San Diego with Seb

My mom has such a fun tradition she started several years back of taking her grandkids who are seniors on a trip somewhere. And her kids who are their parents get to go too! My first time doing this was with Abe a few years ago, when we went to Philadelphia. 

This year Mom had three graduating senior grandchildren, which I think is the most there will be in a year! Sebastian plus my niece Lucy and my nephew David. Mom took me, my brother Kenneth, my brother Karl, and those three grandkids to San Diego! We had a great time together. The cousins didn't know each other very well and it was fun to see them have a chance to become friends. And I don't get to see my brothers very often either! So this was such a fun thing to do. 

Here are some of the highlights of our trip:

 

The Mormon Battalion Museum was really good! I had never been before. The tour was interactive and really cute (without being annoying). I learned a lot! And it was fun because I had Abe on a call from his mission while we were there, so he got to be there "with us" for a while.

Big succulents!

I liked this yellow tree in Old Town.

The weather was perfect while we were there. Every time we would just start to get a little hot, a cooling sea breeze would blow gently in and make us comfortable again. We went to a Shakespeare play ("Twelfth Night," the best Shakespeare play) which was outdoors in Balboa Park, and we even got a tiny bit chilly! That's a very welcome feeling on July 3rd, let me tell you!

The San Diego Zoo was super expensive (I can't help but notice these things…and there were only seven of us, not the twelve there would be if we brought all our kids there) but also really fun. Sam and I went there on our honeymoon, and I haven't been back since then! Seb stole manned my camera for this entire trip, and he had fun taking pictures of the zoo animals.

Weird pig

Sleepy lion

Toucan

The very best part of the zoo was the baby orangutan! Seb has always been a monkey lover, so he settled down in front of the orangutan enclosure and we watched cute baby Kaja for a whole hour! He was absolutely adorable.

The gibbons were super active and cute too.

The gorillas weren't playful, just sleepy

Sly look

Penguins for Daisy

Bear for Abe

The zoo has a nice view of these other parts of Balboa Park

The best part of the zoo was the tram. We rode it about 15 times back and forth, especially at the end of the day when we were really hot and tired and there were no lines to ride. Every tram car has a different bird on it, and we were very pleased to get in the Caw! :)

We were in San Diego on July 4th, and my brothers wanted to make sure we got a good spot to see fireworks, so we booked a "Fireworks Cruise" where you got to go out on a boat in the harbor and watch the show from there. The San Diego fireworks are cool because they shoot them off from four different barges in the water. Several years ago something went wrong with the computers controlling the fireworks show, and the fireworks that were supposed to take 10 minutes went off in 10 seconds—something like that. Just a huge flash of fireworks all going off at once. My boys watched the video of that about a hundred times. Seb confessed that he was secretly hoping it would happen again. :) Anyway, we were all excited about seeing them from right out near where they were being shot off!

We had to part pretty far away, but the walk through downtown was really pretty in the evening light. Seb took most of these pictures.

Here's the boat we went on

And a few fireworks shots!

We had a little trouble finding the place to board the boat in the dark, and ended up having to run for it and fearing we wouldn't make it in time. But we did—the last people to board! We were so relieved when we finally made it! And it was so cool to be out on the water, right under the huge fireworks, feeling the force of the explosions. We loved it!

Karl really wanted to see the Midway, an aircraft carrier you can tour in San Diego Harbor. We planned a couple hours there before going to Sea World, and I thought that would be PLENTY of time. I just had no idea of the huge scale of the thing!

It turned out to be way cooler than I'd thought. You entered on a middle deck where the planes were brought for repair or storage. And then you could walk through the endless corridors and see control rooms, cramped dorm rooms, fancy captains' quarters, the huge anchor room, map rooms, doctors' surgeries and dentists' offices, briefing rooms, kitchens, cafeterias, boiler rooms, laundry rooms, mail rooms…it was like a huge city all within one ship. It was kind of scary how easy it would have been to get lost in that vast maze of rooms! But we loved it. It was fascinating to think of what life aboard a carrier at sea would have been like!

So many buttons!

(We also had a view of these two working aircraft carriers from the flight deck of the Midway!)

Up on the flight deck, there was another whole world of things to see. Even the bridge where the ship's navigation happened was extensive, with various rooms for various personnel, look-out areas, walkways, ladders, even a little "at-sea cabin" with a bed and desk for the captain when he needed a quick rest.

Then of course there are all the airplanes—I think they can fit something like 60 of them on just the flight deck alone. We saw the landing runways and the catapult that flings the planes into the air. So cool!

They'd made this elevator (takes the planes from the lower deck up to the flight deck) into a little café!

Sebastian and David got to try out the flight simulator, which moved them all around and turned them sideways and upside down as they worked some controls. We got to watch them on a screen, which was kind of fun. It looked scary to me! But Seb loved it, of course. As he should if he's going to be a pilot someday!

We spent three hours at the Midway and still had to drag Karl and Kenneth away. The next day while the teenagers were kayaking, Karl and my mom and me had a couple hours free, and Karl insisted we go back and look at the Midway again! And I'm pretty sure he went again on the last day after the rest of us had left, since he and David stayed an extra day. Anyway, with all that it's a miracle we ever made it to Sea World, but we did, in time to meet my other brother and his family there. His family doesn't have any Seniors this year, but they live close by and have Sea World passes, so we were excited to get to see them all! I had been missing my own little chicks, so I was especially happy to have little hands to hold and strollers to push!

Sea World was great as always. I love all the shows! Here are rainbow-y Adam and Daniel looking into the orca tank.

We made it to the beach for a few hours. We didn't have shade or towels or other things one ought to have at the beach. But we managed to make do. We buried David in the sand, and David and Seb used the resources around them to build a sand castle. :)

We ate most meals together, but one day when the others had decided to eat at Carl's Jr. (!!!), Seb and I slipped away and found a little taco shop instead, and it was one of the best meals we'd ever had. The corn was amazing!!

We went to the beautiful San Diego Temple together.

And then on our last morning, we went to my favorite place of the whole trip—La Jolla Shores beach where there are seals and sea lions! They are so cute, and there are so many of them, just lying around sunning themselves, flopping onto rocks, flumping themselves in and out of the water, and barking to each other. There were even two little babies! They were so cute!! And you can walk right up close to them on the rocks. It was so cool!

The two little black ones here are the babies.

There were tons of pelicans on the rocks, too!

And this funny little squirrel who sat at the edge of a cliff enjoying the view.

But the sea lions were the best and cutest. It was a good end to a fun week! Thanks to my mom for thinking of such a fun trip to do together!