Sunny California

It's cold. Day after day the temperature just seems to be stuck in the 20's with no change. Since I'm dreaming of warm weather I think I'll finally post about our summer trip to San Diego. This trip taken last August was one of the best vacations we have ever had. I was dreading the driving hours in a car full of kids that can't even make the 3 min trip home from church without fighting but was pleasantly surprised that the travel wasn't much of an issue. As long as everyone had their electronic devices all was well. It was nice having an extra driver so I could sit in the back and watch Paul Blart Mall Cop with the kids. We left on a Sunday night after church and drove to Primm NV where we knew we could get a hotel room for next to nothing. We stayed at Whiskey Pete's and the kids were not impressed. I thought they'd be somewhat oblivious since it was late and we were just spending the night and moving on but no they chimed in on not only the run down rooms but the yucky "Vegas" lifestyle. Here was the view from our room. So we got back on the road and made it to San Diego Monday afternoon. It was around this time that William hit us with what is now a Taylor Family Classic. We were starting to talk about stopping for lunch and some of the usual places were being suggested and Glenn said "When you're on vacation you eat at places that you've never been to before or that you don't go to very often" From the backseat William yells "Oh like Burger King!" Although Burger King did technically fit the description it was not quite what Glenn was thinking.
We stayed about 30 miles from downtown San Diego in the Carmel Mountain Residence Inn which had two bedrooms and bathrooms with a central living room and kitchen. It was so great to have older kids because they could go by themselves to the pool or to breakfast in the morning. That cut down on the usual scenario of being stuck in a hotel room and fighting. We had passes to Sea World, The San Diego Zoo, and to the Wild Animal Park and we decided we better do Sea World first. We arrived fairly early Tues morning and the kids wanted to hit the rides before the lines got long so we went right over to Journey to Atlantis. Will and I were planning to wait but Glenn noticed that William was tall enough and asked him if he wanted to go. Will said sure and jumped in line but he really had no idea what was in store. I should have been more aware because I know Will is not a thrill seeker and he had recently started telling us he was afraid of heights. Anyway it was an ill-fated moment of bad parenting for sure. Glenn was completely oblivious until after the death drop that started, yes started the ride. After that he at least held Will tight but the damage was done. Even now as I ask William what he thought of Journey to Atlantis he answers "I hated it". I ask do you want to go on it again and he shakes his head no with a look of panic in his eyes. Needless to say it wasn't the greatest kick off for his Sea World experience. We had to buy the picture of the drop because you just can't adequately describe the sheer terror as well as the picture does.

The rest of the day was just fun. We did all the usual stuff and the weather was not too hot. This was at the Shamu show.
I had to laugh because all through the show I kept telling Will just wait they're going to do some really cool stuff and then suddenly the show was over. I didn't know that since a trainer in Florida had been killed earlier in the year they don't swim with the whales anymore. So all the stuff like the trainer being shot out of the water on the whale's nose... gone. I had no idea. I think he liked all the splashing so maybe he thought that was the cool stuff I was referring to.
Here we are getting ready to feed the stingrays. Except for Dylan, he was too tired to feed the stingrays. William was nervous and kept pulling his fish out of the water when the stingray would approach so I took his fish to show him how it was done. Then a stingray came up out of the water and made the weird sucking sound which is what stingrays do when they eat I guess and I got scared and dropped the fish. So much for that, but i did get some video of the kids touching them.

The next day we spent at the beach and we absolutely loved it. We chose the Coronado Beach because we thought it would be fun for the kids to go over the big bridge and also because we knew where it was. That turned out to be an excellent choice. It was not too busy and was also fun to see all the ships and planes from the nearby navel base. Some of jets that flew over were so close the noise was deafening but it was way cool.

Here's a picture of the the big Mormon family from Utah arriving at the beach in their matching T-Shirts.

The weather was perfect and the kids had a blast in the ocean. This was the first ocean experience for most of them and I think everyone is now hooked. I had a blast too until I got blasted by a big wave. I'm just mentioning it because it is now a favorite story of how the boys successfully jumped the wave but then saw it slam into me and Abby and then we were both just gone for a while. Apparently my hat shot straight into the air as it hit. Then after a minute Abby popped back up and then me. I was glad I was able to recover my hat but I was not as lucky with my sunglasses. We figured they are somewhere in Hawaii by now. After that bad boy I retired from the water but it was still a great day.
Here are the boys getting used to the water and then trying to get Will in the water. He was more of a sand guy.




Here are the girls collecting shells.

Lunch break.


Girls boogie boarding.

William demonstrating the properties of "perfect sand".

Look at how covered with sand William is. He loved playing on the beach so much that sand covering every inch of his body didn't bother him at all.

Dylan, Garrett and I weren't very diligent with the sunscreen and we all got fried but it wasn't until we got back to the hotel that we discovered that we had overlooked this key spot on Will. All the bending and squatting while playing in the sand didn't do him any favors.

The next adventure was The San Diego Zoo. One of the reasons we choose San Diego was because we thought it would be cooler since we were going in August. Unfortunately they were having unseasonably warm weather all week and we baked over the next couple of days. The Zoo was just basically miserable because of the heat, the black top roads and it's just a really really big zoo. You had to walk such a great distance to get to the next attraction and it would just be a couple of animals in a cage. Yes I know that's what a zoo is but we have one here where we can see the same things without all the walking. Next time we will probably skip the zoo for sure. Here are the Pandas that we had to wait in a line to see. The baby was pretty cute, he had been up by his momma but then he tumbled down the hill.

Here is a sign at the zoo that we thought was funny. Probably because last year at the Boise zoo we saw someone get sprayed. They ought to get some of these signs.

Here's another sign that caught my eye on the way to the zoo. Mexican pot was on sale.

After the zoo we stopped at Balboa park and looked at the Monkey tree. I don't remember much from my time in San Diego but I do remember climbing in the monkey tree. It is now fenced off so you can't climb it anymore but it's still impressive.

We also decided to find my old neighborhood since we were in the vicinity. Here's my old house and my school. I lived here when I was 2 until 7 and went to kindergarten and half of first grade at this school. I know the school picture looks like a picture of a fence but this is actually my kindergarten classroom. We lined up right in front of the windows and hung our jackets on the hooks just under the windows.


I was pleased to see that the house was kept up so nice and that the neighborhood was still nice too. It was a modest area in the 70's so I was kind of worried that after 30 years it would be run down and scary. Not so.
Everyday when we returned to the hotel in the evenings the kids would swim. Even after the beach days they would come home and swim. I still can't believe they never got sick of being in the water. We referred to our room as the redneck room because we always had our crap hanging off the balcony.

On Friday we went to the Wild Animal Park. After our zoo experience we weren't really looking forward to this but it turned out better than expected. It was miserably hot again with lots of walking but the natural setting made it more pleasurable. It was kind of like just being out hiking and then coming across a pack of animals, in this case safari type animals. I really liked the lookout point where you could see across the wide expanse and spot antelop, rhinos, giraffes etc. We were also pleasantly surprised to find out that our admission cost covered a ride out in the tram so we got to sit for awhile and get a closer look at everything.
This is Roger the Zebra, we were lucky to get a photo op with him.

Here's another great sign. See that finger with a boo boo and a cute little band aid? Yeah this was on the tiger enclosure.


Here we are at the lookout.




Here are the kids feeding and trying to pet the ducks. I discovered later that I had a smudge on the lens but you get the idea.




Dinner that night was authentic Mexican. Here are the kids in their el torro headbands.

Here they are trying to look like angry bulls. (Not sure if it worked.)

Our final day was another beach day. This time we weren't so lucky with perfect conditions. The water was extremely cold, choppy and every wave was filled with black seaweed. So we stuck with playing in the sand.





In the evening we sought out the famous Pinnicle Peaks steakhouse. Pinnacle Peaks was another thing I remembered from my childhood. I don't know if I went there more than one time but I always remembered the ties. The place has a strict no tie policy. If you come in wearing a tie it gets cut off and displayed. There are ties covering every inch of the interior. It was always a fun memory and so it was great to create the same memory for my kids. The food rocked too. Two thumbs way up for the decision to eat there on our final night.


Well there you have it. The rest of the story is pretty anti-climactic. On the way home we went out of our way to check out a remote little mining/western town called Julian. Shouldn't have. It was quaint but we live in Utah so we're used to remote little mining/western towns. We also made a very brief stop to say hi to the cousins. Should of cut out Julian and spent more time with cousins. Then it was on to St. George where we stopped for the night, Cedar City for lunch with a friend, then home sweet home.
I don't know if I'm warmer after all that but it was sure fun to remember what a great time we had. We're already talking about a re-do:)