San Diego!

Last weekend for Easter, we surprised the boys and took them on vacation to San Diego.  My aunt Anita and her family had asked us if we wanted to go with them.  We excitedly accepted!

Although I had been packing suitcases and preparing to go on vacation all last week, the boys didn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary, so I guess we just waited to tell them.  Even on Wednesday night when Michael was crawling into his bed which was covered with our large suitcase, he looked at it, looked at me putting his clothes in it, asked me if we were going on vacation to Iowa, which I replied no, and then just brushed it off and never asked about it again.

We left on Friday afternoon and even after having the boys go to the bathroom twice before leaving the house, we had to stop less than a mile from our own driveway, because Gabriel had to go to the bathroom again!  I thought to myself, oh my, what did we get ourselves into.  And then before we were even out of the city, less than 10 miles from our house, Michael started the barrage of questions, "Mom, are we there yet?  Mommy, are we in California now?"  "Mom, I see the lights of San Diego, we are there!"  Jarrett and I looked at each other, smiled and took turns answering "No" to Michael's constant questions.

We had a wonderful weekend in San Diego with the Petersen family.  On Saturday we went to Sea World and spent the entire day walking around the park.  The highlights were touching the dolphins, watching Shamu and his friends, feeding the Sea Lions, well, I guess everything was great!

What a fun day it was!
On Sunday morning, Easter morning we woke up early and the boys were thrilled the Easter Bunny had found them in San Diego, even though they forgot to leave him a note at home telling him we went on vacation.  At first when they woke up they each saw just one plastic egg and were thrilled!  I guess the Easter Bunny didn't have to have bring so much.  We'll have to get him that message next year.

Also, the great hotel where we stayed had an Easter egg hunt with 6,000 eggs.  There were so many eggs it was crazy.  The boys got to meet the Easter Bunny....

 and we got a family picture with him...

 So did the Petersens...

 and then we found our perfect positions to begin the hunt...

 and with a count down the egg hunting was on.  The boys went crazy!!!!

 racing around as fast as they could from one egg to another.  Thankfully Alicia and Andrea helped them.

 after two egg hunts (one from the hotel and a special one just for them from the Petersen's), the boys had 133 eggs.  I counted them each, because I couldn't believe they got so many. 

And then after the egg hunting was done, and the boys were all "jacked up on candy" we headed off to the beach.  Which the boys loved.  Although the water was a refreshing freezing 60 degrees, Daddy, and the boys wasted no time getting wet.

 At first Michael was not sure about letting the cold water touch him.  He screamed like a little girl and would run away from the water as it rushed to shore, and then he'd run back at the water as it retreated.  It was really funny

 And soon enough they were in.

 After getting wet, they played and played and played in the sand.  They built a sand wall, well, Andy built a sand wall, which Michael stumbled over and fell on it.

 And then they buried the boys... which they thought was really funny.

 And then we started to build the biggest sandcastle Mission beach had ever seen.  Daddy started directing orders and before we knew it, Anita was sent on a mission to go get more sand toys, and we were building a castle that was 6 feet by 6 feet.  The boy's job was to race to the ocean, fill their bucket with water and race back.  We spent more than  an hour and a half building our masterpiece, and when we knew it was looking good (because people were coming by to take pictures of it), we stopped and admired it.  It turned out to be just the perfect time because a storm came in and it started raining.

 Our afternoon at the beach had ended.


Late that afternoon we headed down to the pier to look at the big ships. We found a pirate ship, a cruise ship and an Navy ship. It was cool to see!

Our trip to San Diego was a blast and we can't wait to go back again some day.  Thanks for asking us to go along Petersens!  It was a great way to spend our first Easter together.

Until next time,
angie