Birthday Bash!

On Saturday afternoon, the party Suzuki arrived with the rest of the party-goers. My dad was in charge of planning that afternoon's activity, so we headed over to the La Brea Tar Pits. I had never heard of them. Apparently, it's a not-so-big (at least now it's not that big) tar pit where fossils of mammoths and saber-tooth tigers have been preserved found. All this right in LA. So, after plenty of sign-reading, hill-running, and elephant noise-making, we ate dinner at Outback and went straight to bed for the REAL party on Sunday.

We arrived at Disneyland as the gates were opening and after some pictures, headed straight to Max's favorite ride--Dumbo. And if you can't tell by the expressions in these pictures, everyone LOVES Dumbo!

After Dumbo, Grandma and Grandpa took the two little boys and rest of us began Operation Birthday. Okay, I just barely thought to call it that, but really, it was like we were on some sort of mission. We split up. Some people ran to get fast passes, others to hold places in lines. It was amazing how many times we rode Space Mountain, Indiana Jones, and Thunder Mountain Railroad in comparison to the amount of time we waited in lines.We even got good enough to actually pose for the pictures. Look at Tony, he's sleeping! And yes, we took pictures of our pictures instead of buying them. :) And during this time Grandma and Grandpa were taking Max and Jack on their inaugural rides of the tea cups and It's A Small World, plus many other rides. They loved every minute of it. Well, except Grandpa, who chose to stay off the tea cups.

When we finally caught up with each other for a little Jungle Cruise action, this is how we found sweet little Jack. Grandma and Grandpa must be magic since they said he didn't fuss once and fell right asleep as soon as they put him in the stroller, which is nothing short of a miracle since Blake "accidentally" had kept Jack's paci in his pocket.While Jack was asleep and the weather was getting a little warmer, we decided to take Max on {gasp} Splash Mountain. I can't believe my baby is tall enough to ride the big-kid rides. He is such a brave boy and loved every minute of it. You can see him over my left shoulder in the first picture. He even has his hands up in the air, something his mom and dad didn't even do. He only got a little upset after we came down the big hill and went around the corner when a little water got on his pants. I don't think Andy or Bri, who got completely soaked and were freezing the rest of the day, could sympathize.

After lunch, we had a special surprise visit from April. That nice girl took some time out of her super busy schedule to come be with us. She really is so nice. So, then we all split up again--some to California Adventure, some to Toon Town, others to Space Mountain until we all met up again for dinner, where April surprised us again. Instead of carrying around her laptop and workpapers in that big EY backpack, she was carrying little Nothing Bundt Cakes so I could have cake on my birthday. Seriously, could a person have a better friend than April? After dinner, we said good-bye to April and hit some more rides. We rode Nemo, had a Buzz Lightyear tournament (Grandma won with a whopping 300,800 points), watched the fireworks, and basically rode and rode and rode until we had two little boys who looked like this--

I had such a wonderful birthday. I'd say, the best ever! I've never had so many people tell me "Happy Birthday!" thanks to the "It's my birthday" button I was wearing. I think I'll keep it and wear it every year. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who made my day so special.