San Diego Vacation

We had a wonderful time on our San Diego vacation. We left on July 10th at 4:30 am hoping Bryce would sleep for the first couple of hours. No such luck. We drove all day long until we arrived at a campground just past the grapevine off of Hwy 5. Of course we had many stops along the way so that Bryce could run around. The next day we drove to Palmdale where we picked up Juli, Trey and Amanda. Clay's brother lives there so he stayed to spend a couple of days with him before meeting us in San Diego. We arrived at the KOA in San Diego around 4 o'clock. Our good family friends, Ross and Sharon, were already at the campground waiting for us to arrive. They even set up the tent they let us borrow.

The next day my parents went to a memorial service for an old friend. Nathan, Juli and I took the kids to Old Town San Diego and walked around for a couple of hours.

We visited Legoland on the 20th. The kids really enjoyed the little rides and the water area. The adults enjoyed all of the model cities made completely with million of legos.

The following day was a down day (if you can call a day with two 2-year olds and an almost 7 year old a down day). We hung out at the campground, took a short bike ride and went to the beach.

On the 22nd we went to Sea World. We saw the killer whale show, the seal lion show, and a dog and cat show. We also visited just about every other exhibit. The kids enjoyed Sea World, but it was not an easy place to have a stroller. You had to park the stroller outside of all the shows and most of the exhibits. This made it especially difficult since both of the little ones took 2 hour naps that day (of course not at the same time) so we had to either take turns looking at the exhibits or someone skipped it to stay with the kids. After Sea World we went to El Toritto for dinner. It was past the little one's bed time by the time we were seated. Thankfully both of them did amazingly well considering the time and the long wait for our food. We had an excellent dinner there.

The following day was another down day. We hung out at the campground until after nap time. The kids played on the playground for a good part of the morning. That afternoon we went to the beach again. Clay rented boogie boards for he, Nathan and Trey. Unfortunately the boogie boarding was cut short when Clay was stung by a Sting Ray. Thankfully the beach we were at had lifeguards on hand that knew what to do. He had to soak his foot in warm water to draw out the poison. It was extremely painful for him.

On the 24th we went to the San Diego Zoo. This is truly an amazing zoo, one of the best in the world. We saw 3 Panda Bears. Only 8 Panda Bears live outside of Asia and we had the wonderful experience of seeing them. We also feed giraffes and saw many wonderful animals. One of the incredible things about this zoo is the space they provide for their animals. It is nothing like San Francisco or the Oakland Zoo where the animals have very small enclosures. The San Diego Zoo is also home to the largest variety of botanical life and they grow a large portion of the animal's food on site.

The next day we visited the San Diego Wild Animal Park. This is an extension of the San Diego Zoo. Here animals roam freely with other species, much like they would in the wild. You take a tram tour through many acres of land to see the animals in an environment very similar to their natural habitat. Here we saw 2 Northern White Rinos. Only 8 are known to exist in captivity and none have been located in the wild. We also saw a two-day old Black Rino and other various babies. Juli, Clay and the kids left around 1:30 to drive back home. They weren't able to stay for the entire vacation because they had a reunion to attend. That night Nathan, Bryce and I went on a hay ride pulled by a tractor around the campsite. Bryce thought it was pretty fun.

On our last day in San Diego we hung out at the campground for the morning. Bryce played at the playground and the adults enjoyed some R&R. That afternoon we went to Seaport Village, a tourist shopping and dining area right on the bay. We walked along the water, saw some big ships, including a WWII aircraft carrier, rode on the 100+ year old carousel, and had dinner overlooking the bay. After dinner we had yummy Ben & Jerry's ice cream cones.

Our trip home was nice and uneventful. We split the trip into two days, as we did going down to San Diego. Bryce did really well sitting for so long.

Thanks so much to Nanny and Pawka for such a wonderful trip. You were way too generous.