Day 11 (My Birthday)

Great day from beginning to end! The day started with an early morning phone call from my sister, Roberta who is at my other sister's (Courtney) house helping to care for Courtney and Ricky's new baby. She and my new niece (Sidney) serenaded me with a happy birthday song (although I didn't hear Sidney actually singing :-). Got to work and did about 2 hours worth of work until me and three of the team members (Michelle, Cherry and Grace) left to spend the rest of the day at Ocean Park (a competitor). The park is built into a mountain and is nearly surrounded by water. The park was fun, not as fun as Disney of course (or as clean, or friendly, etc) and we had a great day. To me it felt like a cross between Sea World (but not nearly as good) and a local fair or boardwalk (but larger and better). Maybe it's a cross between Sea World and Coney Island. I've never been to Knottsberry Farms, but Grace told me that the person who runs the park used to work there and she thinks it's similar. At lunchtime, we went to the park's sit-down restaurant that overlooks the park and the water. Get this - I ordered Chinese food and the team ordered hot dogs and french fries! We all laughed about that. I've attached a few pictures: us at the park entrance, a panda we saw (we didn't get into the dolphin show), view from the cable car (yes another cable car ride - over a mountain this time because the park is separated into two sections and you have to go by cable car) and us on the Raging River ride. We got completely soaked, but it was like 100% humidity, so being wet actually felt good! Problem is that with that kind of humidity, the clothes don't really dry quickly, so I was still wet in some areas at my birthday dinner! (Oh, throughout the day and evening, I received tons of email messages and e-cards, so thank you so much everyone!)

The team arranged for us to eat dinner at an "American" restaurant named Dan Ryan's. It really was American cuisine with steaks, ribs, burgers, fries, salads, seafood, etc. But it also had a few pasta dishes that were good. The menu had a "warning" that alerted people that the portion sizes were American, so they would be large! Once we got the food, we saw that they were not kidding. As the servers were clearing the plates and people were deciding on dessert, Andy showed us a trick where he bounced a cork and made it stand on one end! I'll show it to you when I get back. After dinner, they surprised me with a cake and the servers and team sang happy birthday to me. I've attached a couple of pictures. If you click on the second b-day pic, you can see the little girl at the next table. After the servers sang to me, she sang to me too (by herself)! Everyone laughed, it was really cute. Then, the sever handed me a knife and asked me to cut the cake, so I asked him for plates and forks. The team started laughing at me because I was supposed to make a cut in the cake and then he takes it away, puts it onto plates, and then serves it to each person individually (like at a wedding). Oh well, I'm sure that's not the last time I'll be embarrassed :-)

I thought the surprises would end, but when I got back to my room, there was this beautiful flower arrangement waiting for me in my room from Dale! The arrangement has 12 red roses with other pretty flowers mixed in; some I've never seem before. What a way to end the day! Then I got to work this morning and there was an interoffice mailing waiting for me with birthday wishes inside from Dyann and Mary! Wow, I wonder when they mailed it?!