bean's birthday was magic(al)

the bean's birthday was a whole weekend of fun.  her actual birthday was on a friday, which meant that she still had to go to class but with the current schedule at school, the day would end at noon.  and just like every other birthday, she woke up to find the annual balloonfest in her room that magically appeared overnight.

of course, there were presents.  she got to open a few before it was time to head off to school, and i loved that she hunted down one of her disneyland birthday buttons to wear on her uniform top for the day.

we'd picked up a bunch of her favorite dots cupcakes to take to school and share with her class, and they were all individually boxed in their super cute packaging.

i picked her and one of her besties up from school, and we headed straight out to the west side to scoop up her birthday cake from milk.  while we were there we grabbed a few more treats to try since we'd never been there before, and the girls had fun with the claw machine - they won a pair of sunglasses.

our next destination?  the magic castle hotel.  while the girls aren't old enough to go to one of the famous magic shows, i'd heard that it was a super fun hotel to stay at, and it happened to be in the right area for us to have a fun dinner that night and then head out to the next activity the next day.  it's not exactly a fabulous, super swanky hotel - in fact, i'm pretty sure that it may have previously been an apartment complex that just so happened to be next to the magic castle.  it was definitely dated with a very small pool area and all of the "rooms" were definitely rental units in a previous life.  i told the girls it was an "adventure."  i'm not sure they bought it, but they went along with it anyway because they were together and having fun regardless of where we were.

when i made the reservation i told them that we were celebrating a birthday, and so when we walked into the bean and her friend's suite we found some rather half assed decorations and a basket of candy bars with a card from management.  it was pretty funny.

i'd also put together some fun goody bags for the girls with stuff i thought they'd like to have while they hung out in their room together.  they seemed to go over pretty well.

the pool area had cleared out, so we headed down there to hang out and relax.  plus, one of the big draws to this place was the fact they had a full menu of unlimited fun snacks that were complimentary:

plus there was a self-serve freestyle coke machine and endless soft serve ice cream.

and another perk was this - the popsicle hotline.  you pick it up, they answer and then send out a staff member with an assortment of popsicles to choose from on a silver platter.

i passed on the popsicles and instead enjoyed a hershey bar while i sat back and lounged poolside.

the old lady was happy to sip on some white claws, and then the guys showed up to join us for a bit before dinner.

dinner wasn't very far away, but we decided to call an uber so that no one had to drive.  plus there was a concert at the nearby hollywood bowl that night and traffic was pretty horrendous.

where was dinner, you ask?  well, we took a page from the old lady's 16th birthday way back when and headed to katsu-ya on hollywood boulevard.  the bean loves her some sushi, so it was an easy call.  we could have gone to yamashiro which was literally just above us, but reservations for a party our size were tough to secure.  that's okay.  the bean was perfectly happy either way.

we were super amused to find "titanic" playing in the car in our uber back to the hotel.

everybody congregated in the bean's room to enjoy some cake and watch her open presents.

yeah...i'm really not sure what's happening in this photo.

she was elated to open the roller skates that she'd asked for, along with a plethora of BTS merchandise.  and then we all cleared outta there to let her and her friend have some hangout time and get rested before the next day.  they had no idea what was happening next, but i think they were okay with being left in suspense.

birthday surprises are the best, aren't they?