Our Week in California 10/02/11 – 10/08/11: Friday

Our last day in Dana Point and there was definitely no way we were going to Disneyland.  As much as I wanted to go doing such a long day before a long drive home and with Kirsten having been sick over the course of this week and John now barely walking it was just not going to happen.  So, what now?  I wasn’t going to spend the day in the apartment either especially with the sun shining the way it was.  The owners of the apartment had left various tourist brochures around so we decided we would head over to the Irvine Spectrum Center and see what they had to offer.  It looked a relatively easy drive and we wouldn’t even need to get on the freeway.  The day really just consisted of ambling very slowly around the area.  Kirsten had a ride on the carousel (we can never go past one without her having a go), but we managed to keep it to one.  We then went into the Apple Store.  Yes, we took the risk so that we could place our orders for the new IPhone 4S.  John was going to upgrade from his 3G and I was going to switch from my ancient Blackberry on Sprint and switch across to his AT&T making it into a Family plan.  This actually seemed to be the most cost effective way for us to do it and at the same time would allow John to keep his “grandfathered” in Data Unlimited plan.  As for talk minutes we just don’t use many of those.  We also went into the local Naartje store where I found a number of long sleeved dresses on the sale rack for Kirsten.  She had no Fall/Winter wear as she had outgrown everything from last year and we were going to need them so I saw a good deal and bought her 4 dresses total.  I think we took one picture the whole day and that was of Kirsten in front of one of the fountains.

On the way back to the apartment we stopped off at a Fresh and Easy store to pick up some groceries for dinner then home again home again jiggety jig.  I spent most of the evening packing ready for the long drive home tomorrow.

Our Week in California 10/02/11 – 10/08/11: Thursday

The fever had broken and Kirsten woke up bright and bubbly again asking where we were going, and what we were doing as though she had never been ill.  John was having more of a problem moving around and finding it difficult to go from standing to sitting and vice versa.  I realised that the likelihood of us getting back to Disneyland was slim to none, but how about we go and spend a couple of hours at Downtown Disney as I’d heard that you got up to 3 hours free parking and we still had our Ridemakerz Groupon to spend.  It was an easy drive, only 30 minutes from the apartment and we could use the HOV lane as there were 3 of us making it even easier.  We started out by having a walk round the Lego store.  Who doesn’t like lego?  Then we moved on to Ridemakerz.  Kirsten and Daddy spent a little while building themselves Lightning McQueen.  I’m not sure who had more fun, Daddy or Kirsten.  An Australian women was in the store and asked if she could take pictures of the 2 of them as she thought it was so sweet to see a little girl building a car with her Daddy.  Daddy loves his cars, although doesn’t build/maintain them and Kirsten is picking up that love.  No one can visit our house without Kirsten checking out their car both inside and out.  She is very proud of the finished result and plays with it quite a bit.

We spent a long time in World of Disney too buying our souvenirs, gifts for Kirsten’s class mates etc.  It was strange as we’d only ever been in the store in the evening when it is packed out so going in morning we actually got to see everything, which I’m not sure if that was a good thing or not as we spent a small fortune.  We finished off by having lunch/dinner at Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen.  Why there?  We wanted to eat something different from our usual fare.  It was very good and Kirsten definitely had her appetite back.  We also found out that by having a table service meal we received an additional 2 hours free parking so we handed them our parking ticket so that we could have it validated.  Perfect.  We finished out our trip by a few purchases at Disney’s Pin Traders….no it wasn’t pins.  We picked up some accessories for our iphones that we were hoping to order and our IPads.  I bought a really cute Minnie Mouse IPhone 4 case (and yes it fits my IPhone 4S) together with a small wristlet which I use for storing my phone in, and because it’s bright pink I never lose it in my purse.  I can’t even provide you with a link to that one as they don’t seem to have it anywhere on the internet although they have an IPad case which would give you an idea of what it looks like.  John also bought a neoprene case for his IPad and a case for his phone.

As we headed back to the car there was a woman with a parrot standing outside the Rainforest Cafe.  A number of children were saying hello and having their pictures taken so Kirsten asked if she could do this too.  The trainer said yes, but the parrot had other thoughts and decided to share some of his personal with Kirsten which didn’t make her particularly happy although nothing landed on her.

We headed back to the apartment and “vegged” in front of the tv for the rest of the afternoon.