Southern California Trip: February 2020 - Part II

For the second half of our trip, Oscar's parents flew in and joined us at our hotel in Carlsbad. We made dinner for them when they arrived Friday evening after Allison had gone to bed and just before Tyler did.

The next day Martha and Marcus  stayed with the kids while Oscar and I went to the San Diego temple. They made candy sushi while we were out.

 It was super rainy for the first part of the day while we were driving to the temple, but the sun came out after our session.

This was a nice surprise since the weather report had said it would rain all day. It warmed up enough that we could go swimming. The kids had lots of fun in the pool with grandpa. Grandpa can toss Tyler much higher and farther than I can.

Even Allison wanted to jump to grandpa, sit with granny in the hot tub, and mostly splash everyone else in the water.

That evening we took a walk around the property at sunset. The kids terrified me chasing each other without stopping while all 4 of us yelled at them to stop. Tyler eventually stopped just before going into the road, and Allison stopped smack in the middle of the road where the cars from the garage come out. Thankfully the car stopped for her...I spent the next 10 minutes with my heart still racing. The kids still had plenty of energy, so Oscar played with them and chased them around in a much less dangerous area. Tyler says they had lots of fun there.

We stopped to watch the sunset and pretty clouds. Tyler says it looked really great and beautiful!

A mom came by with her 18 month old. Allison walked right up and gave him a hug.

The kids and daddy also enjoyed making a sun out of a puddle and their footprints.

The sunset was very beautiful! Tyler REALLY liked it.

The other scenery was beautiful too. In the summer the green patch on the left is covered in flowers.

I love this cute picture of grandpa and Tyler!

Martha got some adorable family pictures of us in this neat tree. The kids enjoyed climbing around on it too.

We're looking good!

The kids played on the little playground before we turned in.

The next morning we went to church then relaxed at bit with technology before driving up to the beach in Oceanside.

Allison went right for the water while Tyler stayed and played in the sand with granny. It was only about 60 degrees out, so the ocean was pretty cold. I don't know how Allison could handle splashing around in it, but I knew she would definitely get in the water since I'd already seen her splashing around at Ocean Shores in cold, cloudy weather.

Oscar and his dad climbed up to watch the waves from the little pier.

Allison zonked hard on the drive home. She'd had a lot of fun.

And for our final full day we went back to Sea World, this time with granny and grandpa. By purchasing the annual pass we were able to get free bring a friend tickets for them.

Tyler painted a dinosaur piggy bank in the morning while Marcus and Martha got their things packed up. The San Diego airport is only about 5 miles away from Sea World, so they just went straight from there.

Since we'd already done rides the previous day, we made it our first priority to see the aquariums and take granny and grandpa to the shows. First we checked out the shark escalator.

Then we watched the dolphin show, which we'd missed on Friday. Here are the pilot whales.

 And of course, the fabulous dolphins!

Oscar, Tyler, and I were all able to ride the Manta coaster easily this time while Allison stayed with granny and grandpa. Tyler LOVED the Manta coaster. We went 3 times then brought them back in the area to feed the bat rays. Tyler thought it was pretty slimy, but he still enjoyed it.

And to see the big Manta rays.

We then saw Orca Encounter again. This time the kids sat with granny and grandpa in the last row of the splash zone, so all they got were a few drops. Oscar and I sat in the splash zone since it was warm and sunny enough that we didn't mind getting wet. Tyler enjoyed seeing them again without needing to taste salt water.

Granny and grandpa didn't have a lot of time left, but they did take the kids on a few rides while Oscar and I went on the neat 54+ inch Electric Eel coaster twice.

After that we said our goodbyes while they drove out to the airport. I took the kids over to Abby's Sea Star Spin. Allison loved this one!

From there we went on the bayside skyride. Tyler really liked it and was glad we didn't get stuck on it. Last year some people got stuck on it in the wind and cold for hours on the same day we visited. They had to be rescued by boat.

And finally we made it over to the Wild Arctic, an area we'd missed on our last two trips. First we saw the penguins.

There's a penguin escalator too. There's a new dive coaster being built right in the area called Emporer. Hopefully we can make it back to Sea World to ride it before our passes expire.

This is all that's left of the former Wild Arctic ride. It was a motion simulator that closed recently, but you can still watch the film. I'm not wild about simulators, so I actually preferred being able to just watch it without motion sickness. Oscar thought it would have been better as a flying ride like Soarin' at Disney or Wings Over Washington.

From there we saw the Beluga whale. He wasn't super visible. He liked hiding in the corner, but we caught glimpses of him here and there.

The walrus, on the other hand, was very visible. He was like "hey, look at me. Plenty to see here. Check me out!"

And the seal showed off for us too.

Here are the kids posing with the crabs and the octopus

And we finished off the day with one more ride on the swings then took the kids over to the Sesame Street Bay of Play until the park closed.

The next morning we woke up at 3:48am to drive down to San Diego, return our rental car, and catch our 7:00am flight home. The kids took days to fully recover from waking up that early. Here's sweet, sleepy Allison snuggling with daddy in the airport while we were waiting to board. They barely slept in the car on the drive down and didn't sleep at all on the plane.

We enjoyed some beautiful views on the flight and arriving in our own city of Everett. The kids even went back to school that day. It's so nice to only have an 8 minute drive back from the airport! It was a great trip! Now that we're in quarantine, it's fun to look back on trips like this and remember all the good times we had on vacation.