Tarico Times: San Diego

This past week we were one of those "bad" families that took our son out of school to go on vacation. We were actually supposed to go a few weeks ago but had to reschedule since Doug had so much going on at work and was on the verge of getting sick. Amazingly, the hotel allowed us to reschedule our stay to a later date. So we left midday on Wednesday and headed to San Diego. One of Camden's most favorite things these days is Lego's...either building or playing Lego Racer on the computer so a big part of our trip was about Legoland. We spent two full days and had a great time. Fortunately, overall the park wasn't too busy (which was how we tried to plan it) and we rode pretty much everything and in some cases multiple times...ie we rode one of our favorite rides the Dragon coaster six times in a row since there wasn't any line and we didn't have to get off. Camden was pretty stoked. Even though we had a great time, it is sad to see that Cam is starting to get a little old for some of the rides. Do they have to grow up?

Here we are in our cheesy touristy outfits. Normally we don't wear such things when we travel (in the states or out) but our basketball team was having a big game that day and we just plain wanted to be comfortable!

Our boy at the entrance:

Dad & Camden

This is our third time at Legoland and each time we have taken a picture of Camden in this shark. It's kind of become a tradition. Here's this trip's picture:

And here is the first one we took of Camden back in 2005. He was 3 1/2:

Our boy doing his own driving at Skipper school. It was pretty funny actually...Camden all by himself in his own boat and Doug and I crammed in our own little boat. It's still hard to believe that he is big enough to go all by himself.

The boys had fun on this ride although Doug got a little too wet. He wasn't too happy that it was me squirting him from dry land.

Since Doug can't handle the spinning rides, this has always been my territory. Up until a few years ago I was totally fine with that. More spinning the better. Sadly now that I am old (nearly 40) I have found that I can't go all out on those rides, I get to a certain and I need to find my " happy place" to finish the ride. Getting old is hard!

All around the park are all sorts of things made of legos. This is definitely one of our favorite parts of Legoland.

President Obama's Inauguration:

While swimming one evening at our hotel swimming pool, Doug & Camden met the Scott family from Missouri. They had three boys and Camden hit it off immediately with one of their boys. The next morning, we ran into them in the parking lot and found out they were headed to Legoland as were we. Later that afternoon, we ran into them at Legoland and enjoyed doing some rides together. They were such a nice family and something seemed different about them. Before heading to separate areas of the park, we got their email address and took a picture of Camden and one of their sweet boys, Ben. In hindsight I wish we had taken a picture of the whole family. Anyway, as many families do and much to Doug's chagrin, we finished our day at the park at the gift shop. While making deals with Camden on which Lego set we were going to buy (ya know how much he has to spend and how much Mom & Dad were going to throw in etc..) , we ran into the family once again. We chit chatted and then they took off. They were heading to LA as their flight home was the next morning. I did briefly, think about initiating dinner with them but before I knew it they took off. Funny but we were a little sad to see them go. Strange, don't you think? We finalized our Lego purchase (finally) and headed for the car. Doug and I talked later about this but at the time we both thought, if we see them in the parking lot we will invite them to dinner. Well, since we took so long at the darn gift shop. They were long gone with just about everybody else that was at Legoland that day. So, we decided to find some dinner and were itching for something different...maybe some seafood but definitely not a chain restaurant so we took off driving on PCH and headed toward Oceanside. About 10 miles North of Legoland, we decided to park when we came upon a cluster of restaurants. We walked around a few blocks checking menu's and since Camden was whining about starvation, we finally decided on a little local place that looked somewhat interesting. We sat down and ordered our food. After waiting for a few minutes guess who came walking into the restaurant? You guessed it...the Scott family! We could not believe it! We were no where near Legoland and we weren't even on a main drag. It was amazing! Since we all now knew that we were supposed to have dinner together and become friends, they joined us for dinner. Shortly after we found out why we had such a connection with them. It's because they love Jesus as do we. We prayed together and had a wonderful meal. This was such a neat experience...it gives me goose bumps. God is always at work and sometimes I forget that. But when something likes this happens it's a bit of a wake up call...you know it can only be God that orchestrated it. It doesn't just happen. Will we ever see this family again? I have no clue. But for some reason we were meant to cross paths in March 2009.

Camden & Ben

We also spent a day enjoying a few of the museums at Balboa Park. We started at the automobile museum which was a big hit with Camden of course. Here are a few favorites from there:

Yes, it's an old Jack-in-the-box drive through menu. Can you believe those greasy (but sadly very yummy) tacos were only $.25 at one point?

We were able to meet up with Doug's sister, Val and her family who were just returning from a week long whale watching trip down to Mexico. We had a wonderful time exploring a small botanical garden and the Natural History Museum and just catching up. We capped off the evening with some yummy Thai food. Here's part of the gang:

My boys:

On our last day in San Diego, Doug took Camden and spent a few hours doing a few rides at Legoland and checking out their aquarium. While Doug allowed me a few hours at the outlets nearby. I didn't do too much damage but I probably picked up a few too many little girl outfits. If they don't end up fitting our daughter, someone we know will be getting a lot of really cute girl clothes. Here is one of the items I just couldn't resist. Since we don't have a name picked out, we have spent the last four years referring to our daughter (mostly for Camden's sake) as "Little Sister".