San Diego

We decided to go to San Diego for a family vacation this summer. It has been quite a while since we've done a big family vacation, and we were all so excited for it. We drove to Hughson for Papa's funeral first, and then down to San Diego the next day. That was a total of almost 20 hours in the car. The kids did fantastic though. Seriously, it was a very pleasant drive.

We rented a cottage a few feet from Chad's house. His landlord owns them both and gave us a good deal because they love Chad and Stephen so much. It was SO nice to have a house instead of a hotel. Their house is on the left and ours is on the right.

It was fun to hang out with them a few nights. They had us over for dinner one night, and it was really nice to be able to put Damon to bed and just take the monitor to Chad's and keep hanging out. 

Chad had the kids laughing so hard with an app on his phone.

  

  

  

  

They seriously thought it was the coolest thing ever. 

The cottage is in Old Town. Really, IN it. There's a souvenir shop on one side of the house and a restaurant on the other side. They just live right in the middle of a tourist town. It was very convenient. On beach days we would let Damon take his morning nap before we went. Tessa and I went shopping a couple mornings. It was fun to explore Old Town. They have a street market on the weekends. We got some great hand-made souvenirs and met some of the nicest people. 

Another morning I took the older kids to the Mormon Battalion Museum. It was an interactive movie tour with some sister missionaries where we learned the story of the Mormon pioneer army that helped settle Old Town. We got to pan for gold at the end of the tour. The kids loved that!

We knew we could rely on Chad to tell us about great restaurants. We loved the food within walking distance of the house. Our definite favorite was Miguel's. Seriously, it is the best Mexican food I have ever had. We ate there 3 nights. Damon loved it just as much as the rest of us. :)

We loved our trip. We loved spending all that time together, experiencing new things and new places, hanging out with Chad and Stephen, and just doing something different. It was great.