Spring Break 2013

For Spring Break, we went to one of my favorite places, San Diego!  Nick has been traveling there monthly for the past year (and my jealousy was getting the best of me) and so we joined him for this month's trip!  We left Saturday morning around 6:15 a.m. and made it to St. George for lunch.  We stopped at pioneer park to let the kids play around and picnic.  The boys especially loved climbing and exploring.

Our next stop was Primm for a snack.

Around 5:00 p.m., we made it to Barstow to stay for the night.  We had a dip in the pool before heading to dinner.

We ate dinner at the "World's Largest McDonald's" (at least at one time, it was!).  It was a fun place, though, it had three train cars that you could eat your dinner in.  So we did just that! 

After a long day of driving, hiking, and swimming, Max clunked out on the way back to the the hotel.

The next morning we left for San Diego (about a 2 1/2 hour drive).  As we were loading up the van, the kids found lots of moths around on the sidewalk.  So they had to play with them.

Free continential breakfast Easter morning!

We stopped at the Zoo-Safari Park that afternoon.

They had their Butterfly Jungle exhibit, which was a lot of fun watching all the butterflies flutter around and land on people.  Even though this butterfly doesn't look too pretty with it's wings up, when it opens them, it is a gorgeous blue color. 

We rode the tram around the park and the kids all said that was their favorite part.

They also had a small petting zoo with a few goats.

We then stopped by the temple and walked around a little bit.  It was fun to see all the other cars from Utah there on Easter Sunday, too.  Infact, we ran into a TON of Utah Licence Plates, and shirts or hats that had "BYU, U of U, or USU Aggies" on them throughout the week.  We felt right at home!

Monday morning, we headed straight for Sea World. 

I think the highlight of the trip for the kids, was swimming in the pool each night.  Kinda funny that you go that far and do so many other fun things, and the kids still get the most excited about a small pool!

Tuesday morning we drove to Point Loma to see the tide pools.  Low Tide was at 9:00 a.m. so we got there as soon as the Park opened.  The kids loved it.  We found limpits, sea anenomes, hermit crabs, and regular crabs. 

This was the street view as we drove to Point Loma.  Yeah, I think I would like to drive on roads like these everyday!  So fun with the palm trees and Ocean.

That afternoon, we went to the Zoo.  We rode the bus around the zoo to start and then only had time to go to one section of the zoo.  That's a pretty big zoo!

Oh, before going to zoo, we stopped back at our hotel for lunch and a little Disney Channel.  We don't get the Disney Channel and the kids really like it.

Back to the zoo, we made sure to stop and see the hippos.  Two of them were swimming all over the water while we were there.  Very fun!

That night we went to a Bennigans that was right by our hotel.  Nick had been to Bennigans on his mission and has loved and longed for their Monte Cristo for years.  I've heard about this Monte Cristo before, so we stopped in and it was REALLY good!  I was skeptical about a deep-fried sandwich served with raspberry preserves, but I almost wish I had ordered one!  And we scored, because on Tuesdays, kids eat free!

Wednesday Morning, we went back to Sea World to see everything we didn't get to on Monday and also to ride their roller coasters again.  Mabel LOVED the roller coasters!  The only hard part was that we had to keep switching off because of the height requirements.

These ropes were Alex's favorite part at Sea World.

That afternoon, we drove over to Coronodo beach.   I read somewhere that it was the "World's Best Beach".  It was pretty fun.

Mabel found a real clam.

Max and Alex just got filthy!  But I could do this everyday....take the kids to the beach, let the boys get dirty, let Sam find creepy crawlies, and let Mabel swim....I tell ya, that is the life!

We tried to fly our kite, but the wind wasn't strong enough.

Sam found this  and in it were tons of crabs and see bugs.

While Mabel was in the water playing, right next to her, a sea lion pup swam right by her and up to where we were standing.  It had some tags on it and looked like it had been rescued before, we must have scared it because it swam back in the ocean and then came up to shore a little further down and sunned himself in the rocks all afternoon.

On Thrusday, Nick had to work, so we moved up to his hotel in Del Mar.  After taking the kids swimming in the pool in the morning, I ventured down to the beach at Del Mar by myself with the kids.  We stayed until about 12:30 when everyone was getting hungry and left.

I love the green grass and blue ocean contrast.

Lunch at the hotel.

We found a city park and played for a while and then I took the kids out for frozen yogurt.

After Nick got back from work, he took us down to La Jolla's Cove.  One of my favorite places.  We got there just as the sun was setting.

The waves are huge and  crash into the sea wall.

We saw tons of seals on the beach and swimming in the water.  About 15 minutes after we got there, they closed the sea wall because the waves were getting too big!  We really lucked out!

Afterwards, Nick took us to Su Casa in La Jolla....his favorite restaraunt in San Diego (you know, now that he frequents there so often (or mainly it was what we could afford)).  They make guacamole right at the side of your table.....Alex ate nearly half the bowl!

 Friday morning, Nick let me run down to the beach....something I've always dreamed of doing...running along the beach.  It's not all it's cracked up to be at a higher tide, though!  But none the less, it was gorgeous and super fun and something I will never forget!  After another dip in the pool, we sadly departed from San Diego and headed for St. George.  Saturday morning, we went to Snow Canyon in St. George before driving the last 5 hours home!

We had a super fun vacation and everyone had a great time.  Everyone was in good spirits and we all loved spending a week together without any other distractions, meetings, obligations.  It's a hard adjustment back into reality again.