San Diego - A Final Note

Ode to Elizabeth.

As I have been looking through our veritable plethora of photos from this San Diego trip, I'm noticing an absence.  I mentioned that we invited with us a beloved care giver for my mother, a woman named Elizabeth.  And though it is time to move on and blog about other things, I just can't do it without including a special thank you to this woman.  She tried hard to stay out of the way of both our family and our camera, because she was trying to respect our family's time together.  She spoke often of not stepping on our toes.  I know she'll never see this blog but I need to send out into the world the message that she was a beloved part of our vacation. Her presence made it possible for my mother to feel safe and comfortable, for the rest of us to be able to relax and get the rest we needed and know that a loving friend was there for my mom.  She was very much a part of our family there and I loved having her.

I was in awe, frankly, of Elizabeth's ability to connect to my mom, to help orient her without putting her down, to be playful and silly which sounds odd but it's what my mom needs.  I learned a lot from her about how to interact with my mom by watching her, and I felt uplifted by her joy, her attitude, her interactions with all of us.  I consider it a true blessing that my sister met her and that my dad began to work with her as my mom's disease progressed.  I hope I can be more like her. Elizabeth, thank you.  Now I will go write her an actual card since she won't see this and would probably feel embarrassed if she did.

San Diego - The Thrilling Conclusion

Thursday. Although the families had already decided to go to Legoland while we were on this trip, Sheri and I sent each other a few furtive messages about Sea World.  Sea World was literally right across the bay from our beach house - not a 10 minute drive away.  (Every night we were able to watch the Sea World fireworks from our patio.) I had really great memories of that place as a kid and I knew my children would love being there as much as I had.  As we pondered what other things we'd like to do in San Diego, we realized more and more that we just really wanted to go. So....we did.  I confess that I was hoping that another sibling or two would join us but no one had interest.  I also confess that I'm so super glad we went.  It was an absolutely lovely day, with a much more peaceful atmosphere than Legoland.  We spent the day hopping onto roller coasters with almost no lines, enjoying several shows, marveling at the amazing animals, and completely slathering our children with sunscreen every half hour or so.  Also we bought Bitty the hugest sunhat we could find and it did an excellent job of shading her entire body as well as the shoulders of anyone sitting next to her.

The sealions put on the cutest shows

We did lose Siena for an alarming 20 minutes or so - She was super brave and was safely reunited with her mother at at the Lost Children booth

I think my kids were most enchanted by the dolphins - it was quite breathtaking to be allowed to be so close to them.  Cap revisited them several times and sort of left his heart there I think.  When we left the park, two of our three children were declaring that they wanted to study marine biology in college.

I have clear memories of feeding the sealions when I was a kid - it was fun to see that attraction still available to my own kids, although the birds were a little hard to fend off.

Another fabulous exhibit was a large shallow pool of bat rays which were much more interactive than any sting rays we've come across at our local aquarium.  I'm sure that's partly because you can feed these rays and so they were perfectly willing to come up to us all.  We didn't feed them but we all got to touch them plenty.  What a cool experience.

Here's Cap back at the dolphin pool during play time, tossing giant doggie toys to the dolphins.

It may be hard to see here, but baby Iva just loves Cap and she loved holding his hand as we walked around

Naturally the orca viewing tank was one of our most favorite experiences.  What a feeling of awe you get as this massive mammal cruises by.  So beautiful.  We didn't love the actual orca show as much as we enjoyed the dolphins and the sea lions.  The orca show mostly seemed to focus on getting people wet.  Now, I'm not going to lie, I went and sat down in the splash zone with Skippidy and Cara, and though we ourselves didn't get hardly wet at all, it was extremely entertaining to watch people, who had been fully warned about getting wet in the spots where they were, get absolutely soaked to the bone as the whales slapped water across them.  They looked shocked and pretty mad, even though they were sitting in the soak zone.  It's called that for a reason, trust me.

What a wonderful day we had.

On Friday we fit in some more beach time and brought our real camera.  We had a lot of fun taking pictures of our family.  It was so rewarding to have every single grandchild there in a big happy group. Honestly they get along so well - I really saw hardly any squabbles at all.  And as I have said before I adore the time I get to spend with my siblings.  Sorry for the photo overload, it can't be helped.

San Diego - The Middle

After completely roasting my children at the beach on Monday, what could be better for their health and well-being than a trip to Legoland on Tuesday?  Nothing else comes to mind!  Okay, that's not how it actually happened.  When we were in the planning stages for this trip we decided that we should have one fun outing for anyone who might be interested in going.  San Diego has a lot of exciting destinations to consider but those of us with little kids (meaning those of us actually wanting to go on an outing) all decided the kids would love Legoland.  It seems like the upper age limit for kids at Legoland is about 12ish and since Cap has been an avid Lego-fan we thought he'd still have a pretty good time even though he may be on the upper limit of enjoying the place.

Tuesday morning we woke up somewhat early and hit the road for the 45 minute drive.  Peter's family and Adam's family both joined us for a fun (and kinda long) day of walking miles and miles across the park.  I'm going to be honest - Legoland felt a little like it was Lagoon (our local amusement park) but was trying really hard to be Disneyland.  It did pretty well - there are lots of fun things to do, the rides were cute, and the themes were fun.  But there was just a little carnival flavor in the air.  That's ok - I'm really glad our kids got to experience the place.  Our time with our cousins was really fun, the best part being that Cap and his cousin Smith were old enough to just go off on their own for about three hours.  That was awesome.

Bitty absolutely loved this ride called the Beetle Bounce or something like that - she discovered that screaming at the top of her lungs in absolute freedom and joy is a very happy thing for her.  She did it a lot.

And I confess that when she convinced me to join her for a ride I found it to be rather giggle-inducing.  The thing started bouncing up and down and I could not stop laughing, as was documented by my camera-wielding husband:

Another favorite photography moment for Troy was the fun Peter and I had on this spinny-ride.  We pretty much just called everything by their Disneyland equivalents.  Thus, this was the tea-cup-ish ride.  Peter and I were cracking each other up making sick faces and spinning each other as hard as we could.

My kids were total troopers, because it was a pretty long day and by the time we left I was beyond ready for quiet and calm.  This is especially true considering the fact that they were so sunburnt - Bitty's face just got more swollen as the day went on and poor Skippidy looked like someone had poured bleach in her eyes.  We snapped this photo of her:

It's such a sad little picture! We couldn't help but post it on instagram with the accompanying caption: "Soon the rebellion will be crushed and young Skywalker will be ours!!"

If you don't get it, go watch Return of the Jedi.  Then you'll either feel even more strongly that we're horrible parents or that we're hilarious.  Either way, you can't deny that Skippidy looks just a little like Emperor Palpatine with those red bags under her eyes.  Poor girl.  So yes, the kids stayed tough and had a great day. I was so glad there were attractions that fit the needs of all my kids - pretty mild stuff for Bitty, wilder stuff for Stomper and guess what, Skippidy rode on four somewhat major roller coasters.  She always said she wanted to do them, then got more and more nervous as we waited in line, then every time we got off she yelped in delight and declared them each to be, and I quote, "AWESOME!!!" Ok, the first roller coaster we went on was the the biggest and she almost came unglued after the first big swooping hill but I quickly comforted her, she swallowed a looming sob, and after that loved every moment of every roller coaster.  That was fun to have her with me on those.  

When Wednesday rolled around we needed another mellow day.  We spent some more time at the beach except for Bitty, who pretty much hibernated on our bed with her daddy for the entire day, binge-watching episodes of Master Chef Junior.  Nathan won.  She was really really happy because he was really really cute.  Which makes her really really cute.  Yes, Bitty needed a vacation from the vacation and we almost didn't see her at all. But Cap and Skippidy and I enjoyed more beach time.

  I'm...so sorry. I couldn't help but post the baby butt.  It's too cute.

TRYING to keep Skippidy out of the sun a bit.  She fared much better on this day.

 We had plenty of down time that day and Cap and Smith got some high-quality t.v. viewing in...

In the evening we took a (really LONG) walk to a place called The Baked Bear that makes a variety of cookies and their specialty is for you to pick 2 cookies, pick an ice cream flavor and they make an ice cream sandwich out of it.  So good.  I'm telling you, it was a long walk but we all decided it was worth it.  So much so that we went back a few nights later.  Here are the grandkids by the Octopus on the walkway by Mission Beach:

Skippidy actually conked out on her dad's shoulders as we walked home

The San Diego trip was definitely in full swing by this point and I'm so happy to say that the grandkids got along so very well together.  I saw so little strife.  Things were a little tough with my mom because she had pretty restless nights and confused days, but I felt good about the time I was able to spend with her on several mornings while Elizabeth slept.  My interactions with her were much more positive than they have been in quite some time and I felt like I could actually be of service to her.  I was so enjoying the time with my dear siblings.  The trip was looking to be a major success.