Disclaimer: Very long post with unashamed plugs for 2 of my favorite things!
Last week was Kiara's spring break from school, so we decided to take advantage of it and go on a trip to San Diego. One of those timeshare companies had offered us a deal, so we decided to just go ahead and take it and sit through the presentation and then enjoy the rest of our time there. We went on Monday and went to the timeshare thing. Because our baby had not taken a nap, he was very, very cranky and the guy could barely talk to us at all. We told him we were not interested and after some more crying by Rowan, he sent us on our way after only 30 minutes of his 2 hour presentation. We were never more happy to let Rowan scream : )
Tuesday we went to SeaWorld. I had never been before and I thought it was wonderful. The kids and Shane had a really good time too. It was so hands on and just plain cool. The kids had fun at the tide pool where they got to pick up starfish, touch sea cucumbers and see other stuff close up. They also liked getting to touch the rays. We came right at feeding time so they even got to feed the rays. The sharks were also a big hit. We got to go right under the sharks so they were swimming all around us. That was really neat. The penguins and polar bears were also favorites. We didn't go see Shamu's show, but we did go and see the killer whales in their tank. They swam right up to the glass over and over. That was the first thing we went to see and we had to pull the kids away to go see the rest of the park. All in all, in was a really fun day. I was so impressed by everything SeaWorld had to offer. They even had special diaper changing rooms and nursing rooms. They wouldn't have been important to me before, but as a mom I was really impressed. Rowan even enjoyed himself. He liked touching the critters and he really liked the sea lion show we went to see. I was pleasantly surprised that even Rowan had a good time. Another thing that it has over Disneyland is that it has Pepsi instead of Coke. When we went to the sea lion show, they even had an otter bring 1 of the trainers a Pepsi. I was very impressed and asked for a Pepsi otter for my birthday. Shane said he would see what he can do.
Kiara touching a seastar.
Kiara and Aidan in front of some really big shark teeth.
Wednesday we went to the beach. We got lost going to Coronado Beach, but ended up at Imperial Beach, which was wonderful. It also gave us a chance to see how real people actually get to live on Coronado Island. It was just us and the surfers for a couple of hours. Kiara and Shane went looking for shells and came back with a whole bunch of them. Shane even found 3 sand dollars. Aidan was content to dig in the sand and make towers for his bulldozer to knock down. He even was so kind as to knock down my sand castles too, just to save me the trouble. He's just a nice guy like that. Rowan was very excited to be out of the car seat and out of the stroller and had fun crawling, walking, digging and doing anything else he could in the sand. After we had been there a couple hours, Rowan fell asleep and took a good nap on the beach. We may just be raising a beach bum. There were lots of surfers there to watch and it was a relaxing, fun day.
Our beach bum.
Shane, Kiara and Aidan wading into the waves.
Rowan heading for the water.
On the way back to the hotel after the beach, the kids were completely wiped out and crashed in the car. This is just how tired they were:
Ok, well Rowan wasn't that tired because he snoozed on the beach
Another really cool thing that we found in San Diego was the coolest Target ever!! We had forgotten a few things, of course, so we went looking for a Target. We found a Target with 2 stories, an elevator, an escalator and an escalator for your cart!! Needless to say we were very impressed. We almost took pictures, but decided that might take our love of Target into the realm of crazy obsession. It was a lot bigger than any that we had been to before and we found lots of stuff on clearance! Yay for Target!!
The kids enjoyed staying in a hotel and even managed to sleep in the same bed without killing each other. It probably helped that they were exhausted by the end of every day. They liked riding in the "alligator" as Aidan called the elevator and took turns very nicely about who got to push the buttons.
We came back Thursday, but stopped at the San Diego temple on the way out of town. I had heard from lots of people just how beautiful it is, but now I can really appreciate it. It really is beautiful. Shane and I want to go back with a babysitter or by ourselves to be able to go inside. I am sure it is just was beautiful on the inside.
Now we are back to the real world with lots and lots of dirty laundry, lots of shells and tons of great memories. It was a great vacation and everything went wonderfully. I am really glad we went and can't wait to go back again! Thanks for reading all the way to the end of this crazy long post.