40 Hours of Driving : The First 12

Austin had one week in between summer school ending, and the fall semester starting this year so we decided to take a family vacation. We weren't sure if we could make it happen.. it was very down to the wire.. but thanks to some great friends and family we made it to San Diego, California!

We drove out Sunday the 12th of August and stayed with Austin's brother Cameron and his wife Brianna. We love them and Cameron doesn't even have a name to Gianna.. just Uncle. He's that great! We stayed up till 1am that first night playing Mexican Train (Gianna made it to 10ish) and I swear that is the latest I have stayed up in a LONG time!

On Monday we met one of my best friends Rachel and her kids Charlie and Felicity at the San Diego Zoo. I love it when we go to So Cal because they generally can meet us at whatever amusement park we are attending that day. It is soooo fun to have them with us!

 Starting the day off with her best buds! They rode the Sky Tram that goes over most of the zoo together :)

 Hanging around on a big bronze tortoise outside the petting zoo.

 Gianna just loved this lion in the front of the zoo!

 What's that mom? I have a what behind me? It was so cool that he was RIGHT there on the other side of the glass!

 Welcome to our second day. We did Legoland on Tuesday. We got 2 day park hoppers (they have a water park inside of the actual theme park). We liked Legoland, although it was really more for a bit older kids and, well, boys. Gianna liked it a lot, but she could only ride a handful of the rides. The water park did have great wading pools and a lazy river she could sit in a raft and play with legos in, but over all it was crowded with very little actual water.

 What did we do this time mom?

 Yoda? Really?

 As a part of both the main theme park and the water park you could go on this ride, and Gianna was tall enough! You literally sat in a boat, went up an incline, around a U, then down to be engulfed in water. Just one of those ride to get extremely wet rides. We were so proud of Gianna for not only getting on it, but not crying :) She didn't love it, but didn't hate it :)

 She did love shooting Daddy with the water guns :)

 Seriously? One of the cutest pictures and I can't get it to turn the right way.. oh well.. Day 3 (Wednesday) we went to Mission Beach with Uncle and Brianna to play. We had a great time playing at the beach then walking around Bellmont Park and seeing the different arcade rides and games. I'm not gonna lie.. we may have all gotten ridiculously large ice creams while there :) We then went back to their apartment that night for pizza and more games.

 Everyone (minus myself.. love the beach.. not so fond of the sand ;) got right in and started building a sandcastle with Gianna.

 Shortly therein however, Gianna lost interest so Brianna broke off and started covering her up! It was funny to see the boys still building away at their.. I mean Gianna's.. sandcastle :)

 Two of her most favorite people ever!

 Day 4! (Thursday) We were off to Sea World. I guess I should have mentioned that we stayed at the Town and Country Resort in San Diego right off Hotel Circle a bit earlier :) It was great! Rachel works there and was able to get us a great rate, and it was so easy to get to everything we did! So Sea World.... :)
Yet another Polar Bear.. She was too cool to even take the shades off to view it :)

  We saw so many big animals, Gianna was very happy to see all the sea "creatures". One of her favorite shows is on Disney Junior and it's called Octonauts. They do a "creature report" at the end of every show about the sea creatures they helped that day.

 It's a mommy penguin and a Gianna penguin!

 They have the most amazing Cirque du Soleil type show with dolphins.. very hot in the mid day sun but SO amazing!

 Apparently Sea World and Sesame have teamed together.. it was pretty cool for Gianna to see Elmo and Zoe!

Towards the end of the day, before the Shamu show that my camera battery died right before (of course) we stood along the dolphin pool where you can hang your hands (or children;) over the edge to try and pet them. We squeezed right in on the end and before too long we got slightly splashed. Ok then another one came up and splashed a bit more.. by this time I was back and Austin was holding her up to look and what do you know, I go the picture right before the BIGGEST splash. This tail that looks so innocent came straight down to DRENCH Gianna AND Austin who was holding her in front of him. It was CLASSIC!

 Friday, Day 5, I can still feel the exhaustion I was feeling that morning as we made our way from the parking lot back into Legoland. This time we hit up the water park first, and I'm so glad we did because we ran into some friends of mine from Murrieta! I hadn't seen Autumn and Dan for at least a year and their kids are getting so big! Time really flies!

 What mom.. just because I can ride this one by myself doesn't mean you have to get all teary eyed, take a thousand pictures and keep telling everyone I'm getting so big... ;)

 They had these cars for the 3-5 year olds to drive.. she did just as good as everyone else...

 And made it half way around the track before her turn was up!

 Daddy and Gianna playing with some of the thousands of legos they had out to play with.

 

We had such a great time in San Diego. It was great to visit with family and friends and do all of the sites. We were hoping for cooler weather, but of course So Cal had a heat wave the week we were there. It was still nice to be by the beach though!

While we were in San Diego, on Wednesday, I was told that a friend of mine passed away unexpectedly in her sleep. Sharla Prior was 30 with 5 small children under the age of 5. She was a good friend from San Luis Obispo, and this is where the next 23 of my 40 hours come in...