our day...

IT was an emotional day.  IT was a gloomy day. 

IT was a fun day.  IT was a memorable day. 

 

FIVE was hard.  I thought it would be easier as the years passed.  This one was not.

 

I was sooooo good to be back at Disneyland again.  365 days is too long.  I missed seeing his brick.  I missed just being there. We will not let this much time pass again.  Even if we can't go into the park, we WILL visit his brick (just outside the gates) more often.

Thanks to some very special people (who I know were led by God), we were ALL able to get into the park for his birthday.  Last week, a special mama who reads my blog emailed me with a Disney connection that resulted in two people that don't even know us donating each of their "2 employee comp passes" to us(4 in total).  I still can't believe that.  It completely humbles me.

Being that we live 30 minutes from Disney, there are a lot of people in our area that work there.  We don't have a lot of "friends" but we have a ton of acquantences with all of our kids activities...so we asked everyone.  For weeks we came up empty.  No luck.  Then the evening before, we got good news.  Someone's friend (again who doesn't even know us) was working that day and was able to sign the other 2 of us into the park for FREE.  Unbelievable.  Seriously.

We had planned on buying the other 2 tickets (a whopping $81 each/child) but finances are tight these days so it was a relief that we didn't have to.  And what was even more special is that God orchestrated ALL of this...in it's craziness.  It was a lesson in FAITH.  It was an example of LOVE.

We went to the park earlier this year since we only had 1 day to do everything that we wanted (having passes sure did take the pressure off of trying to fit everything in). 

We were stopped at the "security" check (pointless I might add) and told that we would NOT be allowed to bring in our cake (which I had tried to hide at the bottom of the stroller) and our banner.  WHAT!?!   My blood began to boil.  I was mad.  Steaming on the inside.  How dare they deny me my son's celebration.

We waited for a supervisor.  I was not going down this easily.  I was going to fight for this one...Once again we were denied.  Authoritatively.  It was their POLICY!

I began explaining WHY we were bringing the cake and banner in.  I begged this lady to not deny us this one celebration...I was angry on the inside...tears were falling on the outside.

The supervisor began to cry as well and said that she would not deny us of this...she later saw us over by his brick and offered to take photos of us (all the photos of the balloon release were taken by her). 

After we released our balloons my oldest was sobbing.  She couldn't stop.  This once authoritative lady came over and hugged her...and didn't let go.  It turns out that she had lost 2 brothers years ago.  It was no coincidence that she was the "supervisor" that was working that day...

 

 

I bought GOLD balloons for his Golden Birthday and we tied our handwritten notes and birthday wishes to each one.

Kaylee drew a picture on the back of hers of her and Nate holding hands.  She wrote:  "I wish we could do this".  SIGH...broke my heart all over again.

We said a prayer...sang Happy Birthday and let them go. 

There was no blue sky. 

It was gloomy.

 

We spent most of our day in the new CARSland.  I figured that this was what Nate would want to do.  SO we gave him a CARS birthday.  We tried to incorporate CARS into our entire day.

 

My favorite photo.  The sun came out for an hour...I hate gloomy days and my husband said that I should be grateful that God gave us an hour of BLUE SKY.

Love the "LOVE" t-shirts that the twins are wearing!  And the "heart U" outfit that Brady has on.

 

This was Nate's stroller.  It's a long story but we had to have him at a really yucky hospital in Hollywood, CA (in reality HOLLYWOOD is a really bad area) so that he could have surgery next door at Children's Hospital LA.  Evidently most people are too poor to buy carseats for their babies so the hospital gives everyone either a car seat OR a stroller as a "gift" before you leave. 

CRAZY!!!

 

Anyway, we kept Nate's stroller in our garage for years.  I just couldn't part with it.  I'm so glad because now I get to use it for Brady.  I just love using it.  It's so nice that we have something of Nate's  (and we always have the giraffe with us, Christy).  Brady LOVED Disney soooo much.  He was up the entire day only taking a 20 minute nap!

 

A "CARS" bread!

 

 

A "CARS" birthday celebration!

 

 

Keeping our balloon tradition.  I LOVE seeing them in their rooms all month long.

 

A very, very late dinner at McDonald's.  Tradionally, we eat lunch there before we go to the park but this year we left in the morning.  This was at 8:30pm.

 

And we finished off the night with Shamrock Shakes.  There was a McDonald's INSIDE Childrens Hospital so we had lots of McDonalds and shamrock shakes during our stay. 

A bittersweet memory.

 

 

 

 

**** SPECIAL THANKS****

 

I must take a moment to thank a few people for making this happen.  First of all to God...for I know that He was behind it all.  Second to a follower named Derin H. who made the most generous offer ever.  Third to M and her family member who was so generous.  Fourth to a stranger that works at Disney and was kind to perfect strangers.  Fifth to B who doesn't read this blog but I must thank her for hooking us up with her friend.  Sixth to a Disney employee named "K" who signed in 2 of our kids and saved us $162.