Grandma's Big Birthday Weekend

When Grandma's birthday rolled around, It certainly was a big weekend - not because of a milestone birthday (which it was) but because we had a full schedule on the books. Thursday was Grandma's birthday so we had to go to Disneyland to celebrate. We still couldn't convince the girls to go on Pirates "even for Grandma's birthday, pretty pleeeease?" But Grampa went with her and we all savored carved sandwiches at the River Belle Terrace, and enjoyed the Tiki Room and a few other attractions before the evening was out.

Saturday was the day for the family to share their birthday wishes and enjoy a delicious dinner at a cute retro table courtesy of Uncle Mike and Aunt Charlotte. It was especially nice to see how Kaitlyn had grown since we had seen her last. We think Grandma enjoyed having her grandkids around her just a little bit.

Sunday morning, we picked up Grandma for a fun morning in Hollywood. We had theatre tickets to see the newly remastered "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" at the El Capitan. Our VIP experience allowed us to enjoy popcorn and drinks in reserved seats in the orchestra section. Often, the previews are almost as good as the feature and in this case we were given 3D glasses just to watch one preview. (Apparently we were supposed to deposit them in some receptacle on the way out but Mom missed that part - so we have a few nice pairs at home)

The movie itself was amazing! Of course we knew how it was going to turn out, but on the big screen it was pretty powerful stuff. One anecdote from a Walt Disney biography has an eyewitness account of seeing Clark Gable weeping at the premiere when the dwarfs were keeping watch over a poisoned Snow White. After seeing it in this format, it's easy to believe. As always, the audience applauded and cheered at the end of the film.

We carefully made our way over and past the children scrambling to gather the confetti that had been released at the beginning of the movie, to the Soda Fountain for lunch and ice cream. We even surprised Grandma with a souvenir Snow White photo from the printing kiosk in the store. While everyone was eating, Mom hopped over to the kiosk with camera's memory card, added a border, pressed print and voila! one perfectly captured memory. You know, when we suggested the stack of plans to Grandma, we expected her to be tired of seeing us but it doesn't seem to have been the case.