When we woke up the next morning we had a leisurely breakfast of the hotel's free offerings (waffles, eggs, sausage, yogurt, cereal, fruit, coffee, biscuits and gravy... and I'm pretty sure Sam and Hallie ate a serving or two of EVERYTHING. At dinner, they routinely eat about 2 bites (our minimum rule)... but breakfast is a whole different story!
After breakfast, at the children's request, we walked all over the hotel for a self-guided "tour." We found a vending machine, much to the delight of my children. (After just eating enough to feed a third world nation, they still asked for a snack from the machine.) While eating these, I finished reading Prince Caspian aloud. It's a LARGE book (the whole Narnia series in one), and I really didn't want to bring it on vacation!
We still had some time to kill before going to the airport, so we flipped on the TV and found what has become the children's new favorite cartoon. Phineas and Ferb. It's on the Disney Channel, and since we don't have cable, it was new to all of us. I have to admit, it's a pretty clever and funny show. Before long it was time to ride the shuttle to the airport! We shared the ride with a family from Canada who was heading to Disney WORLD. There were a LOT of Canadians at the hotel... the general concensus was that they were escaping the madness of the tail end of the Olympics in Vancouver. They'd stayed to see a bit of it, and now were getting out of there!
We had lunch at "Chili's Too", right across from our gate. (Mac & Cheese for the kids, and Brian and I shared an order of mini sliders and fries.) While we waited for our plane, we watched news of the earthquake in Chile and the resulting tsunami watch in Hawaii. (Which didn't amount to much.)
We'd purposely done some simulation exercises and practice for the airport (going through security, walking in "duck formation", boarding and de-boarding the plane), so that went really well. (Thanks to Jo for the practice idea!) They both loved "takeoff" on their first flight ever, and did great on the plane. Hallie had some ear pain on the descent, despite having gum and hard candies at her disposal, but it didn't last too long. We arrived in LA just before 5, got our luggage and boarded our shuttle bus (with pictures of Disneyland on the side), arriving at our hotel (The Anaheim Camelot Inn) around 6.
We checked in, settled our belongings, then headed over to the Disney property. No parks today, but we picked up our tickets (pre-ordered as part of our vacation package) so we wouldn't have to wait in the ticket line the next morning. Next stop... Downtown Disney. We intended to find something for dinner. We wandered into Wetzel's Pretzels, where Sam and Hallie shared a pepperoni pretzel, Brian had an almond crunch, and I had a cinnamon pretzel, and we all shared a fresh lemonade. As we were eating the rain came in! It was a pretty substantial downpour, and there weren't many places to duck in away from the rain (especially since we had food in our hands), so we got pretty wet.
We looked at a few shops, then ended up at Marceline's confectionary. Our Disney Reward Dollars covered this store, so everyone got to pick out a treat for later in the evening. Hallie chose a "fill-your-own" tube of powdered candy (like a big plastic pixie stick), Sam got chocolate coins with characters on them, Brian chose dark chocolate covered almonds and I got a chocolate-topped rice crispy treat. (But oh, the choosing was agonizing!)
Still hungry for real food, we stopped at (kids eat free after 4) IHOP on the way back to the hotel. Brian got cheesecake pancakes (which I'll be recreating at home one day soon), I had a pot roast melt that was delicious, and the children both chose the sliver dollar pancakes meal. It was getting late by the time we finished, so we headed back to the hotel for the night. And so ends Day 2. (Sorry for the tedious details, like what we ate for dinner... but this is going in our family yearbook, and some of those details are fun to look back on for those who lived it.)
BBQ with Tyler and Hailey tomorrow at noon!!! I'm off to make cupcakes!
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