Ringing in the New Year

Welcome to January 1, 2007!!
We had a wonderful New Years Eve and hope that you had a safe a fun one as well!

Troy and I spent five days in L.A. going to Disneyland and Knotts Berry Farm. The reason for the trip, besides to get away, is because Knotts Berry Farm hosts a praise night every year on new years eve to ring in the new year with some great Christian acts. This year, my dear friends, BarlowGirl, were performing so we wanted to go see them and the other awesome acts that performed (Telecast, Stellar Kart, Sanctus Real, Aaron Shust and Tree 63). We took advantage of my week off of work and school to go on a much needed vacation... without having to work the concert.

We first went to go see the Barlow family as the girls got set to go on stage. It was a wonderful reunion and they all looked great! The show was awesome and we spent a bit of time back stage catching up... then off to see the park and check out the other bands. We ended the night with Tree63 and an awesome time of worship. We closed out 2006 singing 'Blessed Be the Name of the Lord' and started 2007 in prayer together in hopes that God will do great things with us this year. It was an amazing time and I can't imagine a better way to spend New Years Eve. We may need to begin a tradition of going every year.

We stayed at the Knotts Berry Resort, which made it convenient since we'd be out late. The resort offered shuttle service back & forth to Disneyland as well so we spent 2 long days at Disneyland and California Adventure. This was the first time we'd been in CA Adventure and sadly wasn't too impressed, although there was a few neat things we did like. The Aladdin show is a must-see (the genie is hilarious!!) and we (mostly me) practiced our cartooning talents as we took character drawing lessons from a real Disney cartoonist. We drew Minnie Mouse and mine wasn't half bad.... Troy's was... well... we know drawing isn't a strong point of his. ;-) One of the days in Disneyland, we took the 'Walk in Walt's Footsteps' tour, which was 3 hours of interesting facts about Walt Disney and his dream for the park. There was so many facts that we had never known and had were very fortunate to be able to ride in the Dineyland train's special VIP car, which is never done with tour group. We went to places where most visitors can't see. We enjoyed the tour, had a great tour guide and they provided a most delicious lunch.

The parks were decorated for the holidays and everything looked so beautiful. Main Street was aligned with garland stringing from one storefront across to another. Once the sun goes down and the lights go on, the view from the big Christmas Tree down to the castle was just magical. What else would you epect from Disneyland!!

One highlight of the trip was the fact that we only had to wait about 20 minutes in line for the Pirates of the Carribean ride. For anyone that has been there recently, you know that that the newly remodeled ride to incorporate the movie (including the deliciously gorgeous Mr. Depp) usually has an hour or 2 hour long line.

Pictures will follow once I download them (there's a lot to download!!)