Downtown Disney

The first thing that we did after checking into the hotel was to take the bus to Downtown Disney to get the souvenir necessities- like mouse ears, Christmas ornaments, and pins for the kids' lanyards. Owen and Olivia had also received money from Poppy and Nana to spend at Disney, and it was burning a hole in their pockets. Even though they would like to have blown it all on the first day, we made them hold on to some of it in case they saw something they really wanted later in the week. The kids loved the Downtown Disney area because there was so much to see and do. Some of their favorite things were spotting the Disney statues, looking at the Lego dragon, and trying on the different hats in the stores. I enjoyed just walking around and looking in all of the different shops. Even Brian, who is usually a staunch opponent of any form of shopping, had a good time. One thing that we saw was a lady performing as a "living statue". She was cool, so I had to get my picture made with her. After shopping for a couple of hours, it was time to eat. We had reservations at The House of Blues, and the food was phenomenal. After dinner, Papa Charlie treated everyone to ice cream at Haagen-Dazs. Yum.

The kids had some money left over on the last day of vacation, so we took them back to Downtown Disney to finish it off. Olivia ended up with three princess dolls (one from Granny Mel), a playset, and two vinylmation figurines. Owen chose two playsets, four vinylmation figurines, and two Star Wars Disney dolls. Granny Mel also got Owen a Mr. Potato Head set. This was a really cool gift. The deal was, you picked a giant hollow potato head and stuffed it with different pieces. There was a fixed price, so you could get as much as you could stuff into your potato head. Brian saw this as a challenge that could not be passed up and he set out to have the most well-stuffed potato head ever. I was amazed at how much he was able to put in that thing. Even the sales ladies were amazed, and they stopped what they were doing to come over and check out Brian's stuffing ability. I thought this was a unique gift because a lot of the potato head pieces were Disney-specific (like Tinkerbell hair, mouse ears, and Donald Duck lips).