big). The climbers who used to scale the Matterhorn took their breaks there.

ToonTown

Disneyland launches their "Fantasy in the Sky" fireworks from the top level of the parking structure in the Disneyland TDA building. That is why this area, and Toontown, is closed down every night in the summer at 8:45 due to the fireworks fallout. The TDA building is located a few hundred meters behind Toontown (to the north to be exact). The cast members working at the TDA (Team Disney Anaheim) building are required to stay indoors while the fireworks are happenning.

TomorrowLand

Space Mountain- Because of its enormous size, Space Mountain was built 15 feet below ground to make sure it would fit the existing scale of Disneyland park's other structures.
Space Mountain goes below ground level not to maintain a scale with the rest of Disneyland. It does so to adhere to the City of Anaheim building codes. To go below ground level is very expensive and Disneyland tried for a wavier, but was denied. Space Mountain cost $20M to build - it cost more than the original park in 1955 dollars.

California Adventure

The site of Disney's California Adventure was originally a orange grove. Then, it took on a new life, flat and covered with asphalt, as Disneyland's main parking lot. Now, the Disney company had transformed it again. It has come almost full circle now containing a forest area and a orange grove. To do this Disney spent more than $500,000 on 136 smog-resistant Aptos Blue and Soquel redwoods from the Santa Cruz area to give portions of the park an authentic forest look and even more for the rest of the landscaping.

Dog Troubles...

Well, after a long day at work who really wants to go home to a mess? Now, normally my dog does really well, if I leave him home alone in the house he doesn’t eat anything that’s not his. And with our Arizona weather kicking in it’s too hot to leave him outside during the summer, and not to mention that he is a husky so he isn’t use to this weather. So yesterday I came home and looked around and everything seemed to be the way I left it, little did I know that when I turned the corner to go into the living room that I would want to scream! My lovely dog Thor decided that he would have some fun and eat our couch. Not just take a few bite marks to the legs of the couch but, literally eat our couch!! He jumped on the couch and ripped off a back cushion and started taking out the stuffing of the couch. We weren’t planning on getting a new couch anytime soon but, we can’t have guests over with the back of our couch missing! I can officially say that I will never leave Thor alone in the house again unless he is in a doggie kennel.

Salt River Tubing Experience!

It had been about two years since my last trip to the Salt River so we decided that we should start the memorial weekend off right with going tubing. Well, little did we know that the days before we wanted to go tubing, it would rain! In the state of Arizona rain comes once in a blue moon. So on Sunday morning we left around 6am, it was freezing cold and we were wondering why the heck we still wanted to go tubing. So tiredly we shopped in wal-mart getting our last supplies for the trip. We stopped for a bite to eat and then we were on our way to the river!!

Now normally on a holiday weekend the river is packed with people. Though as we continued driving there, we saw no cars! We wondered if the river was even open today or if we were the only idiots that wanted to go on the river that day because it was so cold. Finally approaching the parking lot we were amazed to only find a total of 5 cars in the parking lot! You may think that I’m joking but, there were seriously only 5 cars. It at least gave us a little more hope that there were other idiots like us that wanted to go on the river. So while waiting for the river to warm up we smothered on the sun block, even though the weather was cold I don’t risk anything. A few of our other friends were going to be meeting us at the river as well so we waited for them to arrive.

Well, four wonderful hours later they decided to grace us with their presence and we were soon on our way to the river. We took the bus to the first point in the river and were soon on our way. Getting into the water it was super cold and it sent shivers up my body. Though about an hour into the river that summer sun was beating down hard and we wondered why we came in such hot weather! Before we left on the river the people had told us that a trip around the whole river would be about 6 to 7 hours I thought that was a really long time but, once you were on the river you understood why they said that. The beginning of the river was not so bad we were pacing along at a good speed, not even to a half way mark; we were stuck dead in our tracks. The river was not flowing, and it sucked really bad.

During our drift along the river we saw some interesting sites. Our first encounter was a girl that had passed out in her tube! Her members of her group were not paying attention to her and when they turned around they saw that she had tipped over in her tube and was drowning! So amongst our group of people we had 3 people that worked in the medical field so they pulled off to help her. Members of the drowning girls group were all drunk and didn’t care what happened to her they were saying things like who cares, lets just float down the river and give her some bread she will be fine. But, what they didn’t understand was that their friend was in serious danger and if they didn’t receive some medical help soon she could possibly die. We gave them the advice that at the next stop they needed to pull off and receive medical assistance but, we didn’t run into that group again so we will only hope that she got the assistance that she needed. Though the really big excitement that shook up our group was when our tubes hit the rapids. I had forgotten how fast you float over those and if you don’t lift your booty up you will get a nice little surprise in the rear! Well, after all of us screaming lift your bottom up one member of our group was not paying attention and she flew out of her tube and into the rocks she went. I could feel the pain that she was going through as her feet and back took hits on the rocks! While two men in our group kept her head above water, the poor thing was in a lot of pain. At the next rest stop that we saw we pulled off to let everyone take a quick break and regain themselves after that.

So after our excitements for the day my friend and I decided that we would be the smart ones and not drink anymore. It was better to be safe and cautious of everything around us than impairing our vision and thoughts. Well, we had been on the river for a good 4 hours now and we still had not reached the second stop. I think this was possibly the longest river trip that I had ever been on! Remembering that the last bus back to the parking lot left at six thirty we thought that it would be a good idea to leave at the next stop. Very tired and ready to go home and take showers we pulled off the river and made our way back home. After this trip to the river I think that I need some time before I set foot on the river again. My body is still recovering from the trip and the only good thing that came out of the experience was that I slept like a baby!

Baby Showers!!

After this weekend I don’t think that I want to go to another baby shower! Well, at least not for awhile anyways. I don’t think that I have seen that many people before come to a baby shower! There had to be almost sixty people; this baby is well loved and she hasn’t even made her debut yet!

Anyways since this is my boyfriend’s sister’s baby shower I was in charge of the games. Though with that many people, it’s kinda hard to play any games. So I got put in charge of handing the presents to Melanie as she opened them and if they were really cute I was to walk around and show everyone. I think that by the time Melanie got done opening her presents baby Peyton had more clothes than me!! We will just hope that Peyton will be able to grow into her clothes and get to wear all of them and not sprout like a bean and out grow them all. I was very surprised that she did not get as many diapers as I thought that she would! But, she got a lot of really nice things that will come in handy.

Well, as the baby shower ended it was time to start picking up the mess. Which is always soo much fun! Some how I ended up getting stuck with washing all of the dishes, yay me, NOT!! There were so many bowels and platters to clean that were holding the food my fingers looked like a couple of prunes by the time I got done! Though finally all the clean up was done and we were able to leave. I never want to help throw a baby shower for a long time. Attending them is easy, you just eat and give your gift then be on your way, though when you are helping you get stuck with the clean ups! All in all it was a wonderful shower and I cannot wait for the baby to arrive!

What Ever Happened to…

Do you remember a time when it was actually worth watching Nickelodeon? I think that it’s really sad that today’s kids will not get to experience all the great shows that so many of us grew up with!

I remember on Saturday nights when I used to want to stay home and just watch the television instead of going on. This was all because of SNICK. SNICK (short for Saturday Night Nickelodeon) was a two-hour programming block on the American cable television network Nickelodeon, geared toward general audiences, that ran from August 15, 1992 until mid-2004, Saturdays starting at 8 p.m. ET. In 2004, SNICK was revamped as the Saturday night edition of TEENick.

SNICK Line ups
1992-1994
• Clarissa Explains It All
• Roundhouse (TV series)
• The Ren & Stimpy Show
• Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Summer 1993 and 1994
• Clarissa Explains It All
• The Adventures of Pete & Pete
• The Ren & Stimpy Show
• Are You Afraid of the Dark?
• Roundhouse (TV series)
1994-early 1996
• The Secret World of Alex Mack
• All That
• The Ren & Stimpy Show
• Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Early 1996-late 1996
• The Secret World of Alex Mack
• All That
• Space Cases
• Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Late 1996-early 1997
• Kenan & Kel
• All That
• The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo
• Kablam
1997-1999
• Rugrats
• All That
• Kenan & Kel
• The Journey of Allen Strange
All these shows aired from 8 p.m.-10 p.m. with the ending having the big orange couch and above that a clock counting down until next week's broadcast.



My all time favorite show of this line up was Are you Afraid of the Dark. I remember some of the episodes used to really scare me! This show was about friends who would sit around a camp fire and tell scary stories. There group was called The Midnight Society. Each week a different person would have to bring a story to tell the group. I really think that they should put this show back on the air with new kids, because I think that it would be a big hit again. Today’s kids need to have something worth watching on television and not this garbage that they have on the air now! My hope is that one day Nickelodeon will have a back in the day type thing where all they do is air old shows… personally I think that it would be a big hit and it might just actually draw some of today’s kids into watching those shows!

My Last Final for the Semester...

Well, after fourteen long weeks of school for the spring semester I can successfully say that I am done! Last night I took my final for Geology. Our assignment was to create a poster board choosing one of the topics from a list that was given to us. Then we were supposed to give a presentation on our topic in front of our class.

Not really knowing what I should present mine on, I chose Waste Disposal. Taking advice from my friend Ashley, I decided to do it on Disposable Diapers and how they affect our landfills. Who would have ever thought that the number of diapers in the landfills would equal the size of Texas?!

Very nervous I approached our classroom yesterday and dreaded giving my speech. Holding my note cards and reviewing what I would say to the class, I felt my body overwhelming with butterflies! Normally I’m not a nervous person and I don’t get shy in front of people but, the again I’m dancing when I’m in front of lots of people and not talking. Anyways our teacher came into the classroom and was like can I please have everyone display their boards around the room? I thought that was really weird but, I followed along. After everyone had their boards displayed, he was like alright I’d like to thank you all for being in my class and that’s your final! I think my jaw dropped to the floor. NO FINAL!!! I could hear the choir singing. For a minute I thought that he was just joking and that he would soon start making us present but, he said we could just hangout and relax for a few min before we left, that way it gave the school staff the idea that we were really having a final. Today after checking my school’s website, I saw that he had posted our grades. I got an A+ on the poster board and I passed the class with a B! I couldn’t have asked for anything better, well maybe an A but, passing with a B is just fine for me.

I’m normally not a science person so most of the time after I take a science course I never recommend it for anyone. Though I must say that having Mr. Randy Mc. Elroy, as my science teacher at, Estrella Mountain Community College, was a great benefit for me. He was not like most college teachers where they don’t listen and will not work with you. If I had a question or a problem with my homework, he would always be willing to help me and he was a very approachable person. At the end of the course, he made a once in a life time opportunity for me, so that I could take a test that I had missed. This really boosted up my grade and I am very grateful to have had a teacher that did that. I highly recommend this course for anyone who needs a science class, the course is called Geology 110 with Mc.Elroy, you will not want any other science teacher after you have had him. He makes learning fun, and does not boar you with lots of note taking and book readings. However he expands our learning by watching videos that give you the same information as in the book. So I say YES to taking a geology course you will not regret it!