Surprise! We're in California!

So Ryan and Jennifer decided to have a "couples vacation" and farmed out their kids to us in the AZ, all pre-arranged and approved.  For their time away, they chose Disneyland.  Well, why should they get to go and not us?  Mom and Dad figured out that they could still have time without the kids and we could all be in Disneyland and probably not even cross paths!  Ok, so the FUN plan was pre-arranged and approved also, but it was mum's the word to the kids.  As far as Ryan's kids knew, they were playing in AZ for a week.  And as far as my kids knew, Benjamin was sleeping at our house for 3-4 nights.  Oh how twisted we can be, all in good fun!

Ryan and Jennifer headed for the Big-D on Sunday afternoon, and Operation Trick-Or-Treat went into action.  Benjamin stayed with us two nights and then Tuesday morning Mom and Dad picked up Benjamin and "went for a drive."  We told our kids that Ryan's kids were going to spend the day/night with Grandma and Grandpa and we would see them later.  On Wednesday, we told the kids that Grandma and Grandpa had invited us all to a party that night.  So after work, we got in the car with our "directions" to the party.  Amazingly the kids only asked a few times when we would get to the party, but didn't realize that we were in the car for 6 hours.

I need to pause here and say that I generally have a pretty good sense of direction.  And inside Disneyland, I might rival the cast members.  However, Anaheim is like a dead zone for me.  We had directions from Google Maps, and our GPS (which weren't exactly the same), plus we've been there before, but for some reason we just had a brain cloud as we rolled into the greater Disneyland area and ended up making about 3 U-turns to actually get to the hotel.  I look forward to future trips to the Happiest Place so I can further hone my skills and drop this dead zone. :)

So after we arrived at the Grand Californian, and got the luggage, and walked inside, and asked the girls a few times if they knew where we were (we had told them that the "party" was in California), they still didn't quite figure it out.  Katelyn said a couple times, "I hope we're in Disneyland" but couldn't find the visual cues to confirm her desire.  Finally we told them we were at Disneyland, and went to my parents' room and saw Nathan and Benjamin and Joshua, and they were very happily surprised.  Almost enough that asking them to go to bed (because we had an early start the next day) could be considered cruel and unusual punishment.  The excitement wore out and fatigue finally set in and they enjoyed peaceful sleep in the shadows of Sleeping Beauty's castle.