San Diego Days 1 and 2

We’re deep into Easter Week around here, so I figured I better get our February break to San Diego documented before Easter bombards us.  (I still haven’t blogged Thanksgiving….I guess that’s just how I roll around here.  Better late than never?)

Straight from the airport (and that crazy blood boiling plane experience) Kristi took us to the Mormon Battalion visitor center in Old Town San Diego.  It was awesome.  If you haven’t been you should go.  We all learned a lot about this faithful group of saints who did something hard and saw miracles happen.  The tour was interactive and very entertaining to the kids.  And, best of all, at at the end they got to pan for gold.    We at at In-n-Out Burger, played gleefully with cousins, got a grand tour of Noah and Kristi’s and put the kids to bed.  Noah and Kristi and I stayed up late catching up and laughing about all the things I could have said to that woman on the plane. The next day we got up and went to pick up our awesome mini van that K and N’s friends lent us.  Isn’t that just about the nicest thing ever?  Wish I had snapped a picture of that beauty.  We went to pick up Jeff and headed strait for the Point Loma tide pools.  This is where Emmeline declared that she really did feel alive.  It just felt so good to feel that warm sunshine, our skin touching fresh air. The tide pools were bursting with wonders for the kids to catch and touch and explore.  They were also surrounded by hovering park volunteers who were worried about pretty much everything our children were potentially doing (not that they did anything wrong, but boy were those guys on us like hawks.  That part wasn’t so fun, especially when we were dying to feel free.  We finally discovered a less monitored part of the National Park and really felt the glory of freedom after a long winter.  The kids climbed up these rock canyons and discovered little natural slides that they could slide down. 

Peter for some reason wanted to just lay on the earth.  Get right down in it’s face, feel that earth connection.  I didn’t have the heart to stop him.     ON our way out there was a rainbow, the kind that just get brighter and fuller with each moment as the storm rolls in and pushes the sun back into the kind of corner where it shines so uniquely, that rainbow sunshine is one of my favorite things.   After Point Loma we headed to try to find a taco place that Noah recommended called Tacos El Gordo.  We found a few locations on Yelp and chose the one closest to the ocean.  We were sad to find that it wasn’t the real one, and was all boarded up (got to look more closely at those Yelp listings).  But, we were happy to find a gloriously pink sunset and played as silhouettes until the sun lit up the sea from below.    This is the magical part of the day, I remember spending so many hours before having children, drinking in the beauty of this part of the day and longing to one day share it with my children.  And here they are.  So naturally captivated by twilight’s magic.  Peter was quite enamored with this whole being free business.  He loved the sand on his toes (look at them, you can’t even see them through all that sand).  We twirled and ran races and chased waves until we were too cold and then we bid a perfect day good night, wearily walked back to the car, ate to the bitter bottom of the snake bag ( I love coming home from an all day adventure with an empty snack bag) and drove back to Noah and Kristi’s.  Perfect day.  The kind that leaves you with that sun-chapped, happily exhausted, brimming with beauty feeling.  That feeling that you’ve really lived your day.