Wrapping up the Summer that Changed My Life

So let's get some Disney stuff in this Disney blog! During this summer, I made it to Disneyland several times. The day after my birthday, Kris and I got to Disneyland super early so we could get a pin for out pin collection. It's a Lion King pin from the 'Piece of Movie' series. All I can say about that experience was NEVER AGAIN. It was such an ordeal that I walked away from it all with a stomach ache. Kris and I had been collecting these pins since the Snow White one came out last year. I got this massively expensive ($19.99) pin when it first came out because I love Snow White and I found a cell with Bashful in it. I decided to keep collecting the series because it looks great and is just a really nice set.

But then something terrible happened. Something that all pin buyers hope happens AFTER they have already collected all of their pins for the series; the greedy Ebay hounds caught onto the scent of the potential gold mine that lay in these pins. If you search Ebay for my Snow White pin now, you will see it going for upwards of $350. But I'm not in it for the money; I simply loved the series for myself. Before the hounds were all over these pins, Kris had a friend in Anaheim that would go to the parks for us and pick us up some pins: that is now no longer possible, and we found out why. We got there at opening and were the 10th people in line at The Little Green Men store in Tomorrowland. They ran out at the 9th person. We ran over to Frontierland where the line stretched outside, almost to Main St. I figured it was hopeless, so I went to the pin shop in New Orleans Square where I waited in a line for half an hour, as Kris ran to the Emporium where he had caught wind that there were a few pins there as well. I luckily was able to get two from the shop in New Orleans, while Kris got one in the Emporium. The most upsetting thing about this whole ordeal was the fact that the reason that they were selling out so fast was because the people buying them were store hopping (since the limit is 2 per store), and bring along tons of friends to buy pins for them so they could turn around and sell it on Ebay. People in front of us in line literally had bags completely full of these pins, and we were sweating and struggling to get one for each of us! It was really disheartening and I was just so upset. We were true collectors, when all of these people were here for the money. It sucks that people have to ruin a good thing. Made me kind of hate Disney fans... crazy pin traders, at least.

Since then, we visited Disneyland for Destination D, which pretty much was a panel of people who worked in the company over the years. There was a lot of cool things that we got to see, like performances by Dick Van Dyke and his barbershop quartet (may I say, for an 86 year old man, holy crap! He still dances and sings like his old self. VERY impressive), along with a very rare performance by Alan Menken, the composer for the new era of Disney films like Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, etc. Those two performances were definitely worth the price of the ticket. They also had the body model and face model for Tinkerbell there, along with the model for Snow White. Snow freaking White!!! The movie came out in 1937, and this lady was 14 when she was the model, so she was now 93 years old. I REALLY hope I am as articulate and healthy as she is! I was floored when they were interviewing her and she answered every question without missing a beat. She was incredible.

And for those of you wondering how I can possibly survive my vegan diet at a theme park full of churros, turkey legs and ice cream bars: all I can say is thank you Disney for catering to the vegans! In Downtown Disney, the Taqueria at Tortilla Joes has an awesome veggie burrito with black beans and green sauce. The vegan chili at Boudin Bakery in DCA was pretty alright with some Tabasco, and the mother of all vegan dishes was the vegan gumbo in New Orleans Square. The chili left me missing my old clam chowder, but the gumbo was good enough to rival the chowder any day. Oh. My. Goodness. is all I can say about it.


Kris and I made a trip up to Heber to escape the heat in the valley. It was a lot of fun, and we even got to go hiking with our little Phoebe! Now granted Phoebe is a little 13 year old Boston Terrier, so we had to cut the hike a little short of what I would've liked, but we had a great time getting away for a little while. Here are a couple picture of that day! 

And for anyone who is curious about my vegan diet, the results are still fantastic. After all of the trips to California, and not being the best fruits and veggie eater during these trips, I was still able to lose weight! Seriously, this IS the miracle diet everyone has been asking for. The only thing is, it's not what people want to hear. They don't want to hear "eat more fruits and veggies, give up the meat and dairy, and try to eat the least amount of processed foods as possible". They want to hear "eat 3 Big Macs a day and still lose weight!" or "eat all your favorite foods, and never step foot in a gym". In reality, those are scams and I think deep down, we all know that. But I am here to say that vegan food is fucking amazing! Like seriously really really delicious. PLEASE ask for my help and I will help you. If you think this is for you, then try it! Just for a month. See how it works out and decide from there if you want to keep going. It will change your life. This summer has been nothing short of miraculous for me, and I can't wait to lose the rest of the weight. I had a doctor's appointment 3 days ago. My weight loss results since the last time I saw her, about a month ago, is 13 pounds lost, for a grand total of 37 pounds down since mid-June! Oh, and I also lost 3 more pounds since that doctors visit, so I have officially hit the 40 pound mark!! I still have a long way to go, but I am beyond thrilled! Thanks for reading, everyone! And don't be afraid to ask for help, if you want it. I've already helped convert people (including my sister) and they are already seeing their own results. :)

Vacationing and Veganism

Kris and I got back from our two week vacation on Wednesday and I must say that I had a fantastic time. Our first stop was in San Diego. We spent a week at the Beach Cottages, as we do every year. The weather was fantastic and we got to spend a lot of time in the water boogie boarding, which was a blast. One awesome thing that we got to do this year was spend time with Kris's friend, Cameron, and his wife, Alanna and their adorable baby, Nolan. We all went to Sea World and since Alanna had previously worked there, we got to do some great behind the scenes stuff. (This is me petting a baby penguin).

  Even better than going to Sea World (in my opinion) was when Cameron and Alanna had us over for dinner and cooked a completely vegan and gluten-free meal for Kris and I. Alanna is already vegan, so the meal wasn't much of a stretch for her, and I just have to say thank you, Alanna! You showed Kris and me that vegan food can be fucking amazing!! Seriously the food she cooked that night is probably the best vegan food I've had so far. I still can't get over the chocolate mousse that was made with only avocados, cocoa powder and agave nectar. Blows my mind! Thank you!

Our last leg of the trip was New York. Kris and I went pretty much to keep Kris's dad company because a daughter of his friend's was getting married in Ithaca. I really didn't care why, I'd gladly take any excuse to go to New York. Now, the first time I had ever gone to New York, I went with Kris 3 years ago, but that was only NYC. This time around I was excited to get to see some of upstate New York.

The wedding was held on the Cornell campus in the Sage Chapel. The campus was beautiful and had some amazing architecture. One thing that I thought was beyond cool was the fact that there was a crypt in the chapel that housed the bodies of some of Cornell's founders. It was eery to walk around it knowing that there were bodies lying in the cement sculptures of the deceased.

The wedding itself was interesting to say the least. The groom was Sikh and Indian and the bride was Chinese and Jewish, so they had a few different ethnicities to represent for the wedding. The ceremony took a total of 2 hour and 45 minutes and even had an intermission in it! It was like nothing I had ever seen, but cool nonetheless.

Ithaca was a great place to find vegan food. It is a college town with a lot of unique and trendy restaurants. I've found that these are the best places to eat vegan. Most chain restaurants do not offer a vegan dish, and their vegetarian dish most likely can't be modified to be vegan because cheese, cream or some form of dairy is the staple of the dish and they don't carry vegan substitutes for it. So this has meant that a lot of salads are ordered when eating out. This was not the case with Ithaca. We went to dinner the first night at Simeon's. Their menu had one lonely vegan item on it, but I was still happy to see it on there. It's always nice to have a warm meal when you're so used to eating salads. Their one vegan dish was a tofu curry. It was my first time eating curry, but I thought it was fantastic. The next day for lunch we stopped at a bagel shop. Again, I figured I would probably just have a fruit cup or something of the sort, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out they had a vegan lunch "meat" and some gluten-free bread, so I was able to eat a sandwich that fit my dietary requirements. Ithaca was so vegan friendly, it was incredible. There was even a Mexican food restaurant there that was vegan friendly. Unfortunately I didn't have time to try it, but I was amazed at the selection of places that I could go there.

We traveled east to Cooperstown. Kris and his dad wanted to see the baseball hall of fame, so we went there the next day. I tried to find a vegan friendly restaurant in Cooperstown with no luck. I even went to the information booth to see if the lady there could suggest anything and she had never even heard the word 'vegan'. It was definitely weird, but I figured my good luck for food would run out somewhere.

Now I must confess, if Cooperstown gave me any doubts, New York City did a great job of redemption. There were so many vegan and vegan friendly restaurants, it was a little overwhelming. I found this awesome place called Otarian that was about a quarter mile from our hotel. I went there twice while I was there because it was frickin delicious. I ate a quinoa mushroom burger in a gluten-free wrap and it was seriously REALLY good! It was so exciting going on vacation and trying all of these new places that I never would have found if it wasn't for my dietary restrictions. (The picture is of Kris and I enjoying Central Park.)

If you're thinking about adopting this lifestyle and are worried about all of the limitations, don't be! I was terrified at the thought of giving up all of my favorite foods, but truth is, I don't even miss them anymore. And guess what? In the 3 weeks between doctor's visits, 2 of which I was on vacation, I still lost 8 pounds! Can you believe that? 8 pounds down while still on vacation! And that was me eating all of that good vegan junk food. I didn't get nearly as many fresh fruits and veggies in as I should have, but I still dropped nearly 3 pounds each week. I think that is incredible. I can't remember the last vacation that I didn't gain weight, let alone lose it! So no more excuses! Go read Skinny Bitch and watch Forks Over Knives!! It'll change your life and you will hardly miss the old food once you find all of the awesome alternatives that you have.

Oh! And as for my current weight loss results, as of this morning, I am down 27 pounds in 37 days. I haven't been going to the gym hardly at all, so I'm thinking once I get my lazy ass over there, the weight will probably be coming off a lot faster. Anyway, thanks for reading and for all of the support I've received. If you think you might want to give this a try, get in contact with me and I'd be happy to help! It's truly an amazing feeling and I am so thankful that I found this lifestyle. :)

My experience at the Cars Land opening!

This past weekend Kris and I decided to brave the crowds and be among the first to experience Cars Land on opening day. For anyone living under a rock, Cars Land is the new land in Disney California Adventure based of the Pixar movie "Cars". The land is supposed to make you feel like you are immersed in the movie, walking right into Radiator Springs, the cutest little town in Carburetor County. The land itself is incredible, and I don't want to ruin the experience for any of you, but I'll share our day. First we got to the Esplanade around 11:30pm and camped out. Kris was nice enough to let me go back to the car for a couple hours and take a nap while he slept outside to keep our place in line. Around 8 they let us in the gates to watch the grand opening ceremony led by Bob Iger. We were then taken to Cars Land where most people bolted to Radiator Springs Racers (the E ticket ride of the land). This was our original plan, but we decided that trying to get a Fast Pass would be our best bet. Believe it or not, we got a Fast Pass for 9:05am; that's right, pretty much the earliest possible time. Since everyone was hauling ass to Racers, Mater's Junkyard Jamboree and Luigi's Flying Tires were left virtually untouched. Fast Passes in hand, we hopped on the other two rides, each have a zero, yes zero minute wait. We walked onto both rides, when we were expecting 2-3 hour waits for each one. When it was time for our Fast Pass, we went to Racers and right as we sat down in our car, the ride broke down. It took about an hour to fix, so when all was said and done, we waited for a total of one hour to complete everything in Cars Land. I honestly think camping out was 100% worth it. For anyone wanting details, all I will say is that Radiator Springs Racers is one of the best rides that Disney has ever come up with. The animatronics floored me and I was completely speechless after riding it. However, on opening day it got up to a 5 hour wait and since then I have not been there without it being around 3 hours; fast passes ran out at 8:45am. So be warned that it will be busy when you go, ESPECIALLY during the summer. I'd wait until September or so to check it out, but if you just can't wait that long, get there very early. Overall Radiator Springs is worth all the hype. It is incredible what they did there, and I am thoroughly impressed.

I'm absolutely beside myself with disappointment. I have been beyond excited for my upcoming Disney trip, but I've been looking at the forecast and it's supposed to rain the two days we're there! Now usually I would be stoked about this because rain= way less idiot tourists with thumbs up the butt and asking when the 3 o'clock parade is. HOWEVER I have been planning on a big group dinner at Big Thunder Ranch BBQ and because of its outdoor seating, it will close when we are there. I want to get reservations other places, but it's peak season, so I'll have a hell of a time finding a restaurant during peak season that can fit 8 people this short of notice. Such a bummer.

However one of my best friends is getting into town this week, so I'm definitely excited to see her! Haven't seen her in a few months, so it should be some fun times.

I feel like a poor little rich brat, complaining about my Disneyland vacation, but sometimes you just can't help but want things to go right for once.