It's time to start the countdown

6!! Only 6 days until all the fun of my birthday extravaganza at Disneyland begin. And now, because you haven't had enough of me telling you how many days to go, you get to read all about it. I'm going through some major planning withdrawals right now, and I'm falling too far behind. Why on earth haven't I started packing anything yet?! Aren't the obsessive compulsive pack rat who takes close to two whole weeks to pack everything to make sure nothing is skipped over because she got tired of winding up down a toothbrush and pajamas wherever she went? Today will be the day, I tell you.

I know we're getting together on Thursday so I can catch up on the end of season 2 of True Blood, but we also have to tackle the all-important playlist on my iPod to make for the drive to Anaheim as well as the drive home, which is guaranteed to include a couple of Dre-Jazz staples like "the man song" which is our affectionate term for a track off the Mulan soundtrack better known as "I'll Make a Man Out of You". Speaking of, we were recently asked by someone what it is about that song and why women seem to like it so much. It turns out that his wife has pretty much the same reaction we do whenever we hear the song. In the words of Dre ...

Donny Osmond + Machismo =
I know that outside of the packing and the playlist there isn't a whole lot to do, but I'm just antsy and feel like I should be doing something. I keep going over everything in my head:

- Park Hoppers? Check. Thanks to Disney's summer promotion we get 2 days free with the purchase of our 3 day hoppers (Disney speak for tickets). Getting them through the Credit Union also ended up saving us another $20-40 if we had purchased them through Disney.

- Hotel Reservation? Check. We're staying at the Howard Johnson on Harbor Blvd. again, which is a few minutes walking distance to the park gates. We even scored on their entertainment rate this time. What is an entertainment rate? It's a 50% discount that they offer on select dates if you have a valid Entertainment Card, which is the discount card that comes with the Entertainment Book. So we've got our room booked at $57/night.

- Entertainment Card? Check. This is one that I almost let slip my mind. Oh, how sorry I would have been! But a quick search on eBay, $1.50, and 3 days later I officially have our little piece of plastic that is saving us so much money.

- Priority Seating? Check. Here's another Disney term that you probably haven't heard before. Priority Seating is similar to a typical dining reservation, and can be made 60 days in advance. Rather than waiting until I could call and make them all at once I had so much fun calling each day that we reached 60 days out from when we had planned our dining! We made a total of 4 different PS: Blue Bayou (the restaurant that is inside Pirates of the Caribbean), Ariel's Grotto (character meal), Goofy's Kitchen (character meal), and Minnie & Friend's (character meal).

Dre and I did the Minnie & Friend's Breakfast in the park back in March:





Fairy Godmother loved the color of my nail polish.

Dale almost knocked my ears off.



- Free admission on my birthday? un-Check. I may not be getting the free admission on my birthday because we already have 5 day Park Hoppers, but that doesn't mean I am not loving this year's birthday promotion!! I've registered and printed out my voucher, now all I have to do is take my ID and Park Hopper to get my Birthday Fun Card. So much better than the free admission. They give me $72 to go spend in the parks. How awesome is that?! It's going to be so hard to decide what I want to buy, but I'm sure that I'll manage. I wonder if I can also use my 10% coupon. Hmmm.

Be prepared. I am not done talking about Disneyland. Not by a long shot!

Oh, and remember! I wont be home on my actual birthday or a few days before - but I will shamelessly beg for some awesome voice mail on my cell phone of everyone singing me happy birthday.