Day 2-Sea World

We put our car troubles aside and decided to go ahead and enjoy ourselves for the rest of the weekend and deal with fixing the car on Monday. We were even hoping that someone else would tell us that we could drive home in second gear-hoping being the key word.

We spent a wonderful day at Sea World and the weather was perfect. We even were a little overdressed with our jeans and short sleeve t-shirts!



Ummm...these were the rocks that said, "Please don't climb!" Can't keep this girl from climbing!



The best part of the day was seeing the joy and wonderment in the kids eyes. Their eyes would sparkle as each whale, dolphin or sea lion did a trick. They were in heaven!












After our fun-filled day, we hopped in the car to go find a yummy seafood restaurant. We made it less than a mile, when the car started making a wonderful clunking sound and then it would not shift into the next gear. Nice! Scott pulled over as soon as he could and we both just looked at each other.

The lovelies were in the back yelling, "Why aren't we going, we thought we were going to eat dinner?" Over and over and over again.

Scott got the car to at least go a little and we made it back to our hotel going 25mph. We asked the front desk if there was a car rental place nearby, as we were determined to not let this ruin our trip. He said it was less than a mile down the street. We gathered the kids up and we started walking...and walking...and walking. A few miles later we realized that the guy probably didn't know what he was talking about. The kids were in hog heaven! They loved the excitement of walking down the busy street and seeing some of the same stores and restaurants that we have in Arizona. Not sure why that was exciting, but it was. We finally found a nice Me*xican restaurant and had some dinner. We decided to pursue our car rental endeavors the next day...

Day 3-Car Rentals and Wild Animal Park

So, our car saga continued into day 3 of our San Diego vacation. We set out once again to rent a car, so as to not ruin our "mini" vacation. We had the front desk of the hotel call us a cab and taxi driver drove us to the airport to rent a car. Once we arrived at the car rental location, we attempted to rent a car. Did you read that? I said, ATTEMPTED! Not everyone knows this, but we no longer have any credit cards. Not ONE credit card. Not good. We do not have the best credit and we don't want to settle for just any ol' credit card. We have neglected to get one for over a year now. We used to have five. Yep. Five. All with over 20% interest rates. Ha! We won't do that again.

Anyway, back to the story. So, they would not rent us a car without a credit card. We could have paid them cash and upon returning the car, got most of our money back, but we needed the money to fix the car, remember? So, they sent us on our merry way. They found us a car rental place that charged us triple the amount for a car, but we rented it without a credit card. How nice?! Four hours after starting our car rental adventure, we were on our way to the Wild Animal Park.




Have I told you how well-behaved the kids were this whole time? Well, they were! Everything was an adventure to them, so they had not a care in the world. We made it to the Wild Animal Park, already exhausted. We took the train around the park and walked around to a few exhibits, but by then we were spent.







We decided to go to the beach in Oceanside, as the kids were begging to swim in the ocean. It was a beautiful day out and we lucked out by having sunshine the entire time we were at the beach.







We had a wonderful time, laughing, swimmming, collecting sea shells, building sand castles and watching the dolphins jump not too far off of the shore. It was the perfect ending to an otherwise stressful day. We left the beach and headed down the coast. It was such a beautiful drive and the kids slept most of the way.





We were craving seafood, as one knows that you can't go to San Diego without eating seafood. We are not big seafood fans, but every once in awhile we give it a try. We had no clue where to eat, so we decided on Joe's Crab Shack. Not bad. Next time, we will do a little more research on seafood eateries in San Diego.

One last day of our trip...

...then onto new and exciting posts!

Day 4 of our trip brought much more fun and excitement. Scott decided to head home atop a AAA tow truck and I stayed in San Diego with the kids. I didn't want to ride on top of the tow truck!

The kids and I took advantage of the second day free pass from Sea World as we waited for my father-in-law to come pick us up! The kids and I had a great time getting wet in all of the splash zones and playing in the kids area.








We then headed out to Seaport Village to eat ice cream and walk around the shops. We sat in the grass and watched the sea lions swim in the marina. We then walked the shops some more and I decided to treat the kids to $4 animal balloons. Yep, $4, oh well, you only live once, right?





Cadence got a Little Mermaid balloon and Blake got Shamu. We ended up having a wonderful day, but I was exhausted and looking forward to getting home and having our car fixed.

Day 1 Continued

The kids were acting goofy the whole way to San Diego. Our car was acting goofy too! We knew something wasn't right when the car wouldn't automatically shift into overdrive. However, we continued on our way and made it! We pulled into a mechanics shop outside of San Diego and he told us to drive it in second gear for the rest of the time and we could fix it when we got back home...MISTAKE NUMBER ONE!

Here are some pictures of the kids in the car:




Once we arrived in San Diego, we went and dropped off our bags at the hotel and got checked in. We went over to Mission Beach to spend a relaxing evening together. We played on the beach for awhile, went and ate dinner, took a walk on the beach at sunset and rode rides at Belmont Park. We had a wonderful time!











Blake, once again, became our photographer and took this picture of Scott and I. Pretty good for a five year old, huh? I really think he is going to be very artistic.