Disneyland and such

I'm finally getting around to posting our pictures from Jimmy's birthday! His birthday was Monday and we had already decided that we were going to use the Disney passes that I had won in a raffle. Disney is about a 2 hour drive from us, so we decided (kind of spur of the moment) to drive to Manhattan beach on Sunday evening. I pricelined a hotel and we got a great deal on a Marriot a couple blocks from the beach. We got there after dark, so we didn't even go to the beach, we just grabbed a bite to eat and relaxed at the hotel.

OH, and I just remembered a funny story: The hotel had a sitting area and nice flat screen T.V. Well, we tried everything to turn the t.v. on, we couldn't figure it out...we also could not figure out how to get the lamps to come on, we tried all the switches we could find. Seriously, we were trying EVERYTHING. Finally, after about 15 minutes and no success, I broke down and called the front desk to see if there was a secret to this mystery. The receptionist said that there was no secret and she actually sent a houseman to our room to figure out the problem. He tried a couple different things that didn't work, and just as I was thinking that we must have gotten a defective room, he leans down and picks up the plug to the t.v. that was laying on the floor....not plugged in. So, he plugged in the t.v. Then he continues to plug in the 2 lamps in the room. OH my gosh...humiliating. Seriously though, to our credit, he had to like lift up the couch to plug in one of the lamps...like the plug was in the floor and the plug to the lamp was laying right next to it. OOPS. Oh well, embarrassing, but really...what hotel unplugs the t.v. and lamps?? I guess this Marriott did.

Anywyas, we went to Disney on Monday, neither one of us really knowing what to expect considering we were teenagers the last time we had been there. Let me just say, we had a blast! We got there around 10:00 and didn't leave until close to 10:00 p.m. We were exhausted the next day, but it was totally worth it. Here are a bunch of pics from our day:

This is when we first got there, they have what they call 'Main Street' that has a bunch of shops, ice cream shops, an arcade and just a bunch of cool stuff. We walked around here for a while...look at all the people!! Jimmy said he saw a statistic that something like 40,000 visitors a day flock to Disneyland!

We were getting a snack before we hit the rides. Jimmy's snack: a Chili Cheese Dog...ewwww! After that, we thought it would be a good idea to walk around and start off with some slow rides, so we went to Adventureland and started out with the Jungle Safari and Pirates of the Carribean.

I didn't actually BUY this hat...it was just fun to try on.

There are actually 2 theme parks; Disney and California Adventure. Our passes were good for both parks on the same day. They were both incredible and had awesome rides!

Waiting in line for Thunder Mountain!

The Hollywood Tower was thee scariest ride that we went on all day. Well, for me anyways, Jimmy just thought it was fun. Basically, you are in a 'service elevator' sitting in a row with other people. The elevator goes to the top of the tower, the door opens to the outside so we could see how high off the ground we were and all of a sudden the elevator plummets what seems like forever, then the door opens again on a lower floor and you all of a sudden shoot up to the top again. Crazy. They had a camera that took our picture at some point while we were falling and it was hilarious. I was clutching my bag with our camera and my wallet in it like it carried a million dollars and Jimmy was just smiling. What?! How can you smile at a time like that?

After that craziness we staid pretty low key for a while and wandered around some pretty cool areas in the park. Below, I was posing in front of an area that was in 'A Bug's Land', based on the movie 'A Bug's Life'. It was really cute.

Jimmy being silly....

And finally, after our stomachs settled, we went on, what turned out to be our final roller coaster of the day. It did me in....I screamed so much my throat hurt, my knees were wobbly and my stomach was churning. Oh geez. Afterwards we went on the ferris wheel and a really, really cool simulator that was call Soarin Over California. Then we just walked around, took in all the sites and sounds, went back over to Disneyland and wrapped up the day with some ice cream and catching a bit of the huge firework show.

So we didn't have to drive back home that night, I had pricelined a hotel in Long Beach which is 19 miles away. We got there late at night and slept in the next morning. All I can really say is the coast was very gloomy that day and Long Beach is ghetto. We felt like we were in the heart of L.A. until we got about 2 blocks from the Harbor, then it felt 'normal.' Still, not really a place I would want to go back to, it's not even a beach...it's just a harbor. Anyways, we had lunch at a cute place called Boston's, then made the drive back home.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures!! I miss and love all my friends and family!