The first night I finally fell asleep after midnight and then woke up again at 2:30 for about an hour. I don't sleep well away from home. Luke was up in the night too. Concidering the fact that I had a minor flu and yucky chest cold, the yuckies didn't slow me down and we enjoyed ourselves.
We started the morning with breakfast at the hotel and then straight to Mission Beach! It was cold when we got there at about 8:30am, but the heat crept up on us during the 3 hours we played in the waves. We wanted to rent boogie boards and a beach umbrella, but the rental shop was closed by the time the boys were worn out. Luke and Owen did some body surfing and Gideon just liked sitting right down into the wave. When Dave asked Gideon if he was ready to go he answered, "I'm not done doing that!", pointing to the waves.
We cleaned up at the hotel and watched an episode of Fixer Upper on HGTV while we took turns showering. I can see why everyone loved that show now. :) I do miss having cable for a few shows, but for the most part there was really nothing on tv and we often ended up on PBS for the kid's shows anyway.
We ate lunch outside at Panda Express. Gideon mostly fed the birds his chow mein noodles. We watched a few dogs pass by with their owners. Dave got to see his dream dog, the viszla. :)
Gideon and Owen were good sports to try a ride with their rollercoaster obsessed mom, but regretted it almost immediately after the ride started. Poor guys! I felt really bad. Gid was fighting tears. Owen's stomach hated the twists and drops and he was begging me to put on the brakes. It was a pretty jerky ride, I will admit, and not my favorite. I may never get them to trust me or ride a rollercoaster ever again. Sorry kiddos.
The cars were a little more their speed. ;) Cracked me up seeing these mini cars driving around a mini street. It was complete chaos and they loved it.
Gid took his drivers licence very seriously. He got one at the end of his first drive. We ran back into line holding his licence and I dug into my purse to find a pen so he could sign it. Very official. Very adorable. I want to get him a mini car for Christmas. He's actually been asking for one for years. Maybe this just pushed me over the edge? Now to work on dad. ;)
And going with the slow and steady rides, this fairy tale boat ride was pretty hilarious. Do you see the intensity on Dave's face? His grip on that bar? They were trying to catch our boat, and they did. I don't know how because we were on tracks under the water, but they succeeded!
The boys were tired from Legoland, but I wanted to find a tide pool. I read about one in La Jolla, so we popped over to my old summer stomping grounds to see what we could find. In all my years coming to San Diego with Elyse's family, we never saw the sea lions! Our noses found them first. The overwhelming smell of salty fish was almost too much. Once we got closer to the ocean the smell mellowed out and we could enjoy ourselves.
This beach is called Children's Pool and is usually closed off to humans. But since then sea lions were taking up space on either side of the cove, we were okay to explore. High tide was starting to come in, but the boys still got to treasure hunt a bit. Gid found a crab the size of his hand clinging to the rock. There were lots of tiny hermit crabs, a muscle and sea shells to find. The best part for me was the sea lions swimming nearby! First just a grown up sea lion, then a pair of babies and then a few more adults joined in the fun as sunset settled in.
Dave suggested walking the trail along the coast, and we found an even larger group of sea lions making all kinds of noise. Two were barking back and forth and fighting for the best spot. The boys were pretty close at first. They decided to get out of their way just in case things escalated, but they never did. Turns out sea lions are really lazy fighters. Bark Bark Bark. Lay down. Huff and puff. Back up and bark bark bark again. ;)
Most of the sea lions were just sleeping. We kept waiting for one to get washed out to sea, but he avoided that somehow and just kept sleeping right on the edge of the rocks.
After our detour to La Jolla, we drove through the steep roads to have the perfect late night dinner at our traditional San Diego vacation restaurant, Ihop. We started off with big mugs of hot cocoa topped with whipped cream and then the boys licked their plates clean. To the hotel we went to rub our full bellies and watch a treehouse show for an hour, then lights out.
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