Surprise weekend vacation day 3!

Our 3rd day of our weekend vacation arrived too fast. We woke early as always, had a big hotel breakfast. Came back to shower everyone and pack up our room. In between all that I took some shots of the belly. I actually woke up feeling more physically pregnant than ever. It just feels so different. My  belly is getting more firm and the skin feels tighter. Not so much stretching yet, but just tight.

After checking out of the hotel room, we headed to the San Diego Zoo!

Another reason for our trip to be in San Diego is that active duty military members are free, spouse is 10% discount, combined with the Zoo's October special of all children are free. So it was a little over $30 for all 4 of us to get in. Thank you military benefits once again!

The zoo is huge. We didnt even get to see a section of it because we were all wiped out, and had a 5 hour drive home.

The zoo opened with a presentation of a Toucan bird.

Then right at opening the gates, some Macaw birds flew over us. One guy got pooped on.

Kayla and her busted lip from the dinner the night before.

After 5 hours at the zoo we started our drive home. The kids fell asleep quick and didnt wake up until almost the end of the drive, with about 2 hours to go! That was nice!

And of course a much needed in a hurry pee break from Caden who was asleep for 3 hours and then HAD TO GO!

Surprise weekend vacation Day 2!

On the 2nd day of our trip we got up and had the hotel breakfast.  Our plan was to head to Sea World for the day but it didn't open until 10 am.

So we decided to take a trip to Ross first. I packed way more then enough clothes for the kids and Dad, but I forgot myself. I only packed ONE shirt and 2 pairs of maternity pants. One being a pair of jeans and the other black stretchy pants. But it was way to warm out to spend the day wearing that in the sun.

The night prior, the evening of our arrival, we agreed to meet with some very special VIP's for dinner so I wanted to look half way nice and not frumpy....these days NOTHING fits me.

After our stop at Ross, we had lunch at Carl Jr's....not so great. Yuck. But, our meal was given away to someone in drive thru and ended up taking 20 minutes for us to get, so we got it for free. I got the Santa Fe Turkey Burger. It wasn't bad. The kids and Dad ate all the nasty fatty burger and fries. Gross.

Then we got into Sea World! Once a year military members and their dependents get into the park for free. This was the whole reason for our trip! At $78 a person per ticket, this is a DEAL.

I am kicking myself now, but we didn't take our good camera into the park. It was a lot of walking, hot out and the camera is darn heavy. So I only got cell phone pictures. Bummer.

We first saw whales. AMAZING creatures. They are so gigantic yet so gentle in the way they move and swim.

                              Then we went on to pet some star fish. And walk through an aquarium.

We did a cool skyride that went over the water.

                                           And the BEST part....we got to pet dolphins!

 After the dolphins and some rides, myself and the kids were pretty worn out. My fault I was worn out and crabby.... don't let a pregnant woman get hungry, NO MATTER WHAT. I was INSISTING that I wait until dinner time because we had the special dinner plans....that was a BIG MISTAKE. We headed out and spent an hour at the hotel before dinner time.

Then off to The Hard Rock Cafe San Diego we went!

This dinner was special because we got to meet the kids' birth mother's sister and her kids and husband. As soon as I saw them it was like I had met them before and already knew them. It was so great to be able to do this. It was as if I knew the girls already from watching them grow up on face book. Caden loved them, and Kayla had so much fun she fell, hit her lip on a glass cup and 2 teeth went through her lip. We had a bloody mess all over but it sure made a memorable night even more memorable.

After dinner we lined up the kiddos outside to pose for some pictures. That would be Kayla with a rubber glove full of ice for her lip. Poor kid. I think Caden was quite fond of the girls!

It was hard to get a good picture without glowing eyes....

It was a great night. Cant wait to meet them again! Hopefully at a place the kids can run around and play together. They loved each other!

Our surprise weekend vacation, Day 1

We knew the Dad had a plan for a weekend vacation for us but we had no idea where. It started Friday morning. We first stopped at a breakfast buffet at 7 am. At 8:15 we were on the road. About 2 hours into the trip the kids were asleep and I started seeing signs for so many places there was no way I could guess. Various cities in Utah, various cities in California. It could have been anyone's guess.

The kids slept until about hour from our destination. The drive was beautiful. We had reached CA but still it could have been so many different big cities there still was no telling.

As we got to about 3 miles from our hotel I figured it out. Im not good at figuring stuff out!

We were in San Dieogo California after a very quick 5 hour drive. Since it was later in the day about 3ish, we ended up walking in Old Town San Diego. A very old town from 1820's.

(these pictures uploaded out of order for some reason)

Old Town is flooded with great Mexican food. The ladies were hand making all the tortillas. The smell was amazing. Nick and I really wanted to eat here for dinner but Kayla had been asking for a month to go to a steakhouse so we promised her we would before seeing Old Town. We were kicking ourselves. 

After Old Town we went downtown San Diego searching for a steakhouse, for a 4 year old.

After Kayla had her steak fix...we walked the water right across the street. 

There were cruise ships. We had dinner right in front of these babies! It was soooo neat. 

We watched one of the ships pull out and toot that loud horn!

This is Old Town.

Governor's house from the 1820's.

Here you have it!