San Diego

Traveling with a toddler isn't ever a piece of cake. But, we made it to San Diego with very few headaches. I had fully planned on posting from our hotel room, but we weren't able to reply to e mail messages or post on the blog. Everything else worked - but now I have to play catch up! I'm going to try and put everything in order and post it in order also. We'll see how that goes. Get ready for a lot of pictures!

First vehicle of the day was the ride to the airport in our car. Here we are on the park and ride bus, vehicle #2 (tee hee).

#3 Airplane! And here is what we did to entertain the busy boy - we watched Elmo until the battery ran out. Unfortunately, the only nap of the day occurred about 15 minutes before landing and then he woke up when the flight crew made 68574685461968968498132459687 announcements over the loudspeakers.

More Elmo. I love the so serious expression!

Here we are in Phoenix riding in the stroller (state #7 for William I think?)

After a long day, we finally arrived in San Diego! The lovely people at the volunteer visitor's bureau took one look at all of our bags (2 suitcases, 1 stroller, 1 carseat, 1 baby backpack, 4 pieces of carry on luggage, and 1 wiggly monkey) and promptly offered us a free luggage cart.

Even with the cart, we were struggling to make it the 2 blocks to the hotel shuttle.

After checking into the hotel, it was time to run around. Here John tries to keep William out of one of the many fountains.
Red leaves
Everyone is still dry...
Sometimes you just can't get a great picture. After running off some steam, we went to our room and attempted to put William down for a nap. We were concerned with the time difference being two hours earlier he would be crashing before we had time for dinner. By some miracle, he cooperated and took a nice hour long nap (and so did we!). Grandma and Grandpa got to the hotel around dinnertime and we were so happy to see them! We went out to dinner at a Mexican place in Old Town. Although he didn't eat anything, he did have a great time playing with the Grandparents and waitress.
Smiling baby! But not eating...
After dinner, we walked to the Old Town San Diego State Historic Park -very cool area in San Diego. I think this might have been my favorite place we saw on our trip.
William and Grandpa
Riding on a wagon! This picture makes me think that riding on a wagon was a lot of fun for the men and children and a daily heart attack of stress for women trying to keep their kids from falling/being run over/etc. New perspective for me!
Grandma pushing William into the fountain
There is this interesting little cometary in the Old Town section that had some unmarked graves near the walls of the cemetery. When the walls got moved and streets pave, now it has people buried under the street!If you look carefully, there is a gold circle grave marker in the pavement below and slightly to the right of the tire on the car.
We also celebrated John's birthday with my parents - here he is all excited about his new socks!
When we hang out with the McGarry's, it is always game time in the evenings. The only problem was the lack of playing surfaces in our hotel room. So, we got creative and pulled out the ironing board for our game of dominoes!
Warning: William is now able to open door handles shaped like this. This could mean trouble for you if you don't have a lock on the bathroom door (we did not in our hotel room). Although I was glad to not have to worry about him locking himself into the bathroom by himself, we both were surprised by a visitor more than once!
It was chilly for a swim! But, what else can you do to entertain a very loud little person at 7am?
How did I get to be the lucky one in the pool? And yes, our baby does have the cutest ever farmer tan.
I thought it would be fun to warm up in the hot tub as the [heated] pool felt like it was about 55 degrees. The hot tub felt about 565468746451 degrees. That didn't make a happy camper out of either of us. Here I am trying to convince William to stay in just a minute longer....please?

After swimming and a big breakfast, we walked over to the trolley station.
Buying tickets and William checking out the trolley
We debated about not bringing this backpack with us because it is big and kind of awkward. And it doesn't fit into any of our suitcases. But William LOVED being in it and was SO much better than the stroller. I think he liked to be able to see what was going on and checking things out.
Riding the trolley still in the backpack (please note: William's first trolley ride)
When we got off the trolley, we found ourselves a wonderful boat tour of the San Diego area. For some reason, it seemed like a good idea to take William out of the backpack shortly after this picture was taken. He was delighted to spend the hour long tour running here and there and generally giving me a heart attack every time I turned around. Next boat tour he will be strapped to something. Regardless of his age. (please note: first boat ride)
Mama and William ride the boat. A lot of the tour was about the military vehicles that are parked in the water in the San Diego area. I would tell you all about it, but I wasn't really listening. If you're interested, John could tell you about it. Ask him.
But, I didn't miss this guy! He was huge!

We ordered a pizza for lunch and while we waited for it to be ready, Grandma took William on his first merry go round ride!
He wasn't really into the sitting on the horse part. He was all about the putting his fingers into the horse's mouth and nose part though.

After lunch, John and my dad went to tour this military boat called the Midway while I took William back to the hotel with Grandma for his nap. I don't think either of us was disappointed about missing this tour!
Very cool arty picture John took while on the midway I'm guessing - see the tiny couple walking on the lawn to the left of the statue?
And finally, the Fred's we have been hearing about for so long....William checked out the menu at a Mexican restaurant that evening while we waited for Uncle Mike to arrive.