San Diego Day 4/ Drive to Anaheim- Downtown Disney

Sycely and I made one last trip to the beach while Ella took her morning nap and Lem finished getting us packed up. We loaded up and said good-bye to our little Mission Beach house, Casa Sofia and took Aunti Eris to the airport so she could fly back to Arizona. Once we’d dropped off our cargo (Aunti Eris) we began our trek to Anaheim to begin the surprise portion of our vacation. I was SOOOOO excited the whole drive there- I couldn’t wait to surprise Sycely with our big announcement that we were going to Disneyland! We stopped at the Carlsbad Outlet mall on the way, did some fabulous shopping at the Carter’s Outlet-one of my faves- and some other places at the mall there.

Sooooo sleepy in the car on the drive to Anaheim

We still hadn’t exactly figured out how or when we were going to reveal our Disney surprise to Sycely. We weren’t sure when we’d be arriving at the hotel or how much she’d be able to see on the drive in. We managed to get all check in to our hotel without rousing too much suspicion and decided we’d venture on over to Downtown Disney for dinner at Rainforest Café. We told Sycely we were going to go to a special, fun restaurant for dinner that had some neat animals that did a show, etc. After the first 50 feet of our walk we decided we probably better let the cat out the bag. We figured the hundreds of Mickey Mouse et. al images on the Disneyland signs, bags, t-shirts and buses would probably be raising some questions so we stopped at the Maingate and spilled the beans- “We’re at Disneyland!” It wasn’t until our first hour inside the park in daylight that I think that statement really garnered any bearing. We had dinner at Rainforest Cafe and I thoroughly enjoyed just watching Sycely take it all in on the walk there (cue the Mommy tears.) By the time we got back to the hotel from dinner Far Nanny and Papa Scott had arrived. We visited with them a few minutes before getting the girls to bed. Our Disneyland adventure would start bright and early the next morning…

Disneyland Maingate-our first glimpse of the Magic Kingdom

Taking in all the sights of Downtown Disney