San Diego Animal Park, Day 3How would the Pollard Family's first official vacation go down? During all the planning, I honestly didn't give a thought to the reality--being, the boys' unpredictable behavior. I was more concerned with lining up tickets and hotels and building itineraries. But this is what happens during a seven hour road trip and five nights, six days away from the comforts of home.....
* Legoland, Day 2, totally awesome. Highlights were the Technic roller coaster that scared the pants off Shane and gave the rest of us a thrill, the intricate Lego buildings in Miniland USA, the water rides and the apple fries in the Knight area.
*San Diego Wild Animal Park, Day 3, totally awesome. Because of so much advise from San Diego locals and frequent travellers, we hit the park on a whim before heading down to La Jolla for our third night. I'm always one to get slightly depressed at zoos, peering at wild animals in cages who always seem to be generally pissed off. Ya, I know that zoos do important work of preserving species, but the Animal Park was way cool. It's basically a breeding ground for endangered species, that they can ship around the world and to the San Diego Zoo. My only regret was that we didn't splurge extra for the jeep ride to get even closer to the animals roaming around.
*Minivan meltdowns, Day 1-6, totally awful. Why is it that two boys can't keep their hands and feet to themselves? Punching each other, stealing toys, throwing toys, kicking the back of Dad's seat (not a good idea!) and generally ignoring the box of DVDs and the Nintendo DS. No, it's much more fun to make obnoxious farting noises on your arm for an hour nonstop. Duh.
*Seaworld, Day 4, somewhat awful. Although Dad and Bobby hit the massive water rollercoaster while I stayed back with Shane who was still damaged from his ride experience at Legoland, the rest of the park was a bust for us. We arrived and barely missed the afternoon Shamu show (what I wanted most to check out) and had all intentions of hitting the 5pm show on our way out. Every single exhibit has a gift shop that you must walk through to get back to the exit. Tantrums, trauma, oh my! Let's just say we missed out on Shamu.
*La Jolla, Day 3 and 4, total mixed bag. Smack in the middle of the trip was when Team Pollard started to become unhinged. Luckily we scored an amazing room at Hotel Parisi right in the village. Not so good, the boys were too unruly to take down for dinner. Hello takeout. Good--our hotel was walking trip to La Jolla Cove and Children's Beach with the softest sand I've ever touched. Not so good, the boys were even more unruly and we were whisking them off to Seaworld. Should have just stayed in La Jolla for the day, my bad!
*Gaslamp Quarter, Day 4-6, mixed bag again. The cleanest and coolest downtown I've been to in awhile. We stayed at the historic Keating which was close to all the main attractions. We hit Hard Rock Cafe (barely---Shane and Dad almost had to stay in the room due to another meltdown). As the boys slept right after in our room, my husband and I stared longingly at all the adults walking the streets and stepping in and out of hip bars with live music. Next time, we'll check it out without the kids!
*San Diego Zoo/Balboa Park, Day 5, meltdown day. There were highlights for sure: who can not be amazed by the adorable pandas? The skytram in the zoo was also fun. We hit the Natural History Museum, Railroad Museum, the train and carousel, but it was an all day event of the boys trading off whining sessions or games of hide and seek (from us, not good!).
I own up to some of the drama. Maybe if we would have skipped Sea World and allowed more down time, the boys wouldn't have driven us so completely insane. But I think it was also a case of bad timing...Bobby and Shane simply have not been listening to us lately, making outings like this tough. After coming home Sunday, the tired parents agreed that we needed a vacation from the boys just to recover. On the plus side, we were able to reconnect with some extended family in the area and also just spend time together as a family.
Ah, but it is so great to be home!!!
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