San Diego

Greg's family had been planning a trip to San Diego for 2 years. July came and it was finally time to go! We drove our van and stayed a night in Las Vegas on the way there and on the way back to break up the drive. Greg's parents have a timeshare which covered the hotel stay in San Diego. We were gone for one week and loved everything about it.

This video is the girls dancing to the radio while Greg was getting the keys to our room.

Our cute little family posing on the bed in our hotel room.

This video is at seaport village. They have a lot of shops and restaurants on the ocean and Paxton found some ducks!

So as I was writing this post and trying to decide what pictures to post, I decided to upload a variety of photos from our trip to a slide show. I made a photo book over our trip for Greg's Mom and just used the pictures from that book.

We got there on a Saturday and Greg, Mark & Karen and Jeff and Anna went to a San Diego Padres game. I stayed at the hotel with the kids and took them swimming and picked up some groceries.

On Sunday we went to the Old Towne San Diego and visited the Mormon Battalion Historic Site. It was a really great visitor's center and an interactive story of the Mormon Battalion, the struggles of their journey and how they helped to settle San Diego. We all really enjoyed going there.

On Monday we took a drive to Anaheim to visit the happiest place on earth. Early in 2010, Disney was doing a promotion called Give a Day, Get a Day. You could sign up with an organization to volunteer and then you would get a free one day pass to the park of your choice. We took advantage of this program just in time. They maxed out the number of tickets available just days after we did our project. There were a lot of organizations in Utah participating with many different projects available. We made birthday goodie bags for a juvenile detention center. I used coupons and strategic shopping and we filled 50 bags for less than $15. The girls helped me decorate the bags and put ribbons on them. Only age 6 and older could participate, but we also got free tickets for Greg's parents. We had a full day at Disney for about $100. $62 for Denali to get in and the food and souvenirs. We went straight to the princesses and did not have to wait in line long. We took advantage of Fast Passes wherever we could. We really had a magical day. Our only disappointment was the Buzz Light Year ride was closed for maintenance.

Tuesday, Mark & Karen went with Jeff & Anna to the USS Midway aircraft carrier. We took the kids to the beach. Boy is all that sand messy, but they really had fun. The weather actually wasn't great while we were there, but just being at the beach was a blast. Tuesday night, Greg's brother Blaine and his family arrived from Indiana.

Wednesday we went to Sea World. We saw the dolphin show, Shamu, the Sea Lion and otter show. They had rides and a play area for the kids. We got to touch starfish and all of the other fun things you can do at Sea World. Paxton went crazy seeing all the animals. Oh and I got great tickets for Sea World too. The kids were only $5 each with a paying adult.

Thursday we went to La Jolla beach and also swam at the hotel pool. We planned our trip with a rest day in between the busy days which worked well with the kids.

Friday was a trip to the San Diego Zoo. (And yes, we had great coupons for the zoo too!) My kids are crazy about animals and haven't been to many zoos before. So we really did enjoy it, especially the petting zoo part.

The next Saturday we headed back towards Utah. Greg and I drove to LA to get pictures of the temple there. The traffic was insane and I am not really sure it was worth the trip, but we got some great photos. We all met at the Rainforest Cafe in Las Vegas that night for dinner. We love that place!

It was a very fun and relaxing vacation with some great memories made.