April 2026 Vacation Part 1

It might be hard to imagine having 3 major vacations in 8 months. But we did it! I wrote all about our first one that we took in August last year. I didn’t quite finish writing about our November one…LOL But I’m back now to start documenting our 3rd one. Last month, we had another amazing adventure! Interestingly, we have our 4th just ahead of us in 2 weeks…LOL That’s right! 4 in 9 months. It’s so exciting 🤩

I’ve already written a little bit about my travels going to California and coming home. So, I’ll not talk any more about that. In this entry, I’ll focus on our first day together. As always, I traveled the day before and stayed in the hotel that night. So naturally, my day started off having the Ayres breakfast. It was delicious as always 😋 I don’t always have apple juice when I travel. And I never do at home. But I do when I’m at Ayres with Cherie. Although she wasn’t there yet, I still had apple juice that first morning. It’s tradition!

I wrote one of my “Morning, Afternoon, Evening” entries that day. So part of my morning was spent writing. I also steamed my clothes to get them ready for our Disney adventures to come. It was a relaxing way to start the day. Around lunchtime, I went to the grocery. I got some things from Sprouts and Walmart to have at the hotel and throughout the visit as a whole. Buying water at Ayres is expensive. I was able to get a 12 pack of bottles at Walmart for less than 1 bottle at the hotel…LOL Plus I got snacks for between meals. I can always bring my own snacks. But I can’t bring water. They don’t allow that on the plane unless you buy it at the airport; which is expensive too. So, from now on, I plan to make a grocery trip on these vacations.

When I got back to the hotel, I did the afternoon part of that day’s entry. And then I headed over to ARTIC to await Cherie’s arrival. Her train was running a little late by about 11 minutes. Apparently one of those railroad crossing arms was down and in the middle of the track at one of the crossroads. This time, she was able to notice the car number of the train car she rode. That made it really easy to know which set of doors I’d see her come out of. As soon as I saw her, I was elated and quite literally leaped with joy…LOL I did a little Trex trot over to Trexina my short arms, two fingered hands going crazy…hehehe

As we were walking through ARTIC, we exchanged gifts. Hers for me was for my birthday. Mine a few little things like some new pins and I had written her a letter. I also included some Trex things; as did she include some Trexina things for me. She made me some chicken and rice like she did back in November. That is another one of our traditions now 🤩 Once she was all checked in, we parted ways to get ready for our Dapper Day Eve! This was when I had the chicken and rice. It was amazing! I enjoyed the texture of the rice more this time. She told me she had made it her way…hehehe It was excellent!

Around 5:30, we met up in the lobby and had a moment of prayer. It’s important that we have that moment. God brought us together 4 years ago. He is the foundation of our friendship and fellowship. After the excitement of travel wears off, we are able to focus and express our gratitude for God bringing us back together again 🤗❤️

With Cherie on my arm, and pep in our steps, we made our way to the Rex Mobile…LOL That is the lovely name Cherie gave to our Nissan Rogue…hehehe I love it! The name…but I did enjoy the car too…hehehe By now, I know the way to the Simba lot pretty well. But I like to dial in the GPS just in case. It took a little bit to get there this time. We hit all the stoplights. And that last one was a doozy. I started to turn and apparently cut someone off. They laid into their horn. I was sorry that I cause them distress. But it didn’t really phase me. I own my mistake and feel for whatever reason they felt the need to lay into their horn like that. Cherie mentioned that she saw them look over at me as they passed by. Oh well. I hope they are doing okay.

We arrived safely, though, and found a pretty good spot. Security was a breeze and our first stop was actually over to our little gazebo. It feels like our own private little secret place because no one is ever there. We made a few fun videos and captured our best portrait to date.

After that lovely time, we made our way back to Downtown Disney District. We walked all the way over to the esplanade. That’s become a tradition of ours because we love the music and general vibe of that area. Then we made our way back to the Grand Californian to look at this year’s Dapper Boutique. However, we got there just as they were closing. I checked the email and, sure enough, they closed right at 7…LOL I’ll do better about checking the time next time…hehehe That ended up giving us some extra time to sit and talk in the woodland area of Grand Californian. I really love those moments when we can enjoy a place like that ❤️

By now, the sun had set and we were ready to shop! Cherie picked out some magnets for her mom. That was actually going to cover our parking validation. But I think they weren’t dealing with that that night. They only charged $10 without checking my ticket…LOL We enjoyed some of the music that was going on. One of the singers, and he played guitar too, started to spin his right leg like a pinwheel during one of the songs…LOL It was pretty funny and we still get a good laugh out of that…LOL We also danced various times throughout the evening. Including some dancing at our gazebo…hehehe

We made it back to our hotel just in time for Angels Stadium to set off their fireworks. There was also some sort of musical thing going on at ARTIC. The music was loud enough for us to hear it in our rooms…LOL At least it was good music…hehehe All of that died down by the time I went to sleep.

Cherie, thank you so much for such a lovely evening. Our time together makes my heart so happy. Something that stands out is that we were able to enjoy our gazebo, Grand Californian’s great outdoors, and much of DTD before the sun went down. It was great to experience a sunset with you that night. I didn’t say much about the birthday gifts this time because I’ve already written about those. But for the sake of this being about the day you gave them to me, here is the photo of them again…hehehe Thank you for the Toy Story shirt I got with that gift card 🤩 Thank you for everything 🥰

Stay tuned! There is more to come!!!