Birthdays at Disneyland

Thursday, July 23, 2009. Willie's 29th birthday. Here are the boys, waiting to ride the tram from the parking lot to Downtown Disney. Max doesn't look too happy in this picture because I think we had woken him up from a nap he had been taking in the car.

It was SO hot this day! We had just gotten in Disneyland and decided to take a picture or two with Mickey and Pluto. Notice how Zahra is pulling on Pluto's ear. I wonder if he noticed. Or if kids do that all day long and he's just used to it.

I don't really know why I posted almost exactly the same picture. It's like one of those Sesame Street games where you try to figure out what's different between the two pictures. Hmm...

Zahra is trying to touch the cow in this petting zoo. The cow wasn't particularly excited. (Although, what do I really expect from a cow penned up in a tiny 10-by-1o foot square?) She seemed kind of lazy and was probably pretty hot, even in the shade.

One of the things I love about going to Disneyland is that you can almost always find something you have never done before. Since we bought annual passes on Zahra's 4th birthday (her first trip was last year, February 12, 2008), we have gone to Disneyland about once a month for a year and a half now. This was the first time we had gone inside the petting zoo.

Zahra was a little apprehensive about getting so close to the goats. Then, to add to her anxiety, this goat, that was sitting on top of a barrel, started banging its foot down. I think Zahra thought the goat was going to attack her. But nothing happened. The goat just banged a couple times and then continued to sit there really still.

At the end of the day, Willie and Zahra took a picture in front of the celebration sign. Now I'm a little jealous that I didn't take a picture there, too, when we came back on my birthday.

Sunday, July 26, 2009. My 30th birthday. We went to Disneyland again to celebrate my birthday. Danevia and TJ went with us and it was their first visits to Disneyland. (I'm again sorry we didn't take pictures to commemorate the occasion!) Here we are on Main Street and Max was so tired he just fell asleep, right there. Even though it was hot and sunny out, he just falls asleep. Usually his head falls forward and it looks like he can't breathe, but here he looks pretty comfy just leaning against his dad.

If Max were older, you might think that he was pretending to sleep, but since he's so little, you know this is the real thing. A lot of people were walking by and saying "ahh, what a cute baby" or "I wish that were me!"

I had a lot of fun my birthday weekend, and I was happy that Danevia and TJ came to celebrate with us by going to Disneyland on my actual birthday. One of the best things about the annual passes is not only getting to go ourselves, as a family of 4, but being able to meet people there who are visiting southern California and want to go to Disneyland. We got there pretty early that day (around 9:30) and stayed until after 7:00. Usually, we don't end up leaving the house until 9:30 or 10 and then leave earlier than 7:00, so we had a long day and got to go on a lot of different rides. It was fun to take friends around the park and make sure they got to do some of the essential stuff while they were there. I never get tired of going to Disneyland over and over and I'm already looking forward to our next visit.