Olive Everly: halloweentime

man, am I so behind on so many posts. these days I'm averaging a post a month, which isn't excellent. hopefully a new computer will help me stay on top of things more in 2019. mini films of our family is something that I love to do more than anything, but they can be time consuming to put together, especially on an old computer. but they are always worth it. ev and I will sometimes stay in bed on a saturday morning just looking at old photos or our little films from past trips. getting to relive those moments is always worth the effort. and why I need to kick my butt back into blogging.

this wall is still one of our favorite new photos walls, added during last year's pixar fest. I recently re-did the gallery wall in our house, and these images of us with ev are some of my favorite prints added to the display!

back in october we took a trip down to disneyland with my mom to enjoy the parks in all their spooky glory. everly rode space mountain for a second time, but immediately noticed a change. as we were going up the first ramp, she looked at me and exclaimed, "the music is different!" from that point on, she was on to the fact that the ride had a halloween overlay, something I didn't think she was going to notice, because she sits so low in the car, I figured she wouldn't really be able to see the fire ghost graphics on the walls. well, I should have known that little miss music would have remembered what the music usually sounded like on that ride, even though she had only been on it once before. she did survive the experience, but determined she never wants to ride space mountain again for halloween, just regular. and in other news, my mom rode space mountain for the first time since she was a teenager. she swears she remembers it going backwards. I think she really just hated it, and so it felt like it was going backwards [in my disneyland history research, I couldn't find anything to confirm her backwards track theory for the record]. she was a trooper, not sure if she will go on it again, but she sure took one for the team.

someone also decided it was time to see minnie mouse again. it has been years, but I think the adorable witches outfit really pushed her into the moment. I love this photo, everly is explaining her minnie dress features to minnie herself. so space mountain during halloweentime, no, minnie during halloweentime, YES!

I was dying while editing this film. how many days were we there??? pretty sure it was just a long weekend, but by the look of how many outfits everly wore in the parks, it looks like we were there for a week!

the wall outside sprinkles cupcakes is a great backdrop for photos - but everly did not care for the cupcakes. she's more of an 'inside the parks' kind of treat kid I guess. whenever you can find a great wall, stop and take a photo. it is a great trick to getting great photos in disneyland, and make it look like you have the park to yourself. which we know, there are literally thousands of people behind me while shooting this photo!

this little hallway by rancho del zocalo can be timed just right in the mornings. very little foot traffic over here at that time, and a great place to snap a park photo, sans people in the background!

always beignets for these two.

another new moment this trip was when everly and I rode guardians of the galaxy together for the first time. I hadn't even been on it since the marvel update, and I really had no idea how ev was going to do. the entire fastpass line, families were giving me looks like I was torturing my child. it really could have gone one of two ways, awesome, or my daughter would never trust me again. I got some great selfie footage of her on it for the first time. lots of big eyes, then terrified looks, then smiling and dancing along with rocket. in the end, she loved it. and also stated, "mom, I thought it was a roller coaster. it just went up and down." for anyone who has been on tower or terror or guardians of the galaxy can tell you that yes, she is right, but man, no one else would explain that ride in that way. she even took a ride on it one more time with grammie. again, grammie was quite the ride trooper this visit, but I think one and done with this particular attraction.

here's a little bit of our first ride -

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by OliveEverly Blog (@oliveverly) on Oct 24, 2018 at 7:04pm PDT

and our mini-film from the trip: Halloween 2018 Disneyland from Lyndsay Lewis on Vimeo.

music:
"When Can I See You Again?" - Owl City, Wreck it Ralph Soundtrack
"This is Halloween" - Vitamin String Quartet

this year we decided to take a break from our annual passes. the crowds have been so intense lately, and will only get worse with start wars land opening this summer. so, we might not be back until a halloween party this fall.

so, good thing we have lots of disneyland videos to get us by, we have never gone an entire year between visits!

working mom, traveling kid.
and it kind of works.

I've been given the opportunity to take on a leadership role at my school site that allows me to travel more often than you would think for a public school teacher. and with some careful planning, that means I can bring my family along too!

last week I attended another conference, and worked in another trip to disneyland with my family. clearly, this working mom thing can have it's perks.