Friday, August 01, 2008

Can You Keep a Secret?

That was our challenge this year for vacation. See, we took the kids to Disneyland. And didn't tell them until we got there.


Yeah, they noticed that we were planning a trip -- kinda hard to hide something like that -- but we'd always wanted to surprise them with Disneyland and knew this would be our best year for that. So while the DH and I were on our way back from a much-needed couple vacation early in the month, we were brainstorming how to get them all the way to southern California without tipping them off.


"I know!" One of us said. "Let's tell them we're going to the Grand Canyon!"


Not that Anaheim is truly on the way, but it'd work. Eventually, though, we realised that we'd have to do better than just come up with an alternate, fake destination. No, we'd have to really take them to the Grand Canyon.


With a five-day detour along the way.


No hardship, really. I've never been to the Grand Canyon, so I was pretty excited about heading there as well. But it was funny to see our jaunt to CA turn into a twice-as-long road trip throughout the Southwest, all for the opportunity to surprise the kids.


And the surprise? We made it to South Harbor Boulevard, the road running right in front of Disneyland, without any of them figuring it out. Once or twice they'd say something like, "Hey, isn't this the hotel we stayed at last time we drove to Disneyland?", but it would be quickly forgotten in the grand scheme of things. In fact, we had the kids hunting for a Cold Stone Creamery as we took the exit to D-land, and the older two missed the visual clues at first because they were searching for ice cream. It took the four year old to yell out, "Isn't that the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror?", to which we replied, "Surprise!"


The looks on their faces were totally worth it.


Next up: The Disney Report

5 comments:

Jane said...

What a nice surprise. I've never been to Disneyland, but I have been to the Grand Canyon.

Maia Strong said...

"Acting!"

"Brilliant!"

;D Glad it worked so well. I'm jealous. I haven't been to Disneyland in several years and I've never been to the Grand Cayon. *sigh*

Happily Ever After Authors said...

That is so awesome!

We, too, love doing things like that with our kids.

It's things like that they'll remember and talk about.

Bekki

Kate Davies said...

It was loads of fun, especially when it finally sank in that we were not just driving past Disneyland to taunt them. :)

And the Grand Canyon was magnificent. It's almost like we took two separate vacations, but without a break in between.

Happily Ever After Authors said...

The older two boys were young when we were stationed in Arizona,neither one remember seeing the Grand Canyon, but somehow, my youngest does remember going to the Phoenix Zoo and monkey island - he was three. I guess it's all what really holds your interest. Zoos are still his favorite place to go.

Bekki