San Diego Recap, Part 1 (February 8-9)

This is the first half of our vacation recap to beautiful, sunny San Diego from February 8-9. I figured I'd break up our 5 day trip into three separate recaps, as with pictures, they can get long (and you'll get to read them sooner in chunks) :)

We've gotten all sorts of "supermom" and "you're crazy" comments concerning traveling with 3 kids ages 5 and under, but truthfully, it was a really great experience, and it was so nice for all of us to have a break from the gloom and doom of a Minnesota winter.

Day 1: Traveling, MOA, Flying to LAX, Supper with friends at Shakey's (Feb 8)

We left the house around 9am to head up to the Twin Cities to the airport. We didn't know what traffic would be like or if we'd need to make stops, so we left ourselves plenty of time. (That's KEY when traveling with kiddos - never put yourself in a rushed situation - I promise you'll regret it!)

We made it up there around noon and decided to try to find some lunch. We ended up going to the Mall of America and eating in the food court, then wandering around at Nickelodeon Universe with the boys (which was the PERFECT outlet for all their energy before our flight).

Around 1pm, we loaded back in the van and headed a couple miles down the road to the airport, where Mark dropped us off with all the luggage. We figured out after traveling to Hawaii with Cashel in 2013 that it was not a great idea to take a cab with ALL our gear because that meant we had to drag it all over the airport to get to the check in desks to check our suitcases. So now, he drops me and the kid off at the check in area where we then settle in a wait for him to drop the car off and either take a taxi or get a ride from one of our co-workers up at the Lyndale location by himself.

Ryan was super thrilled to be taking his first flight, let me tell you haha :)

Kendrick was significantly MORE excited, however :) He and Cashel couldn't stop talking about how they were going to yell "blast off!" when the plane took off, and I promise, they didn't disappoint. Loudly lol

The flight there didn't go too terrible. The boys were well-rested, Ryan napped for a couple hours of the flight, and otherwise, between snacks and tablets, the boys stayed pretty entertained.

The sunset as we were coming over the mountains, about 30 minutes outside of Los Angeles was so incredible!

I was feeling really optimistic at this point. My biggest concern had been the flight, and we hadn't lost a single child, and they weren't screaming or acting crazy, and we had finally LANDED at LAX! We got our things together, the boys put on their backpacks, and we headed down to the baggage claim area. That's when things went a little awry.

Here is a dose of reality, traveling with kids. If you don't want to listen to parenting rambling, move along.

I'm sure you understand that I don't have any photos to commemorate the next chain of events, but I was, you know, parenting at that point. The boys needed to RUN after being cooped up for four hours on a plane, not to mention it being 9pm our time (an hour past bedtime) and hungry, and what better a place than the baggage claim area, right? Argh. It was one of those times where I wish I had a leash. Or their carseats (but alas, those were what we were waiting for. I thought this would be the worst of it, right? Except there was the part where we then had to take a shuttle to get our rental car, which was located in the gorgeous, ritzy Westin hotel. And this Nu rental place had two people waiting in front of us to get checked in, and they had two very long escalators that were calling to our 3 and 5 year old starving, exhausted children who hadn't gotten to burn off energy for hours. And a pregnant, exhausted Mama with a baby strapped to me who couldn't run or hold onto their wiggly hands to calm them down.

It was like when you're trying to chase each other around the table, this whole escalator thing. But with two kids, and the ability to go up OR down the escalator, while I couldn't move nearly as fast as them, and they outnumbered me, and it was a mess. I finally got ahold of Cashel and grabbed his arm so hard that I left a bruise (I felt AWFUL), and he started crying but sat still long enough for me to chase after Kendrick. It was bad enough that the manager at the Westin offered us quiet activities to entertain the boys. (I can't help but assume that he has no kids of his own, because no activity or amount of anything but sleep and food was going to tame them at that point, but it was really a sweet attempt!)

After the longest car checkin in history (seriously - I've never had to PROVE that we had auto insurance before...most of the time just having a valid credit card would take care of that, and then once we looked up our policy information on my phone, our one card was declined because we hadn't told them we were leaving the state, and the check in probably took 45 minutes), we finally got our things situtated in the rental vehicle, found a few more hidden snacks to hold the boys over, and then promptly fell asleep on our drive to Anaheim to meet some friends for supper. Hallelujah for some peace and quiet!

We finally made it to Shakey's (GREAT place for kids, btw) and met up with a couple of my friends there and their families for some pizza.

The boys were really pretty great, which surprised me, as it had been such a tumultuous past few hours. Afterwards, we got the boys changed into their jammies, got Ryan a bottle, and they all passed out for the rest of the drive down to San Diego. Mark and I were completely exhausted and barely could keep our eyes open (it was almost midnight San Diego time, so 2am our time), but we made it, and got settled in quickly, and slept great!

Day 2: Coronado, Silver Strand Beach, Seaport Village, Corvette Diner (Feb 9)

After a very long day of travel, the next morning was a welcome, relaxing time together. We slept in, then went to the grocery store to pick up a few things (including breakfast, and a much-needed latte for Mama!), then just settled in a bit, exploring our place for the next 5 days, and checking out the planes flying overhead.

Around 10:30am, we loaded up and headed down to Coronado island for some beach time on Silver Strand Beach.

Mark and I had been there back in 2009 when we drove out to visit his sister, who was living there at the time. We had a WONDERFUL couple of hours on the beach there. Mark and I relaxed in the chairs, occasionally getting up to help supervise the sand castles or dip our toes in the (contaminated and completely FREEZING) ocean for a moment.

I have no pictures of Kendrick dipping his toes in the ocean, because the kid is pretty terrified of bodies of water still.

We ended our morning with a picnic lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (almond butter for Kendrick), apples, grape tomatoes, chips and water.

Afterwards, we went back to our place to get changed out of swimsuits and such and to let Ryan nap for a while. While Ryan was napping, the big boys were sitting out on the porch counting airplanes that were landing at the nearby airport. It was actually really cool how close they were. This picture doesn't really do it justice! We were a little worried that it'd be a problem overnight, but we didn't hear a peep.

When Ryan woke up, we decided to stop over at Seaport Village and the Embarcadero to explore a bit. We had to get some yummy cookies, then the boys inspected the fountain and we walked around the little village, which is so adorable! We were tempted to stick around until supper time there, but opted to find somewhere else to go, since most of the restaurants weren't our first choice of cuisine or atmosphere with little kids in tow.

Ryan and I shopped a bit while the big boys and Daddy checked out the Embarcadero, and then we met up with them a little later before we headed back to our home away from home. Of course, I had to pick up a new ornament for our Christmas tree!

We spent a while once we got back deciding where to go for supper that night, and we were thrilled to get to see our first gorgeous sunset from the deck!

We opted to settle on going to the Corvette Diner for supper that night, which went about like this:

The boys were a tinge unruly, but it was actually totally okay, because the whole atmosphere there is a little crazy. It's loud, the waitstaff is a little quirky and crazy and there are balloon animals and they shower straws on you. They do a GREAT job catering to families and kiddos. Even the milk we ordered had sprinkles and cherries on top. Tell me that doesn't just look fun to eat?

The food was good overall, and afterwards, the boys insisted on visiting the attached arcade, so we burned $5 there and they had a lot of fun.

It was really a perfect first day of vacation for us, and a great alternative to the prior day, full of traveling and chaos :) We slept great that night as well, and were excited to be going to the San Diego Zoo the next morning!

Florida 2015 (February 7-14)

We were finally able to take a bit of a break from work, daycare and cold, snowy Minnesota for a week at the beginning of February, and it.was.glorious!

Granted, with two toddlers in tow, it was a lot of work, and we were weary and exhausted and ready to come home on Valentine's Day for SURE. But it was such a nice break from scraping windshields and piling on coats and hats and mittens to go outside: It was nice to feel the sand and the water and the sunshine and the warmth surrounding us.

I've done daily recaps of each of our days, but I thought I'd do a little summary of our time there as well. You can click on the names of the days of the week to view each day's full review on my travel blog.

Vacation Summary

We got in SUPER late on Saturday night after an extremely long day of travel and got settled into our condo around 2am.

On Sunday, we were lazy bums and rested a lot, swam, played at the playground and ate out. We were all still pretty worn out from the previous day, so we didn't have any rhyme or reason to the day. We ate out for super at Upper Crust Pizza and it was good pizza.

Monday we went to the Gator Park and took an air boat ride and Mama got to hold a baby alligator. We had lunch at Pit BBQ.

Tuesday we spent some time at Bahia Honda State Park, then took a quick, unnecessary trip the rest of the way down to Key West, which just didn't end up being our type of scene these days. We had lunch at Berdine's in Marathon and supper at IHOP also in Marathon.

Wednesday was another lazy day and we didn't do much earlier in the day, but after lunch we took the boys to Harris Beach in Tavernier and then out to eat. For supper we at Chad's in Tavernier and the food was alright, even if it was a horrible experience with the kids (not the restaurant's fault).

Thursday, we took the boys to Theatre of the Sea in Islamorada in lieu of the Miami Seaquarium, since we were just too weary to drive to Miami again. We had lunch at Theatre of the Sea.

Friday was more time at the condo swimming, feeding the fish and playing at the park. Mama also got some time during naps to shop a little bit. We ordered Papa John's for lunch, had Arby's for supper and got Mr. C's (mint chip) ice cream before bed.

Saturday was an excruciatingly long day full of driving and flying, and we got home around 9:30pm.

The Worst Parts

Eating Out
Never.Ever.Ever.Ever. plan to eat out more than maybe one or two meals while on vacation with toddlers. Eating out with toddlers in tow is just plain stupid. It ruined half of our days and left us feeling beat down and exhausted. We should have stocked the condo better and planned more meals at "home".

Beaches
Also, we should have done a little more research about family-friendly activities. We really might have made a different decision as to where we went if we realized that aside from the warmer temps, the big draw in Key Largo and the keys is the snorkeling and fishing. If we weren't going to do those things (and we weren't), then we should have picked somewhere with more exciting beaches or more activities for kids to do. We definitely had a good time, but we might have had a better time up near Miami or further north in Fort Lauderdale perhaps. The boys loved the beach, and I only wish there had been better beaches to take them to.

Finding Sunsets beyond our Condo
Great sunset views aren't easy to come by in Key Largo unless you are either prepared to deal with tantrumming toddlers at a fancy restaurant and hope you get a good table for the view, OR are prepared to leave town and drive either north or south (preferably south). Good to know if that is any sort of priority for you. Thankfully, we were able to check out a few beautiful sunsets from our condo, even if they weren't over the ocean.

The Best Parts

We thoroughly enjoyed the Gator Park and LOVED the air boat ride. We'd highly recommend this, but there wasn't a ton more to do there beyond the air boat ride.

Theatre of the Sea was a huge hit with our boys! It was just the right size to hit from 10-2 and still get naps in without feeling like we missed anything. The dolphin show and sea lion show were both excellent, and the other animals (parrots, turtles, fish) were really cool to look at too.

Our Condo at Kawama Towers in Key Largo had some pretty great features. We LOVED having the dock with fish, the playground and the pool all within just a few steps. It made it really easy to have fun without having to pack for a day away.

The incredible views along Hwy 1. We only went down to Marathon and beyond one day, but it was so beautiful to see the brilliant ocean. If we hadn't had such squirmy toddlers in tow who were ready for lunch, it would have been nice to spend a little more time just being by the ocean. It was so beautiful! We stopped by a couple beaches, but none had quite the view we saw just driving along the highway.

Harris Beach was so PERFECT for us, and we only wish we had chosen a warmer day to visit! It had this perfect little rock wall protecting from the ocean's full strength, so we didn't worry about the boys playing there, and it was just gorgeous. There was also a little park right there too (which we didn't visit), and seemed like just the perfect place to hang out with a little family our size. We were MUCH more impressed with this beach compared to Bahia Honda State Park, which will NOT appear in our "favorites" section. It had a clean beach with picnic tables, shelters, palm trees and perfect sand for sand castle building.

Sunsets from our condo. Boy were we lucky that they were so beautiful right there, because there wasn't a single night we were fortunate enough to be able to actually see a decent sunset over the ocean. When the sun was setting, it was like all of us just sort of settled down and stared at it in amazement.

Overall...

We really did have a great time, but just as it is in life, every day was full of ups and downs, so that stayed the same even if the weather drastically improved. We have certainly vowed that if we do another big vacation like this WITH kids, it'll be when they're a few years older. As far as traveling with two toddlers goes, I really do feel like it went fairly smooth. But I'll admit that I was drooling over the 20-something girl with wedge heels and Starbucks hand in the Miami airport effortlessly floating up the stairs while I was carrying a 30+lb toddler and lugging my carry on and a bulging bag going down the escalator. Oh how life changes when you have kids. :)

On another note, I think the next big vacation we go on will be without kids. As such, it might be a little shorter than week, but I think it's definitely called for :)