I am still not sure I believe that this day is here, but today is Hunter’s second birthday! It is truly amazing how fast times goes by when you have kids. Because it was Hunter’s special day I decided to take the day off work to spend with Hunter, Emily, Grandma and Poppop. Emily and I decided that we would spend the day doing many of Hunter’s favorite activities in honor of our little buddy.
We started the day around 10:00 o’clock as we headed to Disney’s Contemporary Resort to treat Hunter to the Chef Mickey’s Character breakfast. When we sat down to breakfast we were informed that we would be visited by Goofy, Pluto, Mickey, Minnie
and Donald, which caused Hunter’s face to light up. Since we have provided a healthy dose of Disney Character brain washing, Hunter was quite familiar with the Fab 5. I must say that I have not been this amused in quite a long time. Grandma bought Hunter an autograph book prior to breakfast so that he could capture autographs from all of his favorites. When each character visited, Hunter kindly pointed to his book for each of them to sign. Another one of Hunter’s favorite pastimes with the characters is to kiss them on the nose. It was so cute watching him go through his meet-and-greet routine with each of them. The breakfast was delicious and toward the end of our meal Hunter was surprised by a cupcake with two lit candles. He blew them out while the characters sang and danced around the restaurant. Mickey even stopped by to help him blow out the candles. It was the perfect ending to a great dining experience. Hunter enjoyed himself immensely!
One of the great things about dining at the Contemporary is that you can see the monorail come through the hotel about every 5 minutes or so. This excited Hunter, as he cannot get enough of riding the monorail. Emily had it all planned out that after breakfast we would ride the monorail from the Contemporary to the Magic Kingdom. This we did, and Hunter ate it up! We often come to Disney on the weekend just to ride the monorail because Hunter loves it so much.
Our first stop at the Magic Kingdom was another one of Hunter’s favorite pastimes, riding the Magic Kingdom Railroad. As we approached the park we could hear the sound of the train whistle which is often accompanied by Hunter’s emphatic “train, train, train!” comment. We entered the park and headed to Guest Relations to get Hunter a birthday pin and headed up the ramp to the train. Hunter was on cloud nine. We rode the train around the park and got off at the Toontown train station. Because the park was busy we knew we needed to head to Hunter’s favorite attraction to get fast passes before we did anything else. This we did and made our way from Toontown to the Zurg ride (known to the rest of the world as Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin). Hunter loves Zurg!
We got our fastpasses and found out we had about an hour to kill before our return time. We rode the people mover and walked around Toontown while we waited. Hunter again enjoyed the playground in front of Mickey’s house in Toontown. After about an hour we returned to battle Zurg and Hunter had a blast spinning Emily and I around in circles. After we finished the ride we decided it was time to head home so Hunter could take a nap before we had our guests over for dinner.
As we were leaving the park, we realized the parade was about to start and a whole section at the park entrance was empty, so we decided to stay just a bit longer to catch the parade. Hunter seemed to enjoy it and that is all I will say about that.
When we got home, our tuckered out buddy slept for a few hours while we prepared his little birthday “party.” After Hunter arose from his nap we were greeted once again by Grandma and Poppop and Jen, Danny and Lily, who were all joining us for Hunter’s birthday dinner. Emily made Hunter’s favorite dinner, ham carbonara, which is basically slices of ham with noodles. It’s actually a really good dish that we all enjoy. We all enjoyed the dinner and our company as we stuffed our faces. After dinner it was time for the amazing cake that Emily constructed (with a little help from a bulldozer and a dump truck). Hunter thought it was pretty cool and we all thought it was delicious. The theme of the cake was from one of Hunter’s favorite books called I’m Dirty – a “mud cake with dirt sprinkles and a scoop of rocky road.” (Emily made me add that.)
After dinner Hunter dug into all his presents saying “Oh my goodness” with each gift that he opened. He played with everything immediately after opening and provided for some entertainment as always. After gifts it was time to call it a day. I think everyone, especially Hunter, enjoyed themsleves quite a bit today. Check out the photos from the day below.
