San Diego Trip

For those not following the drama I call my life, I won a trip to San Diego from FM 106.5! I entered online, then about 2-3 weeks later I got a call on my cell and was on the radio winning 3 nights stay at the Crown Plaza Hotel, Tickets for 4 to Sea World and a Whale Watching cruise. We could go anytime this year but I really wanted to see the whales, so that limited it to the month of March. Spence and Mike were the likely candidates to take with us and they only had the 5th of March off school. We opted out of the 4th for a school day (never want school to get in the way of a good education) and headed south.

Beth
Maddie
Justin & Michael
Jordan, Dave and Beth's other kid (sorry Beth!)

Our first stop was in Henderson, NV to see my niece, Beth and her cute family. She added another cute boy since I had seen her last. They let us stay with them and were great to get up and fix us breakfast. It was, however, a somewhat painful experience for Spencer and I, as we both slipped and fell in her bathtub (huge bruise on my thigh as a souvenir). Luckily, the bruise and memory will fade, but it was great to see Beth, Justin and the cute mini Hansen’s. Thanks for your hospitality Bethy!

We made arrangements to go to the San Diego Temple and do some baptisms on Thursday. We made it there in time to stop at Dana’s and fix our lunch and change our clothes. It was very cool to take the boys to the temple! The temple president came down and talked to us before we went in. Two young ladies wanted to do baptisms, so they joined us. Dave did the baptizing for all 4 of us. I only had 3 mens names, so they let us do temple names to make up the difference. I was a little surprised there wasn’t more people there, so perhaps there isn’t as concentrated membership around San Diego as I had thought. The experience was awesome, nonetheless! Great way to start the trip!

After we were done there, we found our way to our hotel (Thank goodness for GPS!!!) It didn’t find the address exactly, but got us close enough to find it ourselves. The room was very nice! The desk clerk, Dave, was very accommodating. I asked for a room that was quiet and had a fridge and microwave. We had a nice view over looking a golf course. The inner court of the hotel was filled with trees and waterfalls and the big inner court had the hot tub and pool with nice green grass. It was very clean and well kept. They even comped our parking! (big smile!)

Mike got this pic!
and this!
Petting the sting rays. (Very slimy!)

Friday, was the best weather day, so we used that for Sea World. It was fun to walk around and see the sites and shows. Hardly any crowds or lines! We got great seat for the Shamu show! We left right after that show because we heard you could go to Legoland for free if you got there around 4 pm. Psych! We got there and they told us they weren’t doing that this weekend. They let us in for 20 minutes on a shoppers pass. If we didn’t get back by 4:30, they would charge us $124 for our min. stay. Mostly 12 and under stuff there but Michael loves Legos so I wanted to stop for him.
20 minutes of Lego Land

Spencer returning rocks to the ocean.

Dana was bringing her kids up to meet us. We called her and found a place to play on the beach for a while, whist the traffic eased. It’s amazing how much fun kids can have on the beach!

Saturday, the weather was nice in the morning so we went down to the docks to take our tour to see the whales. We missed the boat by 3 minutes. Actually, they would have let us on, but Dave hadn’t returned from parking the car, so we opted for the afternoon cruise and drove around old town San Diego for a while, went back to the hotel, and enjoyed an hour or two of down time. We ate lunch and headed back to the pier. I thought the bigger boat would be ok for the sea sickness…Not! Lost my lunch in the bathroom after we got out into the ocean part. There was a storm brewing and creating a lot of rocking. Spencer, on the other hand, was having a marvelous time! He stayed on deck most of the way out to sea. He would come check on us every once in a while and tell us what fun the boat trip was! We saw a pod of about 8-10 whales! Very exciting! However, the fun wore off for Spencer on the way back. He lost his lunch several times. One sweet lady felt sorry for him and gave him some wrist bands that are suppose to help motion sickness, offered some mint gum and Kleenex. He felt fine when we got back to the bay.

Dana called us while we were still out on the ocean and invited us over to dinner and movie night (Really! Who would of thought you could call someone on the ocean and talk to them 20 years ago?). Since Spencer was feeling better we voted to go there. We ended up eating dinner with Dana every night we were there. I really enjoyed getting to see and spend time with them and the boys had fun playing with the kids. Thanks Dana!

Got back to the room in time to hit the Jacuzzi for a few minutes with Spencer. Mike and Dave wanted to watch the end of Pirates of the Caribbean.

Can't see them, but there were a ton of deer feeding along the side of the road.

Got up and packed this morning and now we are on the long, long drive home. Thanks Kozy 106.5! Second trip I have won from them! Fabulous!!
　

Addendum: While taking Spencer to school this morning, we picked up one of his friends on the way. Spencer proceeded to tell about his exciting weekend..."I got to sit in the jacuzzi for 3 hours!"