are you ready for this?... family vacay

Well, much has gone on in the past week. So I shall start from the beginning so I don't leave anything out. As you all know, we had our family vacation to cali.

Here's how my week was...

Friday... Had to get all the crap ready for week-long camping and beach trip to San Diego, and it was a lot of crap, mind you.

Dropped my van off at the mechanic to make sure everything was good to go.

Saturday...

in the morning, still haven't heard from the mechanic. Started to get worried, so made phone call to mechanic.

mechanic says transmission is bad and advised us not to drive to California. Crap.

decided I needed to clear my head so went and played 9 holes of golf. Always does the trick.

While golfing worked my self up about trip to cali with bad van was a bad idea even though judd says is just fine. Started scheeming a plan.

Got home from golf, tried to convince judd that driving a bad van is a bad idea.

plan worked...

wa-lah

spent all night at car dealership getting van. YAY. I've never owned a new car before. I must say that I've now turned into anal car lady and won't let the kids even get in it without wiping their feet off.

Sunday.....still getting ready

Monday.

off we go. Everyone did really good on the way there. I have good car riding children.

The camp ground was really nice. We went swimming and froze our butts off. I love arizona. You can swim and not freeze when the wind blows.
we went to lego land and the sea life aquarium. i must say that i've heard mixed reviews about it, but I loved it!

We went to the aquarium first and the kids thought it was the coolest place ever.

the kids loved every second and they even did roller coasters. They were brave. There was one roller coaster that was pretty scary and after that one they decided that they were done with rides. here's some lego land pics

Here's where the fun really started...

I love the beach. I think its the funnest, most relaxing, best free thing to do, ever. We borrowed some boogie board and I was excited. We went to Coronado Island which was so cool. We had a mother load of stuff to carry down there and it was quite a walk from our car. Judd had coulson on his back, coolers, chairs, beach toys, boards, towels etc.... it was a long walk.

this was all I saw of coulson the whole time. He kept trying to go into the water I showed the kids to boogie board. They had so much fun for about 3 minutes. Then nolan tipped over and got wet, then the wind started blowing, then they were hungry, then they were freezing, then they were throwing fits, the umbrella flew away. Our beach trip lasted about 25 minutes. After all of that prep time, i was pretty p.o.'d if you can imagine. We packed up the mother load and had to go give the kids showers and the water was cold. Everyone was in fits. I now hate the beach and will never go back. ;) I was very mean that day. We went back to the camp and all took naps.

before and afters of Nolan That afternoon we went to seaport village, which I love. We had yummy pizza and looked at all the cool stuff.

Thursday we went to balboa park and did some geo cacheing. That was okay. I hate doing that crap with the baby in a stroller, but judd loves it, so i try to be a good sport. the park was beautiful though.looking for caches she was a poser that dayMe and Madi waiting for the boys.Madi posing for the camera.
teaching madi how to climb a tree

after that we went and did the midway tour which was my most favorite part ever!! its one of the navy fleet ships that was used during desert storm. they don't use it anymore so we were able to check out the whole thing. It was awesome!

This is the jail. I need one of these at home ;)
this is an F-14 tom cat. Judd's step brother Blake is in the Navy and this is the plane that he will be flying. What a brave kid! Just looking at that thing makes me nervous.That ship was so huge. I loved that part!

I went up top with the kids to see the control tower. we had to climb 5 flights of really steep ladders. We get up to the first deck and they start whining because they are cold. We had to go back down. I was p.o.'d yet again. In fact, I spent pretty much the whole time being p.o.'d. I really don't like being away from home.
That night after the kids were asleep we decided that we wanted to leave friday instead of saturday. we were all spent and wanted to get everything taken care of on sat instead of sunday. So there was my vacation in a nut shell. Glad its over. We did lots of fun stuff, but there is nothing better than coming home after 5 days of sleeping in a tent. I loved my house and I also have a new-found appreciation for wal-marts in gilbert arizona. California walmarts are the most insane places ever. a mix between old casinos and swap meets, only with way more people.

I think the funniest part of the trip is that Judd brought a fanny pack. He tried to convince me that this was a good idea and you have all of your money and chap sick easily accessable. What a dork. thank goodness that I hid it and he forgot about it. otherwise he would have actually worn it and would've been walking around looking like an old lady.

ahhhhh, I love being home. Now 2 weeks until I'm back in a tent for girl's camp. I will not take my bed for granted ever again.