Vacation In Review

Ok. Here's the much anticipated (Aww... Come on now... Admit you've been anticipating it!) vacation recap!

After a 3:30 am wake-up call, the roughest plane ride anyone on the plane had ever been through, and a few more hours, we all landed safe and sound in San Diego, CA. I quick trip to the car rental place (we got a "free upgrade" to a luxury class vehicle because they didn't have the car we rented there) and we hit the road. Our first destination was La Jolla (pronounced "La Hoya" I've come to find out) where we got to see some big time fancy houses and where FMD's dad grew up as a kid. It was one of many places, but situated on the bluff overlooking the valley, it was a pretty prime spot! A few wrong turns thanks to your's truly, and we had dinner at a local Mexican restaurant and then hit up the beach! The beach wasn't anything glamorous in my opinion, but hey, I got to see and dip my feet into the Pacific Ocean. Two down, two to go. We wrapped up the night staying at an eclectic little hotel in Del Mar.

The next morning we woke up at 5 am and headed back to the beach because of a severely low tide. We went up the beach to the tide pools and saw all sorts of crabs, clams, starfish, anemones, and even a couple sea cucumbers. Pretty neat! After a couple hours of exploring we hit up Sea World. Who doesn't got to San Diego and not go to Sea World? Well, we almost didn't. Who knew it would be $60 a person to get in?!?! I didn't feel quite as bad however because we were there so early that no one was manning the parking lot and we parked in the preferred lot for free. Anyways, we paid the $60 fee and got to see all the sea lions and tiger sharks and polar bears, OH MY! Shamu too I guess. I really had a great time. For being a park that caters to kids, it was plenty entertaining and well worth going.

After our trip to Sea World, we headed up to Long Beach. This is where FMD's dad lived and went to high school. Long Beach has changed a bunch since he was a kid he said and just about every business had bars on the windows and doors. Disappointing to see, but thats the reality of it all. From Long Beach, we decided to make our way towards Hemmit to see FMD's great aunt SG. Well, with traffic the way it was and the mood we were it, we made it all the way there and cashed out at a Best Western and relaxed the night away at the pool/hot tub. Nice.

Saturday we headed over to SG's house and visited with her and her son SJ. SG is a 90+ year old lady with plenty of spunk left in her! SG is FMD's grandpa's sister. You could see a lot of resemblance in the two, thats for sure! Visiting with someone else's relatives is about as interesting as advertised, but what really sealed the deal was when it came time for bed. We stayed the night on her two couch hide-away beds. There's a reason they don't use hide-a-beds for real beds... We all spent the night tossing and turning and we all were looking forward to a real bed the next night!

That takes us through Saturday night I guess... I'm not sure if you can all handle the excitement of the next few days so I'll recap them tomorrow.