At 11 am on Christmas morning we loaded the van and headed to the airport. We were off to sunny California…although they had been experiencing some pretty intense rain so the sun hadn’t been out in awhile.
We arrived around 8:30 pm San Diego time, which meant that it was 11:30 pm DC time. Yeah, that wasn’t working with Ella. Once she started preschool we put her on a pretty strict schedule, so she’s in bed by 9 at the absolute latest (typically between 8 and 8:30). We had a short flight from Los Angeles to San Diego (30 minutes) and Ella fell asleep within minutes of getting on the plane and slept the entire flight. She woke up when we had to pick her up to get off the plane, but fell back asleep in her stroller. The poor child was so tired and kept trying to go back to sleep, but we were too mobile and had to keep moving her from the stroller to the bus, from the bus back to her stroller (inside the car rental place) then from her stroller to the car seat (which was broken, so we had to take her back out of the car seat, install a new one, and strap her into the new one). She was a trooper, but was definitely not happy about it. When we got to the room we put her to bed and within 30 seconds she was snoring. I felt bad because I knew the rest of the family wanted to see her, but it just wasn’t happening that night. They had to wait until the next morning…when she woke up at 6 am (oh west coast time, how I am not a fan of you). Fortunately I have the best husband on the planet, so he got up with Ella while I slept.
Sunday was family day with the Murray’s having a big brunch together and singing cheesy Christmas songs (just imagine the 12 days of Christmas with different groups doing different days…we had “6 geese a laying”). Unfortunately sister Mo and her family had mechanical problems, so they arrived a day late. We were all bummed by that.
Monday was when the excitement really began.
Yep, we got a private tour of behind the scenes at Sea World. A girl that Joe’s sister, Sue, grew up with works at Sea World, so she gave us a private tour. It was absolutely awesome! We saw the walrus’ up close and personal…some family members got walrus snot on their pants and shoes, and we got to feed the walrus. Then we headed over to see the Polar bears. In the words of Ella, “They were CHUGE!” Finally we got to go see the Beluga Whales (above) and got to feed and pet them. It really was the coolest experience of the trip. In the afternoon we got to see the dolphin show and Ella got to ride several rides in their Sesame Street section of the park. This was the first time she was really excited to ride the rides. Usually she’s a big chicken and we have to coax her on the carousel, but not this trip. She rode everything without a problem and even saw a big roller coaster on the boardwalk and asked if she could ride it.
Unfortunately Joe was up most of Sunday night not feeling well, so he left right after the dolphin show. The poor guy spent 2 days just sitting in the hot tub and sleeping (although the sitting in the hot tub doesn’t sound too shabby to me).
I knew San Diego would be warmer than DC, but I never imagined that it would be hot! I lost my mom of the year award when I forgot to bring Ella's baseball hat with us. She wore Joe's throughout the entire dolphin show. Then I re-won my mom of the year award when I bought her this:
I hate to say it, but this hat may replace her "Mets Princess" baseball hat.
I’ll post about LegoLand soon. There's just too much excitement for one post.
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