Our So Called Vacation

I've been putting off writing this post, but I knew it had to be done - the obligatory giant vacation photo/recap dump.

Turns out digital scrap-booking (via blog) is just as annoying as old-school scrap-booking. But at least it's faster. So without further ado, here are the highlights.

We kicked off our trip by attending Judah's preschool graduation. It was so unbelievably cute and yes, I teared up when they sang "So long preschool, it's been fun. Kindergarten here we come!" Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, where did my baby go? WHERE IS MY BABY?! And who is this giant child standing in his place?

A mortarboard and diploma - now that's a legit graduation!

Apparently Judah has reached his pose-and-smile saturation point.

Then we hopped in the car and drove for 12 hours. No big deal.

Over the next few days we hit some great spots in SD:

We walked along the majestic La Jolla coastline.

We got to see Judah and Noah's beloved auntie graduate from med school. I'm pretty sure Judah was equating it with his own graduation - now they're academic peers. Of course.

We visited the San Diego Zoo. An orangutan was one of the few animals the kids saw - the zoo was so enormous. But they didn't really care since they both got toys from the gift store.

The kids got to go to a beach for the first time in their lives. And as if that wasn't enough, we got to go with our good friends who live in that area, another mom of 3 young kids. This was definitely a big highlight of our trip.

The kids had such a great time here I regret that we only went for one day. It's like every child's greatest fantasy - endless sand and water play + seashells to collect.

The kids got to go to their first aquarium ever too. 

Looking back, it was definitely exhausting and not at all a time of sitting back and kicking up our heels. BUT, a change is as good as a rest and certainly good times were had.

Of course, we didn't need to travel 500 miles and shell out a lot of cash to make the kids happy. If you ask them, the highlight of their trip (other than seeing family and playing at the beach) was eating all the yummy treats they would never get at home.

I think this kind of thing would probably be fun in 2 or 3 years...if we also traveled with a nanny.