365 Days in SD, Day 80 (yesterday): Bouncing Around and Nighttime at the Zoo

First of all, how nice is it to finally live in an area where Groupon actually means something? 

A friend and I bought some Groupons to a local inflatable bouncy place. Lots of big bounce houses, slides, even a couple water slides. Calen went down a I-shit-you-not two story water slide with his 4 year old friend and while I was convinced they would both panic, they absolutely loved it and did it maybe five times. 

Seems legit

That night, we once again did the zoo.

When you live ten minutes away from the world famous San Diego zoo, it's not hard to spend a lot of time there. By a lot I mean a lot. We usually find ourselves there once or twice a week. The way the math works, when we bought our not-cheap annual membership, if we went more than twice in a year, we would pay for our membership. So since we've only been here two and a half months and have gone to the zoo something like seven or eight times, I think we've gotten our moneys worth. 

And since the zoo is bigger than any two zoos combined ever, there's something new to see each time. Literally, each time. 

My favorite part of the zoo here is their summer program called Nighttime at the Zoo, which means that they stay open later than normal, until 9pm. Since all the animals wake up after dark, it's far more exciting. We haven't been to the zoo in the normal daytime hours yet. Generally we eat dinner then head over around 5:30 or 6. 

Nighttime at the Zoo ends on Labor Day, and since that's a school night for Calen (booooooo....hisssss), we decided that last night was our last nighttime zoo run. 

Acting like seals. Watch out for that polar bear!

On the skytram at the zoo at sunset

Pink lights shining on the flamingoes at night made them look like they were glowing

Each time we go, we walk past this booth where this incredibly talented artist hand paints these beautiful names with animals painted in. Even though it was absurdly expensive, I finally decided to just do it. After all, we might only have ten months or so left here. And what better keepsake from this city for the kids than their names gorgeously painted at the infamous San Diego Zoo?

Both boys got to pick which animals they wanted, and it only took an hour to paint both of them. 

Calen's

Camden's. He picked all his own animals, and I was impressed!

365 in SD Day #79: Playing Hookie

Today is Thursday which generally means 5 o'clock tball practice for Calen. 

Can I take a moment to whine about a 5pm-6pm practice time slot? Do the people who determined this schedule you know, ever eat dinner? Or expect 12 five year olds to perform well at the end of a day during dinner time? Especially after I have to force dinner down his throat at 4pm in order to make it to practice on time (and then feed him a second dinner right before bed since he ate dinner too early). Okay, I'm done. 

By the time we got home from Calen's kindergarten orientation (don't even get me started on the disappointment that is California schools) at 9:30 in the morning, it was already 85 degrees. So the kids had popsicles for brunch and I made an executive decision that there was no way my kid was going to practice baseball on a shadeless field in 90 degree heat. Besides, we had far better things to do today.
Like go to the beach! Obviously. 

Due to an offshore hurricane down in Mexico, the crazy violent surf made it a "red flag" day (the lifeguards, for those unaware, post flags describing the swim conditions each day. Green means gentle surf, yellow means strong swimmers only, red means holy shit stay out of the water swimming prohibited). So even though we couldn't really swim (I may or may not have broken the rules and dived in a couple times just to cool off), the kids and I still jumped the shallowest waves and played in the sand. 

The newly found almost-surfer in me wanted to grab a board and try the waves out. Then I came back to reality and remembered I've only actually successfully stood up on a surf board like six times. Ever. In baby wussy waves. 

Yeah...no.

Playing on the beach....look at those bigass waves!

Calen the sand monster!

Camden created a new game called place his toy Coast Guard boat in the sand, then run away from it like it's a lighted firework with a short fuse. When the waves would come in, the boat would "sail" all the way up the beach. Rinse, repeat. For three hours. 

Calen really wished he had a toy boat to use so he found a piece of wood that he called his "boat". It floats and works just as well and even though it's not nearly as super awesome as Cam's real toy boat, Calen was just as content and thrilled with the game. Which just proves to me that even in 2014, little boys can make toy boats out of driftwood and have just as much fun as the newest gadget. 

Calen's super rad driftwood boat (smothered in sand)

Way better than tball practice. 

Everything Is Awesome! (Legoland, CA)

Probably the best (and most dangerous for this Lego obsessed family) of living in San Diego is having none other than Legoland, California less than half an hour north of our house.

Ummm, THAT'S happening. 

We had decided to save it for the short 2 week period that Brad has here at home before he deploys again. We had planned on going next week, but I woke up with a serious Legoland itch this morning and made an executive family decision that we were going NOW. 

We've went to Legoland Florida during our Disney vacation this past fall. Which was a blast and all, but the park here in Cali has it beat by a mile. It's bigger, it has more to do, and it has a rocking water park. (This opinion is skewed, partly due to the fact that we went in fall/winter in FL and was closed for the season, so I can't really compare).

We opened the park at 10am and left an hour before closing at 7pm. We hit the water park first per the Internet's request. The theory is the waterpark is less busy in the morning and completely PACKED in the hot afternoon. It was correct. How did we plan anything ever without Google? Someone give it a Nobel Peace Prize.

The water park itself is just rad. There are areas with flowing water ways and piles of Lego Duplos to build custom boats and see if they will make it all the way down the water way. Or take some giant foam Lego bricks and connect them to your intertube on the lazy river to create your own raft. And then go do all the normal water park stuff (slides, wading pools, etc), but add Lego animals, Lego people (sorry, minifigs. I still don't get the name) and Lego bricks absolutely everywhere. 

People probably thought I was mentally handicapped, since I would notice something throughout the park that would remind me of a Lego set of my childhood and giggle to myself loudly. 

Cam was being pissy about the water until he found this Lego alligator. Then he gave it a smooch (for good luck?) and actually started to swim. Ooookay.

Post water park and lunch, we went to the standard part of the park. Lots of rides, some shows, Lego Movie characters (still mad that Batman didn't make an appearance), and monsterous Lego structures wherever you looked. Oh and uh, gift stores. Everywhere. Lego gift stores. Dangerous for mom and dad the kids.

It's Emmett!! AWESOME.

I could have just gone without the kids and totally been okay. 

It's a Legossaurus

They had these Lego building pits everywhere

The best part of Legoland (in CA or FL) is the Lego city. Real U.S. cities are built to scale, some buildings (particularly in Lego NYC) easily would surpass my ceilings in my house. Calen and his little engineering mind went absolutely bananas in the cities. You could see his eyes light up and the gears start turning inside his head. I told Brad he should work for Lego. Brad said "uh yeah so we can get free Lego sets!" We are on the same page when it comes to parenting.

Lego NYC

Lego Rushmore. And now that we've seen this version, who needs to go see the real thing??

Lego San Francisco

It was just an awesome awesome day. We left talking about if we could afford annual passes (we can't) and watched Cam fall asleep in the car eating Doritos (mid chew...found that used chip in his mouth later....gross) and Calen fall asleep holding a book up to his face. Now that's tired. 

And the best part? A short half hour drive home. 

I can say, if you aren't into Legos, shame on your face!! then you probably won't geek out about this theme park as much as say, my family did. It's still fun, especially for kids, but don't go looking for super thrilling rides or crazy rollercoasters. The whole point of the park is Legos. This sounds obvious but I overheard some people complaining that "there isn't anything non-Lego to do here!" (ummm....why are you here??). If you aren't into it, avoid it. If you are, brace yourself for awesomeness.

365 Days in SD, Day 33: The San Diego Zoo

So this was actually two days ago. But between Calen's double ear infection, Camden's boycotting of sleep and me attempting to break my habit with Pepsi, I didn't get to it until today. Sue me. 

You obviously can't visit San Diego, much less live here, without at least one trip to the San Diego zoo. Luckily for us, it's five minutes away from our house. Even luckier, the military offers discounted annual passes which we indulged in. Monday we took our first ever trip to one of the most famous zoos in the world with some Coastie friends, and man were we not disappointed. 

This zoo is big. Big big. For four years we were accustomed to our cutesy little free zoo in Cape May, in which a single tiger and a lion were about as exotic as it got. Don't get me wrong, we loved that tiny little zoo. Especially the free part. Especially free with smaller children that lose interest after an hour. By the end of that hour, we had walked the entire zoo already and it was time to go home. Done and done.

Now that the kids are a little older they can tolerate/enjoy bigger and better things. I don't think you can get much bigger or better than the San Diego zoo. We spent four hours there, and didn't even cover half of the exhibits. It's hard, being there amongst the trees and the wildlife and humongous habitats, to remember that you're still within San Diego city limits. And there's not a palm tree in sight. Maybe that's why I like it there so much. There's also animals I've never seen in person, particularly PANDAS, which I kind of wanted to kidnap and take home and snuggle and pretend it wasn't going to eat my face. 

Munching on bamboo. Can I keep her?!

Anyways, we went in the late afternoon because they have a summer program called Nighttime At The Zoo, where they keep the zoo open late so that you can see all the nocturnal animals actually be awake and active after dark. That was an especially neat experience for us, not only being at the zoo after dark, but seeing the tasmanian devils and koalas actually awake, bouncing around, eating, and being particularly adorable. 

I want a koala too. To go with my panda. Military housing will totally allow that, right?

Because we have annual passes and because there's so much to see, we'll be going back a lot. Calen said it was his favorite thing he's done so far. Maybe we'll make it a weekly thing. 

Friends at the zoo observing one of their own kind

Rewarding Bad Behavior

We've had a hard week.

All of us came down with a wicked cold and some crabby attitudes, for whatever reasons. And after a full week of dealing with mouthy, snotty kids with bad attitudes, I did what any good mom would do to discipline them.

I took them out to donuts for breakfast.

AND a Slurpee for pre-dinner. 

Okay so maybe it's not what Supernanny would do. I could envision her giving me the look and waggling her finger at me going "mmm mmm mmm....that's not the way to deal with them!" in her British school teacher voice. It's not what I would normally do either. 

But you know what? At this rate, by the time they actually start behaving, they'll be 17 and 15 and too old for their mom to take them out for donuts because they sleep through breakfast and halfway through lunch.

And honestly, we all need a do-over day sometimes. 

We went with friends this morning to Krispy Kreme to start off the day. There goes my diet, right into a huge raspberry filled glazed donut. (Worth it.) The kids actually did wonderfully there and since it was (my kid's) first time, they got to watch donuts be made before their very eyes while we waited. That's like, education, right?

Watching the birth of donuts

Later today we decided to partake on the celebration of July 11th by going to 7-Eleven and getting ourselves a free Slurpee. For dinner. Because what better way to raise your children properly than by giving them dessert first, right?

Good thing we went before dinner too, because they only had one flavor left and it was running low. 

This was also a first for them as we've never wasted our time at 7-Eleven in Cape May since the ever-better Wawa took precedent. 

Yum

Let's face it, sometimes breaking the rules is worth it. 

For the record, the boys were having a much better day starting yesterday afternoon and I think we all deserved to have a little reward for tolerating each other for so long without a break. Seriously, is school starting soon or what?

365 Days in SD, Day 21: San Diego County Fair.

For our kickoff to our third week here in sunny San Diego, we decided to go to the San Diego County Fair. 

Fun useless fact: this is the third place I've lived where the city I live is the same as the county. i.e: Snohomish in Snohomish County, Cape May in Cape May County, San Diego in San Diego county. How original. Facts you NEVER wanted to know.

The fair here is big. BIG. Washingtonians could compare it to about 1.5 times the size of the Evergreen State Fair. Except less animals, but way way WAY more food and rides. 

We also showed up on a day where there was a monster truck competition, which of course my monster truck-obsessed kids absolutely DIED over. I've never seen either of them so excited over anything in their entire LIVES.

Monster trucks!!!

After the monster trucks and a few barns full of animals, we had a corn dog and a plate full of deep fried OREOS AND TWINKIES, holy amazingness!

Deep fried oreos and twinkies

(Note: the deep fried Oreos were amazing. The Twinkies, not so much)
Then some rides, and spending too much on one carnival game so the kids could each take home a minion, and then we called it a day. We really couldn't outdo the monster trucks anyways. Also, the shuttle back to the parking lot was a double decker bus and the kids went nucking futs over sitting on the top of it. 

Riding a mini coaster by themselves!

On the double decker bus

It was one of my favorite days here so far with the kids. As hard as it is making all these memories without Brad, we are definitely making the most of it.

The end of an awesome day. Cam was upset because he was hot and thirsty and didn't want to leave the fair and because of all the starving people in Africa. And because he's three.

365 Days in SD, Day 19: New friends, Old friends, and dinosaurs

This morning I was getting ready to take a shower in an attempt to ignore an entire bowl of Frosted Flakes DUST (you know, the remains of the bottom of the cereal box?) all over my living room carpet (thanks Camden), when I got a text from a friend basically saying "my kids are bouncing off the walls and I can't stand it, want to go to the playground in 20 minutes?"

Screw the shower, I can get clean another day. Maybe. Let's get the hell out of here! (and continue to ignore the Frosted Flakes on the carpet)

So that's how we spent the morning, at the playground with new friends (no pictures, I didn't even think to bring my camera). 

Immediately after getting back, our old Cape May friends came to visit and spend the day. It's as if living in a time capsule, because Calen remembers Aiden (who he hasn't seen in over a year and is now almost 3) as a one year old in Cape May, and continues to call him "Baby Aiden" even though he's well past the baby stage. However, he does have another Aiden friend who's 7 so maybe that's his way of identifying them. I just hope he doesn't continue to call him that five years from now, because he might end up getting punched in the face. 

After hours and hours and hours of playing in the pool and the trampoline, all three kids collapsed in the living room and watched a movie, and played dinosaurs together. 

Also I did end up taking a shower (you're welcome) and I did end up vacuuming up the Frosted Flakes (you're still welcome). 

365 Days in SD, Day 18: The Honest Reality of Living in Paradise

I suppose as a military wife the appropriate way to respond to a cross country move is "Oh I love wherever we go!" or "As long as we're together it doesn't matter!" or "I just love moving around every ____ years!" And then we go back to baking our own bread or knitting baby socks or whatever society thinks military wives do.

It's not that simple, guys. 

Before I even begin and people criticize me for criticizing living in "paradise", let me start by saying, I like it here. 

I like that there is so much to do ALL year round. I like that I have not yet checked the weather report ONCE since moving here (which used to be my daily routine first thing in the am), because it's always 75ish and sunny. Always. I LOVE my house. Emphasis on house. Yes we're surrounded by other houses but no we do not have to worry anymore that the current sword fight in the bedrooms will disrupt the neighbor's peaceful evening. And I love that I don't have to drive 40 minutes just to get to Target, or Old Navy, or ANYWHERE. (and, I don't have to pay tolls. Booyah!) And there are no ticks!!!! Or mosquitoes, or flies. Like, at all. 

That being said. 

Change is hard. Change is hard for everyone and maybe especially harder for me, for whatever reason. When we moved to Cape May in 2010, I haaaated it. I couldn't get out of there fast enough and I had four years(!!!) to suffer there! I would clearly never make it there. But after about two years, something strange happened. 

I started to like it there. 

Not just like it, LOVE it there. Easily my favorite place I've ever lived, including our home state. 

Disclaimer: I'm in no way saying that I actually like the state of New Jersey. I don't. It's a dump and if someone incinerated the entire state I wouldn't shed a tear. If Cape May was in Delaware, or Pennsylvania, or California, I'd love it just as much. If not more.

I fell in love with the small town on the beach feel. The sense of community not just through the city, but our extremely close-knit Coast Guard neighborhood. Where neighbors were friends were family. Where we never locked our doors and the most noise we ever heard outside the kitchen window was the neighbor kids playing, the ocean, or the recruits running by on Sundays.

And honestly? I miss it. Terribly. And I can't help but have a sense of feeling robbed of another year there, since we put in for an extension and were denied and sent here. And even though I was born and raised on the west coast and still have all family connections here, I want to go back. Badly.

Moving from a small town of 3,000 to living inside the city limits of a major border city of 1.3 million will make just about anyone's head spin. It's busy here. BUSY. The drivers are absolutely insane (worse than French Canadian drivers which I didn't think was possible). The crime rate here is high enough where we don't keep our windows open at night and each house is equipped with alarm systems. The neighborhood, even though it's military, isn't very friendly compared to our last one. Only one family has extended friendship (and bless them for it!). One. Compared to Cape May, where people came out of the woodwork the first week inviting you over for dinner, to the enlisted club, to the beach. And I hate palm trees. I don't know why, but I always have. Maybe because when I see palm trees in America they remind me of some tropical island and it's an ugly reminder that I'm NOT on some tropical island, but here on a major freeway staring that them. And they're ugly. 

It's just different. Is it a kind of different I could get used to? Probably. There's so much to do here it's easy to push from your mind the discontent feelings. But they always manage to creep back.

Unfortunately (or not?) due to the circumstances of our time here being limited to a year, we already have to think about and discuss as a family where we want to move to next year (we need to put the list in FIVE short months from now! Deja vu, anyone?). And maybe after a year we will forget all about Cape May and fall in love with this area and want to stay. After all, it happened last time didn't it? 

I might even start liking palm trees. 

Probably not. Let's not get too crazy here. 

Disclaimer: Despite the struggles, I am thankful for every opportunity that we are given in each city. I am excited for the next year here and the adventures that it brings. However because of our very short time here, we are forced to really think hard about our future and what's to come 11 months from now. There are opportunities both here in San Diego and a return tour in Cape May next year, so we have to start now to determine what we would prefer. Being a higher priority this time, we should (in theory), get what we want. 

These ugly bastards....

365 Days in SD, Days 4-17

Well there goes my theory to post every day for the next year, NO thanks to it being impossibly difficult to get an appointment for internet installation (who knew it could be so challenging in a major metropolis?! Something is wrong, here). 

The last two weeks have been busy to say the least. Moving in to the new house. Unpacking the new house. Getting every built/put together/rearranged/cleaned up as quickly as we could possibly go. Brad deploying six days after moving in to the new house. Figuring out a new schedule for a new house, new city, and new circumstances being a single parent. Oh and trying to see as much of the area as we can in the short year(+) that we have here. 

Did I ever mention how much I haaaaate moving?!?!

I took lots of pictures of the adventures of the last two weeks but of course couldn't post them because the powers that be thought I needed to wait this long to have internet. I was suffocating without my wonderful broadband oxygen. So here's the last two weeks in quick review:

Day 4: officially move in to this place. Goodbye townhome, hello single homes!

Day 5: exploring the USS Midway aircraft carrier in downtown

Day 6: comparing muscles on the beach like normal surfer dudes

Day 7: rolling down the grassy hill at the "Park at the Park" at the Padres game. Great for kids that like baseball but can't sit through a 3 hour game

Day 9: experiencing my first full sized behemoth cockroach. It was huge and I may never walk barefoot again. 

Day 11: sneaking out of bedrooms with disguised as a giant T-Rex so mom won't notice. This has been every night.

Day 13: making sure to order my burger "animal style"

Day 14: Space ice cream at the Air and Space Museum. Because obviously.

Day 15: Juno has most assuredly lost her mind. Those squirt guns are definitely a threat to the household.

Day 16: Strawberry picking in Carlsbad. Which was mostly strawberry eating and mom filling up their buckets. 

And now that you're all caught up and I have the interwebs and everyone is happy, we can return to our regularly scheduled program. 

365 Days in SD, Day 3: Can't we flat pack the balcony?

It's our last night living in a hotel!

::cheer:: ::clap:: ::parades:: ::champagne::

We spent today doing lots of incredibly important things, like swimming in the pool at 9:30am (the boys asked at 7am, but I managed to convince them that the pool transforms into hot lava overnight and doesn't turn back to regular water until 9:am). We also took our first ever maiden voyage to this magical place:

Because you know the movers might have broken something and we might need to replace it with new things. Even though the moving truck doesn't show up until tomorrow. Chances are we're right and we should replace it as soon as possible, right? And what's sooner than before you know it's broken.

So we brought back with us a lot of flat packed boxes. How does a full sized dresser manage to fit in a Wheaties box? I'm incredibly impressed but also confused. We brought home major furniture that fit easily in the trunk. Europeans have some incredible witchcraft that I need to get in on. 

Also, free daycare at Ikea. Dump drop the children off and go shopping, alone? Why haven't all major stores incorporated this idea. Sheer brilliance. 

Also also, there's a height requirement (min and max) for their childcare. I'm not sure why the minimum, because poor little Camden has his mama's genes and was too short to "ride". But the gal was nice and let him in anyways. Poor kid. Spinach in every meal for him from now on. 

We came back to the hotel for another round at the pool and dinner on our super awesome 2nd floor balcony that overlooks Coronado beach and the Pacific Ocean, and also gives us a perfect up-close view of the fighter jets and Apache helicopters landing at the airstrip next to the hotel, which of course my all-boy boys go absolutely nutso over. 

Can't we just like, flat pack the balcony and the view and tie it down to our truck's roof rack? Because that would be perfect. 

Moving truck comes tomorrow!