The Trowbridge Bunch: San Diego

Well, this is going to be a super long post with ridiculous amounts of pictures from our San Diego trip. You've been warned.

Mike's family was wonderful enough to invite us on a trip to San Diego with them. The military gets free tickets to Sea World every year and so the Trowbridges went to California!

We left the morning of the 4th of July and drove to Vegas. We stayed on Nellis Air Force Base in a nice little place with a kitchen and 2 hide-away beds. We went swimming and then watched the fireworks that night on the base. Ellie LOVED the fireworks. She was completely enthralled, and kept saying, "More please!"

Here's Ellie in her patriotic hat.

The next morning we left for San Diego, and stayed on the Naval base there on the coast. We went to the beach on Coronado Island. Beautiful! It was nice and overcast, and the water was cold but not so cold that you couldn't get in. Mike really enjoyed playing in the waves, which looked pretty gigantic to me. Everytime a wave came, I mentally said goodbye to my husband, sure that he would get swept out to sea and disappear. I'm glad to report he's still alive.

Ellie wasn't too sure about sand. She refused to walk in the soft sand, but didn't seem to mind the wet sand. She enjoyed the water!

This was Mike's first time being buried in sand.

Ellie coming to see what's happening to Daddy.

Giving Daddy kisses.

We spent the next day at SeaWorld, and it was awesome! Ellie was a little grump all day due to missing naps and not eating well, but I still think she enjoyed herself.

Here she is frowning at OP the Otter.

We took her on the Sesame Street Rides: Abby's Sea Star Spin (teacups), Elmo's Flying Fish, and Oscar's Rocking Eel.

Although she doesn't look like it, she actually really enjoyed the rides. What she didn't enjoy was getting off. "No! Stop Mama! More. More." Yeah, she didn't quite grasp the concept of taking turns and standing in lines. She would've ridden the teacups all day if she could've.

Sea Lions. My new favorite animal.

Some Shamu action shots.

The underwater shark tunnel.

And for lunch we had turkey legs!

Even Ellie tore right into it!

And this is how we all felt by the end of the day!

The next day we ventured to Old Town San Diego. We stopped by the new Mormon Batallion Visitors Center. This was seriously the coolest visitors center I've been too. Here's the link: http://lds.org/placestovisit/eng/historical-sites/san-diego-mormon-battalion-historic-site

So you start out in this room with tents and logs to sit on and a movie comes on and tells you about how the early church members were asked to join the US Army and how Brigham Young promised that if they were true and faithful, they would never see a battle. Then you travel to the next room, which is a fort and they show you what equipment they were issued. The next room you find yourself in a night-time camping setting. They tell the story of how the batallion thought they were under attack, but it was really just a herd of wild bulls and they ground actually shakes as you watch the movie. The next room represents the first courthouse in San Diego the batallion members helped build. Then there's a courtyard with hands-on exhibits where you can pan for gold, make bricks, wash clothes on a wash board, etc. Seriously, coolest church site I've ever been to thus far in my life!

Here's us panning for gold.

This was the most bizarre flavored ice cream I've ever seen. Not very appetizing.

Old Town San Diego

And before we headed out, we stopped to see the beautiful San Diego Temple.

On a side note, Ellie had a blow-out in the car (the first time in a very long time) and it was bad. We had to stop at a gas station and strip her down. Anyways, afterwards we put her back in the car and get back on the road and she kept talking, and talking, and talking about what had happened. She'd look at me and say, "Big poopy diaper (jibber jabber)...Big one!" And then she'd tell Mike, "Big poopy! (Jibber jabber) Big poopy diaper." And this went on for about 10 minutes. Hilarious! She's starting to become a very vocal child.