Last 2013 Post! (Maybe!) ~Disneyland Mickey's Halloween Party~TFW

I think...  Maybe???  I just might have finished all of my 2013 photos.  Possibly...

~Shocked Face~

Here is the last installment from the fabulous University of Southern California Trojan Family Weekend (+ two days for us).  

On Thursday night, which was the only night that Adrienne didn't have a ton of homework, we headed down to Anaheim to go to Disneyland and Mickey's Halloween Party.  I really recommend this event.  For us, it was definitely more bang for the buck.  Here's how it worked:

For $56 per person (more this year and depends on the date you attend), you get free parking at Disneyland ($16 value then) and entrance into the main park (no California Adventure).  The actual event, during which the park is closed to everyone not having the special ticket/wristband, was from 6:00 - 11:00 p.m. I believe.  The event ticket allows you to enter the park up to 3 hours before the event without paying for the full day.  

So basically, you get one day (8 hours) with less people and free candy.  And Craisins. #WorthIt

Yes, I said free candy and Craisins.  There were trick-or-treat stations throughout the park where one would walk through a brief line and be given whatever goody that station had.  And there were two trick-or-treat paths with 6-8 stations.

And there are some Halloween-themed parades, etc., but I'm not sure if these are also during the regular hours. Have some parade photos.

 My boyfriend.  I'll let you think about that for now. 

There are no fast passes during the Halloween Party, but it's really not needed.  It was crowded...especially around the Haunted Mansion and Pirates rides.  But most of the other rides were less than 20 minutes wait.  

And the park looks sooooooo cool.  If you love Halloween, as I do, it is definitely a must-do. 

 Keep in mind that this was at 3:00 p.m. when the park was full of the regular peeps. 

We, as I stated previously, got there just before 3:00 which meant that we left L.A. as soon as Adrienne finished classes that day.  She pretty much had nothing to eat and neither did I.  In honor of her attending USC, I had planned something we hadn't done before and that was to eat at the Blue Bayou restaurant inside the Pirates of the Caribbean.  

It was a fun experience although we didn't have the best table.  The food was delicious although a bit overpriced.  Upon review, I think it's worth it once in awhile for a special occasion IF you get a good table.  I don't regret it and we had a great time.

Food porn!

Adie had the salmon and I had beef.  Really big portions!  This is before...

And this is pretty much mine after.  To be honest, we forced ourselves to finish as much as we could because PRICE but it was hard.  

After eating, we proceeded to work off all that food by walking the entire park at least three times over the next several hours.  We rode every ride that was open at least once.  And most we did twice.  The only land we didn't fully hit was Fantasy Land and that was because I was overruled by my daughter.  haha

This is not a real elephant. 

But this is a real duck.  Cute!  He's standing on his own foot.  

Me and C3PO!!!  This is an actual C3PO that was in the Star Wars movies for those of you who didn't know. 

Magic Mountain is another must do.  It was creepy though!!  It's got ghosts and other things to scare you.  We rode that three times.  We were lucky because on our second ride, there was some issue with the people getting of the car ahead of us and it was taking too long.  So the ride operator just asked our car "Do you all want to go again?"  And luckily everyone cheered so she just put us through.  

They had these cool fog-pictures that were coming out of various crevices around the park.  I tried to get photos of them, but couldn't really get one to be clear.  This one was the closest.  And it's not clear.  It says Mickey's Halloween Party. Funny, you can see the projector in the photo, but I didn't even notice it when taking the picture. lol

This is one of the buildings in Frontierland with a spooky spider web on it. 

Back on Main Street!  This time after dark.  

(I wish these photos were better.  I didn't know about aperture 

and ISO etc. in 2013. haha) 

The longest line of the night, by far.  But definitely worth it!

Get ready for some Fireworks!!!  I like how these turned out. 

 Especially this one with the ghostly pirate ship.

 And this one with the not-quite-so-ghostly pirate ship!

And then we went back to the Haunted Mansion.  Because why not?

Then I saw my boyfriend again.  

We've been together for about 25 years, I am proud to say. 

#GirlsLikeBadBoysPirates

And then we finished out the night with the parade.  

 Boo!

 I TOTALLY did this on purpose!  Totally. 

Awww, good times!  Just one more word:  Go!

xoxo

A Funny Thing Happened In Photoshop - Editing Photos - San Gabriel Mission & Ventura 10/28/13

I've been learning more about editing photos in Photoshop Elements 11 (the version I have) lately.  I didn't really know if I was making my photos better, per se, but I did learn how to do some fun effects, use different filters, and generally work more in expert mode.  

Well, now I kind of have a way to see if what I'm doing really makes for a better photo.  

I had some photos from October 2013 which have probably the best sunset photos I've ever taken and, to be honest, some of the best I've ever seen.  I was amazed at what God created and at what was coming across on my camera viewer. 

Then I lost them. 

The photo where they should have been?  Was empty.  I had long since deleted the photos from my camera.  I had no idea what I had done with them.  I vaguely remembered editing (or not editing, in the case of the sunset photos) them, but who knows where I saved them.

As previously mentioned, I've been trying to clean up and organize my photos.  Lo and behold, I found them in some obscurely named folder that had absolutely nothing to do anything.  haha  But they weren't edited - they were just raw *scratches head*.

So a couple days ago, I edited and relocated them so I could do another "Flashback" post.  Today, going through more folders, I found the ones I had edited previously!  Who knows what the hell I was doing.  lol

So I'm going to post them here...in groups for comparison.  Some of them were not edited originally or included in the folder where I found them. The Grill Em All photos are all from the recent edit.    

First Stop:  Grill Em All burger restaurant - Alhambra, CA

I may or may not have previously mentioned that I love food trucks.  If you do too, this name might be familiar to you...especially if you watched the first season of The Food Network's Great Food Truck Race.  Grill Em All was the winning truck and used their $50k winnings to open this restaurant.  

To be honest, I don't remember the names of what we ate; I think the first photo is The Behemoth. The second picture doesn't resemble anything on the menu really.   

But I do remember that it was pretty damn good.  Especially the truffle fries.  I would give it 4 out of 5 stars (I really should do a belated Yelp review, but they are doing well in that area). 

And this was dessert.  I don't think they have this one anymore.  It doesn't fit the one dessert on their website.

It's located in a nice little area.  I guess you might call it a strip mall, but it's a bit higher end with a lovely courtyard. 

The next day, I was set to drive back to Sacramento.  But first, I decided to stop at the San Gabriel Mission.  Let the double edits begin.

Obviously that's a much higher contrast on the 2nd photo.  Not sure it's better...I like them both. :/

Definitely love the 2nd edit on this one.  I learned how to adjust the lighting to bring out the rings in the sun rays.  I think that looks cool. 

I see pros and cons for each photo.

Same with that one.  I definitely am much better at the contrast and lighting in the second edit.  But I did a much better job with the blurring/depth of field effects. I think I like the first one a bit better.

This pic of the cactus garden and mission walls was not part of my first set of edits.  The original was really dark and I didn't trust/know as much about lightening shadows.  I like this photo.

First edit, I used the tilt shift feature.  2nd, I used the lomo effect.  I think I like the one with tilt shift better.  But I wish it was more easily controlled.  It's very restrictive. 

Here are a couple more that I apparently couldn't get to work in my first edit attempt. 

Now Leaving the San Gabriel Mission.  Next stop:  Unknown beach near Ventura

Love this gorgeous bridge.  

I like the cropping of the first because you can see the sand, but the color in the 2nd is better.  

And now, for our last stop, we move further up the coast to another unknown beach where I saw that amazing sunset. 

This is the unedited original.  Probably resized, but that's it. 

For the second edit, I changed the lighting (but not the color...the darkening of the colors was achieved solely through lighting) because I wanted to have more definition around the sun, and especially bring the sunbeams out. 

I didn't have this photo in my original edits.  Probably because it's very similar to the first.  

Okay, is it just me?  The shape of the clouds around the sun TOTALLY look like the bat signal, a bat, or even a phoenix!  
Just me?  Okay then...  

I'll probably edit this with more observations after I view the post on my large screens at work. 

EDIT:  After viewing the photos on a larger screen, I can see the value of editing the light for a more dramatic photo.  I think both edits were pretty good, but I do seem to prefer photos with more definition and color.  

Personal preference I suppose.  :-)

xoxo