San Diego vacation

Last week, we took the family down to San Diego for a pre-Christmas vacation since the kids were out of school and I needed some time off from work.  Here is what we did:

Saturday, December 17

• Drive from Mountain View to San Diego - make great time on the road and then get stuck in crazy traffic in LA
• Stop for dinner in Oceanside at the home of a friend from college.

Sunday, December 18

• Attend church - and enjoy a wonderful Christmas program
• Visit the San Diego temple and take photos
• Visit the Mormon Battalion Historic Site - very cool with neat interactive technology
• Watch NFL football at the hotel
• View Christmas lights display in Chula Vista - very cool with over 55 homes involved

Monday, December 19

• Visit the San Diego Zoo - we saw all the animals, attended a few shows, and took a trolly tour of the Christmas lights they had setup 

Tuesday, December 20

• Visit SeaWorld - the shows were by far the best part of SeaWorld (with Blue Horizons being our overall favorite) 

Wednesday, December 21

• Visit the USS Midway Museum - super-cool aircraft carrier with a neat self-guided audio tour; the boys also enjoyed answering questions to get their Junior Pilot wings
• Attempt to visit The New Children's Museum - but it was closed
• Attend the Poinsettia Bowl - the kids are really into football at the moment so we bought tickets to a college bowl game; the kids made a poster to try to get on TV but weren't successful; close and exciting game overall with TCU coming out on top; the TCU marching band leaders were also amusing during the game

Thursday, December 22

• Visit San Diego Zoo Safari Park - cool to see animals in a setting closer to their natural habitat; got to see a rhino running for the first time; surprisingly, the garden trail was everyone's favorite part of the day; the cheetah run was over-hyped and over-crowded 

Friday, December 23

• Visit Cabrillo National Monument - great lookout point over San Diego and Coronado; the kids (especially AJ) enjoyed answering questions to become Junior Park Rangers
• Drive to Coronado
• Take the San Diego - Coronado Ferry round-trip - JD especially wanted to do this; beautiful day with nice views from the ferry
• Visit Coronado Beach - threw the football for a little bit on the beach; we'll be sure to return another time when it's a bit warmer; beautiful 
• Visit Belmont Park - went on a bunch of rides as the grand finale; it was great that AJ is now tall enough to go on all the rides! 

Saturday, December 24

• Drive home from San Diego - didn't hit traffic anywhere (yeah!)

All in all, I thought it was a great trip. There were rough spots for sure but, on balance, I think everyone had an enjoyable time.