Family Vacation, Part 2

After a busy day at Disneyland, we drove from Anaheim to San Diego late Tuesday night.  We decided Wednesday should be another low-key day.  We drove around and saw the San Diego temple:

And then we drove over to beautiful Coronado.  This time we were better prepared with sand toys and swim suits.  We weren't sure if the weather would be warm enough, but lucky for us, it was a warm and gorgeous day.  The kids a fabulous time building sand castles and getting wet.





We had a nice time enjoying the ocean, and then we got some tasty Mexican food in Coronado.  What a fun and relaxing day.

After a quiet day we were ready for some more fun.  We had done Sea World and Wild Animal Kingdom the last time we were here, so we decided to try Legoland this time:

R2-D2 made out of Legos

And Lego Darth Vader

Brighton and Dad

I think one of our favorite parts of Legoland was Miniland-- all of the country's major cities made entirely out of Legos:

After spending two days in Disneyland, I have to admit I wasn't that impressed with Legoland... but the one thing that made it totally bearable was that we practically had the whole place to ourselves!  We had planned to stay until the park closed, but because there was no waiting, we had ridden every ride and seen every attraction by mid-afternoon.  That made Mom and Dad happy-- we went and got some Thai food for dinner and ice cream sundaes at Ghiradelli, and just watched a movie that night in our hotel room.

The next day we met up with my cousin Dan's wife Kimberly and son Carter at Balboa Park.  The kids loved the Fleet Science Center:

There were a lot of cool buildings in the park:

And we enjoyed the small but beautiful Japanese Friendship Garden there:

Carter and the girls checking out the Koi pond

After that Dan met up with us and they took us to a fantastic Mexican place called Mama Testa-- they had the BEST fish tacos I have ever had (I've been dreaming about them). I can't believe we didn't get a picture with them while we were there!

Saturday was our last day there, and Justin had the bulk of his meetings on that day (did I mention we were there because he had a Conference In San Diego?-- hooray, free hotel) so the kids and I just hung out at the hotel pool.  We were staying in the Gaslamp District so there was no end to the great restaurants and shopping within walking distance, so we grabbed some yummy lunch at a creperie nearby.

The second half of our trip was a bit more leisurely (my kind of vacation), and it was wonderful to enjoy all of the good food and the fabulous weather there.  It was a little depressing to find snow on the ground when we got home on Sunday...  The best part was spending so much uninterrupted time together as a family, especially after the busy campaign season!