san diego

Chunglunds descended upon San Diego for a long weekend! The last time I was in San Diego was spring break of my senior year in college, when I took the cash that my dad gave me to buy myself something nice and got my belly button pierced. Nothing quite that exotic happened on this trip, but we had some good clean family fun.

We went to Seaworld. Yes, yes, I know. I have read the book and watched the movie - but I still wanted to go. Having that knowledge definitely changes your perspective though. The kids loved the dolphin show. The killer whale show was meh. It was mostly a PR move to combat the bad press from the book/movie. 

The San Diego Zoo was awesome. We saw tons of animals and got some serious walking mileage in. J2 napped for the first part and I was feeling badly because he was missing the animals, but he woke up just in time for the elephants - so all he really missed were giraffes and koalas.

After our experience at Seaworld, we made a stop at Target to pick up a harness for J2. Judge away, if you must, but it kept him safe and gave me peace of mind that I wasn't going to lose him while I was looking at signs, maps, or elephants. 

My favorite thing we did on the trip was head to La Jolla for some beach time. It was J2's first time at the ocean and Facebook reminded me that on that same day three years ago, we were in Palm Beach and it had been Little Miss J's first time at the ocean. I think we shall henceforth celebrate Chunglund Beach Day on November 9th. Unfortunately, we unprepared for how much the kids would want to go in the water. I started by pushing up the cuffs on J2's pants and by the end I had him stripped down to the diaper. Hearing him yell, "it's coming, it's coming. BIG ONE" as the waves rolled in was the best.

love this photo where J2 is standing in Gus's shadow

sand angels

Gus's favorite part was probably finally getting to see his hometown team play football, and he even got club level seats.

While Gus was at the football game, the kids and I went sunset chasing.

On our last day we headed to the U.S.S. Midway. Very cool.

J2's favorite part of the trip was the bus ride from Enterprise back to the airport. When the bus stopped at the terminal, he flung himself across the seat crying, "NOOOO!" because he didn't want to get off. 

Such a fun trip with these two munchkins!