Life's Celebrations: A Graduation

{Location: Cricket Amphitheater in Chula Vista, CA}

I attended my godchild's high school graduation this week. Sigh...how time flies! Renee is my first godchild ever...and I can't help but feel so old now! Hahaha, but all jokes aside...I am SO proud of her. I know I will see her achieve even greater things in her future and I can't wait to see her grow into an even more amazing young lady.

The graduating class from ORHS was a little over 600 students sooo....we had some time to pass before Renee was called up to the stage. What did we do? Snapshots of course!

Charlene and I bought Renee sunflowers and red gerbera bouquets...which came in handy for us as well because these flowers provided us with some much needed shade! 

Congratulations class of 2012!

After the ceremony, we had quite the time trying to find Renee outside of the amphitheater. SO MANY PEOPLE. Instead...she found us :)

CONGRATULATIONS RENEE!!!

{Love} Renee's Mickey ears graduation cap! Cute!

{Side Note}

Such the social butterfly this one...on her phone getting calls from her friends for photo ops while taking photo ops with us :)

Hahaha! We all got a little crazy happy here! What can I say? We are a happy bunch :)

{Love} We are so weird...I love it :)

{Side Note}
Alas, we couldn't join in the lunch celebration with them afterwards. Both Charlene and I had to return back to work. Womp. Womp.

A Bridal Brunch

{Location: The Courtyard}
Charlene planned a nice brunch for us bridesmaids (and MOH of course), during this Memorial Day weekend! Normally, I would be behind the scenes with her making decorations, preparing the food, etc. but for this particular event, she wanted to do it all and just let me enjoy as a "spectator." Such the hostess isn't she? But I couldn't just stand by and do nothing ... so I offered to help set up at the very least.

All of the decor and food were handmade by the bride-to-be herself. It was such a bright and cheerful sight to see! I loved it all!

{Love} 

The party favors! Inside each carton was a fruit inspired notepad, a bright hue of nail polish, lemon scented wet wipes and a paper carrot filled with blow pops.

After a bit of shmoozing while Charlene prepared the food, we were all ready to eat! Enrique was our server for the day as well!

Charlene made us three different kinds of sandwiches: 1) BAT- bacon, alfalfa & tomato 2) Grilled cheese & butter and 3) SAC- spinach, avocado & chickpea. Whoa, whoa and whoa...YUMMS. She also made some spicy tomato soup- double yum!

{Love} Oh my goshness this dessert! Chocolate hazelnut squares. SO GOOD. 

{Love} Mmmm, strawberry infused ice cold water!

{Love} Strawberry lemonade smoothies!

Photo ops time! Thanks to every one you gals that came for Charlene's bridal brunch. I know it meant a lot to her :)

{Side Note}
Not all of the bridesmaids were in attendance due to conflicts with their schedules for the long weekend. Not to worry, we all had fun nonetheless and I'm sure there will be more gatherings to come!

Wedding Notes: A Pop of Color!

Yet another gathering this past weekend, but this time we started working on element 1 of the table centerpieces. For this element, Charlene decided to include paper flowers made from coffee filters and fabric dye. These will be placed inside a wooden crate for a nice floral arrangement.

The attendees for the first workshop this week was a family affair! Plus our good friend Kristine (who is like family already of course)!

{Love} It seems that lace was the trending theme for today's outfits :)

{Side Note} Our little junior bridesmaid here was SO ready for arts & crafts time :)

Down to the gritty work (just kidding)! We dyed a whole bunch of white coffee filters in blue and yellow. We left the brown coffee filters as is.

Charlene boiled some water, poured it into a tub and then added the blue fabric dye. We all put on our safety gloves (well, safety from getting blue fingers) and took 3-4 pieces of coffee filters, folded them in quarters and then dipped them into the blue water. We let the dye seep in for about 4-5 seconds in the tub and then pulled the coffee filters out. As we pulled it out, we positioned it upright so that the dye could seep in further into the core. We then placed the blue coffee filters on newspaper for the color to set. We did the same steps for the yellow fabric dye.

After about 5 minutes of setting, we carefully separated each layer of the coffee filters and opened them up. We placed them all on top of newspaper (on the floor) let them dry for about an hour.

{Side Note}

The floor was so pretty covered up with these blue and yellow circles!

While the coffee filters were drying, a few of us began to paint glass bottles. Charlene wanted us to only paint them half way up from the bottom. These will be used within element 1 as well.

{Love} We had a little bit of fun while glass bottle painting ;)

[Day 2] 

We continued with the centerpieces for element 1 after our bridal brunch on day 2!

After drying the rest of the coffee filters, we began to create the paper flower arrangements. We cut out the mesh wires to fit into the wooden crates. As we did this, we tried to mold the wire to create volume and height. Once the wire was secured inside the crate, we then added the brown and dyed coffee filters by wrapping it around sections of the mesh wire. For the paper flower, we twined floral wire around the base of each florette (3-4 pieces of filter paper folded together).

We were able to finish two crates today! This was so much fun! I wanted to do more but people were starting to get hungry so... hahaha! You know me...once I get something started, I want to just go go go until they're done :)

{LOVE. LOve. Love.}

My Disney California Adventure Weekly: Mickey's Groove

Back in January of 2011, I bought Disney annual passes for myself and my sister (it was her Christmas/early graduation gift from me). At the time, I didn't have a blog. So now that I do, I've decided to incorporate my Disney year as an annual pass holder. I'll include it as weekly postings. There'll be two weekly postings: My Disney Weekly and My DCA Weekly (for Disney California Adventure). As you'll see, I'm a HUGE Disney buff! With that being said, here we go!

{Character Highlight: Mickey Mouse...the dancer}

{Side Note} We got our photo op with Mickey after his performance with his dance crew.

Last Summer, the Hollywood Pictures Backlot showcased Tron and Mickey's Disney Dance Crew...

although now, I think the area is being turned into something else all together (I heard something about a Mad T Party show?). Anyway, it was pretty cool to see Mickey strut his stuff on stage with his crew...break dancing and everything in between :)

It still feels weird when I look at the entrance of DCA...no more big CALIFORNIA letters in rainbow colors. Sigh...this new entrance is kind of awesome though. I like it...very nostalgic. 

{Tidbit Fact}

The entrance is modeled after the Pan Pacific Auditorium and will give way to the new Buena Vista Street entrance that's currently being built. It will reflect the 1930s era of Los Angeles's street scape.

{Side Note} 

The new DCA entrance looks very similar to the entrance of Disney World's MGM Studios in Orlando, FL. I was there in 2003 during the holidays. Take a look...

[Disney MGM Studios in Walt Disney World Orlando, FL circa 2003]

My Disney Weekly: Just Around the River Bend

Back in January of 2011, I bought Disney annual passes for myself and my sister (it was her Christmas/early graduation gift from me). At the time, I didn't have a blog. So now that I do, I've decided to incorporate my Disney year as an annual pass holder. I'll include it as weekly postings. There'll be two weekly postings: My Disney Weekly and My DCA Weekly (for Disney California Adventure). As you'll see, I'm a HUGE Disney buff! With that being said, here we go!

{Character Highlight: Rapunzel}

{Side Note} Minus the "smoldering" Flynn Rider...Alee was SO sad (wink wink). 

Alee was on a mission to meet Flynn Rider...oh and Rapunzel too ;) My goodness, the wait for this character meet & greet was super long. I'd say about 30 to 45 minutes...on a good day! Sad to say, but this particular Rapunzel broke character with us. She was the only one who did it out of all the Disney princesses we've met...and to be honest, it sort of diminished the whole "magical" feel of it. It felt off. Ho hum...

{Tidbit Fact} I prefer interacting with non-faced characters...it's less awkward.

{Main Attraction: Sailing Ship Columbia}

{Love} We sailed forth into the wilderness!

This was my first time ever riding aboard this ship in Disneyland. On a good day, the ship is pretty empty and only a handful of people are on it...which means more wiggle room for me to waltz around the deck and pretend I'm back in the 18th century! Hahaha...oh my inner child :)

{Love} Hey! A cameo from one of the 18th century sailors!

At the beginning of the ride, the cannon blasts twice...(repelling attacks from pirates I'm guessing?) We didn't know this at the time, so Alee and Charlene had quite the surprise blasts. Ha. Ha. Ha. I, on the other hand, handled my own very well, thank you!

{Main Attraction: Mark Twain Riverboat & Davey Crockett Explorer Canoes}

This riverboat gave off such grace and elegance...I loved every minute of the 14-minute cruise! I felt like I was in a different time and place. 

Our favorite place to enjoy the voyage was on the promenade deck. It was less crowded than the other decks (well, on days that we rode on it anyway)!

In all honesty, I intended to ride on the Davey Crockett Canoes at least once during my annual pass year. I don't know how I let the opportunity slip away...oh wait, that's right...nobody else wanted to go on it with me! Sigh, I guess I'll just have to get another annual pass next year :)

{Love} For some peace and tranquility...get on board on both of these vessels! SO worth it :)