San Diego

Since Kyla was born we haven't all gone on a vacation together that involved air travel. Becky had been lamenting this fact last winter when my mother suggested that we all take a trip together. The options we came up with were San Diego and Mexico. Thankfully we opted for the former as we left during the swine flu outbreak (which was generally overblown, but I hear that many of the Mexican resort towns basically shutdown during this period).

The flight down wasn't bad, Becky had to spent a lot of time keeping Blake entertained, but overall it went OK. I picked everyone up in our rented minivan, which disappointed the children because they thought that all minivans had TVs in them.

We stayed at a hotel next to Balboa Park and were immediately upgraded to an 1100 square foot suite (apparently it is a good idea to begin your stays in the middle of the week). We picked this hotel because the rooms have little kitchens so that we could eat in part of the time. We also got a lot of use out of the play structure that was within a block of the place.

We went to the major attractions, the zoo, Sea World, and the Wild Animal Park. Blake didn't last more than two hours at a time, so Becky often ended up with him napping in the van while Mom, Kyla, and I played (I tried to relieve her but it didn't work out logistically). Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves during the periods where both kids were happy.

On the third night Becky and I went off by our selves and walked along Sunset Cliffs which was very pretty, though unfortunately the clouds obscured the area's namesake. On the last night we all went to Coronado Beach and the kids had a blast running around in the surf and playing in the sand.

The plane ride home provided a bad ending to the trip. This time the plane was full and we only had one window seat (on the trip down we had all six seats in the aisle to ourselves). Kyla sat in it and Blake decided he wanted to be there, and Kyla refused to give it up (Blake hadn't yet napped and Kyla was pretty tired herself). Blake wouldn't go to another seat and threw a major tantrum when Becky placed him in her lap. I tried to entertain him with a cartoon on my iPhone, but a flight attendant reminded me that all electronic devices had to be off during takeoff.

The screaming lasted for at least 15 minutes, during which Becky and I tried everything we could think of to placate him. There were two young women in the seats in front of us who complained loudly and made snide remarks about our parenting. Of course there was nothing we could do and they were just making our terrible situation worse (Becky later said that it took a lot of willpower to resist going over those seats and relieving herself of pent up frustration). After we were finally allowed to use electronics I started the cartoon again, which immediately shut Blake up and he was asleep within five minutes.

Despite this unfortunate ending I'm glad we went and had a lot of fun, though it was a lot of work throughout. Becky and I both agree that we're going to wait a while before attempting another major vacation because as the kids get older the ratio of work to fun on trips becomes more favorable.