First Day of Vacation

 Cool water dispener!

 Hannah with one of the old carousel animals from King Triton's Carousel.

 Joshua has had his MU hat for a few years but Hannah tried on the OK hat for this photo op.

 Cool cake in the lobby of the Grand Californian Hotel.

Here's the beginning of vacation pictures. We decided to try to go to California in May for Joshua's birthday. Now that Hannah is in college, we can't just go any time we'd like (meaning while everyone else is in school).  Hannah had a quick trip planned with her friends to go to Disneyland at the end of April to help celebrate two friends who were graduating. Just like her trip with the same group last year for her graduation. Joshua felt it wasn't entirely fair that girls get special Sweet 16 parties while the boys don't. I never thought about why that is so we said we'd plan a trip around his b-day. We originally thought we'd stop by Downtown Disney for food & shopping but mainly go to our other favorite Cali spot, Coronado Island. We've never gone to Coronado during a time of year that's close to peak season so when Todd was able to call & book (30 days out), they were already booked. By this time we were thinking it would be great if we could swing a Disney trip since we surprised Hannah for her 16th b-day with 4 days there. With some gift cards & a military rate at a further hotel we were able to make that happen. But we tried to make it a surprise for him too. We said we'd be going to Knott's Berry Farm (another favorite place) & then to Coronado. He's harder to trick than Hannah so we decided to tell him before we went. We let him know about 10 days before of the real plan.  

We left on May 12, Mother's Day. Once we got there, we did visit Knott's Berry Farm Marketplace to shop (although we didn't buy any Peanuts stuff) and for Joshua to get his big Snoopy cookie. Then we went to Downtown Disney. We stopped in some Disney hotels' gift shops & the lobby for photo ops.