Birthday 2014 - Day 1

This year my birthday has been quite eventful. It started last Wednesday when I came into work. I had been planning on taking Thursday and Friday off for my birthday so my co-workers surprised me by decorating my desk a day early.

They even brought in donuts and my boss bought me a chocolate cake.

 

One more reason why I love working for this company. Everyone is so friendly and nice. My boss wanted me to take the cake home with me but since I was going out of town for the rest of the week they kept it.

After work I ran over to my parents. For my birthday the only thing I wanted was a chance to visit Disneyland with my parents, my brother got to tag along as well. So as soon as I arrived at their home we headed out for California.

Anaheim, California happens to be only 4 hours away from Vegas. And it is a nice little drive through the desert.

Dad was able to reserve two hotel rooms at a Best Westerner just a 15 minute walk from the Disneyland parks. My best friend Jennifer wanted to join us, so she flew down from Salt Lake City, where she was visiting her sister, and was landing at LAX the same time we were checking into the hotel. Her shuttle arrived a while afterwards and she soon joined us at the hotel. Our two rooms had a door connecting them and after opening it up it felt like we had one big room.

Dad paid for the hotel, I paid for the park tickets. We had a three day pass. And decided for my actual birthday on Thursday we would visit California Adventures first. So after a good night's sleep we walked to the parks.

We walked right under the Monorail Track

Doug admiring the huge plaza between Disneyland and California Adventures

Entrance to California Adventures

Mom hanging with Mickey

Dad saying hi to Walt

We got to the park just before it officially opened so we headed over to my favorite ride: Soaring over California. We were almost the first ones there.

Soarin is a big screen 4D experience of hang gliding over some of the prettiest places in California. I love this ride. We got to go on it three times. And every time we got the best seats. Afterwards, we had been told that we needed to get a Fast Pass (a ticket that gives you a specified time to go to a ride and be able to get past half the line) for the new Cars ride. We found them in the Bugland part of the park.

After securing a Fast Pass for that afternoon, we wandered around exploring. First ride we came to was the Tower ride. An elevator that drops you from the 13th floor. Jen loved that ride, the rest of us not so much. We couldn't even get Dad on it the first time. But we did get him on it when Jen and Mom road it again. Doug and I pass on the second ride.

Then we went and saw the Muppets in 3D. A fun little show.

Then we walked over and checked out the Grizzly Rapids ride. A wild wet ride in round eight seater inner-tubes. It wasn't warm enough yet in the morning to ride it but we decided to come back later. The sign at the end of the line said "You will get wet, You might get soaked."

Later when we did ride it we did get wet.

After that we walked to the Pier part of the park. We rode a few small rides. The swings being Mom's favorite, they reminded her of the ride in her childhood home in Idaho. Then while Doug and I rode on the California Screamer roller coaster, Mom, Dad and Jen rode the new Ferris Wheel.

 

As we all stopped to catch our breath, we had some lunch at one of the yummy food shops just off the Pier.

After lunch it was almost time to turn in our fast passes so we made our way over to Cars land. The place looks like it jumped right out the movie.

 

 

Another fun little ride at this part of the park is Mater's Tracker Pull. You sit in a trailer pulled by trackers and get whipped back and forth. Mom rode it twice. The best ride is the actual Cars ride.

You ride in one of the actual cars from the movie and race another car full of people around the a fast track. I'm glad we got the Fast Passes because the wait line was over an hour long. But what a great ride. Then I got Mom and Dad to ride on the Sreamer...that was so fun. I'm still amazed that I got them on it. By then it was warm enough to ride the Grizzly Rapids. We all got wet. It is now Dad's favorite ride.

At around 5pm we happened to be in the right place to catch the Pixar Parade.

 

 

Then we headed out of the park and over into Downtown Disney to find a place to eat my birthday dinner. There are a lot of fun shops there. The coolest is the Lego store. Outside the store are HUGE figures built out of legos, they are very impressive.

Yes that dragon is made out of legos

 

We decided to eat at the Rain Forest Cafe. The wait to eat inside was about an hour so we opted to eat on one of their outdoor balconies. Jen paid for my dinner for my birthday gift. And the cute waiters even came out afterwards and sang happy birthday to me.

Not the most flattering pictures of me but it captured the moment. After dinner we headed back to the park to watch the night show, "World of Color." I was amazed to see what they could do with water, lasers, fire and some movie projectors. These pictures do not give it justice. I had to constantly remember to close my mouth, it was literally a jaw dropping show.

 

 

This show makes the Bellagio fountains look like common fountains. I'm happy we got to see it. Afterwards the park closed and we walked back to our hotel, very tired and a little sore. But it was a great day. And one of my best Birthday's.