San Diego

After breakfast on Saturday, we packed up and headed to San Diego, where I’d made Hotwire reservations the night before. Hotwire selected the Hyatt Regency Mission Bay, a hotel less than a mile from Seaworld.

The Hyatt Regency Mission Bay was beautiful. Jeff unloaded our bags while I got the kids a snack. We then got a taxi and headed to Seaworld. Seaworld was packed, but as we weren’t particularly interested in the animal shows (owing to The Twins’ ages), we had no problems finding things to do.

Our first stop was the kids’ play area. It was hot, so the sprinklers were turned on. Henry saw kids playing and stripped down. It took some work to convince him to keep his pants on. As we didn’t have a change of clothes, we didn’t want him completely soaked. So we diverted his attention to other play areas. I ran after Henry as he decided to climb up 3 stories of netting and then climb through 100 feet of tunnels suspended in the air. I earned my mommy gold star, that’s for sure. Miss R had fun in some dry tunnels on the grounded that required no crawling on Jeff’s behalf.

Once Henry and I were back on the ground, I switched kids with Jeff. I took Miss R to the Toddler Tidal Pool, which Henry at 37.5” was too tall to enter. The Toddler Tidal Pool is a blue, springy floor with soft large blocks in it. Jeff took Henry to play in the sand and then climb on a hill. Jeff took Henry on a ride called Abby’s Sea Star Spin, while I got Miss R an ice cream cone. Miss R is the slowest eater on the planet. She got upset at the ice cream melting on her. I hoped that it would be a learning experience (eat faster!), but I’m not so sure.

Miss R looked tired as the kids refused naps at the hotel room. We made our way to the World of the Sea aquarium, which is spacious on the inside and quiet. She snoozed for awhile. Henry did not. He liked pretending to be scared at the sharks and giant fish. I took him to the Tidal Pool where people get to touch star fish. The water was quite cold, so we didn’t stay long, but he did get to pet a star fish. We went back down to the aquarium, where Henry and Jeff played around. When Miss R stirred, we went back to the Tidal Pool. We then went to see the dolphins and fed a dolphin named Crunch some fish. Miss R was brave and touched Crunch on the head. We looked at Sea Lions, had some dinner (pizza and hot dogs), and went to a 4D Sesame Lights, Camera, Imagination! show. We fed the flamingos. Henry and Miss R demonstrated their different styles. Henry would take a handful of feed and throw it. Miss R would take a single pellet and throw it. The kids liked the Shark Exhibit so much that we did it twice. As Jeff pointed out, Henry’s favorite part was the moving side walk, not the sharks floating above him. The kids split a churro, and then we headed to the penguins. Henry fell asleep on the way. So Miss R and I went without the boys. As it turned out, most of the penguins were asleep too. I got the kids two stuffed animal penguins, and we called it a night, deciding to skip the fireworks show. We caught a taxi back to the hotel. It didn’t take much to get the kids to bed.

On Sunday morning, we got room service and had a picnic on the floor. We then walked around the marina, a view of which could be seen from our room. Henry jogged a good part of the way. We packed our belongings and headed to Mission Beach.

Upon seeing the ocean, Henry exclaimed, “We made it! We made it! We made it!” The kids looked at the waves and made a sand castle with Jeff. They also buried Jeff’s good leg in the sand. We walked a little ways down the beach to check out some surfers. Henry enjoyed climbing a huge sand pile near a life guard station.


























































Then, we headed back to the entrance and got an early lunch before heading back to Tucson. On a funny note, Henry's diaper was quite wet in the restaurant, so Jeff took him to the bathroom but didn't have a spare diaper so he let him go "free and easy" from the restaurant to the car. Henry seemed to find the experience perplexing. He kept holding up his pants, afraid that they were going to fall down (which they weren't). I think, however, that he liked the experience, so we'll try more underwear work this week (now is a good time given the warmth of the season).

We stopped at a Carl’s Jr. in Yuma. It had a play area, much to Henry’s delight. We spent about an hour there as Henry was having so much fun. He was very cute around a baby who was crawling around the floor. He tried to convince the baby to climb up the equipment. He also said, "I love you, baby!" as he gave the little boy a hug. Henry actually went willingly back to the car. It helped knowing that Peter Pan was waiting for him. Peter Pan was on repeat during the drive. Jeff wanted to see if Henry would eventually get sick of it, but alas, no boredom was conveyed.

When we got back home, I gave the kids a much needed bath. Henry had managed to get sand in his ears. Jeff made the kids chicken soup. He then went to pick up Baby A, while I got the kids fed, let them watch a little Sponge Bob, brushed their teeth, read them Peter Pan and Captain Hook, and turned out the lights. Baby A needed a bottle when she got home, and then she settled down. I'm on the first shift tonight. I just changed Henry who was calling out b/c he wet his diaper, something that usually doesn't bother him. Maybe potty training in earnest is in his future!