Go West, Young Man.....

So, what are the rules on how long these things can be? My intent was to make a new post every day of our vacation, sharing with you all the good, the bad, and the ugly as it unfolded. Sadly, the ugly came first - in the form of a mondo virus that apparently evades even my up-to-the minute (paid extra for it; how brilliant is that?) software - and I was unable to access anything computer-related.

Now here's the really cool thing: You heard about the ugly - and that actually happened during the "business" portion of my trip to California - but for the actual vacation, there was not one single thing that I can say was "bad". My travel curse has lifted. In fact, it is so far gone that this trip was phenomenally awesome. Every single element involved some kindness from family, friends, or complete strangers. We were able to do so many things that we never planned to do because of last-minute freebies and gifts. The kids had a blast - they hardly fought at all. No flight delays, no bad weather, no roaches in the condo. Just overwhelmingly fun!

So, I thought since I was unable to update you as we went along, I would just cram it all into one giant post and let you read it in installments, if you need to.....

The first thing that unfolded for us related to the fact that I was already in California the week prior to vacation. I needed one night in a hotel before we could check in to our condo. In San Diego, the only hotel rooms that are less than $150 are the scary kind with bars on the windows. Mama don't play dat. So, I had found a little dorm-style "limited service" place that looked nice, but very tiny. Twin bed, one shared bathroom for each floor, no elevator, etc. But just for me, and just for one night, I thought it sounded like a fun adventure.... I emailed a friend of Neal's in San Diego to see if they could vouch for the neighborhood, and instead, they invited me to stay with them. So, rather than paying $150 for a decent room, or $89 for a tiny room, I paid nothing for a nice guest room in the home of some folks I can now call friends.

They have an adorable little Squidget named Lucas. He is almost 2, and I had so much fun hanging out with him - once he decided I wasn't going to be there forever and that his parents weren't leaving him. We played "stack and crash" - and he let me try out my camera with this cool color filtering feature. I set it to only pick up the blue of his eyes. It almost worked, except that his little toy cow-blanket-thing is also blue. Anyway, it is a cool feature.... Thanks, Lucas, for letting me hang out at your house!!

Lucas' parents are pretty cool too. Mark and Elizabeth went way out of their way to make sure we had a good time. They shared guest passes to some of the activities there, helped me get my bearings for when I needed to go get the rest of my family at the airport, and showed me a few fun sights for future reference - not to mention letting me stay in their home! And here's another cool little tid-bit. Their last name is Payne. (For those of you who may not know - Payne is my maiden name.) We are trying to figure out if we might be related. It's a small world after all..... Anyway, at the end of our trip, the Paynes met up with us for dinner and we had a waitress take this little group photo.... (Lucas was so over us!!) Why do I choose such tall friends?

So, on to the fun stuff! Our first adventure was to visit Sea World. We had not planned to go this year, since we went to Sea World in San Antonio last year, but Mark and Elizabeth had free tickets, so we couldn't pass that up!! The kids really liked the "Pets Rule!" show, but for some reason I don't have any pictures of that. They had trained a bunch of (allegedly) homeless cats and dogs to do some really cool tricks, and then set the stunts to music. Very cute!

William's main memory is from the Clydesdale horses.... Drummer thought that his finger was tasty, so he tried to eat it for a snack. Neal got William's hand loose, but there was still a nice little mark on his middle finger. Nothing big, except that it was a cool memory once it stopped hurting. I think they freaked out when the heard about it - the "team member" had his manager over there in no time!! Of course, I would have a hard time arguing anything since Drummer's stall was right next to the "Keep hands out - remember, these animals bite" sign. Oh, well......

We also got to see Shamu, of course!

Our next hoorah was the San Diego Zoo. Here are some of the photos - not all, by any means......

When I was a yoooooooouuuuuung waaaaaaaaaaaart hooooooooooooooog!

And this one's for harb.....

These two were in the Primate House:

Then, we went to Legoland. Wow. You have to go there at least once. It is set up to entertain 2-year-olds to grandparents, and everyone in between. We loved it!!! Miniland was awesome. Entire little worlds completely made out of Legos. Actual Legos - just glued together. They had the Las Vegas strip, Washington DC, the Sydney Opera House, everything you could imagine. They have 20 people on staff who spend every day playing with Legos until they come up with something new to build. They earn their keep, though - everything was amazing!!

(Oh, and this was another discount-scenario. The people in front of us had two free passes they didn't need, so they gave them to us. Saved $100.)

We also got to see, per William's repeated request, The King and I. It was very good. It was performed at the Lawrence Welk Resort where we stayed (Thank you, Mimi and Pa!!!) We didn't get any photos, though the kids did enjoy meeting both The King and Miss Anna after the show. Our villa was lovely.

For some reason, I didn't think to take any pictures of it, except this one just beyond our back door. The camera was sitting on our patio table, so you can see the same view we did every morning over breakfast – except for the weird family standing in the middle; they usually weren’t blocking the vista.

The Rec Center had a fun gameroom that the kids enjoyed. Naomi now loves Air Hockey, and William discovered the Nintendo room. The rec center was quickly forgotten, though, once they discovered the pool.... and water slide....