Fall Break in San Diego

During the girls' Fall Break we wanted to take a little vacation as a family.  It was a little tricky though because the older and younger girls are in different school districts, who for some reason had different Fall Breaks this year.  So we took off early Saturday morning to spend six days in San Diego, and the little girls just got to take a few extra days off school. 

We decided to camp on the beach for part of the fun, so packing our car with all the "needed" things was quite tricky.  You try packing camping supplies like tents, sleeping bags, lanterns, along with beach stuff like umbrellas, beach chairs, boogie boards, fun extras like five bikes, a long board, and kayaks with life jackets, along with clothes and stuff for four girls.  Pretty tricky - but Kirk amazingly got it all to fit! 

The first day we went to Old Town San Diego and went to the Mormon Battalion Visitor Center where we watched a fun interactive movie about the people in the Mormon Battalion, then the girls got to pump water, pan for gold, make bricks, and all sorts of fun stuff. 

Then we went to the Natural History Museum, where the girls learned all about skulls, bugs, horses, and dinosaurs.  The funniest part was when Brynn saw a sketch pad and container of pencils and markers on a bench, and assuming it was part of the interactive experience, she drew a nice picture of a snake.  She was so so embarrassed when a guy came up to her and told her that it was his sketch pad that he was using for a college assignment.  Whoops!  Don't ask her about it because she will still turn bright red and get embarrassed.   

We watched a 3-D movie too which put me to sleep.  All in all, the museum was kinda lame, I thought, but I was comparing it to Washington DC's, and New York's Natural History Museums which are amazing.  Our girls thought it was pretty cool though.

Then we just walked around Balboa Park for a while.

The beach was definitely one of our favorite parts of the trip!

We loved kayaking around the Bay where we were staying.  We had contests to see who could go out the farthest without getting eaten by sharks.  Kirk and Brynn are pretty far in this picture!

We roasted hotdogs and ate smores.  Our newest yummy find was to use Nutella on the graham cracker for your smores - it's amazing. 

Marissa had brought bubbles and glow sticks to make glowing bubbles, like she had seen on Pintrest, but they didn't work. Whaa! 

The next day we went to the zoo.   

The first place we went was on the Monkey Trail, where we were wowwed and amazed by all the monkeys, gorillas, and orangutans that were so close and so interactive with us. One little gorilla kept banging on the glass right in front of us, I think just to make us jump and laugh.

The zoo was really neat!  There were so many animals that we could actually see and were moving around and doing stuff.  But by the end of the day after walking miles and miles up and down hills, we were ready to just sit and relax and eat a massive snow cone.

And wish that we had a lion to take us where we wanted to go.

The next day we hiked Torrey Pines with our girls.

The view was awesome, and it was so fun to hike down to the beach and play in the waves at the end.

The rest of that day was spent playing on the beach.

The girls all boogie boarded a ton.  They all got to be really good, especially with Kirk's help.  I was amazed they would all get all the way in the freezing cold water!

The next day we went to Sea World. 

We got our fill of sharks,

seals,

and wet rides. 

The girls wanted to sit in the soak zone at every show.  This is them sitting front and center at the Shamu Show, just waiting to get drenched.  Crazy girls!

 

One thing about this vacation was that we got to spend lots of time together!  We haven't had a vacation with just our family in quite a while.  Also, since we were camping, there was no TV or other distractions.  We had some fun talks around the campfire about favorite memories, boys, and silly jokes.  It is always great just to be together!!