Knowing Brian’s summer schedule consists of literally no available weekends we planned a Memorial Day weekend jaunt to San Diego…our family summer trip if you will. Brian secured killer hotel rates through Priceline and acquired 2 for 1 tickets to Sea World. So after we picked up Serra from school on friday we were off. We took our time, stopping for dinner at a Mexican joint in Victorville where several onlookers commented on how well behaved our kids were at a restaurant. We just smiled and said thankyou and were glad that they were all behaving at that particular moment. We stayed in La Jolla just a few blocks from the San Diego temple (which looks like the space shuttle launch right now with all the scaffolding). The kids settled in well for the evening and we partook of our first night in peace. Our hotel was pretty full and we needed a fridge for the baby’s food and Westons chocolate milk. They only had one room open with a fridge. We realized why they they filled it last as it was right next to the elevators. You can actually hear the elevators going up and down constantly. It didn’t really bug us, but we have never experienced it before.
Saturday dawned bright, clear, and balmy. We got ourselves beach ready, fed the troops pancakes at Mc D’s, and headed to the coast. We wandered around a bit looking for just the spot and found a place with some rock caves as well as sand and good waves all in a nice little cove where the kids couldn’t wander too far….and then set the troops free. What a fun afternoon. I love the beach. I love to sit and listen to the waves and watch my kids do what I grew up doing…playing keep away from the waves, digging for sand crabs, lying in the warm sand, collecting sea weed to adorn the sand castles, and discovering sea creatures in the rocks. It was hilarious to watch Serra and Rosie get plowed over by waves and the look on their faces at the taste of the salt water was priceless. Weston stayed away from the water and climbed around the rocks jumping into the warm sand. I don’t know that I have ever seen him more content. He was free to do what he wanted and I could sit under the umbrella with the baby and just smile at him. Brian did a lousy job putting sunscreen on his legs and has the reddest patchiest sunburned legs I have ever seen.
On a side note…a few days before the trip Charlie decided she was no longer going to nurse. She would just arch her back and turn her head, and if I pushed the issue she gave me a good bite. So we are done nursing. I think what set it off was the few scoldings she got last week for biting. I didn’t even flick her cheek or anything. I just sternly told her no. She got really bent out of shape every time I scolded her and so refused from then on. Luckily she has adapted to regular milk well. I mix half formula and half whole milk too and she does great. I pump every day just to keep from engorgement but it’s been less every day and I suspect by the end of the week that will come to an end. I found a great little cooler that holds two bottles and keeps them at fridge temps for 12 hours. I was able to fill 2 bottles in the morning as we set off on our adventures and it was just enough along with a little table food. It was much easier bottle feeding her on this trip than nursing would have been as we were in public places the whole time.
At about 2pm we decided we better get cleaned up so we could head to the baseball game. We did just that and made it to our seats about 20 minutes before the first pitch. We had great seats way up high in an uncrowded area where I was able to put Charlie on a blanket to play and even sleep. The kids were able to move around and play a bit too which was way nicer than having to sit in tight quarters the whole time. We indulged with hot dogs, nachos, lemonade, and cotton candy…baseball food right? Didn’t do the peanuts and cracker jacks though. Padres won so everyone was in a good mood. And Serra was thrilled that she and Rosie got shown on the big screen. The kicker was that because of some construction we ended up parking about a mile away. It was only a block as the crow flies and we thought we were awesome when we got there but ended up having to walk waaaaay around all the fences. We didn’t have the stroller because of all the stairs and so had to carry the baby, the blankets, free bobbleheads, and all the jackets, and try to keep track of Wes. He was all over the place and even stepped on and then stood on a sleeping homeless guy at one point as I franticly tried to get to him to get him off the guy. But we made it back to the hotel safely and everyone fell into a happy exhausted sleep…or at least most of us. We put on Alice in Wonderland with good intentions and Serra stayed up and watched while the rest of us slept.
Sunday morning we tried to be more reverent and so after getting the kids fed we headed up to Cabrillo point where Brian and I spent an afternoon when we were dating. There is a lighthouse you can go in and it was perfect weather and a nice walk to get there. The view of the ocean and the port of San Diego is phenomenal and there were a lot of sail boats out to watch. Down below the lighthouse were some tidepools so we spent a good part of the afternoon playing around the tidepools and trying to keep Wes from falling off a cliff. From there we headed to the Mormon Battalion museum in Old Town. They have redone the whole place and it was GREAT. They have a 30 minute tour where they take you from Iowa to SanDiego with the Battalion. It is very well done and you can pan for gold at the end. The kids really liked it and we were able to find our relatives on the list of battalion members. Two of the Workman brothers were part of that group. (Our common ancestors in case you didn’t know) We spent the rest of the afternoon in Old Town and as it started to get dark we headed back to the hotel.
Monday morning we packed up the car and checked out of the hotel and headed to Sea World. We were able to catch the Sea lion and Otter show, the Shamu show with all the killer whales (very cool), and the dolphin show. There were a few rides which almost all included getting soaked…which was welcomed in the afternoon but not so much in the evening. Rosie went on her first roller coaster and LOVED it. She can’t wait to go to Disneyland in the fall where she’ll be tall enough to ride them all. There is also a helicopter motion ride that takes you to the arctic. Rosie’s convinced she went on a helicopter to the arctic and then made it back to Sea World in 10 minutes. Weston was a real handful this day. He didn’t want to ride in the stroller, refused to walk with the leash, and wouldn’t stay with us if he walked. The last straw that confined him to the stroller for the rest of the day was when he ran ahead, crawled under a fence and took off into the back lots of Sea World. I was able to squeeze through some shrubs at the side of the fence with Rosie and we ran after him. I yelled to Rosie who was ahead of me to just knock him down so I could catch up. He doesn’t listen sometimes and in fact when I call him back will look back and then take off running as fast as he can. I was terrified he was going to come in contact with some wild polar bear or something.
Later we separated so Serra could ride the roller coaster once again and Rosie could explore Elmo’s land. I lost track of Rosie almost immediately and was about two seconds from finding security when I finally spotted her above me on the rope bridge maze. She was scared because she couldn’t find her way off. I was freaked out because it was starting to get dark. We hugged and promised to not get separated again. Brian and Serra found us and we let the kids ride the Elmo fish which are exactly like Dumbo at DL and we were done. It was 8pm and we had the drive to LV ahead of us. We changed the babies, got on the road and the kids were all out almost immediately. We made great time and were glad we weren’t the suckers on the the way back to CA in bumper to bumper traffic.
Sooo, we are back and back to the grindstone…and all suffering from a bit of sun overexposure. But we had a great time and would do it all over again. In fact, Rosie has asked if we can do it again next weekend.
We have pictures and I am in the process of compiling them all so another post will be coming along soon with all the visuals.
