Easter

I just realized that I didn't take many pictures on Easter. Jenna had been sick for three or four days before Easter so we were a little behind on the prep. In fact the egg dye is now in storage for next year. You will also see that we didn't have time to get her new shoes--or at least shoes that matched her dress.

Being goofy.
Still being goofy.
This one will have to do.
We went to the Harrison's for dinner. I told Jenna she could go out and play with the other kids. I went out a few minutes later and found her just observing everyone else. It didn't take long after that for her to join them. She spent the next couple of hours playing and playing.

San Diego Part 3

On Friday we went to LegoLand. I was a bit skeptical of going there before we left on our trip, but I am so glad we went. We had an absolute blast. There was so much to do and see . We didn't get to see everything, but what we did see was awesome. It was definitely suited for younger kids, but Joel and I had a fun time watching Jenna have so much fun.

Goin' on a safari through the lego jungle.
Check out the smile on her face.
Driving a lego boat with Daddy.

Oh no!
MiniLand was awesome. They had all sorts of monuments built out of legos. Here's the inauguration complete with all the people involved--Obama, Bush, etc.
Playing on one of the water pads.
One small portion of the awesome water area they had. We could have spent an entire day there. See that giant bucket? Well, it fills slowly with water than tips over dumping all of that water on unsuspecting children. Jenna was almost one of those children.
The aftermath of the water area.
They had a small aquarium there. Jenna had fun looking at all the fishy.
Jenna insisted on acting like a dog on the way out.
Five minutes after we left.

We stopped for dinner on the way home, then took the Pacific Coast Highway the rest of the way home. It was a gorgeous drive along the ocean than through little towns with interesting people and shops all around. It was a great day!

On Saturday we went to the zoo and wild animal park. While they were both fun, we wish we would have just gone back to LegoLand.

As soon as we walked in, there was a peacock waiting for us. Jenna walked right up to it.
Checkin' out the gorillas
Petting this animal (like a porcupine, but not one.)
Being silly
We didn't get to see much of the wild animal park because Jenna just wanted to feed the ducks.
Our little turtle.
The wild animal park was huge and gorgeous!

We didn't have anything planned for Sunday except some sight seeing. We decided to go down to the beach. Unfortunately it was the coldest day we were there so we didn't stay long. We drove around and did some sight seeing then headed to Old Town. I had wanted to go to the Presidio mission, but unlike everyone told me, it wasn't really a mission and it was closed indefinitely. So we headed back to the hotel and went swimming for a little while. We wanted to go to dinner somewhere nice for dinner since we had just been eating snacks for breakfast and lunch and fast food for dinner. We went to the concierge and they hooked us up at a place on the ocean. We were VIPs and even had "Welcome Harrison's" on our menus. They even gave us a free dessert! Unfortunately Jenna was acting awful so we didn't enjoy it as much as we could have, but it was still really fun!

The next morning we packed up and headed home. We were home by 5:00 and had laundry going, bags packed away, and Joel heading off to the gym by 5:30. Our vacation seemed to come to a screeching halt. It was fun while it lasted, though.

Walking out to the water
Walking away from the water

Jenna loved playing chicken with the water.
Looking for the seal we saw
Chasing the birds
Run away, run away!
Our hotel had music playing all the time. Jenna loved to dance to it. She reminded me of Elaine from Seinfeld. It made me laugh every time.

San Diego Part 2

So on day 2 we had to go to the visitor's center to pick up the city passes that we had purchased online before we left. It allowed us to go to hundreds of different places at a discount for 2 days. We decided to use it for LegoLand on Friday and the zoo on Saturday. That left us an entire day to figure out something to do. We were able to ask the people there what we needed to do. They mentioned an aircraft carrier nearby and Joel was instantly hooked. We headed over to the USS Midway and went through their tour. It was an audio tour so it was difficult to do with a two year old running around with us. We bagged the headphones after like two stops. It was really interesting to see everything, though. There were a couple of planes that Jenna could get into, so she had a blast playing with all the knobs and stuff.

After the aircraft carrier, we went back to the hotel and went swimming. Jenna had been begging us since we got there to go in the pool, but we just hadn't had time yet. We spent about an hour there then got dressed and went to the temple. It is Joel's favorite temple, but he has never been there. He still gives me grief for not getting married there. The grounds were beautiful. We were able to talk to the missionaries for a minute and they showed us some pictures of the inside. The one missionary did give us a heads up that the Mormon Battalian place was closed for renovations, so I am glad we didn't head there next as planned. There was a wedding party taking pictures outside so Jenna got to see the "princess". As we were packing up to leave, there was a couple there waiting for their kids to come out of a session. They were babysitting their grandkids and their dog so they let Jenna pet their little dog for a few minutes. She was shy about it, but she loved it.

After the temple we decided to try to find the Hard Rock Cafe one more time since the missionary said that there really were two in town. Come to find out she was wrong. We drove around and did some sight seeing for awhile then finally ended up at Tony Roma's for dinner. We noticed that there were a million places to eat there, but no where to park so it really limited our choices. We wanted to branch out and eat something new but couldn't find a place to park near any of the places. Oh, well.

To Be Continued (again)...

Jenna could hardly fit into the itty bitty lockers that people who lived on the boat had to use.


Jenna on a part of the giant chain for the anchor.


Jenna flying the plane.


The planes were really cool. We couldn't believe how many they could fit on the top of that boat.


Daddy and Jenna.


Jenna declaring war in the war room.


Pushing buttons.


She was so tired from a full day already. This is her as we arrived at the temple. This didn't last very long.


Our little thief.


The temple.


Being silly in the car.


One of the restaurants we tried to go to was right on the beach. It was a gorgeous view, but an unappetizing menu.

San Diego Part 1

About a week and a half ago, we headed down to San Diego for a little vacation. We figured it would be our last for awhile and Joel was getting ancy to go somewhere with just our little family. So about a month ago he found some good deals for San Diego and hurried and booked it. The whole thing was kind of thrown together but it was a lot of fun and everything turned out great. I hate to bore you with all of the pictures, but I need to remember what they all were when I finally get around to scrapbooking them ten years from now.
We stayed at the Hyatt Mission Bay (don't worry, we did NOT pay full price). It had a gorgeous view of the bay and some little island in the middle of it.
The hotel had 3 heated pools. Two of the pools had waterslides going down into them. Jenna loved going down the little slide by herself. She did have one little mishap when a kid twice her size was too scared to go down by himself. He was embarrased, so he turned around and pushed her down. Joel was about ready to take the kid out back.
There were these little cabanas that we walked by to get to our room. At night, they had a fire going outside one of them. We stopped one night to sit by it, but it was still too cold. Since we were on the bay, there was a constant breeze and the temperature was always about 10 degrees cooler than anywhere else we went.We wanted to take an extra carry on with us for some snacks, so we gave it to Jenna to carry (don't worry, it was super light). She looked so cute wearing it, I just had to take her picture!
Her own seat! We were debating on whether or not it was worth the money to have Jenna have her own seat and us have more leg room. It sure was nice, but I don't know that I would pay that much again for a few extra inches of room.

The trip to San Diego was easy and seamless. We didn't have to wait long in the airport and Jenna did so well on the plane. She fell asleep a few minutes into the flight. It was probably good because there was so much turbulence I would not have been able to entertain her for long. It was the first time I have come really close to losing it on a plane.

When we got to San Diego everything went well. We made a well worth it purchase a couple of days before we left. Joel found an awesome deal on a GPS so we bought it and took it with us. It made things so much easier! No more reading maps or figuring out where we are. We just listened to the GPS lady and she got us right where we needed to go! It only took us about 10 minutes to get to our hotel and a couple more minutes to get checked in. The trunk to our rental car broke by the time we got to the hotel so Joel had to climb through the back seat to get to our stuff in the trunk. I think that was the only hiccup.

We hung out at the hotel for a little while then headed out to find something to eat. We decided to try to find a Hard Rock Cafe. The GPS told us there were two. We went to try to find the one closest to us and couldn't find it, so we ventured out to find the other one. We found it fairly easily, but couldn't find parking. We drove up and down one way streets for about half an hour before we found a parking garage. By this time we were starving. We walk the block to get to Hard Rock only to find out that it was closed for a private event! Arg! We went another block to TGI Friday's. The food wasn't very good, the service was awful, and they gave Jenna curdled milk to drink. Other than that we were happy because we were on vacation! We headed back to the hotel after that, sat on our balcony for a few minutes, then went to bed nice and early.