a smile that's still too big for my face

Robert and I just got back from a wonderful week-long trip to Anaheim, CA where we visited family and spent a day at Disneyland.  This post may be a little rambly and weird due to being a little tired.  Our plane sat on the ground for three hours to fix a repair, so we got in SUPER late last night.  We spent over seven hours on planes yesterday.  

Naturally, it was the perfect time to come home to an unholy mess.  Due to a storm, our electricity was off from Friday midday to Sunday evening.  Thankfully it came on just a couple hours before we got home!  Unfortunately everything in our freezer was soup.  After only a few hours of sleep, I realized I needed to get up and empty the freezer before our trash was picked up.  Thankfully today is our trash day!  The first thing I grabbed was a tub of ice cream, which went PLOOP when I grabbed it.  It didn't quite have a chance to refreeze.  If there was any question whether we could save anything, that ice cream moment answered it.  

After racing around emptying the fridge and freezer, I literally ran to the doggy daycare to pick up the girls, who looked at me and said, "Oh it's you, our favorite lackey. Please walk us the heck out of here and get us a cookie."  Literally zero excitement.  Only demands.  "You left us here.  Now you must pay for it."

They only got a short walk because I realized I might have time to clean up our back and front yard before the yard waste truck came around.  Thankfully it comes around later in the day.  We didn't have any damage, which is miraculous as there are many fallen trees, branches, and utility poles in our neighborhood.  Our trees are standing, but it looked like they threw one heck of a tantrum.  It took me over an hour and a half and seven bags!  We were so lucky to not have any damage and also have electricity by the time we got home. 

Adulting at its best.

I am so pooped, but I'm also so happy to sit down and take a breather to blog about our exciting trip to Anaheim.  I love reflecting about happy moments almost as much as I love living them the first time.

Here are about a million of my favorite pictures from the trip.  I decided to try a few collages since I have so many pictures.  If you right click on the pictures, click on the option to view them in a new window.  They'll come up full-size.  Enjoy!

Robert and I flew in last Sunday and spent the evening flying fighter jets at Flightdeck.  Even with the canopies closed I could hear Robert giggling like mad (usually after each time I died, so who knows if there's a connection there). 

This was taken right before I died 23 times.

Robert and I spent our first two days exploring Anaheim, Fullerton, and Los Angeles.  One of our first stops was the Fullerton Arboretum, which was a gem.  

I captured this special moment of glorious California sun and equally glorious Kansas nerdpie.

We also visited Santiago Oaks Regional Park for a sunny hike, turtle-watching, and pond dancing.  A mysterious parrot made an awful racket when we arrived, and as we left he briefly flashed in the trees before disappearing.  I know he's likely an escaped pet, but for me, he was a sparkle of magic.

We oohed and aahed our way through the Central branch of the Anaheim Public Library where they had a magical children's area, memory kits for families looking to preserve a loved ones' memories, both a teen and adult zine section, and song props kits for littles that included eggs, scarves, activities, and CDs.

Robert whisked me away one afternoon on a wild journey through LA's fashion/garment district.  Holy moly, I couldn't tell if I was more overwhelmed by the shoppers or the merchandise. 

You may not be able to see the Robert in this next picture as he is so perfectly camouflaged in what is clearly his natural habitat. 

While Robert and I were wandering around, my brother Scott and his crew were exploring Disneyland.  Robert and I joined them on their third day, and they still had more energy than us!  It took only one 14-hour Disneyland day to completely exhaust me.  We were also joined by Scott's in-laws, who were really sweet.  Though I felt like I spent all 14 hours walking around in an intense fog of magic, color, and sound, I tried to soak up every moment of everyone's joy and excitement.  I'm pretty sure Autumn spent the entire 14 hours talking about the previous two days and also the time she came to Disneyland when she was four.  Even though Savannah is only twenty months, she is going to remember moments from this trip.  

The first ride I went on was the Star Wars ride after Kristin assured me it wasn't too crazy.  Though she was terrifically wrong, I thought the storytelling leading up to the ride was excellent.  I buried my face in Robert after we were dropped, so I can't really tell you anything about it how it ended.  There were these creepy animatronic bad guys who were after us.  There was some shooting as we tried to get away.  I'm pretty sure we all died, but thanks to the magic of Disney, we all walked away.  After that, Kristin's mom, Debby, told me I needed to find my safe person, which is a person you can trust to tell you whether you can handle something or not.  As I learned the hard way, it's not the person with a bad-guy glint in their eye telling you it'll be fine.  My safe person instantly became Savannah.  I happily went on any ride she could go on, and the rest of the day was wonderful.  Though I didn't go on all the rides with everyone, I enjoyed listening to all their adventures doing crazy rollercoasters and being dropped one floor at a time on the most ghastly sounding ride, which I think was the Guardians of the Galaxy ride.  Savannah and I chose the pretzel-eating ride instead.

Disneyland has a lot of food options for people with food allergies.  I was super impressed by this thoughtful touch.  They had frozen juices, bags of ready-to-eat pineapple and pickles, and even dinner was easy.  I packed protein bars thinking it was going to be a protein bar day, but I didn't eat a single bite of them.

Other than being a part of everyone's excitement and ridiculously joyful energy, my favorite moment of Disneyland happened at the end of the day when we watched the World of Color, which consisted of Disney and Pixar movie snippets projected on tons and tons of water jets.  It felt all my human boundaries completely disappeared.  Here were all these movies that were so instrumental in creating the person I am today, and I could not only hear the music but see it too.  I thought I was going to die for the twenty-fifth time due to too much happiness.  It was one of the best moments of my life.  

The day after Disneyland we all went to the beach and had a blast swimming and goofing around.

This picture perfectly captures everything about that day.  

Savannah, once again, was not a fan of the ocean.  In her defense it was a little chilly.  Thankfully Debby had the idea to build Savannah her own little slice of the ocean.  While Scott, Autumn and I gleefully chased waves, Robert happily built sand castles, and Savannah happily destroyed them.  They were the perfect team.

We spent the last two and a half days meandering, goofing around, and enjoying each other's company and excellent food.  We bowled, strolled through the Los Angeles Farmer's Market, and even visited a Barnes and Noble together.  While we were at Barnes and Noble, Autumn joined me at the literary journals section.  I love checking out the literary journals section when I visit different Barnes and Noble stores.  They usually have about five or six and they're always different.  This particular Los Angeles location had about twenty, which was incredible.  Autumn plopped down next to me and asked me what I was looking for.  She was such a great listener as I explained what they were and gushed about my favorites.  She then asked me if I had any poems about the trip and how many I had written about Scott.  She asked me what my favorite poem was that I had written, and you know what, I don't think anyone has ever asked me this question.  What a question!  I told her it was a poem called Mixed Media, which was a poem about a dream I had that had taken place in a thrift store.  Autumn then shared a dream and asked me how it could be a poem.  Another great question, which we explored together.  She then said she "hadn't been so inspired in at least four years."  I couldn't help myself.  I think I whooped with laughter over that.  We talked about her creative endeavors, which include making wildly entertaining videos of her family.  It was one of the best conversations about creativity I've had.  I can't get over how imaginative, thoughtful, and clever she is.  

When Scott, Kristin, and Robert moseyed off to fly fighter jets, I took the kids to an indoor play area, which was a dream come true for me.  Autumn set to work making both a fort and friends with everyone in the place while building it.  She even enlisted their help.  Savannah and I sat back, played with plastic food and crawled through impossibly small areas while dragging all the food around with us.  Strangely it kept accumulating even though we only had four hands between us.  Every so often we would wave to Autumn as she and her pals dragged enormous vinyl shapes through the tiny, never-ending mazes.  The cherry on top of the whole adventure was when Savannah and I were invited into the fort, even though I had overheard the kids talking about how it was going to be a kids-only fort.  It was a victory that gave me a smile that's still too big for my face. It was a fort journey unlike any other with lots squishing and giggles as we scaled mountains of fake food and dinosaur-sized vinyl shapes, and I'll be making withdraws from that bank of happiness for months to come, I guarantee it.

One of our adventures involved dinner at Sur, which is the setting for one of the programs Kristin has watched for years.  Only she can tell this story, so you'll have to ask her about it.  While we were walking to a dinner that was hopefully going to be filled with drama and celebrity sightings (neither happened btw), we stumbled upon the West Hollywood library, which was eerily sterile and modern without a single bulletin board or display in the children's area.  It was still a library, however, and a surprise one at that.  There were even tennis courts on its roof, which is not something I've seen before.  Almost a dream come true.  If my library built tennis courts on its roof that would be it for me.  I would lose my mind.

I can't speak for Scott and Kristin, but Robert and I had a donut every day we were on vacation.  Every day.  Apparently Anaheim is donut central.

Though we enjoyed Friendly donuts, which is open 24 hours a day, Robert I both agreed Oliboli had us at "strawberry donut."  Both Friendly and Oliboli had vegan donuts, which just doesn't exist in Kansas City.  We have one place who makes them on the occasional weekend, but they are wildly inconsistent about when they make them.  About once a year they make them on a Saturday when I'm not working.  

I've never eaten so many donuts in my life, and I think I'm good with not having them for a while.  

On our last day in town we got a little more than donuts and coffee when we stopped in at Oliboli.  

We had a lot of great food on this trip.  Some of it didn't make it long enough for a picture.  

Best coffee: Phin Smith and Contra.  Both offered to adjust the flavor if I didn't like their first attempt. Dear Kansas City, take notes.

Best breakfast: Aunt Yese's 

Best ice cream: Hug Life (which serves only vegan ice cream and also had some of the best music too)

Best sandwich place: Cortina's Orange. Dear Kansas City, why is it so hard to make a good sandwich?

Best sushi: 39 Degrees

One of my time wasters is checking my Apple watch app too many times a day.  I enjoy the maps and graphs and all the numbers that tell me I'm doing a good job.  I love swimming but don't get a lot of opportunities to do it.  I was thrilled we were able to squeeze in so much swimming on this trip.  Can you tell which map is the one where we swam in the ocean?  Hint - it includes a hilarious trip to find a bathroom where I forgot to pause my watch.

These maps are a visual representation of happiness.  Each frenetic dot or slash is a cannonball, chasing a wave, splashing, all those irresistible underwater flips, an accumulation of joy.  And one long trip to a terrifying porta potty and the race to get away from it and never see it again.  

I always come back with treasures from our travels, and this trip was no different.  Bookman, which is located in Orange, was the best bookstore I've ever been to.  Hands down, the VERY best.  They are insanely organized.  They had a section for everything and one of the best poetry sections I have ever seen.  

I also walked away with about half a dozen literary journals, a few of which I need to renew my subscription to.  I also couldn't walk away from LA's fashion/garment district without lots of beads.

Robert and I also visited The Last Bookstore, which was a lot of fun.  Didn't find too many books, but the place itself is an attraction.

At some point we all talked about our favorite moments of the trip, and though I didn't mention it at the time, I'm going to share it now.  As crazy as it sounds, I enjoyed being squished in the backseat with Autumn and all her books while we drove around trying to visit everything.  We all played one of my most favorite games, Mad Libs, and Savannah chucked things at Robert, who was a good sport and happily gave her toys back each time.  Every once in a while someone would make a song request to DJ Scott, and it was little bit like a moving fort of family and comfort.  So yes, I went to Disneyland with family and loved it, but I also equally loved being in the car with them.  Family makes just about any place special.  But maybe not the Star Wars ride.  

Reviews

Woo Hoo! You're Doing Great! by Sandra Boynton (Picture Book)

Are you in need of a chicken friend who enjoys uplifting and encouraging others? Look no further! This chicken does a wonderful job uplifting and encouraging others, but even this chicken has a rough moment and makes a mistake. That’s when mouse steps in and lets chicken know it’s ok to make a mistake. Chicken takes a nap and mouse finishes the story by saying, “…I think the best WOO HOO…is the one you say each day to you.” So, as wonderful as it is to be surrounded by others who uplift and encourage you, it’s just as important that you do the same thing for yourself.

Books Aren't for Eating by Carlie Sorosiak and illustrated by Manu Montoya (Picture Book)

A love letter to those working in a bookstore or library who love connecting readers with the right books. Leopold, a goat who owns a bookstore, is thrilled when a goat customer visits his bookstore. But the goat customer keeps eating the books Leopold recommends! Will Leopold find the perfect book for his new goat friend and help him discover a love of reading?

Grow Your Own Way by Helen Dardik (Board Book)

A gorgeous board book about being the best and brightest flower you can be. Just like flowers, we bring our own unique color and beauty to the world.

This is My Body - I Get To Choose: An Introduction to Consent by Brook Sitgraves and pictures by Kati Douglas Turner (Nonfiction Picture Book)

This was a simple and easy-to-understand introduction to consent. I appreciated how consent was represented not just verbally but also through body language and American Sign Language. Included at the end are consent discussion opportunities based on different age groups.

Snail-Snaily-Snails by Bonnie Bader (Early Reader)

Beautiful photography and fascinating snail facts (hairy snails, tiny snails that fit in the eye of a needle, baby snails eating their own eggs), and easy-to-read text make this nonfiction early reader a winner for me.

Watch Out, Snail! by Gay Hay and illustrated by Margaret Tolland (Nonfiction Picture Book)

I love when I stumble across a word I don't know. It doesn't happen often with picture books, not even nonfiction gems like this book. I guess you can say I fossick for unusual words like possum fossicks for snail treasure in this story. Thankfully the snail was just out of reach of possum's sharp claws! Snail thwarts several predators and enjoys a tasty worm, but will the snail get eaten too? A nonfiction picture book that's a little bit of a thriller with intense and beautiful illustrations, including the snail's glossy shell and its lovely trails of flashy snail snot you won't be able to resist touching.

The Penguin of Ilha Grande by Shannon Earle and illustrated by Renato Alarcao (Nonfiction Picture Book)

It's tough to decide what I love more - the illustrations, which are phenomenal and elicit so much emotion, or how, for seven years, Dindim the penguin would disappear for four months but always return to his beloved Seu João.

Mrs. Peanuckle's Ocean Alphabet by Mrs. Peanuckle and illustrated by Jessie Ford (Board Book)

I love this series, because I always learn something new and the information is presented with fun font and wildly colorful illustrations. Did you know seals have no visible ear flaps and sand is parrotfish poop? There are many more fun facts about the ocean in this board book!

humming with serenity

 I have three finished pieces to share.  

This birdy collage is a combination of various recycled papers.  I used shopping bags for the quilted background, and the bird is made with tea papers, tags, and boxes.  Allegro tea used to have the prettiest leaf tags, which I saved for a couple years.  It's tough to figure out what a rare paper should be used for, but I think the branch was the right home for these leaf tags.

This next collage was created with painted papers.  For a few of the papers (mostly using the cantaloupe color), I saturated the paper, wadded it up, and then hung the wrinkled paper up to dry.  I used both a handmade, wispy paper and a thick paper that I peeled so it would look layered.  It's tough to see all the texture in the picture, but it's there and I think it radiates warmth and serenity.

This last piece is my latest zen embroidery piece, and I used many colors and varying amounts of embroidery floss.  I also used a little bit of just about every bead I own, all different shapes and sizes.  I tucked into this piece while listening to All Creatures Great and Small, and it was a journey of total joy.

All three items are available on Etsy and are for sale.

poem palooza

Thanks to Poetry Super Highway for publishing three of my poems: Cyclops, Lunch Break, and Sunday Drive.  These poems are definitely on the lighter end of the spectrum of my poetry.  Two were written while driving!  Poems are everywhere!

If you haven't had the opportunity, please take some time to explore Poetry Super Highway.  It is bursting with treasure.

Reviews!

We Don't Lose Our Class Goldfish by Ryan T. Higgins (Picture Book)

Penelope is back! She has a list of reasons why she fears her class goldfish, Walter, so when it’s her turn to take him home for the weekend, she's a nervous wreck! If you need a laugh, this is the book for you. Though it’s funny that Penelope is terrified of Walter, her fear is handled gracefully. You’ll spend the whole book teetering between the humor of the situation and empathy for dear Penelope. I nearly tumbled out of my chair with laughter when Penelope fell asleep that first night alone with Walter, heard all those frightening fish sounds, and woke up to see his bowl closer to her than when she fell asleep. Absolutely dynamite! That’s not even the best part though. The best part happens toward the end when the reader sees Penelope’s updated list of reasons why she fears Walter. What a great lesson for looking at situations from all angles. Maybe those “menacing fins” we’re so scared of are really “graceful” fins.

Very Good Hats by Emma Straub and illustrated by Blanca Gómez (Picture Book)

This imaginative, silly, and thought-provoking look at hats is delightful and so much fun to read. It doesn’t matter if you love pretend hats, finger hats, professional hats, or all of the above. You’ll find a hat in here you love! My favorite hat mentioned is the cloud hat we wear when flying on a plane.

My First Book of Fruit by Fred Wolter (Board Book)

Colorful and simple with extra information about each type of fruit in case you want to take a deeper dive. This is also an excellent opportunity to talk about colors, favorite fruits, the shape of each fruit etc.

The Flamingo by Guojing (Juvenile Graphic)

An imaginative, nearly wordless story about a girl’s visit to her Lao Lao and the mysterious flamingo interwoven throughout. I love how the book comes full circle at the end. After leaving her Lao Lao, the girl creates a flamingo story and mails it to her Lao Lao. The illustrations of Lao Lao having adventures with the flamingo during her childhood are ridiculously adorable.

Gossip & Trash Receptacle at Waldo Library

Thanks to Neologism Poetry Journal for publishing my poem, Gossip, which I wrote while hiking at Clinton Lake - one of my favorite nearby hiking places.

And thanks to The Lake for publishing my poem, Trash Receptacle at Waldo Library, quite possibly my grossest and most profound poem to date.

Everything from goats to Frozen but no Frozen goats I promise

The past two weeks have been spectacular, nearly every day packed with family - enjoying each other's company, celebrating big moments, and having as much fun as we could squeeze into every minute.  

First, my brother, James AKA Rusty and his family visited.  They moved from Arizona to Florida and stopped by for a few days during their drive across the country.  It was one of the best family visits.  Prior to them visiting, my niece, Harper and I created a list of things we wanted to do while they were visiting, and we did just about everything on the list and then some.  We walked the dogs, visited parks, bookstores, the Overland Park Arboretum, Deanna Rose, Wonderscope, Crown Center/Union Station, and played games, practiced the ukulele together, and even popped into my favorite cat cafe.

The first thing Harper wanted to do was visit my favorite cat cafe, Whiskers, which is in Westport.  My brother, no surprise since he is not a cat lover, was the most popular with the cats.  Harper was chosen by this sweet kitten. Unfortunately they already have four dogs and a bunny, and I have a Robert, so none of us went home with a cat.

The Overland Park Arboretum was ridiculously beautiful and they had a really fun storytime too.

Harper treated us to a few stories when we visited the library where I work.

The whole family showed up to enjoy the stellar Strang Park while I helped set up a Walk and Read.  And then Harper and I walked both ways and she read me the two books.  She was a Walk and Read expert after that so she walked the family around and read the two books to everyone again.  It was really special to enjoy the Walk and Read experience as a patron with my family.

We pet lots of animals and fed the goats at Deanna Rose, which was a hit.

Just two days after I said goodbye to James AKA Rusty and his crew, I hopped on a plane to Tucson to see my niece, Autumn in her first of six performances of the Frozen musical.  It was a dream come true for me, and a lot of people helped make it happen - coworkers, my boss, my family, and most importantly, Robert.  In a perfect world, I would be at all my nieces and nephews' major events, but because I do not live close to them, it's just not possible.  Getting to be in the audience at Autumn's musical was one of the best moments of my life thus far. She did such a beautiful job, and as her grandma Debbie put it, she was such a ham.  I enjoyed every minute of it.

Though I spent less than 48 hours in Tucson, we made every minute count.  I went to Tohono Chul, one of my favorite places, a whopping three times in those 48 hours. I got a tour of where my brother, Scott works and even got to meet people he works with and see Scott in action.  Though Autumn was busy preparing for another performance on Friday, I still got to spend some of Friday with her.  It was another wonderful visit.

Savannah and I were very excited to see her big sister on stage!

I sat with mom, Scott, and Savannah during the performance.  As you can see, we were clearly out of our minds with excitement in this picture.

But Savannah soon fell asleep.  The excitement was too much!

We don't have any of the pictures from the performance yet, but after it was over, we all crowded the stage and anxiously waited for Autumn to appear.  She was pretty much mobbed by her adoring fans.

Look at all of Autumn's fans!  

The following morning, as soon as Autumn woke up, I asked her a question I've been dying to ask all these months of facetiming and watching her play with all her slime.  I asked her to bring out the slime.  All of it!  And we had a nice little slime party.  She has about as much slime as I have books, so I can't tell you what my favorite one was.  But I finally got to touch the slime after hearing her talk for months about how squishy, crunchy, and farty it all was.  It was another dream come true.

After a hearty breakfast, Autumn, my mom, and I decided it was the perfect time to jump on the trampoline in the blazing heat.  And no one died or threw up.  Autumn encouraged my mom and I to practice all kinds of silly faces, so we not only did human popcorn kernel exercises, we also exercised our faces too.  I believe Autumn was doing one of the faces in this picture. Or was she thinking about the hearty breakfast she just had?  Who knows!

We explored Tohono Chul and the children's museum, which was adorable and a lot of fun.  Because I had extra time on my hands when I flew in on Thursday I visited Tohono Chul the day before too!

After exploring the children's museum at Tohono Chul, Autumn went to rehearsal and Savannah settled in for a nap.  My mom suggested just the right thing.  A visit to Seven Cups for tea.  It was incredible!

We picked three teas to try and a few treats including a tea egg and a red bean cake.  All of it was delicious.

We walked around 4th Ave before picking up Savannah and heading back to Tohono Chul for live music and dancing.

Savannah fell asleep mid-dance pose.  So much excitement!

On Saturday morning Scott drove me to the airport where I flew to Dallas to spend the weekend with Robert, his sister, Abby, her boyfriend, Joseph, and Robert's mom, Audrey.  After visiting Abby and Joseph last November, we made a plan to go to the Canton Flea Market together, and we had a great time enjoying each other's company, eating stellar food, and wearing our shoes out walking the flea market.

We came home yesterday evening, and though I'm thoroughly pooped, I am flying high with all these wonderful memories.