10 Best things that happened on vacation

I thought I'd better tidy up my vacation posts in one final all encompassing post. I know what you are thinking... "YIPEE!!!"


While I do realize that vacation ended about 3 weeks ago, I am inundated with after vacation posts that I am dying to share with you. But in order to not jump around like a little kid in a bouncy house, I am trying to stay focused and will attempt to wrap up the remaining vacation in this post!


These are in no particular order because they are all really awesome things.


10. Spending vacation with lots people (At one point with 5 families there was 23 people)

Kids breakfast

Old Town

9. Beach at sunset

Agent P, Cassidy, ADog and Willow

8. Beach during day

Mini P

Agent P

Monkey and Mini P

7. Chocolate cake

Pure decadence

Leo LOVES cake!

Agent P, didn't leave even a morsel

6. Sand sculpture class by Grandpa

 Grandpa showing Agent P how to do sand art

It seems as tho he might have lost his audience...

Master piece for sale

5. Crab land - because what little sand crab doesn't want to be caught and handled by 3 and 6 year olds and held captive in a makeshift crab home?

"oh no you don't little crab - you are MINE!"

Swim for you LIFE little sand crab!!!!!

4. High tide surprise (This does rate as one of the funnier events...sad that other people's misery is funny to me..what can I say :) I'm not the only one who laughed and it was only a fluke that I captured it on camera)

Willow and ADog

3. Kids day alone: 3 hours of water sports WITHOUT PARENTS! How could a tween/teenager go wrong? They couldn't.

Getting ready to leave on their 3 hour tour
Preston, Willow, ADog, Shayne and Cassidy

Water bike (Cassidy)

Paddle board (Willow)

Do you see something wrong with this picture? Yes, the girl cousins (Willow and Cassidy) are paddling the boy cousin around. Well done Adog, well done.

2. Crazy hat day - having fun with my niece and Mini P at the crazy hat store at Seaport Village. 

Shayne can be such a turkey :)

A hat that captures Mini P perfectly!

1. Sitting on the beach with sand in my toes watching my family play at the beach!

And there you have it friends.


Vacation is over. 


And as a side note - one should never stop in Yuma on their way home from San Diego. It is a true vacation killer. Leaving San Diego it was 68. Yuma was 113. Go ahead, do the math.  Killjoy. 

Boogie boarding

One of my favorite activities as a kid at the beach was boogie boarding. What's not to love about riding a wave all the way in to the dry sand of the beach - getting up and rushing out to do it again? There are the times the rough waves slam you to the bottom of the ocean and you come up wearing sand like a new accessory...but I prefer to remember it the happy way :)


Since our boogie board had some problems surviving the heat of the summer and the abuse of living in our garage, Day 1 meant a trip to Costco where my sweet husband and sister found boogie boards and scored us a couple.  


The kids had to do a lot of boogie boarding sharing (sometimes even with the grown-ups adults parents), but no one ever complained out loud that we know of.

ADog

Then Agent P decided he was ready to take the plunge...

Heading out with Dad

Worn out!

The board was nearly as big as he was but he didn't let that stop him from boogie-ing a few times a day.

Then we did this...and that...

I really feel like one of those boring narrators who drones on about boring things made interesting. I am accustomed to taking a small isolated event and making it a blog post. Now, I  have so many events - and some are really awesome - but I'm feeling like I'm destined to list them like bullet points or something.


I will do all I can to avoid vacation bullet points, I promise. I have some great photos with great stories all of their own. I don't want to sell any of them short. I'm fair like that.


Let's take a look-see at July 4th. Certainly I can condense 4 hours into 1 blog post right? One that doesn't take half the day to read I hope.


With the entire family now in La Jolla, we all (Parents plus 1 nephew/cousin, Brother #1 and family, Brother #2 and family with a couple extras, Sister and her family and us - oh, plus my sisters in-laws) went to Birch Aqu@rium to watch the Fireworks. It is about 5 minutes from the apartment and over looks the water. We bought a membership last year and it was still good for 1 more week - very convenient! In total, we had...let me see...(6+3+5+4+6+3 I think...so....27?) 27? Ya, I guess that seems right.  Here are most of the kids...

All these kids were spread out in our 3 apartments...thank goodness!

Because we believe in NOT looking at the camera at the same time. Ever.

We all bought the kids matching 4th of July shirts for this trip. It is the first vacation we have all taken together (my parents and their kids) - and since we tend to be on the side of the spectrum labeled "Corny", not only did our kids have 4th of July shirts, but so did the adults.

Dad searching for me as I photograph him (again, CORNY).  Mom - well, I think she is telling someone to leave our wine alone.

Brother #1. Total rule follower - wearing 4th of July shirt, protecting his wine.

See Brother #2 - in RED shirt? NOT a 4th of July shirt. Total rule breaker. Said peeps in photograph are with him. Rule breakers.

Scroll back to photo with all the kids. See the 4 kids in the photo without 4th of July shirts? All with Brother #2. The rebel rule breakers. There is one in ever bunch.


I'd like to insert a photo here of my sister. However, I regret to say that she was off somewhere chasing her "runner". He's 2. Need I really say more??? She did sit down eventually and we just boxed in the runners :) Sorry Mel!


The view from our seats was phenomenal and reinforced my decision to spend 4th of July watching fireworks over the ocean.

and no, I do not have any photos of fireworks in the dark.  Taking flash photography of fireworks does not do them justice. I was busy with kids that were up past their bed time and watching the fireworks reflect off the ocean. Nothing quite like it!


The 5 minute drive home took nearly 30 minutes.There were lots of people watching from down on the beach. I can attest to that. We did go to the beach earlier in the morning - and we were there with about 6 million other people occupying every square inch of the beach. Literally. But there might not have been 6 million. It could have been 5 million.


Cheers!

Trying to get back to it...

I really am. I am working really hard to find my land legs after 10 days of pure beach vacation fun :)


There is something very tempting about staying on vacation and never returning to real life. I mean, who wouldn't want to have their biggest decision for the day to be "what beach should I go to today?".


But. Here I am.


So, on to our San Diego VACATION!!!


The drive over went smoother than I thought. I envisioned a dozen stops for potty, snacks and more potty. However, my crew surprised me and made it there in 7 hours with just 2 stops. To make the whole ride even sweeter - the temperature was only 72 degrees when we pulled into San Diego (leaving behind the 110s). 


Can you imagine what we did after we checked in, unloaded and threw our stuff in our rooms? Ya, we hit the beach!


I wish I could say that I have photos - but the first 2 days it seems I never took my camera to the beach. I was far too busy trying to get to the beach than to worry about photographing the beach.


I could have just thrown in a few beach photos because we all know I have plenty. But I'm being honest. Real. True. I wouldn't just toss in a random beach photo and call it Day 1. You are welcome!


So, you must endure the entire trip. Photos good and bad. Mine and ...well, the kids got a hold of the camera too.


Are you ready? Let's go.


Beach, beach and more beach.


Then. My dad had a revelation. "Let's take the train downtown". So on Sunday, we all took the Coaster downtown. Sounds simple right?

How many people does it take to purchase Coaster tickets for 16 people?

Apparently these 2 don't care, they just want a nice photo

Our crew of kids - all cousins - all awesome!!! (minus Leo today, but he's awesome too!)

We rode it down to Seaport Village and ate lunch and walked around. We wore ourselves ragged until it was time to catch the Coaster to Old Town. 

High five Sis!

Well some of us got to hitch a ride TO the Coaster. 


and we landed at Old Town - 

Unfortunately, my camera then died. 


After Happy Hour, there was an incident where Preston got "arrested" by the local Sheriff. I don't have proof, but someone does.  It was fun because we sent the photo to his parents (who were not with us - they were in Tucson). They didn't exactly find our humor as funny as we did. We thought we were hysterical!  It was all in fun, and they do that for tourists (fake arrest). 


Well, that was a start. :)