Escaping the Cold
So we were supposed to go skiing between Christmas and New Years. Lewis now has that week off from work, and we were going to go skiing at Taos with my parents. It was all booked up and reserved.
But then the dog refused to walk on her hind leg. At all. And there was no snow. And a whole bunch of things happened in succession and so we scraped that plan. And while we were mid scrapping that plan ... our friends asked us if we wanted to take a family trip. We threw out a bunch of ideas, but I said the only date we could feasibly do (due to school schedules) was MLK weekend. Well their dad was in San Diego that week for work. And their granddad lives there. Did we want to go out there and stay at their granddads house?
We were mid-cancelling our flights to ABQ. So we just rebooked those to San Diego. And we were off.
The 6am flights are kind of my favorite hateful horrible things. The kids are better in the AM, no matter what time they get up (except J - who is not a morning person). So it's not a big deal to just get up and go. We were up at 4AM, made our flight, landed at 730AM PST and we were off. We stopped just near the airport to meet up with our friends (who mom and kids were on our flight too, dad picked them up in SD) near the USS Midway and the V-Day statue. The kids were super excited to be on a trip together.
So from here we tried to find a place for breakfast downtown. Which was not easy for a party of ten. We ended up just ordering from this breakfast burrito place and the kids ran around this really pretty fountain. It worked.
From there we went to the San Diego Zoo.
This was a fun story. They had zoologists all over the zoo. They loved stopping the kids and pointing things out about the animals. My kids were interested in talking to them about half the time. But here with the baby giraffe, they were engaged. The nice lady asked them, "what color is a giraffe's tongue?" Purple, they both say. "Do you know why it's black?" She says, but my kids argue that no, it's actually purple. And I looked it up, my kids are right. It's a dark blue, purple. Grady gives a guess as to why it's purple, but David shakes his head and says ... "It's so it doesn't get sun-burned." And he was right! But D is so unassuming. So when he speaks up like that Lewis and I just kind of perk up and it's wonderful. I love seeing him grow in confidence and knowledge. He has such an old soul about the way he talks and his cadence and tone. G is a mile a minute. D is a little bit slower, more pointed. They are peas in a pod but the subtle differences are very fun and I'm trying to memorize them all.
They loved this baby cheetah too. Panther? Leopard? Can't remember. Anyway they loved, loved, loved all the babies this zoo had.
Our wolf-cub.
The polar bears were being fed honey dew melon. It was very fun to watch. Most of the animals were very active.
This was an amazing area with African penguins. It was beautiful and the penguins were diving and the kids were chasing them. We choose to go to the zoo on Friday right away, to avoid weekend crowds. And I believe 1000% that was the right choice.
Now the money animal. SD is one of two zoos in the country that has pandas, as we all know. Of course we got over there at nap time.
For both Julia and the pandas, it was nap time at the zoo. The 4am wake up finally had her giving up.
And our friends sweet daughter too.
While the babies nap the big kids powered through nap time with sugar. It was super fun.
Then we went and saw the monkeys / chimpanzees. They were super active and the young baby kept picking on the parents and my kids were dying laughing. He kept pulling his dads hair and then (I missed it but they told me) the chimp was swinging over his dads head and then he just let go and his dad caught him. We were there for a good clip.
While Julia slept on.
I woke her up to take this picture. It was a lovely day at the zoo.
After this we went home to their granddads house (which is beautiful) and we watched cartoons and the dads went to the store and we had snacks. Bedtime was early.
The next day the kids were up at 430PST (630CST). Oi. We laid around and had breakfast and then before lunch we headed out to Coronado Island for lunch.
I love getting close ups of my kids eyes. I'm obsessed. They just all get more and more handsome everyday.
Look! I was here too!
My brown-eyed boy.
She was very fun. It was a great trip for her. It was nice to take her places and not have her lose her mind because she was so tired and hungry. She was better about communicating her needs and she didn't have a tantrum once. It was glorious.
The families at lunch.
Down near the water on Coronado island.
From lunch we went to the Maritime Museum and the USS Midway.
The kids loved climbing through all the boats and submarines and G and D loved the main deck or whatever it's called on the USS Midway where they got to mess with the sonar and the captains chair.
After that we went home, dinner, more playing (this time with toys procured from the gift shop) and another early bedtime.
The next day ... the beach!
I told them to storm the beach. They were confused.
We were at the beach from about 1030 to about 330. It was magical. The dads went to a shop and got us lunch. I had marvelous fish tacos. The kids had quesadillas and french fries and fruit. They played nonstop. Digging in the sand. Jumping in the cold waves. It was beautiful.
And back home it was 18 degrees.
The next day was the flight home. We did go to a park in the morning, said our goodbyes, and made it back from the ice storm they predicted did not happen. This morning (I had fleeting hopes of a snow day) I got everyone to school and now I'm here doing laundry and trying to adjust to the freezing cold.
It was so nice to escape it, and be somewhere sunny and beautiful. And I love vacation. I heart it. I was telling our friends ... we're never together anymore. It's so rare. He travels, the kids have activities it's rare that we're able to spend as much time together as we get to on vacation. Lewis did have to work on Friday (and took several phone calls while we were at the zoo) and had conference calls and work crap the entire Monday. But, to his point, at least we got to go. The kids have so much marvelous fun. And I love facilitating that. I rarely saw G and D ... they played with their friend and hovered in our area. I spent a lot of time with the girls, who are smaller and need more attention. The older girl flitted between the boys and us but there was definitely more girl time.
It was a great escape. So glad we did it.
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