San Diego 2016

We took a mom and boys trip to San Diego this week.  Lynn's husband and daughter are in Japan and the boys and I had not been down to see my sister since last year, so this seemed like a great time to head down and enjoy the sights and weather.

Notice the headphones and tablets that were a REQUIREMENT for the trip.

Last year when we went to visit, we all went to Sea World.  This year we headed for the San Diego Zoo...one of Colson's lifelong dreams to visit.  He had studied the map to the point of memorization and knew all the key areas that we needed to hit to make our day successful.  I will say that not only did we hit all of his requests, but seven LONG hours later...we had killed that entire zoo.  We saw everything.  The kids were great and the weather was perfect.  All three moms could have used a massage at the end of the day, as well as a drink, but other than that...it was great!

Waited in line for 30 minutes.  SOOOO  worth it!!!

My favorite of the day.  I really could have just watched him for hours.

I think Miss Natalie enjoyed it too!

The elephant habitat was by far the most impressive area.  Looks like something out of Jurassic Park.

The koala's were my next favorite.  Unfortunately they were all sleeping in trees and we couldn't get great pics of them.  According to Colson, koala's sleep twenty hours a day, so us getting a picture of them awake would have been pure luck.

Matthew was a champ at times helping out with Natalie.

Yep, that's a golden lab.  He is best friends with a bobcat and they share the same enclosure.

I'm just saying....it looks like he's been here a while.

A throwback to the People Movers at Disneyland.

This is what pure joy looks like!

Great day!

The next morning we joined Noelle for her morning routine of taking Natalie to the bus and then heading to the dog park for Ellie and Chloe to run around.  The boys thoroughly enjoyed this.  They also enjoyed the two "puppaccino" shots that Noelle ordered for the dogs.  This will NOT become a habit with our dogs, or they will beg to go with us every time we grab our keys.

Spoiled rotten.

Matthew was in charge of the chuck-it for Chloe.  She is like Teddy because she would fetch for hours if we let her.

After the dog park...on to breakfast at our favorite spot--Beach Break!

And then to the beach!  We had planned on spending a couple of hours there, but the tide was high and there was almost no beach area for the kids to play around in.  High tide or not, they just wanted to play.

And lastly...the hotel Lynn and the boys stayed at had a mini basketball court.  Every night the boys went back there to play.  They loved it.  Lynn and I loved it because we could soak our feet in the spa to recover from our zoo day and poor shoe choice.

I told Noelle...okay, last year was Sea World, this year was the zoo...what's next year?!?

Thanks again Noelle for everything!!!