Not Quite 30!

Tomorrow's the day...I turn 30. I've had friendw struggle with this birthday. They have cried, issued warnings to those of us who are younger, and just complained. To be honest, I don't get it. Tomorrow seems pretty much like today. I'll pack my same sack lunch, go to my same job, and carry on my same routine. To me, 29 versus 30 is just not that different.

One thing I will say about 30 is that I have gotten a little special treatment. To help celebrate the "milestone," Jim told me we could go on a weekend trip. We had a few ideas and nothing seemed to work. Either prices were too high, or the dates didn't work, or our work schedules conflicted. I honestly didn't think we would ever go on a birthday trip. And, I always assumed my birthday trip would be something small, since we are both limited on vacation from work. Somehow, about a month ago, the stars aligned and we realized we could actually celebrate this past weekend -- just two days before my birthday. We started researching plane tickets and found the cheapest tickets in the US were to Orlando. Decision made -- Disney World! And since we had been to Disney before, our goal was to stay in a nice hotel (Wilderness Lodge), eat at nice places, relax...basically to have an adult trip at a kids location. I've learned it is totally possible.


We went on Friday (Jim flew from DFW and I flew in from Wyoming [via Denver], where I was on a work trip). We got in around 2:30 am Saturday morning. By 10:00am, we were at a Disney Water Park. We stayed into the afternoon before going back to the hotel and cleaning up for dinner and Cirque du Soleil. Sunday morning, we went to the Magic Kingdom. There were no lines and we rode everything multiple times, before enjoying my favorite snack ever -- Dole Whip (pineapple soft serve) and taking in the Electric Parade and fireworks. If you ever want to do something up big, go to Disney. They gave me this Happy Birthday button to wear. All day, people were wishing me happy birthday. It was so much fun -- especially when Snow White gave me a public shout-out during the parade. We got back to the hotel around 12:30am this morning (Monday) morning, only to board a bus to the airport just 5 hours later. Sleep deprived and wishing we were still at Disney, we both went to work at 1:00pm on this afternoon (crazy, I know).

We don't have a ton of pictures -- mainly just a couple of us and a few of our hotel. But, they are on our Flickr. Pictures take time and energy to take and we just weren't in to having a high maintenance trip. Needless to say, this was probably my best birthday ever. So take that 30...when you finally arrive in less than 12 hours.