Doing Disney

Saturday we packed up and left Grandma and Papa at the condo, and headed to Disneyland for our 2nd day. I wouldn’t have minded spending the day at the beach instead, it would have been more relaxed and we really had a great time at Disneyland on Tuesday, but we’d bought the 2 day tickets and I don’t think I could have stood wasting the money. We checked into our hotel, which was called the Portifino – it was a little farther away from the main gate, and a fair amount more expensive than the Ramada we’d stayed at before, but quite a bit cleaner and nicer. The girls had their own section of the room with sliding French doors to give them privacy, with their own TV and bunkbeds, and a couch and table. Thing 1 was so enchanted with the room we had a hard time getting her out of there to go to the park. We had a very nice time once we got there, but again there was this shopping cloud hanging over everything, with the girls constantly asking when they could go buy their gift. We went to California adventure in the morning, then at lunchtime we stopped at a nice Italian place in Downtown Disney or a late lunch, then went to Disneyland for the rest of the day. We did let them browse the Lego store, and the Disney store, and the Build-a-bear store while we were in Downtown Disney. I was expecting Thing 2 to be rather indecisive about what she wanted to buy, she’d been really good about holding off at Legoland the 2nd day we were there when Thing 1 bought a 2nd Lego set, and Thing 2 had decided to save her money for Disneyland, so by the time we got there she was hot to spend. After a fairly thorough perusal through the big Disney store, Thing 2 still was begging for a build-a-bear, so at the end of the day we took them back there and they both got a new best friend. Thing 2 chose a much more expensive animal, a dog, and got a puppy and a dress for it. Thing 1 chose a rabbit that was almost half as much, and got a magic set for it that included a wand, a black velvet hat, and a little white rabbit. I thought they both chose phenomenally, but later Thing 2 told me she wished we’d let her get a folding dog kennel instead, to put her dog in. Sigh.
It was a long walk back to the hotel. But those two little girls walked ALL THE WAY from the hotel, around Disneyland and California Adventure and downtown Disney with hardly a word of complaint… they did phenomenal. Thing 1 got kind of scared when Hubby and I went the back way out of downtown Disney and got turned around. She was sure we were lost and would spend the rest of our lives wandering around the Disney property, and then she kind of got tired, and I carried her the last block to the hotel. But all in all they were real troopers.