San Diego, California - October 2010 : We took a family trip to San Diego. Natalya went on her first plane ride and did a great job and Alexa took her second trip there, but first she really remembers. I took the kids out there on Saturday while Jason came out on Tuesday evening. The girls played with play-doh and Alexa watched movies on the plane. There was also some time where Natalya showed off her jumping ability to the people sitting around us, it was cute.

It was pretty rainy during our stay stay there. We stayed at Sherly and Bob's. They just finished a huge remodel of their backyard and it looks fabulous. When it finally stopped raining, we hit up the San Diego Zoo. It was fun, but I ended up lugging kids around and up and down the hills. They 2pm, I was pooped and ready to go home.

The big event that Alexa had been looking forward to was Disneyland. We went up there with Harvey and Scott while Natalya stayed with Sheryl. Alexa had a great time. She rode every ride, but complained the entire time while standing in line that the line was too long. We never waited more than 15-20 minutes for a ride and most of the time the wait was shorter, with the expection of the meeting the princesses, that was an hour wait. She loved riding The Matterhorn. She even rode Space Mountain, but did not want to go again. It was just too loud for her. We also went on another ride that had some doors that would open in front of us and it was kind of scary. Afterward we went on Winny The Pooh's ride and it starts off with us going through a door that opens. She sees it, turns and looks at me and says, "I wanna get off!" I laughed and told her it wasn't scary. She liked it. We had to drag her to Splash Mountain, but as soon as we did the drop, she said, "I want to go again." That was her usual response at the end of every ride. We also went to Mickey's Birthday party since it was Jason's birthday. It was a bit expensive, but Alexa had a good time. We got to decorate a cake and she met Mickey and Minnie. Not worth the money, but she had fun. Another fun story was when we found ourselves walking next to the mean queen from Snow White. She was making her way to some secret tunnel and Alexa is standing next to her and the Queen, in character, looks at Alexa, puts her hand out and says, "Move aside, move aside little girl." My intial second reaction was "What the hell! How dare she say that to my baby." But Alexa looks at me with this huge smile on her face and she instantly mimics what the mean Queen said. Alexa puts her hand up and says in the cutest, snootiest voice she can muster, "Move aside, Move aside." It was awesome! All-in-all, the trip to Disneyland was fantastic. Lulu had a great time and that's all that matters. On the way home we hit up In 'N Out Burger ... monster style.

We also hit up Legoland in San Diego with Sherly, Bob and Scott, twice. To us, Legoland seemed like what an amusement park was before Disneyland. Basically for little kids, no special effects ... it was very basic, but good for very young children. Natalya got to go both times and she loved it. She loved going on the rides and would cry every time we would take her off. Alexa liked it too, but she kept saying she wanted to get her "paint face" done, so we heard about that for two days.

The girls also went on their first train ride when we took the Coaster to Old Town.

We went to the beach a few times. It was raining most of the days and kind of cold the whole week, so we didn't spend long periods of time at the beach. Alexa just loved playing in the water and running up and down the beach. Natalya had a great time too, but she didn't want to get went. I think waves kind of scared her. We tried to take some family photos on the beach, but they didn't turn out so great. We had too issues: Bad light as the sun was setting behind us and children who wouldn't stand still.

The girls did pretty good with sleeping. Alexa slept in the guest room and Nataly slept in a crib in our room. Natalya took naps really well, but at night she would scream and cry and we ended up letting her fall asleep in our bed and then moved her. Of course she was all messed up once we got home, but that's Natalya's usual MO when her schedule gets off. The airplane ride home was a little bit more stressful as it was over Natalya's nap time, so she got a bit fussy for 30 minutes. We also lost one of Natalya's Croc like shoes. We got on the plane and noticed she was missing one. Jason went to find it, but couldn't. We also lost Natalya's Minnie Mouse blanket during the week. (Now when she watches video of our trip, she points at her Minnie blanket in the video and says, "Minnie, Minnie" and gets upset. I went out and bought her a new one.)

With the exception of the weather, our trip to San Diego turned out pretty good.