Saturday, June 11, 2011

Beginning of 2011


The new year started out with Cindy's birthday celebration/bowling party. RJ felt good enough to get out of the house for a few hours, but not quite ready to hit the lanes himself. (Bowling is not high on the list of approved post-surgery activities, if at all.) We timed it in between IV medications, which at that point were being done 3 times a day at home.

Salt-n-Pepper sister Peggy joined in, too.

In February, I was finally accepted into a company training class that is by far the most popular class offered. It is an overview of the West Coast Disney operations, and gives an in-depth, behind the scenes look at several different facets of the company. There are divisions that I had never even heard of up to this point, some new and some quite old. I was in this class with folks from China, India, Seattle, New York; folks from the Movie studios, HR, Finance, Theme Parks, Websites, you name it. It was a great 3-day networking opportunity.

While a small bit of it was in class lecture, the majority of the class was going out to different areas and having tours. When time permitted, we got to goof off a little. Here we are at KABC-7, playing around at the same anchor desk and weather station that I watch every morning and night.

We played around with the green screen; I know now that I was not meant to be a weather girl - everything has to be done backwards! We got to meet a few anchors and talked in depth with Dallas Raines.
We got to tour WDI, and this is the only location where we were prohibited from taking pictures. There was one room where we got to meet Lucky the Dinosaur, which is the first free-standing, free-walking audio animatronic figure developed. Other areas we saw included some R&D stuff used for planning new areas of theme parks, storyboards and scale models, and figurines used for animation.

Other areas we toured were the TV studio lots for General Hospital and Grays Anatomy, the original animation studios where they still hand paint cells, the current Walt Disney Studios where the lead animator described how she animated Rapunzel in the movie Tangled, Radio Disney, and The Disney Channel.

The last day of the 3-day class, however, was all at Disneyland. We toured Walt's apartment, saw the Soarin' Over California movie from the backside of the screen, chatted with the Food & Beverage managers at Pizza Port (they serve more meals there in a month than all Taco Bells do in a year!), and finally ended our day at the Characters division. There we were fitted and dressed into a costume, and taken on stage for a 20 minute stint with the guests. We had to learn our role, how to see and walk without falling over in our costumes, and even how to sign that character's autograph.

I was paired with a guy from WDI, and we were all very nervous to be "on-stage". I was Dee, and he was Dum... we ended up having a blast. It was very cool and drizzling that day, and they weren't sure they were going to let us go out in that weather, but they let it happen. We were pouring down sweat when we finished.. I have all sorts of admiration for the folks who do it every day, especially in the summer!

Sammy came over to visit a few times before shipping off to the Navy - he spent the beginning of the year trying to shed those last few pounds before he could be accepted into Boot Camp.


In March, we had the opportunity to stay at the newly renovated rooms at the Disneyland Hotel. They are gorgeous, and have tons of great furniture and amenities. The headboard went across the whole wall, and the stars and fireworks lit up from behind... way cool rooms.

We decided to make a mini staycation out of it, and spent the whole day at Disneyland with Cindy. We haven't done anything longer than 3-4 hours in quite a few years, so this was kind of a nice break before RJ returned to work.



Fall 2010

So, I see that I haven't written for awhile! Since last August, I see.. well, you know, things get happening, and they roll together, and that darn "life" thing just gets in the way. Sooo, to catch everyone back up with things, here's the Readers Digest version of Fall 2010.

Kevin celebrated his 15th birthday in September, and we all went out to the brand-new Ruby's restaurant in Anaheim. I think he would make a rather handsome busboy, don't you think?

He spent the rest of October and November the usual way - nights and weekends at band practices and football games and performances. I spent it my usual way, planning our Tournament. That got cancelled due to a one hour rain shower. (Bitter, party of one, right here)

Thanksgiving week came, along with emergency budget meetings, meetings with the school board, and a very sick husband. Three different doctors we saw that week advised the same thing...stay home, rest, you've got a bad case of the flu. We spent Thanksgiving at Cindy's house, and had a rousing game of Sequence after dinner.

However, RJ was much sicker than just the flu, and ended up hospitalized with a staph infection that had gone straight to his heart and required repair on three valves. Fortunately we ended up having the surgery done at USC with a fantastic team of surgeons and hospital staff. At one point he was on multiple medications and we were required to wear this snazzy disposable gear so we didn't catch his infection. I just realized these are the only pictures.. I think I was too numb throughout the whole thing otherwise.

One of the evenings in December, when RJ was still in the hospital, I went out to LaVerne and met up with some old friends from Overtones and PFB choirs. It was great to see Martene and Judy and watch slides and flip through photo albums. Yes, the kids were home a few more hours by themselves, but I needed that diversion in the worst way.

The end of December brought the usual round of float decorating.. This year we decorated the China Airlines float, the Pac-Man 30th anniversary float, and also worked on the 3 Little Pigs who adorned the Quikrete float. Below is my 2-day creation, a tiny little sign that is the epitome of the detail area. I was lucky to see it for 10 seconds on TV, but it was worth it (it always is).


Laura and I chummed up on most of the days, working as a team on most anything that needed to be done. Or re-done. Cause Cindy said so.