Monday, May 18, 2009

doin' disney-surprise style

And by surprise, I mean that the kids had no idea. =)

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About a month ago, Dan and I decided to plan a little vacay and to surprise the kids with a DisneyLand vacation. We were a little bit giddy as we bought our tickets online, paid for our hotel, and planned out a Wed-Sat getaway to occur mid-May.

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Last week, we pulled them out of school early, not telling them what-was-up, Chad. (<---little reference to my favorite Alltel commercial there)

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Then we drove west!

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For a good hour they were actually a bit irked as continued to keep things a secret.

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We said to just trust, sit back and enjoy the ride, that we were going on a little trip.

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I spent the first half of our drive doing this. Gotta love a little suntannin' before we ever got to California. =)

So about an hour before Anaheim, the kids started watching a movie. We got closer to our hotel and began to pass Disney signs right left, but the kids were not paying attention and still had no idea. We parked outside the hotel and I got out my camera along with the envelope holding our Disney tickets. This is the very sad response that I got:

I almost cried I was so disappointed in their reaction! So after a bit of coaching and chiding and geez-this-is-the-thanks-we-get, we got this reaction:

Rolling my eyes. Such little actors. They did get excited after the initial disappointment of not going to visit the cousins for the weekend.

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We decided to start the evening out with a romp through Downtown Disney.

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The Lego store was awesome-meet Darth Vader made of legos.

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Disney hats

We had a bit of fun with all the hats at the Disney toy store.

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I loved this shot of the kids looking in the Confectioner's Shop.

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We looked through a bunch of different shops, getting dinner ideas, played with the water, and enjoyed the musical performers.

It didn't take the kids long to get really excited about all the sights, sounds, and smells of Disney. I guess if we had to do the whole surprise thing over again, we would have made sure that they knew we were not going to Grandma and Grandpa's house. Hee hee.

More coming up tomorrow. =)

16 comments:

Wiggy said...

Wow looks like you had fun. Looking forward to the next post :)

Staci said...

looks like you had a great time! Can't wait to hear more! :)

Delfina said...

That was a great suprise. Plus, it looks like they had a lot of fun.

Anonymous said...

That's great! Love the "reaction" second time around! Lol!!

AZ HS Spotlight said...

Kind of sweet that family rules over Disney. My kids would be so ticked off we went to California and didn't go to Disneyland. In fact, they have been bugging me since they heard you guys went. "When are we going, can we go when the baby is born, yada yada."

Liz said...

What a fun surprise... You went at a great time of year to...

Liz said...

What a fun surprise... You went at a great time of year to...

Christy said...

Lucky! ;) Disney is one of our favortie place to be! We have a trip coming up in December and it couldn't get here fast enough!!

Christy said...

Whoa! I need to pay attention when I type.

"Disney is one of our favorite places to be."

That's better.

Jenna said...

Awesome! You so need to get Sean into commercials, that kid can act. It was totally believable!

Anonymous said...

I like the pictures alot! Except the toe shot kind of scared me. LOL! You have long toenails!! Have a great time!

Teri said...

we did the same with our boys... surprised them and we were so dissapointed at their reaction... I think next time we go we will have a long drawn out plan and they will be anticipating the day we leave for months. at least we will =feel like they are more excited!

Dahlene said...

What little party poopers. I can't believe they'd rather be with cousins than go to Disneyland. That's just hilarious. I wouldn't put it past my kids to react the same way thinking they were going to spend the weekend with cousins. They love that too.

You look a little "Wicked" in that shirt Amie. Glad you had a great time. By the way, did you get to see "Wicked"?

minimemama said...

Ooh i LOVE the WICKED shirt (of course lol) :)

wittygal said...

Wow looks like so much fun! I love Disney Land and family time on top of that is just pure BLISS.

jinxi~ aka angi said...

The pic of the candy factory and you and the boys after are my favs!

Im glad they perked up and ended up having a grand time.. lil stinkers! hehee