Torrey Pines State Reserve

The beauty here is quite staggering.

We walked along the beach, stopping only to let the kids play and build sand castles.

 I prefer to sit and watch and take in as much sun as i can, while i can get it!

 These boys prefer to dig and run....

 This boy...well, he is happy doing both {lucky for all of us!}

 Isaacs artistic side.....i loved it

 Here is my birthday present from elizabeth, a custom 'i miss elizabeth' shirt....i wonder if she thought i would wear it?

Before we got to the beach, we stopped for lunch.  We often split for meals these days when we are out and about.  I can't do pizza and the boys don't seem to want to venture out of their comfort zone too much.  So, when i am too tired to wrestle them along with me, i go alone.  Today, they went for pizza and i went for mexican and had the best fish taco!!! 

We are all quite tired these days by 3pm.....we are often back at the resort, in our own corners......at the moment, chris is in bed watching 'Robin hood', isaac is in his room playing DS, elliot is beside me here in the livingroom playing DS and i am blogging.  We will likely stay this way for another 1/2 hour before we venture out for dinner...a sweet japonese deli down the road--each entree is like 7 bucks, and 2 of them fed us for 2 meals the other day!! 

Tommorow LegoLand is on our radar, so it's a big day.  We need to get to bed early tonight....crazy how tired we are by early afternoon....even elliot was saying he wanted a nap in the car!  We started the day early by crawling over our balcony railing to the pool deck for a swim and hot tub....love being on the first floor.  2 more days here and its off to the Inch house!!  Can't wait to see them!  but we are officially 1/2 through our holidays.....hard to believe since it feels like we have been away for awhile.



San Diego Day 1!!

Ok...so we are at the WorldMark in San Diego..and when you check into a Worldmark, they give you a brochure with all the local attractions and directions to them from here.  So, this morning, Balboa Park was on our radar.  I am the designated map reader, so i take the brochure and we started out pretty good.  But we got to step 4, and chris was like 'are you sure this is the way?'....turns out i was reading to Mission Valley Park and not Balboa Park....whoops.  But to my defense, Mission valley sounded way more interesting to ME because it is the only coast line amusement park in san diego with a rollercoaster!!  Sadly, after a few laughs at my foul up, we decided to enjoy where the road (or I) took us..but the amusement park was closed.....boo!  So, we went for a small walk on the beach. 

 Dad....it totally reminded me of our Cali trip when carrie and i had those matching red windbreakers, running on the beach together. Only this time, its my turn, and my kids are wearing blue matching jackets....

 This is us....finally arriving at Balboa Park...we decided to picnic before we went in....the sun is amazing!

 This little monkey has been hounding us to let him climb a pal tree since we arrived...so here is the proof that he did it!

 This next segment was just for Elliot....our train lover...we took him to the miniature train museum.

 Can you see their sweet little reflections in the glass?

 I wondered, in my head, if this would be me one day.  She was a sweet, old woman..we chatted a little.

 Levitating boys......

 Chris letting Isaac have a little photo shoot.....i think he snapped like 70 in a 30 second time frame!!

 Now we are back at the resort and this is what i am watching as i work on these blog picture....nice to be so close to the pool and not have to swim!  Chris went to bed, he is still exhausted.....so we will be having a low key night...maybe watch a movie, skype with some favorite people...thats about it.

GOOD NIGHT!!

ps:  oh, and i turned comments back on...chris wants to hear from you...i could care less, since i am feeling a little more private about the blog because its for me and my own memories, but he seems to becoming a little more involved with opinions on how i should be regulating things, so i try to accommodate where i can....

Yuma State Prison

best. day.

We had adventures together today.

After burying the car, we hiked up the buttercup sand dunes west of Yuma.....and we jumped off them!

 And we walked along the tops of them...

 The wind would pick up and make our smallest one cry with frustration of not being able to get up the steep mountain without being covered in sand, in the mouth and eyes....i felt so bad for him at one point, he thought we had all gone down the other side, but i peeked over the top, and there he was lying on his stomach, sobbing....awww....i scrambled down, threw him on my back and literally clawed my way up the steep sand hill.

 Here he is, all recovered and back on top.

 Isaac

 My 3 favorite boys.....more than once this afternoon, i said outloud that i have the best family.

 He has really been wanting to be carried today....i oblige since i don't go to the gym anymore lately!

...and also because we have had In 'n Out burger every day for the last 4 days.....i need the workout, and i don't mind the cuddles either....but it was an epic afternoon for us.

Very Deceptive.....

The desert can be very deceptive.  You drive along a deserted concrete road and decide to turn around on the sand that looks like it has tons and tons of tire tracks on it...only to discover, hmm...probably those tracks belong to atvs and dune buggies...since we are sinking like a ship!

 As we looked at eachother and got out of the car to survey how badly we were stuck....we were in the desert!  Nowhere near AAA!  Chris tried shoving bushes, some rocks, anything to give us some traction with no avail!  Then suddenly, from across the horizon comes this red angel burning over the top of the dunes:

 1st attempt.

 Kids are so resilliant, aren't they?  Their thoughts: 'sweet! more time to play in the sand!'

 Dune Buggyy drivers brother showed up in his motor home to give a hand.

 Then the border patrol showed up to join the fun {Chris thought he was going to get in trouble for ripping out the local shrubs that he shoved under the tires for traction....umm...}

 And...they're off!!

 Success!

Everyone was terribly sweet....we felt terribly dumb.  Had a nice chat with the guard, after some friendly banter about how the sand looks harder than it was and there were all those tire tracks so why wouldn't we think we could turn around?  He looks at me and smiles and this is how the rest of the conversation goes:

Border Patrol (BP): 'So, where are you from?'

Me: 'Oh, we are from Canada'.

BP: 'Stick to the pavement'

...and then he walks away, gets on his quad and takes off.

One final show of how dumb I felt with the BP, as we were chatting {before he took off}, i am looking around and i say out loud 'you know, i was around here and took off my shoes, and i don't see them anymore'  He looks around and points to my kids crocs and says ' that them?'  {umm...those are like half my size...} "no, those belong to my kids".......

So, now we have buried our car AND somehow lost my shoes....ALL in front of the BP guy....der.

By chance, i look over at isaac and say 'hey, you by chance bury my shoes??'

Little imp looks up and says yes, proceeds to walk over to 2 lumps in the sand that i can't help but think look like 2 breasts as he squeezes the two mounds and says 'yup...right here'

 BP looks at me and gets his helmet on, no doubt thinking 'dumb tourists'.......

BUT WHAT AN ADVENTURE!!!

3:20 to Yuma

Unfortunatly, we didn't make the 3:10 to Yuma, but we were there by 3:20!  We stopped for a break somewhere....don't know where, but this is what we saw.

 Where we have been, where we are going!!

 These pictures are much more impressive in full color, without being shrunk to smithereens to make it easy for blogging updates....but we thought they were cool....so run down. Used to be a Texaco...remember them?

 I was able to watch 'Eat, Pray, Love' on the way to Yuma on the laptop.  I am glad i decided to watch it on my own to get the full enjoyment without Chris sighing through the whole thing, which i know he would have done.  I really enjoyed it....it reaffirms that we are all searching for the same thing; love, meaning, purpose, family.  The book was good, but for once, i actually liked the movie better...Julia rocks it.

We pulled into Yuma, as i said, at 3:20 to the local Radisson.  We chilled for abit in our room before heading out for a seafood feast at red lobster (probably our last meal there, too much $$ for what you get!)---plus we took in Mega Mind with the boys......Two thumbs up for this show; we laughed out loud...more than once!! 

Time for sleep as tommorow brings San Diego!!