We have LANDED!!

Yes, we are safe! We are in San Diego and I will write more about this in a second. I just wanted to explain why I am probably going to be writing a new post every day until I get home. It isn't really because I think that my life is soooooo fascinating that everyone needs to read about me every day, it's just that ever since I was a little girl, my mom would have a journal for us to write in when we went on vacations. For some reason this has always stuck with me and, in fact, reading my old travel journals is something I love to do because it brings back so many wonderful memories and feelings I have had growing up. When I was packing I had thought that I had packed my travel journal, but apparently I can't find it. We are going to be switching rooms tomorrow so I haven't completely unpacked everything, so maybe I will be able to find it tomorrow when I am done unpacking for the week. So, unless I find my travel journal, any poor sucker who wants to will be privileged enough to know almost every detail of our travels here in good old San Diego.
This morning we woke the kiddies up at 4 am. Our flight left Calgary at 6:35 and we just barely made it even though we were at the airport right when it opened at 5 am. It was actually great timing because we didn't have to wait at all to board the airplane and so the kids were great on our flights!!! We ended up having to stop over in San Francisco and it was actually a nice break and so the kiddies were great on the second flight too!
Once we got here and got our van rental, I had promised the kiddies that we would eat lunch at McDonalds. So, I punched McDonalds into the GPS system and it took us to this mall that I had been telling Otto and the kiddies about where all of the hallways are outdoors. The stores have roofs, but the hallways are completely open, as is the food court. It is a really cool mall, but we couldn't find the McDonalds anywhere. Just after I finished telling Otto about how I had had these AMAZING tacos at that very mall about 15 years ago, we actually ended up eating lunch in that very same place. It is called La Salsa and it has really yummy Mexican food for a great price!!
After we had fed the kids we had planned on going on a cruise around the harbour and looking at all of the war ships. Well, the kids were hot and tired and all they wanted to do was swim, so we decided to nix the cruise and go check into the hotel so we could go swimming. We had so much fun playing with the kiddies and swimming in the hotel pool for a couple of hours. I realized how much I missed swimming in outdoor pools. When I was a little girl we lived in Texas and I used to swim in outdoor pools all the time, but in Canada it just doesn't make sense to have outdoor pools, so they are all indoors. It just isn't the same and having the sun warm the water and then getting out of the pool and not freezing your butt off! The girlies thought that it was cool that I used to swim in swimming pools like this one when I was a little girl. They really like hearing about what I used to do when I was a little girl, and I enjoy telling them, so I think that it works out well!
After swimming for awhile, Otto and I decided that we should take the kids out for dinner at this really cool restaurant called the Corvette Diner that I had found out about in my research about San Diego. This place was really cool and the entire restaurant was a 50's theme. When I walked in the doors, I realized that I had also been here about 15 years ago when I came on a choir tour. We had sung at a Jewish synagogue and then afterwards we went there. It brought back a lot of cool memories for me, but I also think that we made a few tonight. You see the kiddies really had been awake since 4 am, and so by the time we were seated (after waiting for almost an entire hour) they were pretty sleepy. Otto and I were trying to get them to wake up and have some fun by dancing to the music and singing all of the 50's and 60's era songs that the DJ was playing. The kiddies were good sports, but they weren't really into it. . . .and then entered the balloon man! I have see TONS of balloon art, but this guy was INCREDIBLE!!! He made each of the kiddies something unique. Abby got a cool penguin inside of a heart. Anne got a monkey climbing up a banana tree to reach a bunch of bananas that were dangling from the tree (seriously!!), Caroline got an Ariel balloon art (yep, like the Little Mermaid), and Dustin got an orange Bugs Bunny. I, of course, took TONS of pictures, and if I get a chance, I will upload a few because this place was COOL!!!!
So we haven't even been here 24 hours and already the kids think that San Diego is the coolest place on the face of the earth! Wait until tomorrow. . . we are going to Wildlife National Park and LEGOLAND, so I pretty much will be the BEST MOM EVER!!!
Anyways for you family members and friends who have taken the time to read this, know that we love you and we really wish that you were here with us because it's always more fun to do things like this with people that you love. The kids are all exhausted and everyone is asleep in this room except for me, but I needed to make sure that I wrote this all down so that my kiddies can look back on this day and remember how much fun we have already had together.
Good-night!