The rest of the trip and Happy Birthday to ME!

27. Still closer to 25 than it is to 30, I might add. Dave did good, too. He gave me a gift certificate for a massage and he ran all over Universal Studios to find little trinkets from the kids so I'd have something to open. He chose a Chocolate Strawberry cake because I was drooling over the chocolate covered strawberries at Disneyland the day before, but didn't buy one because they were $4 each. My mom got me some of my favorite make-up (Bare Minerals) and my sister got me a pair of earrings and a cute clutch.

Instead of Disneyland, we went to Universal Studios on my birthday. It was lots of fun! We went to a couple of shows (really, the shows are great at all the theme parks we went to! Especially when you need a break to nurse the baby), we met Dora and Diego, we visisted with Spiderman (he was SO nice, just chatted with Nathan about being a superhero) and I got to go on the Jurassic Park ride with Dave and my dad and brother. Nathan's almost smiling in this one. Ignore the guy in the background that never moved. Apparently he didn't notice the long line of parents taking pictures of their kids right in front of him.

And Aria's reaction to Spiderman....she's hiding behind my leg.

The next 2 days were spent at Disneyland and California Adventure. On Friday night, Mom and Dad watched the kids while Dave and I went back to Disneyland for a few hours. We had quite the adventure on Splash Mountain.

The line wasn't terribly long, so we joined it and waited. We got in our log and noticed some changes right away. Apparently, the ride has been revamped sometime in the last 6 years. So, we were enjoying the new Splash Mountain and were just about to go over the edge of the drop off when *thwumph* a gate closed in front of our log. A voice came over the loud speaker saying to hold tight and we'd be on our way soon, so we sat. About 10 minutes passed and a worker came walking up to our log and we were evacuated. I don't know what the problem was, but they took everyone off the ride entirely, and closed it down for the night.

So, we got to walk through Splash Mountain. We wandered along the little river, we touched the animals and saw everything close up. It was kinda fun! Then she opened a door that led....to the dumpsters.

It was like magical critter land, creatures, music, meandering river.....to.....concrete, trucks and trash. Someone that walked out with us commented "kinda takes the magic out of it, doesn't it?"

They gave us all a fast pass for any ride and sent us back into the magic.

There was one more activity of note.

Buca Di Beppo. The yummiest italian restaurant ever. They served everything family style, so we ordered several things, then dished up a little of each. SO good and a very cool atmosphere.