The Ibbotson Muppets: San Diego

I'm a few campgrounds behind on my posting...trying to catch up before I forget what we did when!

As I mentioned in the last post, we ended up in San Diego a few days early. I was a little bummed to miss out on Joshua Tree (I had our hikes all planned out), though when I saw the 100* forecast I wasn't upset about moving on to much cooler San Diego.

We arrived in San Diego on Monday night. Because of the added drive time it was just about bedtime for the kiddos when we arrived. We let them run out a bit of energy on the playground while we checked in and got the rv set up, then it was off to bed. Tuesday, the kids had school in the morning, but as soon as they were done we put on our bathing suits and hit the beach! We were staying about 20 minutes outside of Coronado Beach. I couldn't wait to splash around in the pacific, especially after spending almost a month in the desert! We all had a blast splashing, building sand castles and digging holes. The Navy base was also right next to the beach, so there was no shortage of planes and helicopters zooming around really low.

On Wednesday, I decided that we were going to play hooky from school. The kids have been absolute rock stars about getting up super early for school with the time change, and other than 1 sick day each earlier in the year, they haven't missed a single call this whole virtual year. Wednesdays is their "wacky" day, with a lighter schedule and having to complete their specials independently, so I decided they could use a break. I didn't tell them that I was calling them out, and at 6:30am (an hour after his first session starts) I heard Zach practically jump out of bed and run to his computer. I got out there just in time to tell him he didn't have to sign in and he said that I gave him a heart attack, hahaha. The kids spent the next hour bugging me to tell them where I was taking them, and they were super surprised when we pulled into the Legoland California parking lot! We spent most of the day at the park, from rope drop (do they call it that at places other than disney???) until about 4:00, and we hit just about every ride. To say we were pooped would be an understatement, but we had so much fun.

Thursday was a campground day. We needed to recoup from our Legoland adventure, and the kids wanted to play with the friends they made. The campground was another "resort" and was crawling with families there for the Memorial Day Weekend.

Friday, after school we went to the San Diego Zoo. It was a bit more crowded then I would have liked, but it's a zoo I've always wanted to go to. Other than a couple of choke points in the sidewalks near some of the more popular animals, we were able to see everything without getting too lost in the crowd. The zoo was absolutely massive (we were carrying Sarah by the end) and it was really neat how close we were able to get to some of the animals.

That night we went out to a "fancy" (as fancy as you can get with 2 kids, ha) dinner for our 15th anniversary. We found a nice little restaurant right on the beach, and then went for a walk down a long fishing pier for sunset.

Saturday was our last full day in Cali, so we hit some beaches again. We rode up to La Jolla to have some lunch, and learned quickly that everyone else had the same idea on this beautiful day. We finally found a little burger stand and then went to play at Children's Pool. This beach has a neat backstory. A long time ago, the city of San Diego decided to put up a sea wall to make a small cove beach. They named it the Children's Pool because the wall made the water very calm and the perfect place for little ones to frolic. Well, the local harbor seals decided that they like the calm waters and protected beach, so they took it over! There have been battles between groups that want to keep it a beach for kids and people who want to protect the seals. For now, they co-exist. The seals paid no attention to the people walking right up to them to take pictures (I was getting a bit of anxiety seeing how close some of the parents let their kids get) and there were kids playing in the water with baby seals popping up right in front of them.

Before we left La Jolla, we took a quick stop at the La Jolla tide ponds. It was getting close to dinner, so we couldn't spend too much time here, but I so wish we would have gone earlier, because the kids agreed that it was one of their favorite places on the whole trip. The rocks were all pock-marked and were filled with tons of tiny little sea creatures- crabs, clams, limpets, mussels and barnacles. There were so many, we could have explored all day!