San Diego Trip

We spent 5 days last week in San Diego and had so much fun.  We flew into Long Beach since it was so much cheaper, rented a car, and made our way down the coast to a little one bedroom condo right off the beach. The first day we went to Sea World.  We got there right when the park opened, and hardly anyone was there for a few hours, so we were able to see everything fairly quickly.  We watched the shows and went on the rides by ourselves (traveling with kids is way different!)

Traditional Melville picture in the polar bear cave

Brady and I at the Dolphin show

 

Brady was so excited when he got to meet ELMO!

 

The next day we went to the San Diego Zoo.  We had fun doing the bus tour with our guide Alexander (say in a growling voice).  It is a really cool zoo with lots of unique animals and is very nature-esque.

  

 

Dave couldn't pass up the 25 cent Footsie Wootsie massage.  

His feet tingled for 15 minutes afterward!

 

We also went to the lame-o Safari Park (formerly the Wild Animal Park).  We enjoyed riding the tram, but after that there was nothing to do and it's so big it took us 30 minutes to find our way out. 

 

We of course spent time at the beach!  We were about a minute walk from Mission Bay and 3 minutes from the ocean.  Brady wasn't a huge fan of the waves but really liked the Bayside where the water was really calm.  We kayaked, rode a beach cruiser down the boardwalk (both by ourselves again) while Brady was napping, did a little boogie boarding,  and ran on the beach every morning.  I love the ocean! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is Brady doing the Silly-walk in the water:

The trickiest part of the trip was Brady's sleep.  He woke up before 5:00 am almost every morning, so we got an early start on each day.  We would just keep him in the pack and play and put on cartoons and hope he would give us a little extra sleep time.  But this meant he was tired really early, but fell asleep for only about an hour in his stroller at Seaworld and the zoo.  We tried letting him nap before we went out one day, but that just wasted 2 hours.  Luckily, he went down easily at night and stayed pretty happy even though he had way less sleep than he usually does.  After he was in bed, Dave and I watched Storage Wars, read, ate popcorn, and 2 nights we watched the fireworks from Seaworld that we could see across the bay.

It was probably 5:00 am in this picture.

Here's a few pictures that are uncommon sights. 

We had a kitchen in our condo, so we ate most of our meals there or took lunches with us, but we couldn't pass up the opportunity for some cinnamon roll French toast from Coco's.  Yum!

 

On our way back to the airport, we stopped in Irvine to visit the Moores who just moved there for Tyler's residency.  We had planned to go to the beach, but Brady hadn't slept at all that day and we had a late flight.  We decided he needed a nap, so we just hung out and ate the yummy dinner Rebe made.  It was fun to see Bridgette and their new apartment and area they live in.  I'm sure we'll be back for a visit!

 

 

This is Brady's new favorite game to play with Dave's hat.  We can't figure out why he thinks it's so hilarious!

Our flight home ended up getting delayed 2 1/2 hours and we didn't get home until about 1:30 am.  Brady had become pretty clingy by the end of the trip, and for the first time in his not-newborn life he wanted to cuddle up next to us in our bed!  I enjoyed it for the 2 minutes I was awake before I zonked out.