San Diego Vacation Part 1

As many of you may know, we just returned from a long vacation to San Diego. This was our first long vacation with just our family (meaning, we were on vacation with just us, not visiting other family for a long time, etc). It was an amazing experience, and I think that the kids have made some memories that will last a very long time too. A HUGE THANK YOU goes to my wife for putting it all together, my father-in-law for allowing us to use his vacation timeshare credits for lodging, to my wife's aunt and uncle for hosting us in Las Vegas on the way down and back, and to everyone else who helped make this possible!

Our camera's batteries were running low during the middle of the week so we didn't get any pictures of the beach or the Wild Animal Park, but we did get some fun pictures at the zoo and Sea World (we went there on two different days).

For starters, though, here are some memories from the trip down to San Diego, with a night's stay in Las Vegas.

Friday and Saturday:
My little girl had some MAJOR nose bleeds on the way from Utah to Las Vegas. I wonder if it was the AC running or changing environments, but we're talking major gushers! We pulled over to the side of the road for about 10 minutes to help out, stopped at a gas station for another break, and tried to keep ice packs on her neck the rest of the way to Vegas. Luckily, she didn't have any further problems for the rest of the trip. No pictures of this. You can thank me later. *grin*

My wife's aunt and uncle are getting up in age, but they LOVE our family, even if we are a handful! They have a pet rabbit (named Trouble, but the kids have, for some reason, dubbed it Strappy) that gets terrorized each time we stop by.



Here it is, facing the other direction but just as red-eyed.


We only permanently broke one thing that I know of. Here's something that was fixable.


Here we are enjoying the backyard before continuing on to San Diego.



I just missed the frisbee here, in case you are wondering why my arm looks so odd.





Other interesting tidbits about the journey included seeing a road in the desert part of California called Zzyzx Road (of particular interest to fans of "Kyle XY", though that Zzyzx was in a Washington state forest, not a desert), the GPS knowing where lots of things are, and also where lots of things used to be but aren't any more (paying $70 for a map update sure hasn't helped us at all, as we tried for about half an hour after arriving in San Diego to find a grocery store and a pizza place), and an eating establishment / playground / history center called "Peggy Sue's 50's Diner" in Yermo (near Barstow). The food was average, but the environment, from the 50's memorabilia to the "Diner Saur Park" in the rear, made for a fun family stopping point. Here are some of our pictures from there.


Part of the inside.


Part of the outside.

We were blessed to have the person behind us in line at the grocery store we eventually found let us use their loyalty card, thus saving us over $50 in groceries (about 25% of our bill otherwise). That was just one in a string of things that we felt were blessings from the Lord during our vacation.

On Sunday, we mostly rested at the resort, but we also looked up the meeting time for church nearby. It was scheduled to start at 11:00 AM, but when we arrived at that time, we found that it was a Stake Conference that was halfway over. We ended up sitting in the foyer for the last hour and then beating the traffic out of there and going to take a look at the San Diego Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. All of the temples are beautiful, but that one, in our minds, is especially so. Too bad we didn't take a picture though.

More to come later.