Part 3-San Diego and back home

On Wednesday morning, we got up and drove down towards San Diego. We stopped out by Mission beach as Tyson had been here a few years back and said it was nice. We didn't have any real plans for Wednesday so we thought we would go enjoy the beach. We found a hotel, actually on Pacific Beach, changed into our swimsuits and headed for the beach. It was a cool breezy day, but it didn't stop the kids and men from getting in the water. Emily and JT started off playing in the sand: While Todd, Popsy, and Tyson took Dylan out to ride the boogie board:

JT got tired of the sand and took off to ride the boogie board:

The water was cold, and after awhile Dylan couldn't take it any more, he was freezing:

But JT didn't care how cold it was, Emily finally got brave and went out in the water too, but she wanted daddy to hold her:

After a little while, Emily and Dylan couldn't take the cold anymore so they wanted to go back up to the hotel and get in the hot tub, and then they sat out by the pool soaking up the suns heat:

The view from our hotels pool to the beach:

The men finally had to make JT get out of the ocean as they were hungry. So we got cleaned up and walked just a little bit down the boardwalk to Joe's Crab shack:

The men just got a snack as Mimi and I and the kids ate Taco Bell while they were cleaning up ( I don't eat ANY seafood and knew they had wanted to go there and eat), and after the snack we walked all the way down the boardwalk to the rides. Dylan wasn't feeling well so he didn't want to ride some of the rides. But JT and Emily did:

Dylan did join them for some:

They also had fun on this sky adventure, were you walked across all these ropes and bridges, JT balancing on a rope:

Dylan crossing one of the bridges:

Emily was a little scared when she first got to the top, but once she crossed one of the bridges, she took off and did them all, here she is crossing one of the ropes:

Then back on to more rides, this ride was neat, it was a wheel that you sit in and then it goes around in a circle and you can make your wheel also turn around in circles. Dylan and Emily rode together as they just wanted to sit without turning their wheel:

But JT rode most of the ride like this, in a superman position:

They loved the bumpercars, Emily wasn't tall enough to drive so she rode with JT and they loved crashing into Dylan:

The kids had a blast on the rides and they played a bunch of games too. After all of that we went and ate dinner and back to the hotel to get some sleep as we were getting up the next morning and heading to the zoo.

Thursday morning we got up ate breakfast and headed over to the San Diego Zoo:

It was another beautiful California day. The kids loved the meerkats, they were cute and friendly looking little critters:

The giraffes were cute:

Popsy stopped to get the kids icee's so Todd and I snapped a quick picture together:

The zoo is beautiful and very hilly and LOTS of walking, the kids feet got tired so we stopped to let them get a foot massage:

There was a peacock just walking around in this little area, you can barely see it under the tree:

Dylan loved seeing the Polar bears:

Emily took this picture of me and the boys looking at the elephants:

One of me with my baby girl:

Uncle Tyson with his niece and nephews relaxing by the elephants:

The kids:

My silly boys:

As we were walking by this koala, he grabbed JT so I made the other 2 jump next to him and grabbed a picture:

After lunch, I didn't feel well so I took a break and Todd took the kids over to the Children's area of the zoo, and he even got some pictures of them:

Our goofy kids:

By the time they came out of that area, I was feeling better, so we went on to see more. They had a cute little show called "Camp Critters":

They had all kinds of animals in the show and at the end these beautiful birds flew over:

Emily loves monkeys so we had to take her to see them:

It was a long, but fun day. If you ever have a chance, you must go visit the San Diego Zoo, it was great, but just be prepared to walk, though they do have tour buses. All day long JT couldn't wait to go back to the beach, so Todd, Popsy, and Tyson took him back to the beach after the zoo.

As we were out driving around there were signs all week talking about freeway closures starting Saturday morning so we decided it would be best to drive back towards LA for our flight as we didn't want to miss it because we were stuck in traffic. Friday morning we woke up Todd snapped one last photo of the beach, we wish would have just stayed there forever:

and then loaded up and headed back to LA. Friday we just relaxed at our hotel and let the kids swim and then went to dinner at Shakey's Pizza parlor and then loaded everything up to return home.

Saturday we woke early and headed back to car return and airport, luckily we didn't hit any traffic from where we stayed back towards airport so we had plenty of time and just hung out at LAX until our flight left. It was time to load the plane and come home after an awesome trip, Todd and Dylan rode next to each other again:
While Emily sat between Popsy and Mimi:
and JT sat with me and Uncle Tyson:
We made it home safe and sound. The first thing the kids wanted to do was go eat mexican food, it's just not the same out that way, I was hoping for some Pappasito's, but we went to the kids favorite, Casa Ole, they LOVE the one by our house as it has a buffet. It was great to be home!