Surprising the Kids with a Disneyland Trip!

I have kept a huge secret from my kids for the past month and today was finally the day that we would share the good news with them!  Every year we have an advent calendar in December filled with special family-related activities and this one was quite the memorable one as they were about to find out what their Christmas present was...

We decided to announce the special news with a good old scavenger hunt; I had them guess what the prize might be beforehand and Nya said maybe a flower while Kai thought it could be Lego. 

After the initial instructions, they set out following a set of clues to find the Disney characters I hidden throughout the main floor.  Each character had a clue for the next one and had a secret word inside.

I am terrible at keeping secrets from my kids and I was just shaking I was so excited!  I had no idea how they would respond which is why I wanted them to have some time to process the news.  We learned this lesson the hard way when we surprised them with a Harrison Hot Springs getaway two years ago–they love that place but didn't know how to deal with the surprise factor.

Once they opened the envelopes and had the "We are going to" part down, Koen guessed "Disney World" but in a "as if" kind of way and no one reacted to what he said.  He didn't realize how close he was!

They had a hard time putting the last word together and there was no guessing or excitement as they didn't really think it was going to be anything too big–even once they had the "Disney" portion...maybe they thought it would be the Disney Store?

Finally they got it–we are going to Disneyland!! Koen and Nya were super excited and Kai celebrated internally–just like his dad. There is a video at the end sharing the whole process so you can see for yourself.  We will be leaving next week for three days at Disneyland and California Adventure Park.  I'm a little nervous that it will be too busy as it is just before Christmas and I don't love crowds but it worked well for us in regards to timing so we're going for it.  Going on trips with my family is my favourite activity–it's such a great time for relationship building and memory making.  Although I usually prefer hiking or international trips, this is one that the kids will love so much. 

We went to Disney World 1.5 years ago and we knew after that trip that we wanted to go to Disneyland with the kids in the next few years (we loved  Disney World but because we had won the trip there were many stipulations in place like 5 AM filming for two of the days).  We were planning on waiting a little longer but we don't know what the future holds, especially in regards to fostering, so the time is now.  The idea of just the five of us in warmer weather with Christmas decor and Disney magic makes my heart so happy.  The last time I was at Disneyland I was pregnant with Koen (8.5 years ago) so I'm excited to be able to go on all of the rides with the kids; I'm looking forward to Cars Land, Frozen, and the fireworks as those are all new to us!  It's true, my kids have never been to fireworks of any kind.

I'm really glad we gave the kids a week to process this as they can now look up the park maps and YouTube videos to see what their priorities are.  I personally love the anticipation of a trip the most and I think my kids are similar.   If you would like to see the video of how it all went down, it's here.  I tried to make it short enough so it's 3.5 minutes long.  Thanks for following along and if you have any tips, please let me know!

Love,
Louise

PS Our Little One is not coming because I don't think we could actually handle a trip like this well with the four of them. Also, there was already a plan in place for the dates we are gone due to visitations etc so it worked out perfectly!