San Diego, here we come!

Tom has been traveling a lot for work this winter and spring. Not as much as some I know, but still, it's tough. Every time Tom heads out the door for San Diego, Elias asks when he can go to San Diego too. Well, we finally found a time to go as a family. Elias has been asking for days when it will be Thursday and is today the day we go to San Diego? That day is almost here! Not without a little stress though.


Preparing for travel has been stressful for me (and my family) for as long as I can remember. Not sure why, but these days it seems to manifest in packing. Packing is NOT my forte. I hate it. It's that moment for me when I realize that the clothes I own are not ones I like very much nor are they very versatile and I very much don't want to be the girl with a ginormous bag filled with 10x too much stuff. Alas...

The good thing about packing for this trip is that we started early. We planned to stay at my mom's which is a bit closer to the airport (thanks Mom!), so we had to be ready at least a day early. Plus I was working that day and wouldn't have as much of a chance to prepare. We finally got everything together and headed out the door around 8:30p. Not optimal for getting Elias to bed, but it was nice being ready earlier than usual.

Elias loved getting to sleep at Grandma Sue's house and we enjoyed the half hour of extra sleep before waking up at the buttcrack of dawn.


San Diego, here we come!

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San Diego- day 1

Despite alarms not going off and having to wake up at the buttcrack of dawn, we made it to the airport with enough time for bathroom and food stops before boarding the plane (thank goodness for Tom's A-list status on Southwest- we got to board before the family boarding and ended up at the front of the plane with our own row. Love it!)



The flight went well (partially thanks to a new toy with a purple squid like the one in the Beastie Boys Intergalactic Planetary video- Elias loves it!). We landed in San Diego, got our rental car and found out we could check into our hotel early (9am early- Thank you Hyatt!). We dropped everything off in the room and began our adventure right away.


The day started out with much needed coffee and a tour of the USS Midway. Our hotel is right next to Seaport Village and walking distance from the Midway, so a perfect first day activity. Elias loved the USS Midway! We learned the history of the USS Midway, explored sailor and officer living quarters and Elias loved playing in the climb-in planes on the Hanger deck.






From there, we went up top to the Flight deck which was full of planes, fighter jets and different types of helicopters. Some of them allowed you to climb inside- I never thought we could Elias to leave. Thankfully we could lure him away with the promise of learning about the ship's fire stations.





The fire station, as well as what seemed to be the daily life of the sailors was found on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th decks. We saw different galleys, the laundry, barbershop, chapel and of course learned about fighting fires. The pipes for fighting fires were painted in a specific pattern an located all over the ship. Elias loved seeing them everywhere we walked.





We finished our tour with one last ride in the climb-in planes and walked back to the hotel. While we should have gone straight back to the hotel for nap, picking something up along the way, Tom & I were excited for some In-N-Out and decided to grab burgers. Elias fell asleep almost as soon as we started moving. We picked up burgers, fries & milkshakes and ate in the car. Elias sort-of woke up, so we fed him almost a whole burger on our way home. Even half-asleep he kept asking for more burger and milkshake. Smart kid ;)

After nap, we grabbed some Mexican food. I wasn't initially too enthused about Mexican food, but my sangria and shrimp & lobster crepe enchilada were amazing. We walked around the Gaslamp quarter and then headed back to Seaport Village for a ride on the carousel. Thankfully I had read a review that mentioned how fast it was. We were all prepared to ride and it turned out to be really fast. Of course, Elias loved it!





Another late night, but a good and fun start to a much-needed family vacation.

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San Diego day 2

We'll work backwards here. Day 2 of our San Diego vacation started out with breakfast at a nice coffee shop. My caffe Viennese was yummy and well done and we very much enjoyed all of our treats.

Next stop was La Jolla cove to see the seals. We lucked out with a spot just above the cove and walked down to see the seals. You could see and hear them barking all the way down.

Thankfully it was low tide when we arrived and we were able to start checking out the tide pools. Elias soon got the hang of climbing over rocks and looking for crabs and we found tons! Little ones, medium ones and hermit crabs too. Part way through tide pooling, about 40 middle schoolers descended on us on a scavenger hunt. While Elias enjoyed being in the mix of the big kids, we soon moved out of the way to play chase with the waves. There was just a small section to play in, but thankfully not too many people. Elias had a blast running back and forth, splashing and getting wet. It was a blast.


On our way back to the car, Elias saw some firefighters and from across the way asked for a sticker. Lucky for him they had some and then we headed on our way up the coast to Solana Beach for lunch at Pizza Port. Pizza was delicious as was our beer and soon we were back on our way home.


We were pretty late getting back to the hotel for nap, but eventually everyone got down and rested for an evening with friends. It's always an adventure with the Lorenzens and tonight was no different. Sean has lots of different vehicles and Elias loved checking them out and taking them for a spin. Motorcycles, dirt bikes, golf carts and even an army truck. Oh how it made this mama's heart pound a little!


Probably the most memorable was riding in the army truck. Sean and a buddy had built trails all around his property and we all climbed into the truck for a ride. Tom and Elias started off in the back but Elias was soon up front "helping" Sean drive. The ride was quite the adventure! Not knowing the capabilities of the truck, there were a quite a few few moments when I wondered how good of idea this was. I definitely had to remind myself that this loop had been done many times before and that Sean is a very capable driver. A tough thing to do with inches of bridge on either side of your tires! But just like the other rides before us, we ended up back at the house safely and smiling :)

Dinner was ready when we arrived back at the house (thanks Suzy!) and we all enjoyed hanging out. The kids were pretty tired, but Elias enjoyed entertaining Sammy and Sammy definitely enjoyed Elias' goofiness!

Can't wait for next time!

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San Diego vacation day 3

Well, it's day 3 of our San Diego vacation and we're all still functioning despite delayed and shortened naps and full days! Today was no different.

We started off at a nice little cafe for breakfast. It had tons of different types of drinks from which I chose the strawberry purée mimosa. Yum! Everything on the menu sounded delicious, but I ended up going with the chicken curry cake benedict. A bit different, but very tasty! The only bummer is they weren't very flexible on their portion sizes. With no kid menu, we asked if we could just order one pancake. We were told that the smallest order was 3! Seriously? We passed.

After breakfast we headed to the zoo to meet up with the Lorenzens. The fun started right from the start with a man at the entrance asking everyone for money for his lithium pills. Sean attracts all kinds ;).


We meandered through the zoo with stops at the flamingoes, monkeys, crocodiles and birds. Elias found a bunch of big leaves that he passed out to anyone that caught his eye. The cutest was probably our stop with the orangutans. One of the females, Janey, came up to the window and Elias went right up to her and they sat there for a few minutes face to face. It was super sweet with snuggles and kisses. At least until Elias turned around and pretended to fart on her. Such a boy.





We stopped for a nice lunch and decided to head back to the hotel. We were already late to nap by a couple hours but with plans with family later on, we needed to get some sleep.


The 1hr nap (he usually takes 2-3) plus a pretty relaxed drive worked out. We met up with Tom's Uncle, Aunt, Cousin and her family at Pizza Port in San Clemente. The pizza and beer were delicious. I had the Symphony Saison. Mmm, not sure what it is about saisons, but the are my favorite lately.

Elias and Dylan had a fun time playing and finally the dining area quieted down and we had a nice time chatting with everyone. After dinner we walked down to Velvet yogurt for dessert. It only took 3 phones, but we made it. It was delicious! We had red velvet, chocolate and cookies n cream yogurts with a few different toppings. So good. After the boys finished, they started a game we jokingly called "the age-old game of the lime". They rolled it, tossed it, ran around with it- who knew a lime could be so fun?


The boys enjoyed the walk/run back to the car and we soon said our good-byes. Another quiet ride back home and a pretty smooth transition to bed ended another fun day in San Diego.

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Story time

So, I'm not very good at posting as frequently as I should, but here's a fun video of Elias reading at bedtime tonight. He has the story memorized and replaced some of the words with his own made up words. Such a goof!

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Venus de Miles 2012

I've been riding with the Venus de Miles women's bike club this year, which has been a lot of fun. Every year near the end of the season, the club participates in the Venus de Miles cycling event. It's a ton of fun, women-only, good food, massages at the end, facial samples, and raises money for college scholarships- I don't think it could get better.

Last year I rode the 51-mile ride, which was great. This year I thought I'd challenge myself with the 67-mile ride. My mother-in-law was supposed to ride with me, but a crash earlier this season prohibited that. Then, an exhausting ride two weeks ago made me question my decision to do such a long ride, but I attempted it anyway and am so glad I did! It was fun, challenging and exciting to have met my goal.

Here are a few pics:
At the start:





The men in a drag (ladies only event, but these "ladies" ride with us, assisting with any mechanical issues or whatever else might come up).



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Fire truck!

Elias loves anything related to fire fighting: fire trucks, fire fighters, hydrants, helmets... When the flatiron fire was taking place- the first thing said when I told him there was a fire was "yay, I love fire!". We had to chat about good and bad fires and why this wasn't a good one.

Anyways, yesterday we were running some errands, and ended up having lunch outside the grocery store. A fire engine pulled up and Elias said hello to them, gave them high-fives and talked about his fire engine shirt he was wearing. The people close by started telling Elias that he should ask to see their truck. When the fire fighters came back out that is just what he did. Along with a few other kids, Elias got to sit in the drivers seat, check out the back, wear a helmet and learn about their masks and air tanks. I think it made his day :)

Later as we were laying down for naps, Elias told me he was going to dream about fire trucks, helping people and putting out fires. Too cute.





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