i did a pretty decent recap of it last time around, so i'll try not to repeat too much of it. although i still spent some time gazing at this pencil-drawn sketch of mickey...the oldest one in existence (as far as anyone knows, anyway).
this was walt's work badge. funny how he isn't, like, number 1 or anything.
and whoa to this. imagine how people would react if this were displayed at disneyland, heh.
funny to see that familiar handwriting used for a meal planning list, misspelled words and all. let's not even discuss the requests for canned peas and carrot & raisin salad. barf.
the rear of the museum offers a really pretty view of the golden gate bridge, fog and all.
here's a nice close-up shot of the bench that walt sat on at griffith park, when he dreamed up the concept of disneyland.
the old lady was just as entranced by the scaled-down model of disneyland as i was.
the time went by all too fast, and before we knew it we were making our way into the classrooms to see the bean's hard work.
it was kind of fun to see where she'd spent all those hours during the week of camp.
then it was time to head into the theater to see their finished masterpieces.
i think we're supposed to receive a dvd of their movies that'll be a much higher quality than this, but at least you can see her very first stop motion film here:
and then she happily accepted her tote bag and certificate of completion.
one last picture before leaving the building for the last time. i made sure to ask the staffers if they changed up the program from one year to the next, and while they said that it would be similar to this year, there are lots of returnees who come to refine their skills and learn new techniques. it's only for ages 8-10, so i'm hopeful that we can squeeze at least one more year in before she's too old for it.
to celebrate, we headed out to lovejoy's tea room, recommended to us by one of lilcee's local friends.
on our table:
our teapots arrived not long after we placed our orders.
the bean thought it was great fun to pour her tea through this little strainer before adding a shitton of milk and sugar.
nothing like having your food arranged into pretty little tiers.
although the scones were studded with black currants, we tried to convince the bean that they were chocolate chips. as you can see, we weren't even a little bit successful.
petit fours for dessert:
and of course, a quick selfie before we left. you can tell that she's pretty much over her mother's incessant picture taking...this is the best of the bunch.
we decided to head over to another tourist trap afterwards, because it was almost the end of our trip, and why not?
the bean was super excited to see this store. she had no idea that there were special items created for lefties, so it was funny to watch her pick up random items like can openers and spiral-bound notebooks.
you can't go to pier 39 and not stop to see the sea lions. you just can't. except that we found this when we made our way there:
guys, it was so sad. i've never seen this before. apparently, even sea lions like to head out for summer vacay.
and at the bean's request, even though i don't love going to chain restaurants when on vacation, we went here for dinner:
at least we had a pretty view from our table.
and the old lady got to enjoy a fun adult beverage:
the food is...not very picturesque. like, not even worth posting at all. but it was decent and we left with full tummies, so i guess it was a win. and when we got back to the hotel (which we realized later that was totally within walking distance and we could've saved ourselves the parking fee), i glanced at my watch and found that i'd managed a fairly good day, activity-wise.
that's another thing i love about being on vacation. you get in a shitload of steps and don't even realize it because you're having so much fun doing it.
