California, Day 16 - Downtown Disney and Carlsbad

We woke up on Wednesday morning and while I packed up and got everything ready to go, Tim and the kids went swimming.  We didn't take any pictures but they had a blast.  It was hot out and the water was the perfect temperature.  They all had a blast swimming and I ended up having to go let them know it was time to check out of the hotel.

We headed over to Downtown Disney for one last taste of Disney goodness.  The kids wanted to go to the Lego store, so that was our first stop.

Leah loved the Lego Belle and Beast 

Inside the story, Leah wanted a picture with this Lego Friends girl

 And Cameron wanted a picture with Lego Hulk.  Then got mad at Leah for being in his picture.

Another one of just Cameron and Hulk, showing off their amazing muscles.

We went to lunch at a Mexican place.  It turned out at that the order-at-a-counter place had the exact same food as the sit-in-a-booth place, only it was cheaper... can you guess which we chose?

Leah waiting for her food.

Cameron wanted a picture by this fountain

We wandered around into a few other stores but the only thing we ended up buying was a few more pins for the kids' lanyards.  They also traded pins with a few cast members, which made their days complete.

After Downtown Disney, we headed out towards Carlsbad.  It was about an hour drive and our final destination was Tim's Uncle David's house, where we'd be staying for a few days.  It was a pretty easy drive, although we were very glad to have Google Traffic that alerted us to some major backups that we were able to avoid.

All three of the kids napped on the way down, which was great.  One of the coolest things we saw on the drive was when we went past Camp Pendleton.  They were having war games, or something similar, so pretty much any kind of land-based military-related vehicle was out.  We saw helicopters, airplanes, tanks, humvees, and a ton of troops.  It was really neat and we wished the kids were awake to check it out (but didn't dare wake them from a nap!).

We arrived at David and Natalie's house a bit before dinner.  We got all of our stuff settled a bit before the girls got home.  Cameron and Leah were beyond excited to be in a house with TOYS to play with and their own beds to sleep in.  When Katharine (also 5, a few months younger than Cameron) and Caroline (also three, a few months older than Leah) got home, they were in heaven.  Kids to play with and a house full of toys - forget Disneyland and an amazing trip down the CA coast, this is what they were waiting for on vacation!

We had a lovely dinner together, had bathtime with a bath full of kiddos and then bedtime with a pile of kiddos snuggled on a bed to hear books.  The adults stayed up for a bit longer but we were tired out as well so we went to bed pretty early.