Fall Break

So the boys had a week off and we decided to plan a family vacation. Now most of you know planning never works out with this fam but spur of the moment does! Our original plan was to drive up to Seattle visit friends and family along the way. But it just didn't seem to be the right plan for us. So we found that San Diego had basically every attraction kids free! BOOYA! So we decided to head there! But Seattle is on our list of places to go!
We planned to picnic for lunch everyday and let me tell you that is the easiest way to eat with a 2 yr old that can't sit down to eat!Our first stop was Griffith Park for our picnic! When we arrived we headed straight to Old Town to walk around eat.

We ate at this restaurant called La Pinata and it had Pinatas hanging from the ceiling all over. It was so neat looking for the kids, but the food SUCKED! The drinks were good though.
The next day we went to the Wild Animal Park.
Caleb was so into this place it was so cute!
I have to say I love this place too it is much better than any zoo. I love all the open space the animals have and I love the tram ride where they tell you all the births and returns into the Wild they have down. It is awesome. This was only my second time here. It was sprinkling all day so the weather was so nice and cool.
The funniest thing happened to me when we went into the Lorikeet area the dang birds would not leave me alone and we didn't even buy an Nectar maybe they were mad since we didn't but let me tell you I was freaked out LOL
After we decided to drive To Julian for a Apple Pie. I love walking around Julian such a cute little town too bad we got there when it was raining and freezing and everything was closing. We got a pie to go.
On Tues we headed to Sea World.
They have a new show Horizons and it was incredible! WE actually didn't see Believe (the Shamu show) this time. But we did everything else.
The kids had so much fun.
On Wednesday we had a such a fun day exploring! We started at the Cave Shop and walked down 150 stairs in a cave.

And we walked back up (this part not so fun) but the boys really thought this was so exciting! Poor Mondo had to carry Brody up and down all those stairs.

We then went to the shore and went to a tide pool and got super close to the Sea Lions this was so amazing. I had never done this before and I think I may have enjoyed it more than Mondo and the boys! It was so neat we saw tons of crabs and Sea Cucumbers all in there own habitat. I really enjoyed this.
After I had my fun it was Mondos turn. The USS Midway something he has always. wanted to go to. This was actually pretty cool (not as cool as the Sea Lions) Mondo loved it and the boys did too they got there little Audio Tour headsets and it made them so much more interested and aware.

They even got to hang off the side of the Battleship

Our last day we went to the San Diego Zoo all of our fave zoo. I just can't believe how huge it is everytime I go.
Seeing the Panda Bears was all of our fave part.

We had such a great mini vacation as a family.



The kids got souvenirs that they purchased with there own money, and we all have memories. I am sad the day the boys become adults and the trips stop. We probably will just force them then. Looking forward to our next trip.....

Caleb is 4 and New years Eve!

Caleb has been anticipating his birthday all year. Every time his brothers have one he kept trying to tell us no it was his birthday well it wasn't. So we just wanted to do something simple for him so we thought hey how about a good ol' original party the ones we don't see anymore. Pinatas, Pin the Tail on the Donkey




, and opening of presents at the party. Now of course our parties can never be that simple so we came up with this awesome turned insane idea of win a fish!!



Mind you we had lots of fish left over that parents did not want there kids taking home (that have all gone one by one down the toilet with a prayer for each since the party). Caleb had a blast overall!! The best present he received was his cousins (The Garcia Family)



drove all the way down that day from Sacramento to be there for Caleb and spend New years Eve with us! That was awesome! He had kids cake and fun! What more could you ask for??



Happy 4th Birthday Caleb!



Now we did Caleb's birthday purposely on New Years Eve so we could just turn it into a New Years Eve party as well.

We spent New Years with our friends playing Rockband mostly fighting over it with all the kids! What a blast it was! My poor brother was oh so tired he was asleep by 9! haha!



but the rest of us stayed up we also played Catch Phrase. Mondo bought fun hats and noise makers



At 30 seconds till we popped open the Champagne and started pouring we were rushing and decided screw the Champagne. Well we all got in front of TV started to countdown 10,9,8,7,6, PAUSE! oh yes Mondo Paused the TV! All you heard was AHHH! in his defense we didn't have our champagne ready so we got our champagne and hit play 5,4,3,2,1 HAPPY NEW YEAR! Even Funnier after that we all hung out for a good hour and a half watching VH1 top videos of the year! LOL yes we are getting old! but it sure was a good time :)
Now here we are 2010!! Time to make this year the best!