We are back from our first overseas trip with Stephen, and I have to say, it went really well. He was a superstar on the plane trips, was really well behaved (most of the time), and most importantly, had a wonderful time. The highlight for him was definitely Disneyland, especially being able to have his meals with his favourite characters at the hotel. In fact, as soon as we arrived at the Disney Hotel, his first question was “where is Mickey Mouse?”. Thank goodness we arrived about 10 minutes before the first sitting of dinner. His favourite thing was to give his new friends hugs and kisses. This is Stephen going for the smooch with Mickey.
He also had a great time at the activity room at the hotel. This room was set up with fantastic toys, colouring pages, crafts and a storytime area. Best of all, and very surprising given we were at Disney, is that the toys were all wooden (not electronic and plastic!), and very much encouraged imaginative play. We had to make a detour in to the activity room at least twice a day he loved it that much. Here, Stephen is playing shopkeeper/baker in the bakery.
We also went to another amusement park, Ocean Park, which we all enjoyed a lot. They had an excellent aquarium, a dolphin and seal show that kept Stephen enthralled, and a wonderful Panda enclosure. If Stephen had the choice, we could have stayed with the pandas all day!
All in all, it was a wonderful trip. It was great to spend some one-on-one time with Stephen, something I think he has been missing since Irini was born, and now that we are back home we are going to try and do this for a small time each week/fortnight.
