About in Downtown Disney

Tuesday morning, Todd picked up our rental car and we headed onto I-5 South, to Anaheim. He was more than a little nervous about it. But he was doing great, traffic was mild, Lina was napping, and things were going well until...

 ...Liam projectile puked, shortly after I took the above picture.  He was pretty much done by the time Todd got back across four lanes of traffic onto the very small shoulder. It was quite stressful being so close to all those huge passing trucks. We pulled off his clothes and wiped up the car as best we good. We were nervous that he was getting sick (wouldn't that have been AWFUL!) but he said he choked. And after a while he seemed just fine and ate every snack we had in the car.
 It took about 2 1/2 hours to get from Bakersfield to Anaheim, there was some stop-and-go as we got further south, but it never lasted too long. A quick trip to Target for more formula happened first, thanks to Babes in Disneyland I knew there was one just down the street. We were hoping to be able to check-in early, unpack, swim, or get the kids a nap - but the room wasn't ready, so we parked the car and headed off for Downtown Disney.

 Even though we couldn't get in the parks, we were just so happy to be there, so close to them! The weather on this day was the nicest (read: coolest) we had the whole trip... and it wasn't that cool I'll tell ya.

We ate lunch at this place, part of the Disneyland Hotel resort area - and honestly it was wonderful. Todd had the BBQ chicken sandwich with papaya slaw and I had the Kalua Pork flatbread pizza - both things were quite tasty! Liam (who was still full on snacks) ate a yogurt cup and some of Todd's french fries. I'm sure in the park it was crazy busy at lunch time, but this place still felt like Disney and was quiet and uncrowded and we had an excellent view of the new pool and monorail slide.
 Afterwards we wandered around in the Fantasy Tower of the hotel a bit, took some pictures, checked out the gift shop.

 At this point we headed back to our room, since it was check in time. Todd took the car back, only a half mile away) and I unpacked, got organized, and let the kids play. Mom, Dad, Jen and Grant got there shortly after and walked down Katella to the GardenWalk (basically an outdoor mall) and got some California Pizza Kitchen. Then we headed back out across Harbour Blvd. to purchase our tickets and do a little more shopping and sight-seeing.

The LEGO store has some cool new LEGO figures outside.

I guess he's not too old for naps yet.

We checked out the Adventure and Frontier towers of the hotel and spent a lot of time checking out the scale model of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad - very cool!

 
 
 I just really love Downtown Disney, the food and shopping are great - Liam loved the LEGO station where you could build a car and race it down a track - Hello! Made for Liam! Also, the monorail drives around above DtD and it became a thing to shout "Monorail!" every time it went by, per Liam's lead. He was so stoked about it.
Just as great as Downtown Disney is, are the resort hotel, I can't get enough of them - the themeing, the stores, the restaurants! Staying at the Grand Californian was/will be an unequaled experience, I'm sure, but I'd love to stay in the Disneyland Hotel someday too.
It was getting dark, and although not too late California time, we were all pretty tired. The kids played a little more while we got ready for bed. Then we discovered this!
Maybe not the cleanest hotel room - ewww. Lina's little hands and knees were pretty black too. Thereafter I encouraged the kids to play on the beds or in the pack-n-play.