We spend the morning downtown attending the Chinese New Year festival that was a few blocks from my brother's apartment in the GasLamp Quarter.
It was another warm day. We were really lucking out on the weather! The week or so before we came it had been so rainy and dreary. We were so thankful for the hot sun and warmth on our Minnesota skin! Emma is a natural California girl :-P
They had kid crafts set up at the festival so that was fun for Isaac and Christina to do
Selfie stick in action!
Isaac was very fond of Christina and they were BFFs!
We took a little walk through the Marriott Marquis hotel pool area to cut through to get to Joe's Crab shack on the San Diego bay for lunch. Pulled out the selfie stick again :-)
It's been a long time since we've had crab legs. Not really the friendliest food when you already spend most meals feeding other humans.... no time to crack and feed yourself. Oh and if they were to get a taste of it they we'd end up cracking our portion for them... so we haven't even attempted it with the kids. But we used to have a tradition of Valentine's Day crab legs. Our first Valentine's together 10 years ago (WOW I just realized it was ten years ago!) we bought crab legs and cooked them at Kyle's college apartment, with a crappy glass of wine with a monkey on it which I think we still have the bottle because I can't throw things out like that.
We got these goofy bibs and the kids dove into their mac 'n cheese and you can see from Mary's face.
After lunch we walked back over to Josh's apartment. In hopes the girls would nap in the stroller... they were very relaxed and not complaining so at least that was good, but no nap. Here is Josh's view
Since they wouldn't nap we decided to take that drive up to La Jolla Cove to see the seals. It's about a half hour drive from downtown. We didn't hit any traffic until we exited into La Jolla and boy was there a traffic jam. Luckily the babies were snoozing away so we were in no rush. We finally made it down to the cove and there was no parking. We circled around the area and found a 3 minute loading spot near the edge... Kyle hopped out to see if he could see the seals. When there was confirmation he ran back to grab Isaac and they went for a little peek.
So they at least saw what we came for and we continued to drive around a little bit. After the day before's drive to Newport Beach and back we had spent quite a lot of time in the car. We debated about just heading back to the condo but Isaac really wanted to stay so we found a parking spot and reunited with Josh.
We picked up some much needed Starbucks and walked down to the cove area. We were up on the hill, Prospect Street it's called but we found a cut through of about 4 flights of stairs down to the park. We made our way over to the seals. It was so crazy how they just laid there sleeping with all these people watching them. And boy were they stinky!!
The waves were gorgeous.
The kids got to run around and play in the grass, which was so good for them! They needed to burn some energy and move their legs!
We taught them ring around the rosie, they played tag, and we waved at airplanes. Mary now says "buh bye! buh bye!" anytime she see's a plane in the sky.
Emma giving Grandma hugs
Time to head back to the van and make our way south to the condo.
Arriving in Imperial Beach on Palm St. Isaac is reading now and would yell "Palm! Palm Street! Like Palm Tree! Palm Tree Street, that is where we are!" <3 p="">
We took a quick jog to the south end of the street we were staying on: Seacoast Drive. It dead ends into Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge an Estuarine Research Reserve.
This was at the pier, when we were there before all the festival booths were blocking the pier sign. So I got a better shot as we drove by.
Once we got home we fed the kids some left overs and Josh came back over with some tacos. Him and his fiance and Kyle and I were able to go have a picnic on the beach after I got the girls to bed. Isaac and Christina stayed up playing with grandma. It was a nice way to end Valentine's Day having wine, cheese & olives, and tacos under the moonlight.
Monday we planned to keep it low key. Josh was off work due to President's Day. We headed down to the beach to see low tide and apparently were the only ones there. It did start to have more people after we left and later throughout the day. When you're kids are ingrained on central time it's an early morning on the west coast!
Lots of sand play and shell finding. We were finding lots of clam shells, scallops, quahogs, semeles, venuses and a few sand dollars. I was really wanting to find spiral or conchs. We asked Josh if there was another good place to find shells and he actually said he was surprised how many shells we had been finding here on Imperial Beach. Mom found a live clam. We kept him for a bit to show everyone then threw him back in.
Emma loved to pick up the tiniest perfectest shells. It was so cute how proud she was.
Then Kyle found this cool shell with a live animal in it. We had looked it up in mom's shell book later that night but couldn't land on what it was. I just did some googling and I think maybe it's some type of tectus niloticus.
Mary loved the sand!
Josh enjoyed playing frisbee
So the sand toys were all 99 cent store finds. I couldn't find a bucket at first so I found some shovels that were actually in the pet section and were dog food scoops (they worked the best, ended up getting a second one when I went back for the glasses) I found this funnel in the automotive section. I finally came across the bucket and little yellow shovel that first visit. Of course the bucket and shovel broke during the first use, but held us over well.
Eating snack with a side of sand.
The girls were getting sleepy so we ordered Thai take out and brought it back to the condo. Put the girls down for a nap, which they ended up sleeping a couple hours if I remember right. Kyle, Isaac, and I chilled at the condo while Josh and Mom went up the silver strand to Fiddler's Cove where Josh rents a sailboat. Josh took my mom out on the boat for a quick sail. Oh they also drove a little south on a different road and explored the national reserve area before the Mexico border.
Once the girls woke up and they returned we loaded up and drove north a bit back to coronado beach. That beach was so soft it was fun to wiggle our toes in. We didn't wear swimsuits because we just planned on it being a quick visit before dinner time. I had fun writing in the sand
Mary had a little taste of the sand for herself
The walk back to the van was a little farther than our home beach, but the girls enjoyed the trek. Emma had her hands full but refused assistance.
We had dinner down the road on Orange Street in Coronado at a yummy Mexican place. Then headed back to the condo.
The day ended with baths. Emma had fallen the first night in the tub and bit her tongue. So since then she fought bath time every night. She was a quick, in-wash-and-out, then would watch Isaac and Mary play from afar.
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