San Diego Family Vacation...the first part of the trip!

 We just returned from a week out west in San Diego, California.  It was a wonderful time of visiting Troy's brother and his family combined with some sightseeing.  Timothy and Teresa had not met there Uncle Dan, Aunt Hiromi and three cousins Luke, Jake and Mark.  It worked well to combine a family visit with some vacation fun!
  Timothy and Teresa were both excited to fly, although during take off, Teresa was a little nervous.  The journey to San Diego was a long one, but we managed to survive it.  Our flight got delayed by 2 hours (thankfully we knew before we left for the airport) and we did not take off until 7pm.  And since we flew out of Cedar Rapids, our trip began with an hour and a half drive.  We had a nice little picnic dinner in the airport waiting area and were pleasantly surprised to find that the airport had free cake.  A great way to start vacation!!

 Then we flew for a few hours, arriving in Los Angles around 11 pm central time.  We got our rental car, and by that time both kids were very tired.  Timothy was calm and quiet, while Teresa was crying and really upset due to fatigue.  I calmed her down with some candy for a bit, but her crying returned as she told me waiting for the rental car was the worst time ever.(At that moment I sort of agreed!)  We had a 2 hour drive to San Diego, which Troy did with the help of a cup of coffee from the car rental place.  We arrived at Danny's house around 2:30 our time...12:30 west coast time.  We got the kids to bed and went right to bed as well.

 The next morning, everyone was in good spirits despite the long travel day.  The kids fell in love with two dogs that Hiromi was watching.  They were kept busy while we decided how to spend the first day.  Everyone told us how chilly it was, but we headed to the beach anyway.  Timothy and Teresa were delighted with the ocean and the waves.  I thought it was too cool for swimsuits, but I was wrong!  They got good and wet requiring a stop back at the house for lunch and clean clothes before more adventures!  Danny even spotted a few dolphins jumping in the waves!

Pure joy as the waves splash and swirl around their feet!

And this is me, all bundled up trying to stay warm while the kids played!

 After lunch, Danny was our tour guide again and took us up to La Jolla Cove.  It was chilly here too--even Timothy put on a sweatshirt!  The attraction was a small beach area where seals come up and sun themselves.  It was fun to watch the seals flop around on the sand.

All smiles for the camera.  Notice the seals in the background.

 Our next stop was Point Loma and Cabrillo National Park.  There are some great views from here and some hiking, but our main draw was searching out the tide pools.  Water washes up little creatures at high tide, and at low tide you can check them out.  We saw quite a few little crabs scurrying around.  We also learned that wet rocks are slippery.  We saw one little girl get drenched.  Timothy was the only one in our group that slipped a little.

Staring at the water, searching for little creatures.

 On Friday, we made the trek to Legoland California. This became one of the many highlights of our trip.  We had just watched the Lego movie and have been playing with Legos a lot lately.  And this was our first big amusement park adventure!

 We enjoyed a lot of the Lego sculptures throughout the park.  There is a mini world that is quite impressive, especially when you hear how many legos it takes to build some of the structures!  The weather was perfect for our first day--warm and sunny, but not hot.

 We went on a bunch of rides.  Some favorites were the Dragon roller coaster, the Egyptian car ride, the safari ride, and the airplane ride.  The lines for most of the rides were not too long which was great.

The joust ride...the first one the kids rode.

Waiting for the Egyptian car ride.  A slow ride, but we got to shoot laser guns and try to hit targets.

Timothy enjoys a ride that bounces up and down.

Posing with Laval outside the water park.

 On Saturday we headed to Legoland again, in order to hit the water park.  It was warm, but not really hot.  That did not matter to Timothy and Teresa, but it did keep me from getting too wet!

 One area of the water park was a Chima theme.  The kids love Chima right now and spent a lot of time at the house watching Chima shows.  It was pretty fun to see Cragger's swamp and the Lion temple wave pool with Mt. Cavora.  This means little to non Chima fans, but it was all familiar to us!

Cragger's swamp

Riding the waves in the wave pool with Mt. Cavora in the background.

 There were some great ares for small kids to play.  Teresa really liked the lazy river designed for just her size!  Timothy tried out a couple of watersides.  We spent most of the morning in the water and then after a picnic lunch we headed back to the park to try a few more rides and ride some favorites again.

Two tired kids after a long day of fun at the water park.

 Saturday evening we had a get together with two of Troy's cousins that also live in San Diego.  In the picture above are Danny and Hiromi, Bri and her mom Shari. Tara and Jeff.  Jeff, Shari, Danny and Troy are cousins.  Shari hosted the dinner and it was a nice time to meet and connect with some extended family.