Go Padres'!!!!!

We had the choice of using all our vacation money on either Sea World which would of cost us $200 and that's only 1 thing to do or we could use that money to do a lot more stuff. and actually come home with a few bucks left over....so Mike and I decided to use that money for other stuff. And since we're a baseball family we had to go to a Padres game.

It was a lot of fun. San Diego people are such hard core fans. It was so awesome to see so many people in the stadium. And to be at a major league baseball game....No more AAA games for us. Each time the Padres hit a home run fireworks went off, people started dancing in their seat. We all thought that was way cool.

And with the purchase of our tickets we got free hot dogs and a drink. That was cool. To have a real ballpark hot dog with the works. And a couple of guys in our section started to do the wave. The kids had no idea what that was but loved it. These guys got the wave to spread all around the upper level stadium. Way cool guys! (Of course we took part in it)

Here's some pictures of us. But since our bodies were still on Mountain time we were all tired by 7th inning. So we left the game early. Oh well.....see Mason's eyes. He was yawning like crazy.So we got a family photo at our 1st game but surely not our last MLB game. And Mike and I snapped our proof picture. This was a great day #1 of our trip.

La Jolla Beach

On Friday we hit La Jolla Beach. It was so exciting for everyone. The kids and I never been to California. This has been on my bucket list for so long. So to experience the ocean was so amazing.

Here's some fun pictures of us all at the beach. Doing all our beachy things.

Of course we hit the water first.

Next Lunch time. See the cheese cracker smiles. We picnic this entire trip. Hey...it saves money.

Digging ourselves in the sand. I knows it's the classic tourist thing to do.

Making sand castles. Or in Lily's case she took a bite of the sand to see how it tasted.

The sand wasn't the best to make a sand castle in but the kids didn't care.

Palm Trees are everywhere. It was so great! The kids helped me collect sea shells. I had this thought to collect sea shells and sand from every beach we visited. So we ate so much spaghetti the week before and kept the glass jars. Everyone did a great job making our own souvenirs.

And here's Mike and I in front of the La Jolla Beach.

We needed to leave so we wouldn't miss our next stop.....

Camping

To save some more money and take another thing off my bucket list we went camping. The average motel room in San Diego was about $60 a night. But camping was $20. So that was a no brainer. We borrowed a tent from my dad since ours we would of been a little cramp. And headed to California's nature. From Friday to Monday morning this was our home.

I said it before and I'll say it again but I think Hailey has gone country. She absolutely loved it!!

When we packed our clothes we figured that it would be warm all day and all night. WRONG!! In San Diego the year round temp is 76 degrees. Nice I know....but at night it hits around 45 degrees. Yikes! We froze that first night.

So first thing in the morning after our frost bite wore off we went shopping at a local thrift shop. We all got hoodies, pants, long sleeve shirts, hats, and socks. We went all out. That night we were all nice and cozy. And we all got much better sleep.

In the morning I made campfire pancakes. I never made them before and wasn't sure if it would work but I thought I'd give it a try. After the first set was done and showed to be all burnt I got the hang of it and the next was somewhat better. Yes our plates say "Are we there yet?" I thought that was awesome when we brought them.

Every day we got dress, ate and then left to go to the city. But we chilled and relaxed and had some camping fun.

See all the wood Mike "borrowed" from the other camp sites when everyone left Sunday afternoon. We got stocked up.

Just a few random pictures....

See this bird....a whole bunch of them would tear apart our camp site when we would leave
So Mason thought would be fair to catch one. So Mike and him made a box trap with a string and waited.....Mason got tired of waiting so he bagged that idea after about 30 minutes. He tried! Clever little bird.Hailey took every opportunity to play with this water thing. When we were leaving she wanted to take picture with her water. (she said this-not me)

Here's Mike and I. Yes that's his tourist hat that he got back on our honeymoon. But Mike was really good about teaching me a few things during our camping trip. Like how to make a fire. Yeah I know how now!!!! But he did something really sweet and made our mark in California.

He carved this heart with our initials in the picnic table our last night along side some other previous visitors. I guess you can say we left our heart in San Diego.

Are we there yet?

We went on our first family vacation to San Diego, California. Mike and I did the math and figured the numbers and that driving would be cheaper than flying. So we packed the car up, programmed our magellangrabbed our tourist book ( I love this book. I found it at the DI for $1 and it shows all the must see spots of all the cities in the US)and began our 12 hours drive. Actually we were going to drive at night since it would cut on cost for driving with the A/C and stopping for the kids, snacks, bathroom breaks, etc.

But Mike was too excited to we started our drive in the morning.

On our way to San Diego we had to stop in Vegas for Dunkin Donuts!!

It's the closest donut shop to us so we couldn't pass it up. Yummy!!!!
We drove, and drove, and drove.....and drove some more. And when we crossed the state line into California this is what we seen.
Not actually the picture we were expecting. But soon we realized we were in Cali when we seen this car. A little ford with pimped out rims. LOL. The first night we just parked in our little Travelodge motel room, watched So You Think You Can Dance, ordered a pizza and slept. I know not much fun but we were tired and sore from sitting in our car for over 15 hours. The kids added 3 hours to our time. But day #2 was a different story.