How Did you Celebrate?

.....at Disneyland, of course! What better way to celebrate a birthday than a day trip to everyone's favorite place. Seeing as we have barely used our annual passes this year, I thought a day at the park might be fun for my big 5 year old. I also thought that taking him solo might be fun, that is until he asked if he could bring a friend. So Wednesday morning we loaded up the Tahoe with Nana and our friend Coleman Silvas and headed out.

We arrived to fall like weather in Anaheim and were blessed with a few surprises from our friend Donny who works for Disney. Along with entry to the park and free parking, he presented Dominic with a special birthday gift, balloons, and front of the line passes for inside the park. Wow! He really knows how to treat the Riggio family and I must say that he has spoiled us for the past year since we met him.

First stop was California Adventure and a few rides. Coleman is a bit gun-shy when it comes to any type of ride so we simply dragged him on and didn't talk about what the ride was in an effort not to scare him. Every ride ended with reassurance that he liked it, but that he did not want to go on it again. And I laughed every single time. What a sweetheart he was all day. We enjoyed a fancy lunch in honor of Dominic's big day which was another surprise. Every now and then you see a finely decorated table at a restaurant inside the park that has a reserved sign on it. Little did we know that it was reserved for us on Wednesday. After learning it was Dominic's birthday, the hostess ushered us over to the reserved spot and proceeded to treat us like royalty. Wow! Our lunch was presented to us on real plates and we even got "refills" on our drinks. Dominic certainly felt like a king.

After lunch is was on to one of our all time favorite rides, Midway Mania (or as we call it Toy Story Mania). The boys both enjoyed the video game action and I was thrilled to not be a "beaver" at the end. For the first time ever I reached a new plateu on scoring AND was the top shooter in our car....yes everyone, #1 out of 8 players! We also loaded up the arcade card and took are hands at the REAL game booths. Unfortunate for us the boys won several times and had a furlough of stuffed animals in tow....wait, wait, wait...."mommy can you hold these?" I knew it was coming. A locker was definitely in our future.

The highlight of my day was the Aladdin show which is ending after next month. The boys both enjoyed the view from the nosebleed section, and I enjoyed singing along to all the tunes. It was late afternoon by the time we exited the theater so we decided to head to Disneyland for a few more rides; Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, Splash Mountain (SOAKED!!), Big Thunder Mountain, and the Rockets. Thanks to the front of the line passes we were able to make it through in less than two hours. The boys both picked out light up swords and we were on our way.

We arrived back at the Paradise Pier (where we were parked) at 7:15pm and enjoyed a nice dinner at the PCH Grill before hitting the road. Dominic was serenaded with one final Happy Birthday song which was a great finish to his day. Needless to say we all enjoyed ourselves. Thank you, Nana, for joining us on the adventure! It was certainly easier with only two boys.