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02/01/2004 Archived Entry: "Birthday stuff, pt. 1"

Thursday, we went with my mil to California Adventure. At this point, Tabitha was not aware of everything that was going on. We met my bil and 2 of his friends there as well. Tabitha got her very first Disney autograph book and was very interested in finding characters to sign it. We found Goofy and Max right away but then the characters left so we went on a couple rides. After the rides we went back to the same area and spotted Mickey, Minnie and Lilo. Tabitha is in love with Lilo and went to her first. Lilo was just wonderful and signed a nice birthday message in Tabitha’s book and then took her by the hand and walked her over to Minnie Mouse. Minnie also put a birthday message in Tabitha’s book along with lots of kisses. One last stop at Mickey who sat Tabitha down with him on the bench while he signed her book and then pulled a lollipop out of his pocket and gave it to her as a birthday gift. After a hurried thank you, Tabitha dived into the enjoyment of her lollipop. We walked over to the Hollywood Back Lot area and spotted Stanley who was happy to sign Tabitha’s book and pose for a picture.

After a couple hours, Chris and I separated from the group to go check into the hotel. Off I went to run some birthday errands while Chris strung streamers in the room and hung up the Happy Birthday banner. We had been gone from the group for 2 hours and Chris had just finished decorating and I was walking back towards the room when my mil called saying they were basically done with California Adventure. We told her where to meet us and I hurried upstairs to put the finishing touches on the room with my purchases. We met my mil and Tabitha in Downtown Disney (my bil and his friends had left by then) and I told Tabs I wanted to take her pic in front of a statue in front of the hotel. I did this and then we just said, let's check out the inside. I'm sure the child thought we had flipped our lid. We took her upstairs and Chris opened the door to our room and then Tabitha just kind of stopped dead in her tracks. She saw the banner and the streamers and kind of said "Oh, cool" before we took her inside. At this point she saw her bear sitting on the bed holding a note. Tabitha climbed onto the bed to read the note which instructed her to use the accompanying gift card to get a new friend at Build-a-Bear. Also with the gift card was a heart note that I had printed out from the Build-a-Bear website telling her it was a birthday wish from mommy and daddy to put inside her new friend. She thought that was really great and couldn't wait to go to the store. Then we told her that we were going to be staying overnight here and that this was our room to sleep in so that she would wake up on her birthday at Disneyland. This is where my wonderful daughter started crying because she was so overjoyed at staying and was thanking us profusely telling us this was the best surprise ever. Her tears of joy brought tears to my eyes, and also to Chris's eyes which in turn, made my mil cry. I will never forget the sound of pure emotion in Tabitha's voice at that moment. It took us a few minutes to collect ourselves, but we managed. Then we headed down to the gift shop where Tabitha picked out a few charms for her charm necklace. We had reservations for Rainforest Cafe for dinner. The food was pretty good and Tabitha loved watching all the animals and the occasional storms. She hadn't been there since her 3rd birthday so I don't think she really remembered it. After dinner we went to Build-a-Bear where Tabitha picked out and stuffed her new bear whom she christened "Jonn." I also picked up some birthday hats for her bears to wear. We then went back up to our room and Chris and I let Tabitha open 2 gifts from us. One was a Disneyland Hotel Fashion Polly and the other was Disney's Pretty, Pretty Princess game. Now is where going to a hotel with my mil paid off. She told us to go out while she stayed with Tabi. We went window shopping for an hour, had some cheesecake at the bookstore cafe and grabbed a couple pieces of candy from the candy shop. We went back to our room and found out that Tabitha had received a delivery of balloons and a photo signed by Minnie Mouse. Then Chris and I went back out to go see a movie. We chose "Along Came Polly" and that was really just unfortunate. The movie tried to be both a light romantic comedy and "Something About Mary" and it didn't succeed at either. It was not a good way to spend $15 or 90-minutes. When we got back to the room, my mil and Tabi were asleep, so we also went to bed.

Pt. 2 to follow sometime after it's typed.