Birthday Fun

 This blogging thing has been tough lately. I'm trying to keep up with it but it's getting away from me. Adding 5 hours of work into my weekly schedule on top of my 10 has taken some getting used to but I'll attempt to be witty and informative in my blogs and not too boring and drab.

I'll let these pics speak for themselves (for the most part).
Mikayla's dream was to go to Disneyland for her birthday. So, we decided to make it a family affair and she could bring one friend with her as well. Thanks to a wonderful brother-in-law and a friend who both work at Disneyland, we were able to get in for free. Honestly, a thank you doesn't seem to be enough. The day was just perfect for Mikayla and she told me it was her "best birthday ever!"

Her best friend, Mikaela (yes, they have the same name...just spelled differently), spent the night at our house and me and the 2 girls took off in the morning to join the throngs of tourists at the Happiest Place on Earth.

The girls are the best of friends and were so excited to be there together. Can't you tell? They even have matching shoes for the occasion (my daughter's only wish for her birthday, besides Disneyland). They looked like twins. I actually got that question a lot. Would you name YOUR twins the same name? Come on, people! As you can only imagine, there was a lot of girl chatter (which I love) and "stories" from school which are quite hilarious. We had a whole 6 hours to ourselves before Will came with the young ones.

Our first ride of the day was Jungle Cruise. When my hearing came back after listening to the shrill voice of our female tour guide, we headed off to Swiss Family Robinson..I mean, the Tarzan treehouse. After that, we decided that we just must visit the fairies at Fairy Hollow. We waited for about 30 minutes. During that 30 minutes, there was quite a lot of this...

 The girls would whip out the hand-slapping games to wait out the time in line. It definitely reminded me of my own time slapping hands and doing little rhymes to go along with it. I actually tried my hand at it and did pretty well! After all that waiting, we only got to meet 2 fairies. Silvermist was first. She promised that she would try to keep it from raining that day so that Mikayla's birthday would be perfect! Tinkerbell was up next. Needless to say, I felt dead next to her enthusiasm. She was quite the character and did a great job with the Tinkerbell attitude, as you can see in the picture of the 3 of them. Such a cute shot!

 We even ran into Mary Poppins. The little kid in front was being trained how to say Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious" backwards. Thus, the look on his face...

 Then the little ones came. The whole experience changed for sure. I think this was the highlight for them - watching the ducks and swans in the moat. They weren't up for many rides except the train and Autopia and I was so glad that they came toward the evening and weren't there all day.

 California Adventure was fun, as was the Little Mermaid ride. I had never been on that one before and the animatronics were pretty amazing. They did do quite the "reader's digest" version of the movie but I guess it would be too expensive to put in the sinking boat scene, don't you think?

 At the end of the day, we went to World of Color. It was late. They were moody (don't be fooled by the plastered on smiles of my darling 9 year old). The show was worth the wait but staying up until 1:00am is only a once-a-year thing...maybe less.

I did get one shot of all of us, me included. Will was there too (you can see his shoulder in the California Adventure picture.) As adults, we usually don't get any picture time but I did want to record that I was actually there with my daughter as she experienced her birthday at Disneyland.

So much fun!
So many memories!
So long Disneyland - see you next year!