We just got back from our wonderful family vacation to San Diego. It was such a great trip and it sure is hard to get back into the swing of things and super hard to wrap my mind around the realization that summer is officially over tomorrow! We left for San Diego on August 3rd well actually we left for Fresno. Since our flight (yes I'm finally getting to take my kids on an airplane!) left really early Monday the 4th we decided it would be best to start the vacation early and head down and stayed in Fresno the night before. We stayed at a hotel that was literally right next to the airport. Lets just say the pictures of Piccadilly Inn on-line looked a lot better than in person. It was not horrible but definitely not as nice as I'm use too. We checked in drooped off our suitcases and headed to the Fresno mall and to Cheesecake Factory for dinner.
We came back to the hotel and watched a movie and tried to go to bed early since our wake up call was for 4:30am. The family seemed to have slept pretty good but I was up all night excited and anxious for our next day. 4:30am came fast and we all got up dressed, packed and headed to the airport. I was very excited that we were flying. It had been 6 years since I last was on a plane and for someone that use to be a flight attendant it had been way to long. The airport was so much fun and made me miss living in a bigger town near a "real" airport.
The kids did great through security and pulling their own bags. We enjoyed a pastry breakfast at Starbucks and watched the sun rise by our gate.
Finally time to board the plane. We were all very excited!
The flight went quick and it went really great! The kids are natural travelers!
After our flight we headed over to the rental car place got the car and headed for Carlsbad to check in to the hotel. We were back in forth on our plans since we got in to San Diego at 10am we had a full day of excitement ahead of us. We decided that we were very excited to check out LegoLand so after checking out our beautiful hotel, The West Inn and Suites we hopped on the hotel shuttle for LegoLand.
Our first day at the park was lots of fun but a bit over whelming since it was our first time there. We are use to Disneyland which we know the map like the back of our hands. We got lost a couple times and didn't know which lines we should wait in and which ones were not worth the wait. We did get to check out a lot of things and map out what we wanted to the next day. We were all very tired from the early flight and it was probably the hottest day of our whole vacation so that might have added to our stress. Also Monday ended up being the crowdest day in the park all week too. We ended up leaving the park around 2 and going back to the hotel to swim and then out to dinner.
We got a great night of sleep and Tuesday our second day in LegoLand was awesome!!
We loved all matching in our tie dyes and so did everyone else, we got lots of complements. We got to the park at 9am and they open certain areas at different times so it was nice to do one area and then go to a different area right when they opened.
The kids loved putting a car together and racing it.
One of the rides the kids were so excited about was driving their own cars and getting a drivers licence. Carter got to drive on the 3-5 side and Aubrey on 6 and up side. Both kids did so great. Carter lapped all the others in his area he was such a good driver.
The Lego statues are amazing. Everything in the park is made of Lego's it's really cool.
We then went on our first roller coaster I think it was called the Dragon. Carter loved it Aubrey hated it. Carter is definitely more our adventurist one which was a little sad since he is not 42 inches yet so we didn't get a chance to go on a couple of the other ones in the park. We were proud of Aubrey for trying it.
You can kind of see in our ride picture the difference between the two of them.
We left the park around 1 that day for lunch and swimming.
Our hotel was so wonderful and we now know why it was rated best family vacation spot in Carlsbad. The staff was wonderful, the pool area beautiful, the room gorgeous, spacious and comfortable and the yummy hot breakfast and milk and cookies at night was icing on the cake. Oh pool and beach toys to play with anytime was also a huge perk.
After a relaxing afternoon we headed back to the park for the evening time and to eat dinner. Aubrey was very excited for the safari ride she even wanted to wear her cheetah shirt that night.
We then got to tour the actual set from The Lego Movie. This was really cool!!
The double decker couch was our favortie :)
Tuesday was so much less crowded so we got to ride all the rides we wanted to do and even some a couple times.
The Lego miniland was really cool. They had pretty much every big city in the world built out of Lego's.
Tuesday was a great day.
Wednesday was our water park day. Unfortunately since water was involved I didn't bring the camera. I did snap this photo with my phone but then left my phone with our towels for the day.
The water park was really cool and perfect for our little ones. There where a few big slides that Carter was too short for but that was fine since we all wanted to stick together on the smaller stuff. The kids loved it and since we got there early in the day it was not crowded at all. Aubrey did get her first bee sting that day which was a big bummer but she was brave and after 5 minutes she was up and running again. They had a really neat area to build a boat out of Lego's and race it where we spent a lot of time. The kids favorite was the alligator slide in the new Chima area. I think daddy and I's favorite area was the lazy river were we just rode on rafts and relaxed. After our water day we came back to the hotel and got dressed and walked around the Carlsbad outlets.
That night we tried the bistro at our hotel for dinner. It's a 5 star restaurant and it was very good. We love going out and trying new places but it was a little more challenging trying to find places that the kids would enjoy too. This place was family friendly but still was fine dinning which made for a nice treat.
Thursday beach day!
What can I say it was perfect. Feet in the sand, watching the kids build sand castles, collecting sea shells, hearing the waves and laying in the sun. It was great!
Dinner was Ruby's diner that night. The Oreo shake was so yummy and watching the train go around the restaurant was fun too.
After dinner we went to the aquarium at Legoland. We heard that it was small and not that great but we actually really liked it. Lots of hands on stuff and they had a fun quiz that the kids (well actually I) did trough out the whole thing to earn a prize at the end.
Aubrey got to make a fish craft at one station.
Carter and daddy built this.....
J/K it does look like they built it though.
The shark walk through was way cool.
It was a really neat place. Then back into LegoLand for our last night :(
This firetruck ride was so funny.
You race 3 other families in trucks and then fight a fire. Our super muscular daddy got the truck to the other end before the 3 other trucks moved 1 inch. Aubrey was so proud of her daddy.
That night we rode all our favorites one last time and had the best churros dipped in chocolate for dessert.
Good bye LegoLand.
We had fun and made a ton of great memories. When we got back to the hotel the front desk called us the Supinger party animals. I took that as a compliment we did party all week and had a blast doing it!
Friday morning we slept in and enjoyed our last breakfast at our hotel. We then packed up and headed for the San Diego Zoo.
We were excited to check out the zoo with the kids. Spencer and I had gone 6 years ago and I went as a kid so it was nice to go back and see all the amazing animals. It was a lot of walking but the weather was perfect and we did spend a lot of time on the double decker bus. The weeks leading up to our trip the kids and I watched some of the animals on web cams they have so it was fun seeing them in person. The baby orangutan and mommy was my favorite.
Aubrey's favorite was the panda bear.
Carter and daddy loved the insect room and the giraffes.
It was a really fun day at the zoo. It was sad as the day came to end since that meant our vacation was coming to end.
We headed downtown for dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory.
Then to dropping the rental car off and back to the airport. Our flight didn't leave until 9:50pm that night so it was a late night. The kids did great sitting together on the airplane and we got compliments about how well behaved they were.
The kids did fall sleep in the car on the way home. We pulled into home around 1am. It was a great vacation. I feel like we did so much , saw a lot but still had time to relax. The kids had a blast and Carter still asks if we can go to LegoLand tomorrow. Aubrey asked me yesterday, "when we go to Disneyland next summer can we fly?" I see lots of fun air travel in our future. We feel so blessed and lucky that everything went smooth and it was a wonderful week!
Now on to planning our next family vacation!
