San Diego here we come!

 At the end of September we set out to take our first ever family vacation with our girls.  Anna and I have gone on vacations a few times since we have been married including our trip this past year to Eastern Europe to see my parents but we have never gone on a vacation with our girls. This year we thought they were finally at an age that we could have fun and that they hopefully would cooperate and after researching several ideas we settled on a week in San Diego and it was wonderful.  Bear with me as I force you to sit through my 'slide show' of what we did.

Day 1:  We set out on Sunday after attending the dedication of the Ogden Temple.  It was 3rd Sunday dinner with the Badgers so we decided we would set out and start our vacation by inching closer to the destination by staying the night at the Ranch.  Molly was very excited for the vacation to start and get on with this magical California that she kept hearing about.

Day 2:  The Drive...this is the day we dreaded and prayed about the most.  We would be making a 12 hour drive from Mapleton to San Diego and although our girls have experience sitting in the car for a few hours when we garage sale this was a whole new adventure.  We woke up at 5am and got on the road hoping that the girls would go back to sleep...no such luck.  That being said, the girls were wonderful and watched shows on the iPad and their DVD players, took naps, and in Molly's case chatted away the whole time snacking at every opportunity.  We didn't have any fits or freakouts and arrived in San Diego happy and ready to start the trip off right.  As soon as we reached St. George and Sophie say her first Palm Trees she shouted out and said "Mom! Dad! Coconut Trees!"  We are amazed at all that she knows and often wonder where she picks it up.

Day 3:  Balboa Park and Old Town
We decided to visit Balboa Park for our morning activity and then take some quiet time back at the hotel and hit Old Town that night.  Balboa park was beautiful as ever and we loved wondering through the elaborate detailed old Spanish buildings.

It was perfect because our girls could run and get their wiggles out as we wandered the sites.

We loved visiting the Shade House with its palms and orchids.  It also had a reflecting pond with water lilies and koa fish and turtles (which we later learned had been dropped off by people not wanting them for pets anymore and shouldn't have been in the pond).

After exhausting our girls at Balboa we headed back to our hotel hoping that we could maintain some sort of routine while on vacation...YEAH RIGHT!  Molly wouldn't take a nap and Sophie although watching a show also wanted to dance and sing for quiet time.  After trying for an hour or so we gave up and changed into our suits and headed down to the hotel pool.

We quickly realized there is only so much you can do in a pool with little girls that won't swim on their own and so the pool didn't last long but the girls still loved it.  I had been excited about visiting Old Town San Diego for awhile and so we packed the girls in the car and headed off.  Well...they quickly fell asleep minutes from our destination.  That didn't stop us, we put them in the stroller and were off and miracles of miracles they stayed asleep through dinner at a noisy Mexican Restaurant where the portions were HUGE and also would burn your mouth off after one bite.  

We wandered the tourist shops and village stopping to see a performance of Mexican folk dancers.  We tried several different flavors of Root Beer and stopped to see the site of the Mormon Battalion.  When we left at dark I looked at my little troop of girls and realized this is what life is all about.

San Diego...to be continued.