Early July marked time for us to head down to San Diego for our annual visit to the Westbrook family. Despite their sibling-like squabbles, Smunch and Mam never seem to get enough of their cousins. It's nice to see because I'm never really done spending time with my sister (Aunt Karen!) either.
This year's theme? Water. Then again, given the opportunity. I think my kids would have a water theme every single day of the year. This time, they had to settle for every day of the trip instead. So Monday...
we went to the swimming pool shortly after arriving. Smunch and Mam showed off their comfort in the water.
Although, frankly, they can't compete with Spencer! for pure fearlessness. This kid is only six.
They stayed in the pool so long that Aunt Karen had to take Lucas! home for a nap.
Then there was this, at Santee Lakes:
More of the same at 4S Ranch, where I took no pictures. And this on our last day:
I don't know why the beach always seems to get saved 'til our last day. It's kind of a production to get out there, but I think the kids would be happy to be there all day every day.
Somewhere in there, we also visited the
Flying Leathernecks Aviation Museum at Miramar. Smunch said he didn't want to go, but wanted to stay the longest. Of course. Mam enjoyed it too, to my surprise.
I don't know why I find it so amusing to be corrected by my 10-year-old. "Do you want to go take a look at the tanks?" I asked. "Mom, those are
tactical vehicles," he replied in exasperation. (shrug) Look like tanks to me, but what do I know?
Of course, July 4th was thrown in there too. We opted for a short trip to Poway during the day to check out their Independence Day activities. It was a quaint and fun way to spend a few hours after an awesome pancake breakfast at Aunt Karen's house.
The park has an old-timey steam train that was up and running. Every other train ride included a mock gun-fight.
And every hour, they set off a canon, just for fun. There was live music, there were snow cones and watermelon and barbeque. The boys all took a ride on the train with Aunt Karen.
It was a long wait for the train and Mam wasn't up for that, so I took her for some watermelon and a long wait to have her face painted instead.
The trip was a great success. Everyone went back happy with their day, especially after some snow cones.
I'd hoped to get some tickets to watch San Diego's "Big Bay Boom" firework show from the deck of the USS Midway, but by the time we arrived in San Diego, the tickets were sold out. Just as well. San Diego's fireworks show was probably the biggest fiasco it'd ever been. It made national news, it was so catastrophic. At least no one was hurt.
Instead, we took the mellower route of watching fireworks local to Aunt Karen from a nearby elementary school. The kids played with (er, ehm) sparklers:
and played catch while they were waiting. There was plenty of room.
Maybe the show wasn't quite as spectacular as what folks should have seen from the deck of the Midway, but I suspect it was a lot more fun that what they actually saw.
And that made our holiday a success.
Many thanks to Uncle David for taking all four kids for an evening and letting Aunt Karen and me go out for a terrific dinner. We got to enjoy a rare, great conversation and for a change, almost got to feel like grownups!
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