Christmas in San Diego

Santa Claus at Candy Cane Lane with Macon and Sadie

Eli, Alex, Mariah, Seth and Ben

Favorite Christmas present

Opening presents Christmas morning (Noah, Matt, Dana, Mariah, Macon)

At the tidal pools

San Diego -Christmas Eve

Family panorama

with Dana!

The girls enjoyed Alex

Got to run!!!!  Somewhere in the desert

Brothers

We had a great time in San Diego with Dana and fam.  This is the 1st trip we've broken the trip into 2 days and I'm not convinced that it was worth it.  What should have been a 6 hour trip to Mesquite turned into a 8 hour trip because of rain/windshield wiper issues and Ben's pea sized bladder.  Thanks to LA traffic, the trip from Mesquite to San Diego also took 8.  But we quickly forgot the seemingly endless drive when we were reunited with family.  Ben had a heyday with his cousins.  Usually, when he plays with other kids, it requires some intervention because "He's not sharing" or "She won't play with me".  But I saw hardly any of Ben the whole time we were in San Diego - I suspect because his older cousins were more apt to give him his way then kids his own age:) 

We a had a great time joining the Hamsons in their Christmas traditions and I got in some QT with my sister and fresh ocean air (a requisite for any trip to a coastal state).  Whenever I visit San Diego in the winter, I can't get over how phenomenal it would be to live in a place where the weather is mostly pleasant all year round.  Oh how I hate Utah in the winter - the roads are a mess when it snows, and when it's not snowing, the air's inverted.  I become a hermit who only goes outside when absolutely necessary.  Maybe when I'm working less or my kids or older I'll take up a winter sport.  Until then, I'll continue to complain about it and envy my sisters enjoying 60 some degree temperatures while I'm freezing my bippy off.

But back to the trip...the real adventure occurred on the way from San Diego to Mesquite.  Traveling through California the day after Christmas was a very bad idea.  The traffic was stop and go through most of California, Alex was very unhappy with that and spent a good portion of the drive screaming, and Dave coped by blaring the radio.  At some point, I handed Ben a bag of marshmallows, got distracted and came to my senses with a large portion of the marshmallows gone.  Needless to say, there I was sitting in between my 2 boys, enjoying a moment of peace by talking on the phone when Ben lost his marshmallows along with everything else he had eaten that day.  Have you ever been in a small confined airtight space with vomit?  It's not pleasant.  We managed to change Ben and hose off the carseat without throwing up ourselves and an hour later, after 10+ hours in the van, arrived in Mesquite.  Things were said like "I'm never taking this trip again" (Dave).  Oh well, we survived and had a very fast trip from Mesquite to home the next day (6 hours with an hour stop, go figure).  And if I have my way (and I can be very persuasive) we'll be making many more trips to California in the years to come.

Haopy again after a good night's sleep!

Ben's quote of the trip:  (Playing video games with his older cousins, his 5 year old cousin asks if she can play.)  Ben says "You can't play, you're too little".  Ha!

Realtime quote of the day: "Guess what mom?  My heartbeat is awake!"