San Diego Vacation

We set out on Tuesday, July 28th for our final trip of the summer...San Diego! My brother Josh lives there so visited his house first. We arrived late in the evening after he got off work. I forgot to call him when we were getting closer to his house and he said he didn't have enough time to finish cleaning. I was happy that he made it to Costco though because he restocked his TP supply. Most of his time lately has been either at work or at the hospital with his baby girl Claire in the NICU.
Wednesday morning Josh went to work and Kimmy never came home from the hospital so we set out for the Oceanside beach. It took us a whole 3 and a half minutes to walk there as we passed the Top Gun house (as I affectionately call it).

Everyone brought a book to read and we enjoyed a day relaxing on the beach.

Grandma brought her sudoku puzzles, too!

Later that night at Josh's we played ping pong and hung out. He made his "World Famous" spaghetti for us, enough to feed his entire neighborhood!

Thursday morning he had some time to spend with us so he was our tour guide. We visited beaches, a lighthouse and spent some fun time together.

This spiral staircase in the lighthouse was awesome!

From the top of Mt. Soledad you can see all of San Diego...a great place to view the city...and the temple!

I couldn't help but posting this pic, this kids thought is was so funny. It was spray painted (more than once) along the cement beach walls.

Thursday evening the Webb and Wadman family joined us in S.D. We met up for dinner at the mall and then did some night fishing. Well...we really just played on the beach in the dark because all we caught were sand crabs.

Aaron's collection.

Sophie and Jaimee.

On Friday we played all day at beaches. Brian grew up in the area so he knew all the great beaches so we were beach bums and enjoyed more fun in the sun.

Our beach site...and what a site!

Brian taught Aaron to body surf and Aaron LOVED it. They both woke up and went out at 6:00 a.m. on two different days to catch the surf early. Crazy!

On Sunday after church we went to the gardens. A special place for our family because of Aunt Juanita. We miss her and her sweetness and we will always love her. The gardens are a quiet time for relection on reverence as some people worship and meditate here. It's beautiful.

Later that night we went to another beach for dinner. We roasted hot dogs, hot links and marshmellows!

The boys all played a game, not sure of the rules, but they were catching a throwing a baseball and that's all good in Aaron's world. They were sliding in the sand and others watching them play were making umpire calls of "safe" or "out". It was a perfect last night in S.D.

Sophie loves Grandma as sat as close to her as possible on this whole trip. I'm pretty sure Grandma didn't get very far in her book.

Crazy kids...or crazy adults to vacation with these crazy kids!

On Monday before we left I went to the hospital again to hold baby Claire. She was in the NICU for over 6 weeks after she was born but she is healthy and doing well now. The kids were disappointed that they couldn't see or hold their new cousin, but we'll just have to make another trip down.

We also stopped at Kealani's for some shave ice! Just couldn't resist!

I love this big wall mural of the Hawaiian islands!

While pulling out of a beach parking lot...ding! Terry ran into the back of the Wadman's van, and wouldn't you know it, their van took a beating 'cause Terry hit the frame just right! We weren't even going fast, just pulling out! It was funny, sorta, but not really. Sorry guys! We all laughed and Terry joked it was his super strength!

When we arrived home (at 11:30 p.m.) we found this not taped to our wall. A small payback for a few hundred balloons we inflated at our neighbor's house during their summer trip. So...even though we were exhausted we went on a scavenger hunt...thanks Davis family! The clues took us up and down the stairs and each envelope held a few pieces to a puzzle.

As we figured out the clues, written in a riddle form, we collected pieces and started assemlbling the puzzle, without a picture to follow!

Kimberlee tries to figure out where to go next.

Grandma worked on the puzzle the most while we ran around.

The finished puzzle for our treasure hunt was a "pirates of the carribean picture" which we knew had to be flipped to read the back side.

oops...posted out of order, but here is what the back said...

And here's what we found in our freezer...midnight snack!

Here are a few short videos taken with our camera. I wish I knew how to post them so they weren't at the end, but with the other like pics...but here they are anyway.