With Disney's "Celebrations" theme this year, they let you in free on your birthday. So, since my mom's & Emily's birthday fall on the same day (which happened to be a Saturday this year) they decided they wanted to celebrate in Disneyland. We decided to tag along. What fun! :) 
So, we set out during a hot desert evening for California and saw a gorgeous sunset on the way. We got to California rather late and no surprise, Andrew didn't fall asleep until we were within about 45 minutes of our hotel. Then, he didn't end up falling asleep until after midnight. AGH!But, we still got up on the birthday morning to make it to Disneyland just after it opened.
We had been telling Andrew that we were going to Mickey Mouse's house and boy was he excited!
Right after we got through the gate, Mickey was out so we had to meet him! Just a few months prior Andrew had seemed very scared of large, life-sized characters. But, he was quite excited to meet Mickey. Of course, we had to take pictures & take a picture of the birthday girls!
It was definitely a different Disney experience, trying to find a balance between "adult" rides and fun for Andrew. But, we still had A LOT of fun! We would have never taken Andrew for his first Disneyland experience at this age had my family not been going anyway, but I'm so glad we went! It was so fun to see his reactions and the looks on his face. He LOVED just about everything we did! Andrew got to ride Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters, Finding Nemo Submarine, Autopia, It's a Small World, the Disneyland Train, Winnie-the-Pooh's Honeypot ride, Pirates of the Caribbean, Dumbo, the Carousel, Teacups, the Toontown rollercoaster, and the Matterhorn!!! Whoa! His exact words when he got off EVERY ride was "wanna do again!" How cute! If he was able to pick favorites, I think they were It's a Small World, Dumbo, and definitely the Teacups. He was laughing so hard on that ride that he was falling over! :)
In addition to all the fun with rides, we got to meet some of Andrew's favorite characters (besides Mickey) --Pooh, Tigger, and Eeyore! :) He gave Pooh a great big hug, but then wanted to be held to meet the others.
And, with Andrew's love of music and dance (which has been getting quite exuberant lately), it's not surprise that he LOVED the Celebrations Dance Party Parade. There was quite a lot of awe-struck staring, clapping, and drumming on Daddy's head!
After such a fun-filled day, we found a nice place to watch the fireworks. Andrew so loved them on the 4th and he was excited to see them again. But, with just 5 minutes left to wait, he passed out! He had been such a trooper all day--took a short 30 minute nap in his stroller at lunch, had very few meltdowns or tantrums, and was generally very happy all day. But, he just couldn't last any longer and he fell so soundly asleep at 9:20 that he couldn't be roused!
The show was phenomenal though and Brian recorded it so Andrew could watch it later.
While Andrew slept, some of us rode a few more rides and we of course did a little shopping. What a day!
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