Summer Vacation

We just returned from a week long trip to Southern California. We decided to drive and take in the sites of California along the way. Supposedly the drive is 6 hrs to San Diego from here, but we took our time and stopped along the way. The main point of the vacation was to hit up Legoland for a few days.

We took the 101 South after Fred got off work on Friday and first night we stayed in San Lius Obispo about 3 hrs South of here. Crappy hotel (thanks to a baseball team of 9 yr olds running wild) but a neat town.

The second and third night we stay in Santa Monica, just West of LA. When Archer was a baby we spent the 4th of July weekend in Santa Monica and really loved it. So we took the kids to the beach (crowded), the 3rd street Promenade (crowded, but has a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf), La Brea Tar Pits (fantastic!). For Father's Day the boys took Fred to Medieval Times and they had a great time yelling for their Knight. We also have a sushi favorite restaurant in Santa Monica, Sushi Roku, and we decided to go even with the kids. They were the only kids in the place and we all had a great time! We fed them before, and Fred and I had a date night with the kids across the table! We kept them busy and said if they could eat all their rice with the chopsticks they could have ice cream afterwards. It worked!

The traffic in the LA area is just so ridiculous! Night, day, weekend, weekday, doesnt matter. The traffic doesnt move and its packed. It was bad enough for the weekend, I dont know how people maneuver it to get to work.

Finally we headed down to Carlabad, which is just North of San Diego. Carlsbad is right on the coast and it is where Legoland (=Holy Grail) is located. For the neophyte Legoland is like Disneyland, but with everything made out of Legos. Okay, its not THAT cool. Some stuff is made out of Legos, some stuff is based on Lego toys. The boys really, REALLY love Legoland. So we did two days there this time.

We also visited Seaworld, and as expected Skyler fell in love with Shamu. Shamu! Shamu! Shamu! Shamu was pretty cool I have to admit. Skyler also wanted to ride some of the more adventurous rides and Fred took him on one. Archer wont go near most of the rides! I kind of "accidentally" took Archer on Tower of Terror last year, and it traumatized us both.

On the way home we headed straight back on I5 and minus the minor emergency (see previous post) it probably would have taken only 6 hrs. We had a great vacation! Usually our trips are 4 nights max, so it was nice to really get away for so long. The boys were so great and got along so well. They really made the trip a great time!