Day 3: Downtown Disney

Ahhh! A day to sleep in. How nice. Our day started off with the kids discovering "surprises" left by Ariel and Mickey. They left stickers and character baseballs with a note from the characters saying they had fun meeting them (Natalie and Zander) yesterday. The kids were so excited.
After we had a bite to eat, we strolled down to the pool to sit in the sun while we waited for Dan's mom (who was staying at a nearby hotel). It was nice to lay in the sun and the kids had fun throwing the life preserver into the pool. (After looking at my pictures, it looks like I need to spend some more quality time in the sun!)
After awhile we all headed to Downtown Disney which doesn't require a ticket to get in...it's Disney's way of "helping" us spend money at the park even when we're not at Disneyland! Clever! We stopped and had lunch at the Jazz Kitchen (a New Orleans style restaurant) and topped off our meal with some delicious bread pudding.
After lunch we stopped in at the Lego store and the guys had fun "playing" with Legos and other Lego merchandise. As you can see there were Star wars characters made entirely of Legos. It was a big hit. We killed quite a lot of time here. After stopping at Build a bear (just to look) we were heading back to our hotel when we ran into our friends Brooke and Rob (who used to live across the street from us in Troutdale). We chatted for awhile and then went back to the hotel to swim. I highly recommend taking a break from Disneyland for a day. After 2 days, we (the adults) were tired as well as sore from all the walking). It was good for the kids to have a day at a slower pace too...they were on the verge of over stimulation.