Southern California Days 7-9

Thursday June 8th:  We were all worn out and finally slept in a bit.  After days of gloomy weather our warm clothes were all dirty and laundry became a necessity.  So, as the kids and Reid relaxed in the room, I headed to the resort's laundry facilities and started a load.  Mostly we needed our jeans and sweaters (we had brought one each) clean as the days were just not as warm as we had expected and with a little wind, we needed something to keep the chill out.  I finally got our laundry done and back to our room about 11am and we loaded up and drove the one mile to Mission Beach.  The sun was actually out that day and the boys were having a great time in the water.  Bree was actually out in the water as well enjoying her time until she tripped running from a wave and ending up swallowing some salt water.  In the aftermath of all of that she realized just how cold it was to be wet and not in the water and she whined and moaned and begged to be bundled up and rubbed.  She spent a good half an hour at least completely underneath the beach towel.  It made me laugh! 

I decided to head to a nearby store to grab some sand toys to see if that would help at all (I knew Finn would like some to help with his attempts at a sandcastle) and I found that was all she needed to pull herself out from the towel and back to playing on the beach. 

My two boys

Can you see Bree's hair poking out on the right of the picture?

Finn eventually tired of being in the water and wanted to build in the sand.

Getting these toys turned the situation around thankfully

We had an incident with these toys where Bree was running out to the water's edge to fill a watering can and then bringing it back to the build site.  On one trip, I saw her run out and then looked down and when I looked up just 30 seconds later she was no where to be seen.  I ran out to the water's edge and could not find her and began to get very upset.  Reid joined me at the edge of the water and we took off in opposite directions walking along the water looking and calling for her.  Finn began to get upset after he realized she was not nearby and started to cry, concerned that she had gone into the water and hadn't come back out.  I sent him to the beach towel to wait for us.  As my panic began to grow, I closed my eyes and said a quick prayer.  Just as I finished I looked up and saw Reid walking towards me with Bree in his arms.  Apparently she had lost her way back to our towel and had ended up going north on the beach where she was found by another gentleman who was walking her back to us when he ran into Reid.  The whole incident only lasted two minutes but was quite nerve-racking for me and Finn.  After that Finn refused to let Bree go back to the water by herself and promised that he would watch her better.  He was so incredibly sweet.

After several hours at the beach we headed to McDonald's for a late lunch.  Seriously, doesn't this kid look handsome and so much like a surfer?  I wish he would let us do this with his hair.  He says it isn't his style.  But can you tell it was getting bleached in the sun?  He also has some sweet tan lines where his glasses are normally on the sides of his face.  You can kind of see it on the left of this picture.

From McDonalds we headed to Cabarillo National Monument.  We got there only a half an hour before it closed and saw that there was enough to do that it warranted another trip back on Saturday morning.  So, for Thursday we took some pictures and enjoyed the views and waited to check out the exhibits until we had time on Saturday.
Another warrior face from Finn.

Warrior face

And this...well, go ahead and laugh.  I did.

Mexico is behind us.

This is certainly not my finest picture but it's the only one I have with my husband so I guess I'll share it.

That night we settled on Baskin Robins for dinner.

Friday the 9th we headed to the San Diego Zoo.  We have a fantastic zoo here in the Springs that we love and I have heard some here say they like ours better than San Diego's, so I was nervous.  But it turned out to be a fantastic zoo.  Our biggest problem was that it was so big there was really no easy way to tour it and be able to see everything.  And it was the last full day of a very long vacation and our kids were tired and had sore feet.  We gave in and rented a stroller.  It was worth it.

We arrived before the zoo opened and headed straight back to the pandas.  It was a good move as we were first in to see them.

There is a koala under that flat table-like thing on the right.

There were two baby cheetahs out playing.  They were fun to watch.

When I first saw this rhino I thought it was a statue, but then I saw an ear flick and was surprised it was real!

Finn with a red river hog (his favorite zoo animal) over his left shoulder (on the right in the picture).

A selfie on the double-decker bus tour

A lizard over Kai's right shoulder

I'm not sure she can get any more precious!

Hippos!

Seriously??!!  Finn is pulling Kai's hair!

I almost got them all to look at me.

 We enjoyed the zoo.  There is so much to see that we could have easily walked more slowly and spent a lot more time there.  Unfortunately by this point in our trip my kids just didn't have the attention span.  We spent about 6 hours and everyone had sore feet, were worn out, and just done for the day.  We decided to head out for dinner and then back to the hotel to start the packing up process and rest.

We did eat dinner at the Corvette Diner which was a lot of fun.  The atmosphere was fantastic (a bit too loud) and the food was delicious.

The diner was actually located right behind the Marine's Recruitment Depot.  We took this picture because we have a nephew there right now and we texted this picture to his mom to let her know that we were close enough to wave hi!

While Kai and Reid stayed back in the hotel I took these two back out to the beach for one last time.  I wish we had had better weather and more beach time on our trip.  But I am grateful for all that we did see and do and for the time we had.  It was fun to be just the three of us for a bit and to let them play.  They play so well together and enjoy similar things so there was nothing else competing with my attention.

Saturday June 10th was time to head home.  Our flight was scheduled for 6pm, so we knew we had a bit over a half a day to do just a few more things after we checked out of the hotel.  We decided to return to Cabarillo National Monument to check out the exhibits and learn more about it (there are no pictures as we had taken them on Thursday), and then after lunch to head over to the USS Midway.

Our room was on the 2nd floor of a building with an open air concept.  So, it became a big deal to the kids to ride the elevator down by themselves.  When they got off I could just look over balcony and keep an eye on them, but to them, it was definitely a big kid experience.  So, each kid took their own trip down.  Bree was so cute as she was nervous she would forget which button to push and so she was talking to herself to remember what to do.  I can't believe how much she is growing up!

Jail on the USS Miday

Reid testing out the sleeping arrangements on the ship.  The ship was built to hold 3,600 people but carried about 4,500 most of the time.  Most sailors were lucky to get 5 consecutive hours of sleep.  I have no idea how they did that!  It was really interesting to see what like is like on an aircraft carrier.  I learned a lot and gained a lot of respect for those who serve our country in this way.  I know that I could never be confined in these kind of facilities for the months on end that they are.  Just wow!

My kids had to stop and sit at every control panel they could even though the buttons and switches did nothing.

In many rooms they had mannequins on display showing you what it would have looked like.  Some had recorded messages.  Bree does not want to ever go back to this ship because the mannequins creeped her out, especially one that she felt was looking right at her.

On the top deck were many different models of airplanes and some that the kids could climb in and out of.  This ship is huge.  Just huge.

This statue of a sailor kissing a girl is fairly famous from what I understand.  This is the view of it from the top deck of the Midway.

Many people told me we would need at least three hours at the Midway.  There was an free audio tour that we all had headsets for and that helped to keep the kids engaged for quite a while, but their attention span wore out around the 2 to 2 1/2 hour mark.  A family we had met early in the week with similar aged kids had said 2 hours was when their children wore out, so it didn't surprise me that our kids followed suit.

While we were touring the midway I checked our flight to find that it was delayed.  That gave us more time to explore but once we were done we still had a fair amount of time to get to the airport without having to stress or hurry.  We ended up at the airport nearly 3 hours early which was plenty of time to return the car, check the luggage, and clear security.

And finally, when it's been a long vacation and you are just plain worn out, your mom will let you eat a big chocolate muffin for dinner.  Because, really, she deserved it.  After this I took her to the bathroom and changed her into jammies in case she fell asleep on the flight.  She did not, but that was helpful as we needed all of our hands to help with luggage.  Once we were on the shuttle and on our way to the parking facility she finally crashed.  It was after 11pm.  We pulled into our home right before 12:30am on Sunday morning and we all went directly to bed.  What a trip!