WDWCP: Happy Birthday to ME

I was born at 4 o'clock in the morning, so I guess getting up at 5:15 on my birthday morning shouldn't have been tough? But what about the time change? I mean that was then 2:15am in Oregon. No? Doesn't work that way? Well either way, I was up very early on my birthday, and for a pretty good reason. All of us students from Oregon State University were getting our photo taken together in front of that awful birthday cake castle. I guess it made sense to have my birthday with the biggest cake in the world! You learned in an earlier post about the Utilidor at the Magic Kingdom. A big purpose of the Tunnel is to keep costumes out of the wrong land. This day was the exception, although we were doing this before the park had opened to guests. I had a blast wearing my Frontierland costume into Tomorrowland... just because I could! For the lifelong fan of Disney theme parks, finally getting to spend my birthday IN one was beyond exciting!!

Birthday girl & the birthday cake!

After changing from my costume into normal clothes, I was so excited to meet most of my roommates at the Crystal Palace for my first ever character dining experience. It is pretty self explanatory, but that means you get to have breakfast, this was a buffet, and characters come around to interact and do photos. We will cover characters later, but basically they terrified me back then! For the Crystal Palace the characters are those from the 100 Acre Wood.

Marcy, Sarah, Brenda and Zaira all joined me. Danielle was, she was somewhere else. She worked in the evening, so she wasn't at work. But she wasn't with us either. I don't know. This made for a better breakfast dynamic anyway.

You may notice in the following photos how red I turn as this goes on. Basically, believe it or not, I get nervous in front of cameras and when all attention is on me. And this is before I could have rum to add to the mix, so yeah, nerves and redness!

Because it was my birthday, Cast Members brought me a cute Happy Birthday card and sang to me. I was also given the most delicious cupcake. I am not kidding. I can still remember how it tasted. Second to a different Disney cupcake I had (strawberry lemonade), this was the yummiest cupcake ever!

Really, that isn't a sunburn. I just turned That red.

Eeyore was fun to see. I enjoy that cute, mopey little guy.

Eeyore was a group favorite, so we were sure to get this photo before we left!

With regard to the Crystal Palace... I love it! I've had more birthdays there since this first visit. It is totally my kind of food, being breakfast.  I can have as many eggs as I want. And French toast. And Mickey Mouse pancakes. And potatoes. This is all I really need. There are so many things to pick from, but I keep it simple. Love, love, LOVE!!

Some of my roommates got me presents, so we had extra there for that. Extra time meant more time for socializing with each other and more character photos ops. I left a bunch of them out because do you really want to see every single photo? Probably not. As it is I probably went overboard, but it was my birthday, I was 19 years old!

Danielle had sent along a gift for me to open. She wasn't there, but she did get me a gift, so that is pretty darn cool of her. Nobody had to get me anything, so I was extra appreciative that they were so thoughtful. I still own every single gift you'll see, and still in great condition. My little daughter now owns the gift Danielle gave me, as I use them as part of her Disneyland nursery decorations.... the Mickey Mouse shoe slippers! The one thing we didn't think about while living there was that all the stuff we bought, we had to get home. Oops!

Sarah got me this cute, super comfy red night shirt with Mickey on it. I just wore it not that long ago. I love how it comes down nearly to my knees! This was a good find on her part, totally something that goes with my lounging around the house style!

I was extra stunned at Marcy's gift because it was something I had mentioned while we were there but it was just too spendy for my blood. It was a Mickey Mouse bath robe. Anyone noticing a theme here??

Eventually we had to finish our breakfast, but not without a quick good bye with Winnie the Pooh himself! Some had to work later, but we had a little time to play in the Magic Kingdom before parting ways. We decided to go on the world famous Jungle Cruise together. Dang it, Brenda and I actually did get wet from the backside of water!!

After our cruise through the Jungle, Marcy and I went to Mickey's Toontown Fair to ride on Goofy's Barnstormer, the cute mini roller coaster for children. We might be older, but we are still kids at heart! Back at Vista Way, Marcy and I watched Sleeping Beauty, which I bought in the Magic Kingdom the day it was released on VHS. Ooh yeah, we were excited about our VHS tape. And watching Sleeping Beauty was a nice break from the Weather Channel.

Later in the evening I got to have a birthday date with Vinny. He picked me up and surprised me by taking me to Downtown Disney Westside to watch Kiss the Girls. Once that was done we went to another favorite place of ours, Disney's Boardwalk. While sitting on a swinging bench in the sand a roomie and friends came walking by. He was quite nervous when meeting them, but he was a hit. They all gave their seal of approval!

To make up for unexpectedly meeting my new Orlando family I was taken to Disney's Grand Floridian to meet his dad, who was at work at the time. I was so nervous. I mean in my head I was about to meet Tony Soprano, even though the Sopranos didn't exist yet. But that is the image I had in my head when I was about to meet the Italian dad from New Jersey! The nerves were really for no reason. He was great and so nice to me!

That was my birthday! Incredibly long, but also incredibly memorable and worth every minute!

See ya real soon! °o°