Disneyland Day 3

After the Half Marathon, we headed back to the hotel room to take a shower.  When we got there, the housekeeper was still in there so we took a seat on the floor.  We even stayed there for a little while after she left.  It just felt so nice and cool.  As soon as we walked in, I headed for the bathroom to wash the biofreeze off my hands because I wanted to eat something but wanted to make sure I got all that off first.  I heard the girls laughing but wasn't sure why.  I walked out of the bathroom to find this!

 

 

 

The girls were laughing because I was completely oblivious when I first walked in.  The girls had gotten me a surprise!  I have such great friends! 

 

This is my "why are you laughing at me?" face.

 

 

 

 

Cori got me the Princess birthday bucket.  Does she know me well or what?  Birthday cake and princesses!!

And Suluh got me a wine and cheese basket.  She said that she had called earlier but they called her back when we were in line for Goofy's Kitchen the day before and she told me that it was work related.  And since she was going with that excuse, she couldn't pull Cori away from me to ask what I would like.  So she took a guess on the wine and cheese.  And she guessed perfectly!  I LOOOVE wine and cheese! (and am trying to eat all the cheese plates on WDW property).  So she picked perfectly.  It was so yummy!

We took a shower and snacked on some cheese and crackers and birthday cake.  I had to take a picture of all 4 medals!!

 

We headed out to La Brea Bakery to get some breakfast.  I didn't feel like any food but did ask for chocolate milk.  It was homemade and tasted like pure chocolate syrup.  I downed that sucker in about 4 seconds flat!  Delicious!  We waited for Derek to meet up with us again (yay for getting to see him twice!!) and then headed over to Disneyland and Space Mountain.

I had to take a picture of my running shirt.  And I'll explain it here since so many people didn't get it.  I wanted a Disney/running/birthday themed shirt.  So Justin helped me come up with this and it's perfect! The Disneyland 10k theme was Alice in Wonderland and they celebrate her un-birthday (in fact, they kept playing that song while we waited for the race to start. I was hoping they would do that before the Half Marathon too, but they didn't).  Anyways, since it was really my birthday, that would make it my un-unbirthday.  And since I was running, it was my (r)un-unbirthday!!!  Love it!

 

We hopped on Space Mountain.  I love that it's side by side at Disneyland.  Love this pic too!  Derek's screaming, I'm smiling, Cori has her eyes closed so she can't see the flashing lights (she has epilepsy), and Suluh's making sure Cori's okay.

 

We rode some more rides like Small World and Derek was so great about running and getting our fast passes since we were shuffling around (I was limping around) slowly.  So thankful for him!

 

Then we headed over to California Adventure because I wanted to check one last time on the popcorn (which was still broken.  Sigh).  We rode Radiator Springs again and took some pictures.

 

We also changed our dinner reservation.  We were doing the World of Color dinner package at Ariel's Grotto since Cori is super picky and that had the best choices for her.  But she still wasn't feeling well and wasn't going to eat more than a kid's menu.  So we changed it to the place that I thought I'd like the best.  Wine Country Trattoria.  Our waiter was great.  We explained that Cori wasn't feeling well and she asked if she could order from the kid's menu, even paying for the adult price if necessary since it was part of the dinner package.  The waiter said sure and that he would only charge her the kids price, and if she decided she didn't want to eat at all, he would still give her a ticket so she could be with us.  How great is that?!

I had the salad which had arugula, fennel, red onion, spiced walnuts, and goat cheese with a fig-balsamic dressing.  I asked for no walnuts and discovered that I don't like fennel.  But the rest was yummy.  Especially the goat cheese!!

For entrée, I had the Filet Mignon served with roasted potatoes, sautéed green beans, and a bleu cheese butter.  I like my steak medium-rare.  And if it errs, I like it to be more rare than  medium.  Unfortunately, the steak was medium, bordering on medium-well.  Not even close to how I like it.  The girls told me to send it back, but since it was over-done and not under, they couldn't just throw it back on the grill.  They'd have to completely do a new one.  So I just sucked it up and ate it.  I wished we had stuck with Ariel's Grotto though.

For dessert, we got a sampler of Trattoria Tiramisu, European Macaroons, Vanilla Bean Panna Cotta with Fresh Fruit, and a Chocolate Caramel Espresso Tart.  It was okay but nothing grabbed us we only tried a few bites.

Then our waiter surprised us and came out with a birthday treat.  Inside was chocolate mousse.  Now THAT was yummy!  I was so full but I ate the whole thing!

 

We did some shopping and then went in search of plain popcorn since I needed to have some that day!  We ended up doing almost a full circle around the lake!  You'd think they'd have more popcorn carts!  We got in our reserved area about an hour ahead of time.  Again, I didn't like that there wasn't seats available.  And it was especially rough getting up and down after the Half earlier.  But it was sooooo worth it!  I loved World of Color!  I think Epcot needs to get rid of Illuminations and put in World of color!

 

After the show, we headed back to the hotel to head to bed.  We had to be up at 5:45 to head back to the airport.  (We flew home on Virgin and I loved them!!!)

We had so much fun!  I just wish we had had one extra day at the end.  There was still a bunch of things that I didn't get to do that I wanted to!  One day!