M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Yes, we did.  We visited 'The Happiest Place on Earth' yesterday, which makes the fact that the day started with someone flipping me the bird and ending with us witnessing a fight over the parade even funnier to me.  Apparently, the fact that I did not realize that the lane beside me was ending and the blinkerless truck beside me was planning on merging in until it was too late for me to let them do so was worth flipping me off and then proceeding to yell at me as we parked our cars.  And this was after I apologized for the mistake.

Everyone met us later, but Manilyne and Manny were the only ones who came early.

The rest of the day was loads of fun though.  We visited the Disneyland park; it would have been nice to see the California Adventure Park too but there was no way to really do both parks in one day and we just don't seem to have extra days. I bet a lot of you will be shocked to learn that I have overplanned and somehow thought we could fit more in a 12-14 hour day than we can!

Amazingly, we visited with hardly any characters (I swear our visit to Disney World a few years back saw us spending more time in line for characters than rides).

We managed to frighten Danica to tears again in spite of her bravery in wanting to go to the Haunted Mansion.  She was trying to tell Duncan that they were older now and it would be fine and then the lights went out and the spooky voice started...  After that, we also convinced her that the Matterhorn Bobsleds would be lots of fun; I have to admit that it was a little scary for me too.  Danica swore off mountains after that so while Robert, Manilyne and Duncan rode the Big Thunder Mountain ride a couple of times, Danica and I spent some time in the much more sedate Fantasyland with a walk through Sleeping Beauty's castle, a ride on King Arthur's Carousel and a churro.

As for the weather, it was cool but definitely more pleasant yesterday than it had been the day before.  It started out cloudy again but by late afternoon, the sun was peeking through.  I likely could have removed my coat even but would have ended up carrying it so since it wasn't as if I was sweating with it on, it seemed easier to leave it on.

Today, we were supposed to go whale watching but unfortunately got a text from Captain Nick a few hours before we were supposed to go to tell us that it was too choppy so we have rescheduled for tomorrow.  Fingers crossed it works out tomorrow as it's the only day we could do it.

Our other plan for the day, though, was to drive to Dana Point, which is the beginning of the Pacific Coast Highway and work our way back through all the beach towns on the coast, stopping for the whale watching when we reached Newport Beach and then continuing along.  We had already started that trek when we got the call so we finished it.  It was lovely actually.  We found what looked like a gorgeous beach in Dana Point that we considered picnicking at but after Robert hiked down the cliff to check it out and back up again, he decided we weren't going to carry food down there.  We ended up then stopping at Aliso Beach which was a lovely little roadside beach with gorgeous views of clifftop mansions.  We ate our picnic lunch there but it was quite windy so in spite of the beautiful blue skies and sunshine, it was rather cool and we did not venture into the water.

We then continued up the coast with a stop on Balboa Island to gawk at the cute cottages and figure out where we will be going for our whale watching excursion tomorrow.  Afterwards, we stopped at Huntington Beach to check out the pier, watch the surfers and the volleyball players, and the kite surfers.  Both kids now want to rent kite surfing gear while we are in San Diego next week to give it a go.

Newport Beach from Balboa Island

The waterfront cottages of Balboa Island

Huntington Beach Lifeguard

 Huntington Beach Pier

All in all, it was a great day in spite of the disappointment in the cancellation of the whale watching.  Fingers crossed that it works out tomorrow.....