Spring Break

Ryan and I took a trip to San Diego nearly twelve years ago. We were on summer break from the University of Utah and I was a few months pregnant with Braden. We keep a picture in our kitchen of us standing on the cliffs overlooking La Jolla beach to remind us of how beautiful it was. Medical school and residency took us to the Atlantic Ocean for vacations for a while, but being back in the west has given us the desire to make a return trip. So for spring break we packed everyone up and headed to San Diego, which proved a bit more work this time around.

While a few of our plans were repeats from our first trip, i.e., Coronado Beach, Sea World, and the San Diego temple, we threw in a few new ones to please the expanded group.

We had a couple of us fall in love with the polar bears at the San Diego Zoo and a few the view from the Cabrillo Light House. There were some amazed by the Lego structures at Legoland, maybe one that enjoyed body surfing in the cold ocean, and nearly all that lost their breakfast while whale watching.

I'm not sure who thought that whale watching would be fun for a family afflicted by motion sickness... ok, I guess I'll have to admit it was me. When will I learn. I should never do anything that requires my feet to leave the ground. Small airplanes, parasailing, boats smaller than a cruise ship... none of them have ever ended well. So you can imagine that three and a half hours on the open sea looking for whales was disastrous. Braden was the sole member of the family with breakfast still in his stomach at the end of the voyage. Amazingly, he stood at the bow of the ship the entire three and a half hours. We apparently saw a blue whale, which Braden will confirm, though at that point I'm not sure how many of the rest of us even cared.

Despite our misadventure on the sea, we had an amazing time. It was fun to see the twins buried in the sand like mermaids, Braden surfing, and Emmry collecting shells at the ocean. And along with creating memories, it seemed the most fitting vacation for our family. On our first trip to San Diego we were expecting our first child. On this second trip, we're expecting our last.