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Saturday, 09 February 2008

My big birthday weekend

This is my first Xanga BLOG, I hope it turns out OK.
I turned 42 on Saturday February 2.
I started out my weekend with a Friday night out with my 2 best girl friends, Becky and Jen. First Becky and I met up for mani-pedis. We went to Aqua Nails, this place is great. Everyone is really nice and instead of using those jet basins that are germ factories they use bowls that can be completely cleaned out, no getting something funky from previous customers, bonus! I don't know how much it cost because Becky treated me for my birthday, but I guess I'll find out at some point because I think this will be the place I go every time I want to treat myself (a very rare occurrence). Afterwards Becky and I met Jen at the Elephant Bar for dinner. I realized that I had been there exactly 21 years earlier waiting for midnight and my first legal adult beverage. It's been several years since I've eaten at the E-Bar, but I don't think I'll wait that long next time. The food was excellent as was the company and the service. I need to make sure I get together with my buddies more often.
I spent most of my actual birthday doing laundry and packing. But that evening was our company party, instead of a Christmas or holiday party the bank I work for (privately owned, local bank) has a big winter bash. This one was at Earl Warren Show Grounds. It first I wasn't sure about the local, last year was at The Bacara, very fancy. But we had a nice buffet and a "casino". I actually had more fun this year than last.
I enjoyed the buffet dinner and the casino, but one thing that didn't work out so well was the free drink tickets, first I had some fruity rum drink (too much rum) and then my friend got me something called "Sex on the Beach" or some such. It had peach and tasted really good but it had a fair amount of vodka. It doesn't take much to get me tipsy and this amused one of the guys at our table who gave me one of his drink tickets. The peach drink tasted so good I had another. Let's just say between these and the only things to drink at the table were my friend Brian's beer and bottles of wine (I was thirsty!) I was NOT feeling good when I got home. I now remember why I gave up drinking in my 20s, blurg.
My big birthday plan was taking a couple days off work and going down to Disneyland for a few days. I booked a room for two nights at the Howard Johnsons. My son and I decided to invite my room mate and his son along. Unfortunately, they had to be back earlier than what I originally wanted so that meant leaving for Disney earlier than I planned. This wouldn't have been a problem, except for all those drinks the night before. I wasn't hung over, but my tummy didn't feel right all day. Oh well.
First we went to Disneyland, but Brian and Wes (room mate and his son) wanted to go to the ESPN Zone to watch the Super Bowl. Luckily the park was open until late. So Kyle and I spent the day enjoying the park and then checked into the hotel and hooked up with B & W for the last part of the game. As soon as the game was over we went back to the park, by which time we were starving. We went to the the Plaza Inn, the chicken there is really good. While we were there a woman at the table behind Kyle had an epileptic seizure. The whole incident only lasted about 15 minutes with medical personnel and lots of activity. Kyle never noticed a thing. After dinner, we rode almost everything we wanted with almost NO lines! The boys even rode Splash Mountain twice. Fantasmic! isn't playing right now, so it was nice to walk around that part of the park with hardly any crowds, normally the Rivers of America area is totally packed with people waiting to watch the show. We closed down the park that night, the only things we missed were Toon Town and Fantasy Land.
The next morning we went to the Paradise Pier Hotel for the Lilo and Stitch character breakfast. Since Wes and I both had birthdays recently, we wore our birthday buttons and they brought us little Mickey shaped chocolate raspberry birthday cakes. K & W learned the Hula with Lilo and danced and the characters were fun and playful, Goofy even snuck up behind me and startled me!

After breakfast we spent the day at California Adventure where we rode California Screamin' at least 5 or 6 times! Wes had always been nervous about it, but after our trip to WDW near the end of last year and all the coasters he rode there, he decided it was time to conquer the Disneyland Resort's biggest baddest ride. We spent the entire day there from shortly after opening to closing (it closed at 6:00) and had a great time! We could have done some of the calmer things like the Animation Academy, but it was mostly a thrill day so we skipped them.
Once we closed down the park, we went to one of B & K's favorite restaurants, the Old Spaghetti Factory in Fullerton. I didn't get my usual mushroom marinara, I got the marsala chicken with mithra cheese angel hair pasta. I was worried about the pasta dish, but it was the chicken I didn't like. Oh well, sometimes that happens when you try something new. Next time I may get a combo of my usual and the mithra cheese. Everyone else LOVED their meals. B got something with the name Vesuvius, too spicy for me and the boys both got the Alfredo.
Our last day I left B and the boys at the Ho Jo's (so they could finally use the hotel pool) and went back to Disneyland. It was a fairly short walk and the weather was clear and perfect. I rode some Fantasy Land rides, sat on Main Street and people watched while eating a morning pastry, climbed the tree house and had a leisurely ride on the Mark Twain. It was a very low-key morning at Disneyland, VERY different than our usual running from attraction to attraction. I even took the horse drawn carriage up Main Street before meeting up with everyone and heading home.