Tuesday, July 24, 2012

A day at the beach

We had 3-day park hopper tickets.  If you have been following along you know that we were done at the parks.  No one was happier about that than Haley.

Our vacation was not over, however.  We had plans to go to a California beach, but first we were going to have breakfast with Mickey Mouse.  We decided to do the buffet breakfast at the PCH Grill on our last day to extend our Disney experience.  I had made reservations for 9:30 am, so we got to sleep in a little. 

We went down to the restaurant and I let them know that we were there.  We waited a little while, the person that took our name kept watching over his shoulder to the dining room.  I thought that they were cleaning our table or something.  Then he motioned to us and we walked in and there he was, the Mouse himself.  We all got to give him a hug and then we got our picture taken with him.  We were seated at a table right there so for the entire duration of our meal we were within feet of Mickey as he greeted other guests.

Haley wanted to go back up and be with him.  She saw other characters around the restaurant and she wanted to go to them too.  Finally one came to her.  Then she got the drill.  If she just sat quietly and ate her breakfast all of the characters would come up to her and give her hugs and get their pictures taken with her.  She was in heaven.

Her favorite was by far Stitch from Lilo and Stitch.  She was so excited to see him and so excited to get a hug.


A man came out and led a dance along with Mickey and his friends.  He invited the kids to come up and dance.  Haley went right up.  She danced right along with Mickey.  She got to do that three times.  Each time she got better at the steps.



Notice how she is looking back to see if I care, but she doesn't care if I care, she is going to dance with Mickey Mouse!


It took her awhile to do the steps along with them. but she did it.


Especially the surfing, but she is hangin' ten too!

Haley immediately headed for the shop when we left the restaurant.  She wanted to buy a stuffed Stitch.  She found a small one that she could hold in one hand, and she held it the rest of the day.

After that we drove to Seal Beach.  When we got there we decided to walk down to the ocean first.  Haley didn't like that idea.  She didn't want to get anywhere near the water.  Then we walked up and down the street, shopping.  I think Haley liked that better.  We got ourselves something cold to drink and then some of us wanted to swim.

My brother and his family and Haley's Big Sis got their suits on.  I didn't bother getting a suit on or putting one on Haley, I knew she would not be swimming.  We followed them close to the water's edge and put a blanket down on the sand.  Haley was getting very agitated, it took me a while to convince her that sitting on the blanket was going to be OK.  She did have fun watching my brother and his family and her Big Sis playing in the water.  We also watched some seagulls.  It started to get windy and the swimmers came back to the blanket.

There was a Ruby's at the end of the pier and we decided to we were hungry.  Haley really liked the walk to the end of the pier.  Haley has always really liked the wind.  One of her therapists told me when she was little that she likes to feel the wind because it lets her know where she is in space.  Apparently that is still true.

We had a wonderful meal.  Haley ate everything on her plate and I didn't have to help her eat at all.  I always know that she is hungry when she does that.  There was a band setting up for a concert at the beach, but our family was all funned out.  We went back to the hotel to take our routine siesta.

Usually when we travel and stay in hotels Haley has her laptop to keep her occupied.  We didn't bring anything like that on this trip.  Her naps had filled her time up to this point, but she finally thought she needed a little screen time.  She wanted me to turn the TV on.  I found a channel that had a Disney bedtime story.  It was cute, but it was just one story over and over.  We ended up on the Disney channel.  Haley doesn't usually watch TV.

We decided to extend our Disney experience a little more by going to Downtown Disney.  We had walked through the area many times, but we had never stopped at the stores.  We especially wanted to go into World of Disney.  It was a lot of fun to look at everything they had to offer.  Haley found a Cars car that she didn't have "Holly Shiftwell" from Cars 2.  After that we got a Jamba Juice.

It was getting dark so we decided to go back to the hotel so that we could see the Disneyland fireworks from the pool deck.  The music that went with the fireworks show was coming over the speakers on the deck and it was a great vantage point to see the fireworks.  It was a wonderful end to our Disneyland trip.

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