The day I surprised my kids with a trip to Disneyland

 The plan was to not tell the kids we were going to Disneyland for the day. Instead we told them that we were meeting a work friend of my husband's. His friend had two toddlers and their assignment was to watch the children who we named Aidan and Emily. We told our kids that if they behaved at the meeting, we'd buy them ice cream.

They were obviously annoyed but perked up after I told them about the ice cream. We were living in a Southern California mountain town at the time. The kids were attending an art camp and my husband and I were working remotely. It was a two hour drive into Los Angeles, where we were supposedly going to meet my husband's work friend.

But instead we turned off the freeway into Orange County.

My kids have only been to Disneyland once when they were young so they had no clue where we were going. We drove in a back way to avoid signage but when we turned onto Disneyland Drive and the Matterhorn was in sight my son asked, "Mom, is that the real Disneyland?"

I told him, "Yes."

And then he asked nonchalantly, "Can we go?"

My husband and I broke out into joyful screams, "We're going to Disneyland!!!"

My kids looked at us absolutely dumbfounded. I thought they'd be screaming too but they were too surprised to make a sound.