San Diego: Part Two

After an over-priced breakfast and a painful goodbye to The Madonna Inn, we continued our journey south. Later today we would be in San Diego. Well, almost San Diego. We were actually going to be staying with some very generous friends, Katie, Tim and their 2 year old daughter, Isabel. They live just outside of San Diego. And, I am not even remotely exaggerating when I say VERY generous friends. Friends who had recently returned from a trip that took them to Alaska and then Hawaii. So, the seven of us show up with bags, strollers, children, a pack-n-play, our dirty laundry (literally, not figuratively) and what has our host done?

Made us all dinner. Amazing.

Now, nearly every dish is dirty in their house thanks to us and I am having to ask Katie, who is still trying to do laundry catch up from her world tour, "Could I maybe do some laundry of my own? I mean, I realize you are up to your eyes in it, but like, I am almost out of underwear."

Don't worry, we brought them several bottles of alcohol for their trouble.

The next morning started with breakfast at Tip Top Meats.

"Going here is kind of a family tradition." Katie told us. "And for eight bucks you can get a breakfast plate with unlimited meat."

As a strong supporter of tradition (and meat) I was excited to try this place.

Katie was absolutely correct. For $7.98 you could get the "Big John Breakfast." This includes, "three eggs any style, home fried potatoes, toast and ALL* of our own delicious smokehouse bacon, pork link sausage, or polish sausage, bratwurst or ham you can eat."

You will notice the asterisk next to the word "ALL." This is indicating a footnote for what will forever be remembered as my favorite thing on a menu EVER. At the bottom of the "Big John" description is states: Sorry ALL not valid on TO GO orders (two meats).

Can you imagine the conversation that lead to that footnote?

"Thanks for calling Tip Top Meats can I take your order?"

"Yes, I will have a Big John Breakfast. Three eggs, over easy, sourdough toast, hash browns and, all the bacon in your freezer."

Although some in our party were brave enough to Big John it up, I opted for a smaller breakfast but did get one of their homemade bratwurst that was just delicious.

After breakfast was Legoland. I have been to Legoland before. It was just over 5 years ago that I went and then swore I would never return as long as I lived. It was well over 100 degrees on that godforsaken day when I asked myself on many occasions, "Why have a willingly entered Hell?" But never say never I guess, because here we are, yet again.

I have to say, this time was much more enjoyable. It was not so hot that I felt like I couldn't breathe. And I did have a child of my own this go around who I got to watch enjoy all there was to see at this wonderland of Legos. His favorite part was "Duplo Land" which is an area of the park that is designed specifically for younger kids. There were slides and climbing structures and places for parents to sit and watch their children play.

"You know, we could have just taken him to a park...for free." Grant said. He was right. I mean really, we could have taken him to an abandoned water treatment plant and called it a park and he would have had a grand ole time. But at least by paying for him to come here at just 15 months old, he won't have any fond memories or recollection of it happening at all, right??

Remind me, why did I agree to this again? Also, does Legoland serve booze?

Turns out, no. But Grant and I pretended and had our own fun.



All joking aside, anything that makes my boy and my nieces happy, makes me happy. And had we not gone, we would have missed out on this very realistic rendition of the Three Little Pigs. So there was that.


Love. The. Shades.


Right now, Charlie is thinking, "You know you could have just taken me to the park, Mom."


Look at this happy little girl. Makes it hard to stay mad at Legoland, doesn't it?


Well, if you must know, I quite enjoyed myself here today at Legoland. But then again, give me a box of raisins and a clean diaper and I can be happy pretty much anywhere.

San Diego: Part One

If you were wondering what it is like to go on a road trip to San Diego with 4 adults, 2 twin 4-year-olds and a 15 month old it falls somewhere between this:



and this:



Yes, that is a pull-up diaper on his head.

This was our first real family vacation and since driving straight through to San Diego from the Bay Area with three children under five sounds about as fun as an unmedicated appendectomy, we split the drive up into two parts.

Our first stop landed us in San Luis Obispo, Grant's college stomping ground and a destination favorite of ours. In the past, we have always done San Luis Obispo on a budget. In college we had no choice and after college we figured it was just good sense. After all, we spent the least amount of time in the room so who cares if it was a two star hotel with a questionable housekeeping policy. But this was vacation and we would be staying with friends once we arrived in San Diego (aka: for free) so it was very easy to justify a two night stay at The Madonna Inn. Known for it's kitschy charm, our room was fairly tame, what with the over-sized, mahogany furniture, horse print curtains and two, giant oil painting of horses grazing the fields. Brittaney and Ryan's room, on the other hand was painted with purple, metallic paint and the wall paper in the bathroom was purple sequin. It is what I believe the "kids" these days refer to as "P-I-M-P."

What the Madonna Inn is also known for is the color pink. To best describe the amount of pink that could be found in the Gold Rush Steakhouse we ate at our first night there, just try to imagine what it might look like if Valentine's Day barfed. The food was really wonderful though. I had the filet that was about the circumference of my son's "95 percentile" head. But even better than our meals was the cake.

Mmmmmm. The cake. I don't really like cake but this is more than just cake. This is cake that is surely crafted by the angels from the fluffy clouds of heaven. It was the only explanation. The kids enjoyed the cake too. I know this because I think it was laced with uppers since shortly after dinner the girls went CRAZY. They were back flipping between beds, wrestling on the floor, ripping light fixtures out of the walls, biting the heads off of chickens. It was sugar INSANITY in "Purple Sparkle Time" room.

And that is when I was reminded of my childhood. A time when I couldn't understand why my parents wouldn't let me have unlimited amounts of sweets all throughout the day. I remember my Aunt Bunky who had an incurable sweet tooth. One Christmas I saw her take a piece of See's Candy from the "Nuts and Chews" box well before dinner and I said, "Why do you get to eat candy before dinner?"

"Because I am a grown-up and when you are a grown-up you can eat whatever you want too." Unlimited candy? Adulthood was sure to be awesome with the promise of an all day candy fest. Of course, she failed to mention the part about bills, a mortgage and body parts starting to "give out."

But fearing a repeat of the night before and knowing it would be our last chance to indulge in a piece of this amazing confection, we did the only logical thing there was to do. Put the kids to bed, send a "grown-up" on a mission for cake and secretly eat it outside the hotel room door in the cold. Because doing things despite your children is the point of parenthood, right?

Brittaney came back from the restaurant and we were giddy as little school girls as we dove into the cake. I didn't think we were being that loud, but apparently they heard us. Ryan went into the room to do damage control.

Madison asked, "Where did you get the coffee?"

"Mommy got it for me from the restaurant."

"The restaurant where we got the cake?"

"Well, yes."

"Well, did you get any cake?"

"No, we just have tea and coffee."

Ella chimed in,"You guys are eating something out there. We can hear it."

Oopps. I felt bad for about 3.6 seconds and then I turned my body to face the closed hotel room door the kids were sleeping in, took a huge forkful of cake and shoved it in my mouth. Why? Because I'm a grown-up who has a mortgage, a bad back and bills to pay but right now, I'm on vacation and I've waited my whole damn life for this. The ability to eat secret, late-night cake, straight out of the to-go box with plastic forks, shivering in the cold, anytime I FREAKING WANT TO!