Catching Up!

We took a few weeks because life was not exciting enough to write about so we can summarize it like this- wake up, go to work/camp, come home, go to bed.  Doesn't make for a very exciting blog, no?

Thankfully, the last two weeks have broken the boring streak.  We finally got out of town for summer vacation and it was great!  We left bright and early Saturday morning and headed to San Diego.  Our first hotel was right next to the marina and I immediately found my boat.  It was called the Fanatsea and I want to trade in the RV and spend the rest of my life at sea.

The big boat in the back is the Fantasea.

We spent the rest of the day at Sea World which was just so-so and then the next day, we drove up to LA to get our annual Disney Land fix.  For all the times we have been, we still had some rides to check off our list.  We had yet to ride the Matterhorn or Space Mountain so we got those done.  For future reference, Matterhorn is not so great.  Space Mountain was AWESOME!!!  I was a little ticked off that I couldn't talk mom or dad into going again.  Next time.  We still have to do Tower of Terror but we are all a little scared of it so I'm not sure when that will happen...

We drove back to San Diego two days later and checked into our most awesome hotel.  It was right on the beach of Mission Bay with a great pool, super calm warm water and perfect weather.
We headed to Sea Port Village and spent some time walking on the boardwalk.  Dad got a nice new camera so mom and I got to practice being models all week while he experimented.

This is us with Coronado Island in the background.

On Wednesday morning, dad had us up bright and early to head to La Jolla beach to play in the tide pools.  We saw some cool creatures- anemones, crabs, what we think was a tiny, baby shark, seals and dolphins.  We collected some cool sea shells and found sea glass and dad did more experimenting with the camera.  I think we could have hung out there all day long watching the waves crashing onto the rocks- just mesmerizing.

These are mom's pictures from her iPhone- just as good, don't you think?

When we finally dragged ourselves away, we headed to the San Diego Zoo for a few hours.

Thursday, we headed to the USS Midway to tour the museum.  Dad served on an aircraft carrier during his Navy time so we got all kinds of good stories about life on the ship.  Mom thought it sounded hot, stinky, crowded and nauseating and gives dad big kudos for doing it.

 
(This sign says Raytheon)

This is what dad did in the Navy- the guys wearing white are the safety squad

After that, we headed to Point Loma Seafood for a late lunch/early diner of delicious fish tacos.  The view was just OK......



Now, vacationing with dad is always super fun but not necessarily relaxing.  After going non-stop for 5 days and no plans to stop anytime soon, I finally asked when we were just going to "chillax" (my word) by the beach/pool for a day.  Mom was definitely up for that so we spent Friday morning at the beach and the afternoon at the pool.  Mom and I rented a stand-up paddle board and spent some time paddling around the bay.  Mom wouldn't let us get further than 3 feet from shore because she was pretty sure there was a great white shark swimming around us, just waiting for us to fall off the board and gobble us up.  We had a good time anyway.

After a fabulous week, we reluctantly headed home.  I had two more days of relaxing and then I started 3rd grade!  My teacher this year is Mrs. Stalkfleet and mom is excited because she is very organized and doesn't baby us.  It should be a good year.

On the home improvement front, we replaced our dirt pile with grass.  We decided to go with synthetic grass because mom and dad hate taking care of grass.  This stuff, you just hose down and rake once in a while and boom- perfect lawn.  We love it already.

And we FINALLY, FINALLY, FINALLY got new blinds.  We bought our house in 2005 and when mom and dad first looked at it, "we are going to replace those nasty, aluminum, apartment blinds ASAP."  Well, ASAP became 8 1/2 years later but we finally got it done.  Aaaaahhhh, so much better.  Time to start saving up for the next project!

P.S.  Mom's birthday is 10 days away.....