A couple weeks ago, for my Spring break, we decided to take our first ever family vacation! Well, that's not exactly how it worked. I had mentioned the idea of taking a vacation to Jona and decided to look on Priceline to get some ideas. Long story short, I ended up accidentally placing a bid and it was accepted. It turned out to be such a blessing and I really loved our first little vacation!
We drove down to Coronado, and true to form, we left pretty late. We arrived at our hotel around dinner time and I got the kids and luggage into the room while Jona went and parked the car. I opened the balcony door, turned around, took Dallas out of the stroller and Penny started screaming. In 5.2 seconds she managed to get her head stuck between the bars of the balcony. I seriously could not believe it. It was sorta funny but she was really panicking. I tried to pull her head out but it was just not happening. I called Jona and told him to run while I pictured having to call the fire department, them sawing the bars and being charged $500 by the hotel. Thankfully, our hero came in the room, pulled the bars apart a little bit and pulled her free. Not before I took a picture, of course.
We walked down and grabbed some pizza and let the kids play on the beach a little bit.
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| This was right after we saw a duck in the water and Penny screamed "SHARK!!" |
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| He looks so old in this picture! |
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| My Loves! |
After dinner and the beach we went back to our hotel, took baths and tried to go to sleep. This is where we quickly realized our mistake of not having two rooms, or a suite to help everyone sleep better. We were up a lot during the night and Dallas wakes up super early which woke up Jona and Penny so our next day started out really early and on very little sleep!
We headed to "Snooze" which was a breakfast recommendation from my sister-in-law, Julie who is from San Diego. She had told me about this place a while ago and we had always wanted to go but it never worked out. IT WAS AMAZING. Seriously, if you are ever in San Diego you MUST eat here!
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| Best Eggs Benedict of my life! |
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| Snooze had a really fun chalkboard your could draw on while you wait. No, Pen did not write the word "poop" |
After breakfast we headed over to Seaworld. I've always wanted to go but after watching Blackfish I felt a little skeptical. We decided to give them our money anyway, Haha! The lack of sleep the previous night really caught up to Pen and Dallas and there were A LOT of tears. Jona and I just kept looking at each other wondering why on earth we did this. Just kidding, it wasn't that bad, but next time we are definitely working naps into our vacations!
We really did have a great time together at Seaworld and I am looking forward to returning sometime this summer!
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| These little sucker fish are awesome! Pen was slightly freaked out by the whole thing |
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| I really loved Seaworld's play areas. I wish Disneyland had something like that! |
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| Dallas loved the turtles! |
Thankfully, Seaworld closed at 5pm so we grabbed dinner and headed back to the hotel for baths and tried to go to sleep, however we had another night of very little sleep. We woke up pretty early the next morning and grabbed a quick breakfast and decided to walk down by the beach for a little while.
Just a little bit of back story, historically, I hate the beach. It is hot. People are practically naked, and there's sand. Lots of sand. Everywhere. The beach with kids sorta makes me want to cry. Recently I have had a couple of good beach experiences and I'm a Californian for Pete's sake. I REALLY want to love the beach. I'm just not there yet. It was sorta funny because this actually started off really nicely!
Dallas fell asleep right before we got there and the tide was really far out. We didn't want to wake him up so we decided to carry his stroller aaaallllll the way out there. When we finally got to where we want to sit I loved watching Pen play in the sand and it was absolutely gorgeous. Jona decided he wanted to go put on his trunks so that he could swim. It took him a really long time to go get them and come back. Everything was still fine when he returned but the second he got way out into the water things went a little south. Dallas woke up and I didn't have the sunscreen with me cause I had left it so I was working so hard to keep him shaded. Penny asked if she could run a little ways away and run back to me. I told her sure as long as she turned around so that she could see me and I would tell her if she could keep running or if she needed to come back. She would run like five feet and turn around and then I would tell her she could keep running. This worked about ten times then all of the sudden she just took off. I have no idea what happened, but I had to pick up Dallas and the umbrella and run as fast as I could after her. She eventually realized how far she ran and she freaked out and started crying which led her to rub her eyes, which led to sand in her eyes and more crying which led to Dallas crying and we just completely fell apart.
When Jona finally came out of the water, he said something to the effect of, "Did you have fun running on the beach?" Um. No. Haha!
We finally got cleaned up and carried the stroller back through the sand and jumped in the car and headed to "D Bar", which is another incredible restaurant. The "D" is for dessert and they do not mess around! We had a great lunch and then jumped in the car and headed home.
Both kids were out immediately and slept the entire way home from San Diego!
We really had a great time and I cannot wait to get away again! I love this little family the God has given me and we have so much fun together. Next time we will include lots of naps, hopefully very little sand in the eyes and no more narrow balcony bars :)
