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Coming back from vacation is always tough.  As much as I yearn for the schedule of normal life after being gone, I always seem to struggle to actually settle back in.  That’s why it’s taken me so long to continue our trip report. 🙂  Well that, and I have a 2 year old.  Somehow finding an extra half hour to actually complete this trip report, while I was awake, was nearly impossible.  But alas, I continue.

After my family left, we had the weekend to enjoy the parks just the three of us.  It just so happened that my birthday fell during the time span we were down there, so it was my duty to pick the dinner location.  It was a tough call for me, but I settled on Steakhouse 55.  I have to say, it did not disappoint.  We conned a couple of our friends into joining us for this adventure (thanks guys!).  They were brave to come along on a trip to a sit down meal with a 2 year old, but it went well.  The waitstaff took great care of us, and even brought Button’s meal out early, which kept her from being overly rambunctious.

I ordered 4 things here: the steakhouse salad, the pork chop with apples sauce, au gratin potatoes (to share), and the 23 layer chocolate cake.  Two weeks later, I can still taste what each of these tasted like.   It’s probably a good thing we don’t live closer to Steakhouse 55, because I would want to go much more often than we should.

Steakhouse Salad
Steakhouse Salad
Pork chop with cinnamon apples.
Pork chop with cinnamon apples.
The Pièce de résistance - 23 layer chocolate cake.
The Pièce de résistance – 23 layer chocolate cake.

I’m not really a food critic, so I won’t dwell on each of them too much.  But that salad – so many flavors.  I suppose it’s hard to go wrong with Tillamook Cheddar Cheese and bacon, but it really stood out from the meal in my opinion.  OK, the chocolate cake was pretty outstanding too.  I couldn’t finish the cake, but I did take the rest back to our hotel and enjoyed it poolside the next day.  🙂

Week two of this trip started with 3 days of just Button and me.  Dave was able to work from an Irvine office, which left us at the resort for 3 days on our own.  I’m not sure if it was exhaustion, but at one point during these three days my daughter actually told me, “I don’t want to go to Disneyland!”.

So, we slowed WAAAYYY down.  We still headed in to the parks for a few hours in the morning and then came back and enjoyed lunch, naps and the pool.  I think the best thing we did durning this time was have lunch poolside.  I almost always travel with cheese  since my kid will almost always eat it.  I’ve also started bringing along single servings of peanut butter.  Mainly all this food packing comes from bringing a toddler along, but I have to say, I think it’s served the adults pretty well too.

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Our lunch!

Even though the days were a little long, it was really fun to have Dave come home from work, grab dinner and spend a few hours outside in the parks.  That part of the day I found to be very relaxing.  We’ve done this before at Disney World too, and we all love it.  It seems to be everyone’s best time of day when we’re at the parks – as night time settles in and the parks become even more magical.

Nighttime "rocket ship" ride with daddy after work.
Nighttime “rocket ship” ride with daddy after work.

We did do things besides eat.  Because it was just the two of us, we did a lot of character meet and greats as well.  I LOVE watching Button interact with the characters.  It’s just so real to her.  So we actually just hung out places and waited for the characters to come.  Jessie was one on my list since Button is in love with her right now.

Jessie!
Jessie!

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Overall, we did have a lot of fun.  The key was (for us) to not feel like we needed to be in the parks, and be willing to just sit back and rest.  To be fair, this is something we struggle with at home too. 🙂

After ten nights at the Candy Cane Inn, we packed our things and headed to the next hotel – The Grand Californian Hotel and Spa.  It was a wonderful way to finish up our trip, but I think I’ll talk about that in another post.

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