San Diego

We recently returned from a fabulous trip to San Diego -- just our little family. We bought these "Go San Diego" cards and really got our money's worth out of them. For about $85 each we did the following:

Lego land

Wild Animal Park (which included a safari)

Belmont Park (this awesome little boardwalk amusement park with the best roller coaster)

Whale watching cruise

Tour of the USS Midway (aircraft carrier)

Birch Aquarium

We were going to go to the zoo, but the weather turned on us. So we did all the above in 1 1/2 days! We had a blast and ended up going to sleep by 8:30 each night, exhausted!

Here are some fun pictures and stories from our trip:

The first ride we went on was a big roller coaster at Lego land. When we were done, Teya exclaimed, "That was too freaky for me." Dave had to agree with her. She rode the carousel while the older kids went on it again.

At Belmont Park, we were almost the only ones there. As a result, Teya got to ride her favorite ride all by herself several times. It was one of those rides where five people sit across and the whole thing goes all the way up then falls a few feet, then goes up and falls again, up and down, up and down. Teya was right in the middle, all by herself, and every time the ride would drop, she'd squeal with delight. You could hear her squeals (screams for those who were not related to her), across the whole park.

Josh and Eden's favorite thing was the roller coaster. It was a large, old rickety wooden one. The height requirement was 50 inches. Josh only made it because he hadn't had a recent haircut. Seriously. His hair was standing straight up and it barely brushed the 50 inch mark. The two of them rode that ride over 10 times. They would get off, run around, and get right back on -- there was no line. Dave and I had to take turns going with them and watching Teya, until our adult stomachs could no longer hang in there. Then, they just went by themselves. They would have stayed there all night riding it!

Teya was her own version of daring. On the carousel and the other little kiddie rides, she would sneakily let go of the pole or the bar and hold her hands up. What a little Evel Knievel! She thought she was so brave! It was hilarious watching her.

On our whale watching cruise, Josh saw a poster showing the migration routes of the whales (from up north of Alaska to down past Baja California). It was a pretty long cruise (about 4 hours). When we'd been gone about 2 1/2, Josh asked me "Well, do you think we've at least hit Canada yet?" "What?" I said. Then, he showed me the map. He was under the impression that we were following the entire migration route of the whales! Not quite. I showed him the tiny dot portion of the map that we were actually covering. His response, "Wow, things in real life are a LOT bigger than they are on a map." Astute observation Josh.

By the way, we did see two large humpback whales. They gave us a wonderful show, one of them breached (where they go most of the way out of the water and turn around) four times. They both kept spouting and come up and showing off their tails. It was great! We were so

close, we didn't even use the binoculars we had brought along!

One of my personal favorites was seeing the mesmerizing jellyfish at the aquarium. I could have stayed there and just watched them much longer than we did.

On Saturday evening there was a deluge and it stayed that way the rest of our trip. We got a rainy picture of us at the San Diego Temple and got wet in the rain going to the beach on Coronado Island, but it was still fun!