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Best Birthday EVER!

I am a planner.  I rarely do things spontaneously.  I like to think things through and analyze and prepare and I usually make frugal and conservative decisions.  HOWEVER...in the weeks leading up to Mason's 9th birthday I kept thinking about how much I wanted to take him to Disneyland, alone. We love to vacation there as a family but I wanted some special time with just him.  I told myself there were plenty of cheaper ways to have special time with a child but I couldn't shake the thought. In the weeks leading up to this crazy idea my dear friend lost her little boy to Lukemia.  It affected me in a deep way and all logic and reason went out the door.  I decided we were going!

Sunday night I booked my airfare to leave the following Saturday!! Russell was already headed to California for work so I let him tag along for a few days.

Day 1
This was our travel day.  By the time we got off the plane, picked up some supplies and checked into our hotel, it was 2:00 in the afternoon when we entered the park.  We didn't want to spend time walking from our hotel so we took an Uber! It was the first of many Uber and Lyft rides this trip. Since this was Mason's trip, he chose California Adventure.  His first ride was California Screamin!




Day 2
This day started off with Winchell's Donuts!  We had a great time in Disneyland.












The night ended with converting our 4 days passes into season passes!  I don't know what we are going to do with Douglas and Stockton but the 3 of us get to come back as often as we want! Russell left us and headed to Ventura to prepare for work.  It was just me and Mason.

Day 3 HAPPY 9TH BIRTHDAY, MASON!

 The morning started off with a few simple gifts to keep Mace occupied while in line.



Our awesome friends, Kimberly and Samantha Barlow, flew in and met us at Disneyland this morning.  Mason and I Ubered all by ourselves!  It was SUCH a great day!!  We ate Churros, watched the Electric Parade, rode lots of rides and wore ourselves out!
The birthday badge!!  This draws extra attention to the birthday boy.  Mason was just sassy enough that if a cast member forgot to tell him "Happy Birthday" he would tell me about it.  This one is quite a mixture of sass with a little sweet.

The goal for the day was to ride CA Screamin 9 times for his 9th birthday.  The lines were longer than we expected so they only got to ride it twice.










We spent the first part of the day in CA Adventure and then hopped over to Disneyland.



I threw this oldie in from 2005.  Douglas was here for his birthday and we were lucky enough to come with the Barlows. Lincoln, Douglas, Rachel and Stockton made their very own sour powder in the Winnie the Pooh candy shop.  Kimberly and I dreamed of the day our next little ones could do the same thing.  They were wished for but weren't here yet!

And here are our little ones!  This whole trip I kept thinking of the wonderful blessing Mason was.  We waited SO long for him.  Mark and Kimberly waited SO long for Samantha.  These are two little miracles right here, with their own sour powder.



The birthday ended with a new card trick.  Unfortunately, dad is the magic one so we had to wait for his help.
At the end of the night we stopped at a customer service booth to get some information on storing our luggage the next day and travel times to the airport.  Disney gives the best service!  DJ was SO helpful and friendly.  He decided to throw in a few magic passes for our next day.  In all of my trips to Disneyland I have never had a magic pass.  He loaded them to my card and I was curious to see how they worked.

 Day 4

 The morning started at CA Adventure and ended up at Disneyland. We found out that our Magic passes could be used on any ride except for Guardians of the Galaxy (new this year) or Matterhorn. We had two passes good for all 4 of us.  Mason and Samantha each got to choose a ride to use it on.





 Samantha used her passes on Space Mountain.  We got to go right up the exit and get on the ride without a wait.  All they did was scan our pass.  Mason used his for Star Tours.  When it came time to scan our pass the nice gentleman just let us on and told us to ride one more ride on our magic passes!! Best day ever!!  We used our last magic pass for Splash Mountain.
Funny story...we planned our picture ahead of time.  Mason always gets blocked so I was supposed to lean to the right.  In the thrill of the moment, I forgot to lean.  Mason said this was the most awesome face he has ever made!  I guess we will never know:).

We Ubered to the Long Beach airport to fly home.  This really was so much fun!  I loved being on my own with Mason.  I hope it is something he never forgets.  I know I never will!

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