Where should you go when you'd really like a little taste of the Disney experience without the time or financial commitment? Downtown Disney, of course! It was a spur of the moment idea and it was awesome. We sprung the surprise on the kids en route to Maw Maw and Paw Paw's house and they thought it was genius as well. For the price of a Haagen Dazs ice cream and some pretzel bites we got an afternoon of Disney fun! It definitely helps that the stores all have stations for playing, creating and building to your heart's content. If you know our kids at all it won't come as a shock when I say that we spent a good, solid hour in the Lego store building and racing cars. And if you know our kids it also won't come as a shock when you hear that I didn't actually build any Lego cars because my sole purpose in life while at the Lego store was to fish Jack off of the racing ramp and retrieve and return all of the other people's cars that he would steal at the end of the ramps. Containment for Jack is still a beautiful and wonderful thing and that is why we own two awesome baby carriers. He might still be riding on our backs when he's 10.
As for Chesty, well, lets just say that Disney thinks of everyone in the family and that includes the dogs. He wasn't so sure about the "Pet Camp" (and he proved his uncertainty by peeing on their lobby floor), but we're pretty sure he was treated like royalty. (Jimmy did say that he felt like a loser of a pet owner to have to check "Yes" to, "Does your pet growl at people?" on the check-in questionnaire. But Chesty really left him with no choice since he was, at that very moment, snarling at the poor girl who was trying to lead him away from his family.)
All in all, our Downtown Disney afternoon was the perfect little vacation between vacations.