Happy Birthday to Me!

Maybe it's self-serving to wish myself a happy birthday, but let me break it down.  My birthday is on August 3.  Because of all the stuff going on with fooling the kids about the trip to Disneyland, I kept telling Cassi not to worry about my birthday until after the trip.  I've celebrated a handful of times not on my actual day, so it's no big deal.  Plus, I'm not 8, I don't expect a big hullaballoo for my birthday anyway.

So we had early entry today and that meant call time was at the big fireplace at something like 6:30.  It's amazing sometimes how little sleep and how tired I end up on our vacations to Disneyland.  I think about those old commercials where everyone is too excited to sleep before they get there.  Once you're there, you don't want to stop long enough to sleep either, you're just too excited!  Anyway, at the fireplace we were by 6:30 for family prayer and marching orders.  We've gotten into the habit of having a certain colored shirt for each day we're at the park.  It's fun, and lot easier to spot everyone, or catch up in line to the group.  It has to be a bright color though.  My mom usually drives herself about crazy as she scours the countryside to find all the coordinating shirts in the right sizes leading up to the trip.  (I don't know if Mom ever hears about it, but we get comments all the time, in line and such, that the t-shirt idea is a great idea.)  This time was no different, but the color they picked was orange, my favorite color.

Break out the Orange, it's my birthday (kinda)!

At the fireplace, during marching orders, I learned that the reason I couldn't get Cassi to destress about my birthday before the trip was because we were celebrating my birthday on the trip!  It wasn't just Orange Day, it was "Everyone pay homage to me" Day.  FUN!  They made it Phineas and Ferb -themed, and I was a secret agent who had to stop Doof from doing something nefarious.  I had to solve Disneyland trivia puzzles during the day to get my presents.  It was a lot of fun, and I came away with a new Wii game, iTunes card, a new shirt, and other fun stuff.

We started out in Disneyland and hit the favorites of Autopia and Astro Blasters in Tomorrowland (we're all getting pretty good at Astro Blasters by the way, Ryan made it to #3 on the leader board one day, and Dad whooped us all with somewhere around a 1 million point score).  After Tomorrowland, we hiked over to California Adventure to get FastPasses for the new night show World of Color (crazy awesome show, more later).

Cute girls cruisin' in Cali

This was my high score for the day, though not my highest rank (made it to #5)

We trekked through California Adventure, hitting all the rides the kids wanted to, and even convinced my Mom to try out Soarin' Over California.  It's definitely a favorite ride.  My mom usually sticks to the Teacups and Small World, but she branched out this trip.  Maybe we built it up too much, but I'm afraid she wasn't as impressed as I am with it.  Either way, it was fun that she went on it with us.

We always appreciate Uncle Chase's shoulders on these adventures!

The girls were excited to spot Minnie after our Soarin' good time

One thing I love, now as a parent, is to find the rides that the kids love, and introduce them (height-permitting of course) to some of the rides I love.  Megan found a new favorite called Jumping Jellyfish.  It's Tower of Terror for the little kids.  Katelyn decided she's not afraid of anything, and actually chose Tower of Terror to go on with me.  I kept my hand on her leg the whole time so she could sense me there, but she did great, and loved it enough to ask for more!  As for Adam, he has so far spent almost all of his waking time in this wonderful land in a stroller, so I tried to find a few times when he could just (safely) wander and explore.  It's fun to see him investigate and think and figure things out.  I had to make sure he didn't stick his head through the fence bars, but other than that, he got to be a somewhat free spirit, and I think he liked it.

Jumpin' Jehosephat! No, it's Jumpin' Jellyfish!

Brave face now, just try to keep that smile in the elevator!

This is probably my favorite picture of the whole trip.  It's 100% pure joy.

We of course went on Toy Story Mania, and even brought Adam.  He sat with me, and had a lot of fun.  Megan learned that she can hang upside down on almost any set of bars with her feet and swing around (until we catch her, that is).  For the first time, we did the Animation Workshop, which was a lot of fun for me, and I think the kids liked it too.  We drew Dale, of Chip 'n Dale fame.  I've always wanted to learn to draw better (even took Drawing 101 at BYU), but am just not that good.  I can do some OK imitation stuff, but nothing that would make it beyond the fridge.  So this activity was particularly fun for me.

One size fits all most

You can see Katelyn getting ready to join in the monkey fun

Last activity for the day was World of Color.  I've seen the fountains at Bellagio, and the Dancing Waters at the Disneyland Hotel, and other water shows here and there and liked them, and I've always loved Fantasmic.  Well, World of Colors takes all the others and just tells them to go hide under a rock, because this was AMAZING!  They would shoot the big tall fountains (the following are all heights as I guess, absolutely not scientific) say 80 feet in the air and that looked impressive.  Then another section would come and they'd double that height.  And it wasn't just two or three big guns, it was like 40 that could do that.  From a techno-geek perspective, I think I shed a tear.  From a Disney-lover perspective, you're just about in heaven.

Needless to say, after that high, we floated down and made our way back to the hotel to enjoy some rest, in time for the next day of celebrations.  I'm so glad Cassi and everyone else put in all the work to make my 31st birthday one I'll never forget.  Really, it was way better than those in Kanab! :)