Fun in San Diego

We made our escape from reality late in the morning yesterday after searching everywhere for Jim's wallet. We were relieved to get the call an hour into our drive that his wallet had been found, despite the fact that Jim would have to do without his ID and the cash he had taken out for our trip. The Mazur family will be joining us in San Diego on Thursday night so we will have his wallet hand delivered to us. The drive was long as the three rambunctious boys in the backseat could hardly contain themselves. After six hours in the car, a few pit stops and the watching of "Bolt" three times, we arrived in Carlsbad (about 20 miles North of San Diego). We were able to get a good nights sleep in before today's adventure, which began with breakfast at our hotel where guests were serenaded by the sounds of a screaming 13 month old. Matthew has developed this incessant need to scream at everything and everyone, and while he thinks it is cute, I highly doubt everyone else around us does.

After arriving back to our hotel room this evening, I was shocked to see that we had taken 200 pictures at Legoland today - WOW! This is the perfect amusement park for families with young children. Joshua was able to ride everything, Dominic was too small for only 3 rides, and poor Matty could only ride two. Unlike Disneyland, they will not allow you to take babies on the majority of the rides. Maybe we will have to make a return trip in another year or two so he can ride more rides.

Upon entering the park, there is nothing that exciting about it, but hold on.....there was so much tucked away amongst the trees that we weren't even able to do it all in one day (they were only open 10-5) with no crowds. There was an entire "land" devoted to water but because the weather was not quite right, we skipped it all together. Maybe Friday's weather will provide us with the opportunity to get soaked!! The boys enjoyed all of the rides, far more than were to be expected, and I enjoyed the latter half of the day as we stumbled upon all the roller coasters and thrill type rides.

One of the highlights of our day was visiting Miniland. We were absolutely amazed at the intricate detail of the legos in this area. There was the full Las Vegas strip, New York, So Cal, San Fran, and even a Daytona speedway. The employee hosting one of the rides in Miniland told us that Legoland boasted 40 million Legos, 25 million of which were in Miniland. The boys enjoyed pushing all the buttons to make things go, and were even squirted with water from the champagne bottle at Daytona.

We were fortunate enough to have a free shuttle provided by our hotel so we saved the $12 on parking AND were dropped off and picked up right at the front gate. We opted to save a few bucks on dinner tonight and made a second trip to Costco (less than two miles from our hotel) for a roasted chicken and salad, along with a few more snacks for tomorrow. We have not yet decided where we are going, but the prognosis looks good for the San Diego Zoo. Stay tuned for more.....