The Last Day- Our trip

This was our last night on the beach. Our favorite thing about the trip was our days we spent on the beach. Right before we were about to pack up our beach things for the last time, Bear suddenly panicked that he hadn't made a sand castle. So Daddy helped him throw one together and he loved it. He topped it off with his "magic stone" (that he found on the beach and wouldn't be parted with- it even came home with us).

Jeff and I spent the last evening (after the beach) packing up all the stuff scattered around the condo. It took a few hours and we completely ignored and then indulged the children to keep them happy. So at 9:30 when they realized they hadn't eaten their little ice cream cups, we let them go for it. When we came back into the room this is what we found. Our kids in mini sugar comas. You can even see the ice cream dripping pathetically from Jojy's face and clothes.

All packed up. Off for what would be a horrid drive... but somehow still worth it. Bye California!

The Condo- Our trip

Since we were there for so many days, we stayed at a couple hotels, but the longest stay was at this condo on Mission Bay. I wanted a condo especially so we could do laundry and have a kitchen. Eating out would have been ridiculously expensive (not like the rest of the trip wasn't). I loved this condo! It was pretty and comfortable and sunny with all it's windows. Aaahhhhh.


This is the patio off the bedroom.
This is the view from the patio- look how close we were to the beach!

Easter Sunday- Our trip

San Diego Temple. Beautiful, no?
AWWWWW!!!!!!!!
Again, AWWWWW!!!! This shot was totally candid.
We did our egg hunt in the sand.
Bear pretended he was a bird protecting his nest- he's so weird.

Look at those cute little piggies!

He's so handsome.

Just another day at the beach- Our trip

Naughty little baby. The tent was supposed to prevent him from getting into the sand. It was also supposed to prevent sand from getting into our bag and towels. All those purposes are defeated when trouble pants scoots forward and brings handfuls of sand into the tent. Hahaha! You can see all his little finger marks.

Jojy looks absolutely tiny when next to this vast ocean.

Nanos and I collected sea shells for a project for school.

This is our magnificent sand castle decorated with some of the tiny sea shells we'd found that just happen to look a lot like Lee Press-on nails.

Sea World- Our trip

We love Sea World every time we go. The food prices are absolutely ridiculous, but other than that, the day was completely pleasant.

1-Entering the park. Kids love big animal costumes. Why?
2- The polar experience is becoming a fast favorite during our visits. The polar bears were wrestling and it was fun to see them playing together.
3-My scary little polar bears in their cave.
4- My very favorite thing are the Beluga whales. Their swimming is hypnotic.
5- The Sea Lions were being fed when we passed, so we got to seem them going nuts and fighting over the fish. This one refused to come to the wall to fight the competition- he just sat on the rock and barked and wailed until someone finally would give in every few minutes and toss him something. It was so funny.
6- After the Shamu show- during this show is when the baby learned to clap. It was so cute, he suddenly straightened up, looked around at the applauding audience, and something clicked in his tiny mind and started to clap. Hahaha. I probably only find it funny cause I'm the mom.
7-I swear these dolphins swam right up and looked at my big boys. They just stayed there staring at them. It was very cool.
8- This is were you can pet the bat rays. Bear bear loved it- we bought a tray of fish to feed them too.
9- One of the rays flapped it's wing right near the surface and drenched poor Nanos! It was very funny.

San Diego Zoo- Our trip

It's been a few days since I last posted this trip and I just need to finish! So I'm going to sit here until I'm done. Now I've committed.

Here we are at the San Diego Zoo. So here's the thing with the zoo. It's big. I don't mean big, like there's so many animals, well, okay there are. I mean it's big, like, it covers a large area. I'll guess about 12 million acres or so. There are many places where you'll walk and walk and walk and see nothing but aviaries- I'm not saying the aviaries aren't pretty, but when you're dragging four children through miles of winding walkways trying to find tigers or hippos, they just don't care about any more stinkin' birds. Just ask 'em. MY SUGGESTION: if you're planning on going to San Diego Zoo, wait until your youngest is 5 yrs. old and can understand that you will get to the big exciting animals eventually...well, actually, after four hours there, we never did get to those tigers or hippos...but we saw lots of plants and birds.

1- S.D. Zoo has a great little children's zoo near the front that was very cute and fun for about 45 minutes. The kids LOVED looking at the raccoon running back and forth.
2 and 3- The petting zoo section was fun- they loved following the goats around.
4- We LOVED the OTTERS!!! They were so active and funny. It was probably our favorite moment at the zoo. One of the baby's nicknames is Little Otter, so we snapped this shot of our Otter with theirs.
5, 6, and 8- The kids were really entertained by these Gorilla statues. Jojy especially liked stroking the baby gorilla's head.
7- The kids were exhausted, and crying, but Bear just couldn't leave until he saw a camel.
9- This was one of those "Mom! Take a picture of me!" moments.

The Beach- Our trip

You thought that was the whole trip, didn't you? Fools. That was only the first half-HA! However, I don't think that I'll post nearly as much of the last few days as the first few. So off we go...


Jojy thought the sand part was great. Gettin' dirty with parental enthusiasm- a small boy's dream.
We always take a small tent to the beach to keep sand and sun off the baby- it also served as a perfect place for Jojy to nap when he couldn't keep his eyes open anymore.
He was cautious and timid around the water, and the second he got his confidence- BAM- he turfs it in the surf. As any good parent should, I laughed and took a picture.

This is easily one of my favorite photos from the entire trip. I LOVE THIS. That's all I can say.

Gabey didn't love the tent, but it was okay as long as he could see us. I forgot to bring toys for him this day, so like any good parent, I dug to the bottom of the bag and found a bottle of Tylenol and a tampon for him to play with.


Jeff turned my son into a mermaid. At least he's a tough mermaid. :-)