San Diego-Phillewdrups July 2013

We succeeded at having another amazing vacation with the Lewis and Sondrup family. We adopted the nickname Phillewdrups after our cruise together last year. We love these families, and it was a wonderful week. This is our rental on Mission Bay in San Diego. It fit all 16 of us rather comfortably. 

We arrived on a Saturday afternoon, and let the men go grocery shopping at Costco for food for the week. None of us ladies dared try to find Costco in California traffic. They did a great job, and we ate well the entire week. Sunday was our first full day, so we decided to visit the Mormon Battalion museum in Old Town, and the San Diego temple. Here are our lovely girls dressed up as women of that era, and cute Jonah as a soldier.

We love the program the church has put together at this site. It's so interactive and fun for the kids. Here we are panning for gold.

Abbie and Aliza took a turn washing clothes by hand. This made us all grateful that we have washers and dryers that do the work for us.

We tried to get a picture of our family and Grant and Hugh decided they were part of our family too. We would take them as our own anyday.

Aliza was loving these little snails on the temple grounds. She loved them so much that she insisted that she have her picture taken with one.

The rest of our Sunday we spent on the beach building sand castles. Micah brought some heavy duty shovels which got all the dads really involved in the making.

The next day was a designated beach day. It's amazing how sand and water can entertain everyone for hours and hours. Especially when you are traveling with friends. These kids played and played and played together all week.

Aliza and her good friend Violet really enjoyed being together for the whole week. They are such cuties. One day on the beach Abbie looked over and said she saw dolphins. I thought for sure she must have seen a surfer or something, but she was right. There were dolphins there swimming the entire week. It was amazing to watch them each day right out among the surfers. I was told afterward that this time of year there is a certain kind of fish that comes near the shore that they eat. Our last day on the beach the tide had brought in a lot of jelly fish too. Everyone was getting stung but it didn't hurt enough to keep them from getting back into the water. You could just see them in the water everywhere that day.

We gave Avery surfing lessons for her birthday. It just happened that there was a surfing school right on the beach right by where we were staying. I got on line and signed her up for a private lesson that afternoon. Her dream is to surf, so we thought she should give it a try.

They started her out practicing on land, got her a wet suit, and she was ready to go.

Her instructor was very nice, and was great at teaching her all the basics of surfing. Below is the two of them having a lesson before she started out into the water.

Her teacher was also really good about the amount of observers Avery brought along with her. It was amazing how all her friends came and wanted to watch Avery give surfing a try. She had quite the crowed cheering her on from shore. It was really sweet.

I love this picture below because it's not only her first wave, but she got up and surfed all the way to shore on her first try. I love all the kids cheering her on off to the side. They were yelling and cheering her on the whole hour and a half she was surfing. Her instructor encouraged them to give her high fives as she came into shore. It was so cute to watch.

She got better and better as her lesson went on. In fact her teacher was impressed by her ability to balance and keep up on the waves. He told her that she was a natural so this girl is now wanting to surf again. She is already begging for a surf board. We may have created a surfing monster.

She did amazing!

The next day we went to Sea World. It was nice that we were there just a few months prior to this trip, so we knew exactly what we wanted to see and do. One of the things on our to do list was the sky ride that we missed our first trip. Aliza and I went together and she was a little nervous.

Feeding the sting ray's is a must do at Sea World. They come right up to the sides for you to pet them. Abbie and Aliza loved this, but Avery would not stick her hands near them. Avery was not interested at all.

The sea star pool, and feeding the sea otters are some of our favorite spots in Sea World.

We also had a great time at the San Diego Zoo. I have to admit that the bus ride was my favorite because you could see everything from the bus. It was fun to see all the animals and the beautiful area this zoo is located in.

Aliza wanted her picture taken with every animal. So here are a few.

This snake was creepy the way it was hissing and looking at us through the glass.

The four older kids were thrilled that they could ride the sky ride without adults. They were loving it.

After a long day at the zoo our family went to Sea Port Village for dinner. We have eaten at this same pizza place three times now as a family. I love it because you can eat outside while watching the huge ships coming into the harbor. It's so beautiful, and the pizza is yummy.

This is not our first time on this Ben and Jerry's cow. I will post some pictures of our three trips there. It should be fun to compare.

The rest of our days were spent sitting on the beach, watching too much tv, and playing games. It was a wonderful vacation with wonderful people! More pictures to come......