Our Vacation to San Diego

Hi, we're back! This trip was a big deal for us, since we don't get to go on vacation very often. I want to write kind of a detailed log of the trip, for my own memories. I have lots of pictures and lots to talk about, and for my own sanity as well as you that read this, I'm going to divide up each day of the trip into a different post. If I didn't, I think it would be way too long to read.

So, day one. A six hour drive (approximately) to San Diego. We had a laptop for Kylie to watch movies, which was a tremendous help. Shannon and Danni slept a good deal of the way, as we roused them at the ungodly hour of 6am and we were on the road by 7am.

I was worried that Kylie was going to be a pain the whole trip, and she did have her moments, but the person who really got on my nerves that first day was...Steve. I wasn't sure why he was in such a crabby mood...I was the one dealing with all of Kylie's requests. I found out later that he hadn't taken his meds that day, because he didn't want to get sleepy while driving. While I found that noble, I think I would rather have him be sort of tired, and heck, I can drive...than be an asshole. I mean, seriously. There, I've said it. If he doesn't take his Xanax, he is just not a very nice person. With it, he's mostly fine. The girls were even texting me from the back seat, asking what the heck his problem was. When we got near the outskirts of San Diego, there's a suburb called El Cajon, where Steve lived for a few months, a long time ago. Because he lived there, he likes to show off pretty much the only Spanish he knows. So he said to no one in particular, "Hey, do you guys know what El Cajon means in English?" Well, because we've had this conversation before, I know it means "the box." No one said anything though. So he asked again. This time, the exchange goes like this:

Steve - "Do you guys know what El Cajon means?"

Shannon - "Your mom?"

Ok, call me bad, but I cracked up at this. I mean, I laughed for like 10 minutes and I couldn't stop. I think what made it so funny for me was her tone, which was not snotty or sarcastic, but very offhand, in the same tone you would ask someone if they wanted a snack or something. However, my laughing, and the subsequent laughing from the girls made Steve more crabby, because he thought we were laughing at him. Anyway, I discreetly suggested that maybe he should take his meds, and that he'd probably be fine. He did, and after they kicked in, we were all much happier. In fact, the whole "your mom" thing became kind of a joke the rest of the trip, someone would just say it in response to something, and we'd all laugh.

Anyway...we get to the hotel, which I guess is actually a motel, the Days Inn Hotel Circle. We got the room with a package that included the Sea World passes and tickets for a two hour harbor cruise. I'm not exactly sure what the price per night was, but it was a pretty good deal. We had one room with two queen beds, and we had borrowed an Aerobed (Thanks Jen!) With Danni and Kylie on the Aerobed and Shannon and me in one bed and Steve in the other, we were all very comfortable. It was a great room for the price, I think. It had a fridge and a microwave, and we had brought some food, so eating breakfast in the room every morning probably saved us at least $100. I would totally recommend this place...the beds were comfy and the staff was really nice.

After we checked in and got settled, we decided to go down to Mission Beach, which was only a few miles away.

We played around on the beach for about an hour, then went out for an early dinner. We went to Outback, because we had a gift card that Steve won at work that we had been saving for the trip. The restaurant was part of this really cool outdoor mall that the kids loved. It was called Westfield Mission Valley. It was like a regular mall with your basic mall stores, except the open part where you walk around was outside instead of inside. It was really cool, and the weather being what it was that time of day, which was about 5pm, I could have just stayed out there forever. The breeze felt wonderful. It also had a two-story Target (!) with an escalator that had a thing in the middle where you put your cart, and the cart goes up or down with you. Hard to explain, but Shannon was totally captivated by it. We finally were able to peel everyone away from this spectacular mall after a couple of hours, and we headed back to the room. We watched the end of the Padres/Rockies game, then tried to persuade Kylie to go to sleep. Trying to get a 5 year-old who knows she's going to Sea World tomorrow to go to sleep is not easy. She was kind of nuts, running and bouncing around, but eventually she finally did settle down and go to sleep.

Here are all the pictures from Monday, if you want to look: Mission Beach Pictures.

Up Next: Day 2 - Sea World
or
Don't Sit in the Soak Zone If You Don't Want To Get Wet.

Edited to add: Would you believe I did a Google image search for the Target cart escalator thing, and people have taken pictures of it! (Ok, I would have too, if I had thought about it) I found out the official name for it is a "cartveyor."

Am I a total geek for being fascinated by this?

Target Cartveyor