On January 1st, 2025 the three girls and I flew to San Diego to spend about 3 weeks down there with Hans. What a great time we had! We had to do some school while we were down there and we had some days we didn't do much, but it was a nice time to be in the sun and enjoy some new things down there. So here goes...
We flew down in the early evening and were able to see the sunset as we flew!
The first day there we had to get some groceries but we also had to go to the beach! It was cool outside, but we were happy to walk in the sand along the shore.
On Saturday we went to SeaWorld for our first trip! It had been so long since we had been there and we were happy to be back. They still had the reindeer there from Christmas!
First stop the orca show! Hans, Rae and I sat up front and risked getting wet! We did get a little wet, but it was fun to see the orcas up so close!
They are such beautiful and amazing animals!
A family pic before we headed out... This arc is always there but it was lit up for Christmas and looked so pretty!
Again the sky was so pretty!
And as we were driving back to our place! Coronado was lit up so pretty!
Next we went over to ride a smaller ride in that area that never has much of a line. I think it was called the Millennium Falcon
The castle all decorated for Christmas!
The next ride we rode was Indiana Jones and then Pirate's of the Caribbean.
Next up was the Haunted Mansion.
Then we had a fast pass for Splash Mountain or now it is called Tiana's Adventure. We were excited to get to ride it because last time Rae freaked out the whole time. I don't remember ever getting very wet on this ride, but oh was I wrong this time. We saw lots of people wearing the ponchos and I thought we wouldn't need them. Boy I wish we would have! Fortunately we went mid day when it was pretty warm out and we plenty of time to dry!
Next up was the dolphin show. We had some seats on the side. Hans missed half the show because he received a work call during the show. Here are a few pictures.
Then we rode a few rides... This ride is so fun and such a huge drop!! I had my bag so I didn't ride this time. Here is a couple of the pictures!
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| The SeaWorld tower lit up as a tree. |
Again the sky was so pretty!
The next day was Sunday and the girls and I were headed to Disneyland and L. A. that afternoon. That morning we headed to the beach for a little walk and hanging out on the beach for a bit.
We got to L. A. and our hotel that was right by Disneyland just a bit before dinner. We checked in and then we walked down to the Panera that was near by for dinner. A picture of Matterhorn that night.
The next day we were up early, eating breakfast at our hotel, and then we walked to Disneyland getting checked in and through the gate by just after 8 am. We beelined it for the new Star Wars ride to avoid the super long line! And it worked! We didn't have too long of a line and it was a fun ride to wait for. As there were little rides and things to do as we made our way to the actual ride. Here are some of the pictures...
Here we are before!
In line...still dry!
At the end! Drenched at least I was! My shoes were soaked which was honestly the worst part. Also sad that my hair looked terrible the rest of the day. Rae and I got it the worst. Claire and Aubrey faired pretty well. It wasn't even the big drop that soaked me, it was the first little drop that drenched me...urg! Then I felt like I couldn't enjoy the ride as much. It was a pretty ride, but I didn't like the music as much as the old one.
Haha! Look at our terrified faces! 
After that we found some lunch and sat in the sun to try and dry out a bit. I even took off my socks and shoes to see if they would dry a bit.
And then we headed to Space Mountain.
The ride was fun till the end when we were stuck inside for probably 10 or 15 minutes. Listening to the same song over and over and over... and not moving was not fun.
Here was where we were stuck!
Next we headed to the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. This is such a fun roller coaster.
Here we are waiting for the parade.
Here is Cinderella again en pointe.
Anna and Elsa
Then we tried to fit in a few more rides. We raced over to the Star Wars ride to get to ride it a second time and the it worked out pretty well without too long of a line.
I think after this we rode a few more rides and one of them was Space Mountain. Then we were thoroughly tired and ready to head out and back to our hotel to get some sleep and get ready for our next day of fun. Before we left we had to get a picture of the Christmas tree.
Then we rode the Arctic Rescue.
Next we headed over to see the seals and sealions and then went to the sealion show.
The sealions are really cute though too! I love the many creatures God has given us with all their unique features. And I am always amazed at how they can be trained. It is really fun to see these animals up close and be in awe of God's creation!
Flamingos with the Manta Ray ride behind that. Another of God's beautiful creatures.
Hans and the girls rode the Manta Ray ride.
Then we walked over to see the penguins.
And we went to the pool at sunset...So pretty out!
That day you could see part of the sunken ship that had sunk there years ago. That was kind of cool!
It was dark as we walked back and the moon was out!
I think these are Hans' carrier the Theodore Roosevelt...not for sure though. Could be the Lincoln.
That evening we did some more swimming in the pool.
Here are the pilot wales... Ava and Piper.
Back to the dolphins!
Then we walked through the shark exhibit!
And the turtle reef!
We got some dolphin shaped pretzel snacks!
And watched the sealion show again. Each show is slightly different because there are different trainers each time.
Then we walked over and saw the penguins...
And finally we headed to the orca show to end the night.
As we waited I found this picture pop up on my phone...Olivia in 2016 when we were in San Diego. We were definitely missing her....
The orca show was fun at night! so pretty!
This is the view of Coronado!
Family pic
The views were amazing!
Raelyn and I went and explored the lighthouse quick.
We decided to go to Cheesecake Factory for dinner and this was the sunset as we drove...
Cheesecake factory had quite a wait for inside seating, so we decided to sit outside even though it was chilly out. It worked out, but we were kind of cold. We got two kinds of cheesecake for dessert and boy were they yummy!
See the lion paws in the air?
Here are some pitcher plants...Rae just wrote a paper on the pitcher plant and had to draw a picture.
So cute! I love big cats!
Ah! So adorable!
Cute little cheetah!
I love this pic of our shadows on the beach!
We had gone for a walk to the beach to get out of the apartment in the evening.
Another pretty sky pic from our patio.
The platypus area was also brand new and it was super fun to see the platypus swimming around. They were much smaller than we though they were in real life. The area was very dark so it was hard to get a good picture.
The tigers were a really fun part! There are 3 or 4 different tiger enclosures and they rotate the tigers in and out of them with one tiger per enclosure. I just love big cats! They are so pretty!
And look at this little cat! It looks like a house cat, but obviously isn't. I think it is called a fennec fox. They have really big ears!
This is looking out at the tram area, where we didn't get to go. I am bummed we never made it back up there again. Oh well!
The lion was another fun viewing on this day. He was a little ways a way and he doesn't like people viewing him through the window so they had it closed off. The volunteer told us he was pacing and appeared to be panting because he was actually smelling the female lions that had been in earlier through his mouth. They are hoping to begin a mating program with him in the near future.
On our drive home we stopped in at the Fashion Valley Mall. It is huge and has a lot of high end stores. We didn't really shop, it was hot out. We got some snacks and drinks and then headed back to our place to swim in the pool and cool off.
More sunset pics...this was our last night there in San Diego. I sure do love getting to see the sky and sunsets so much better here.
Our flight home we got moved to seats with more leg room, but unfortunately no window. The girls were in one row and I was across from them which worked out fine. When we got to Seattle Olivia had a little bit of difficulty making her way to us. She missed the exit and ended up way north of us. Then when she finally made it to the airport she got in the wrong lane and ended up over where the buses and airport vans go to pick up and drop off passengers. Oops! We tried to get over to her there, but she headed out and finally made it into the right area where we were to be picked up. Poor girl was very flustered and did not want to do another airport pick up ever. I think the dark, traffic, and being alone made it very difficult for her to navigate. She did make it to us though! And then I was able to drive home!
My amaryllis was still blooming...yay!
Some pics of my Christmas displays and gingerbread houses before they were taken down or thrown away.
Raelyn's little ornament trees!
Sadly the lights on my tinsel tree went out...hoping Hans can fix them maybe when he gets home next Christmas...or I might have to get a new tinsel tree...
We were able to see Kelsey play some basketball one night! Girls had dance and I had to run them a bit, but it was fun to watch.
Last pic of January... my China cabinet decorated for Christmas. What a busy and fun month we had! On to crazy February!
On our way back across the park we had to stop for some castle pictures.
We decided to ride It's A Small World as we were in line the parade was going by. The girl on the front of the float dressed as Cinderella was dancing en pointe
The night was so pretty!
Here we are waiting for the parade.
Here is Cinderella again en pointe.
Rae with the Matterhorn
Then we tried to fit in a few more rides. We raced over to the Star Wars ride to get to ride it a second time and the it worked out pretty well without too long of a line.
And then we went to the show on the water and the fireworks show was right after. It was a wait but it was nice to be off of our feet and the show was pretty great! It was fun to see all the characters and the show on the water.
The next day we were up early and off to California Adventure for the day. We had planned to go straight to the cars ride, but it was closed that morning so we headed to the Incredicoaster instead. This ride turned out to be our favorite and we ended up riding it 5 times. We rode it twice in a row first thing. It goes so fast and is just so fun!
Next we went and rode the Toy Story ride. Here was Rae and mine final scores.
Next up, we had a reservation for the Guardians of the Galaxy ride. This was a fun ride! It was the old Tower of Terror. It was really fun. We would have ridden it again, but the line got really long.
Then we watched some of the Avengers.
And then we had a lightening lane reservation for Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure. This was a new fun ride we had never ridden. You wore 3-D glasses and used your arms to sling webs out at spiders and such. Rae and I did pretty good.
After this we were hungry so we got some lunch and found a pretty good place to eat. We liked it enough we went back there for dinner. After lunch we did the Soarin' Around the World. I kind of remembered this one from our 2016 trip. It was pretty fun and we enjoyed it. It is amazing how you can feel like you are actually flying around and above these iconic places.
Next we waited in line way too long for the Little Mermaid ride. This was another ride I remembered doing when we were there in 2016. It was cute, but we probably shouldn't have waited so long. I think we were killing time before our next lightening lane reservation anyways...
Next up was the Monster Inc ride. This is another one that is fun, but not worth the wait. I think we had lightening lane for this one though so that worked out well.
We had been watching the wait time for the Cars Ride all day, and finally decided we just had to do the wait to get to ride it. This is the only one not included in our lightening lane pass, hence why we had wanted to do it early, but that plan did not work out. This was a really long wait and really kind of stunk, for how short the ride is. And the girls did not like how the racing part was only at the very end. Here are some pictures from our wait.
We decided to get an ice cream snack to share.
Then we decided to ride Luigi's Rollickin' Roadsters. It is another cute, but cheesy ride.
It was such a pretty night.
After dinner we decided to ride the Incredicoaster 3 more times! Haha! It was so fun!!
Then we found a spot for the show, before the park closed for the night.
We had such a fun trip!! I was sad that Olivia and Hans weren't with us, but the girls and I had such a blast. What a difference Disneyland and California Adventure are when you have kids that can walk (don't need a stroller) and ride all the rides...lol!! We were able to ride so many rides and we got a ton of steps in. Our hotel worked out great and was a close enough walk to the gates. After this we headed back to our hotel for a last night of sleep before heading out the next day.
It was at this time that the LA area had the fires start up and it was getting a bit smoky.
We got back to San Diego Wednesday midday.
On Thursday, Hans had the day off due to the President's funeral so Hans, Rae and I decided to go to base for a little bit. We went to the beach first for a minute. And we saw these helicopters practicing scooping and dumping water for fighting fires.
Next, we went to the base golf course and driving range. We got a bucket of balls and were able to borrow some clubs for free. We had a great time hitting some balls with Rae.
While we were in San Diego in January we still had to do some school. So some days were just spent at the apartment doing school. I also did some cooking. We liked to get out for walks though. Here are few pictures from January 10th...
Saturday the 11th we were back at SeaWorld. It is such a fun place. We rode the Emperor a few times right at the beginning before the line got long. The girls absolutely love this ride!!
Then we did some walking around to see some of the animals.
Our favorite part of the Sealion show is Biff, before the show. He is so funny!
This is the view from the bridge on our ride home. The bridge scares me a little bit, but boy does it have beautiful views!
The next day we actually decided to go to church. We found an evangelical free church near by in Chula Vista and went there. With the fires going on in L. A. they had a special prayer time for all the people involved and affected by the fires. The girls found that very different but it was good to pray for those people. Then the sermon was very good. I was impressed with the pastor who seemed to preach with no notes whatsoever. We headed out without a single person talking to us. I was a bit bummed about that. It seems not all churches are as our friendly and welcoming as our church is. After that we went to Costco which was nearby for some lunch and more groceries. It was packed and very hard to find a parking spot. We find it interesting that we are very much in the minority in this are as far as our skin and hair color. The majority of people are dark skinned and dark haired and lot of Spanish speakers.
In the afternoon we just relaxed. We went to the beach nearby and played some frisbee and saw some friends we knew and chatted with them. We also did some walking on the beach.
On Monday afternoon, Raelyn and I headed to the Coronado Shores to meet up with my friend Bethany (from my former workout group) and her daughter Katie who is the same age as Raelyn. They were kind of shy though. They played in the pool for a bit while Bethany and I visited. Then we went up to their place to get changed. Unfortunately, our plan to walk to Coronado for some ice cream didn't work out as we ran out of time and I needed to get home to the other girls. We had some school still going this week and they had stayed back to work on that.
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| The view from their apartment of the bay...pretty! |
That evening the girls and I actually went back to that area and parked and walked around down town and bought a few things at the stores down there that we had been eyeing. And we stopped for a pretty sunset picture on the beach!
When we were at our place and just doing school for a few days we tried to get out and enjoy the sun. We had a really pretty view from our place.
On Friday we decided to go to Seaport Village to do a little shopping. We had a fun afternoon.
That week and into the weekend Hans' work had really ramped up. Some sort of mistake had happened and it caused Hans to have a lot of extra work. So unfortunately, he had to work some each day of the three day weekend, which was such a bummer. So each morning he went to work for a bit and then each afternoon we tried to get out and do something together as this was our last weekend in San Diego.
Saturday afternoon we went to our favorite place... SeaWorld. This time we watched the dolphin show again. Dolphins are such beautiful and amazing creatures. Their show is really fun to watch!
Meanwhile we were having fun at SeaWorld...Olivia was up on the mountain skiing with her small group friends and some other people from church. She had a great day! I was worried about Stella being stuck at home all day. Our neighbors checked on her and she growled at them...stinker dog. They finally got her to calm down and go for a walk to relieve herself. Here are few pictures from Olivia's day. She had fun, but it was very crowded and the snow wasn't great. She prefers Crystal Mountain over Snoqualmie any day!
And Olivia sent me pictures of my pretty amaryllis blooming!
On Sunday, after Hans got off work we decided to head up to the Cabrillo National Monument. The girls were not very excited about it, but we wanted to see the views. It was a pretty but very windy day.
After that we headed to Sunset cliffs to try and catch the sunset at the cliffs and see a place we hadn't seen before. Parking is the biggest problem in these kinds of places and it was once again. We had trouble finding a parking spot. Once we did we weren't really prepared for the sunset viewing. So we didn't make it till sunset unfortunately. But the views were still amazing!
On January 20th, it was President's day and Inauguration day for President Trump. Hans had to go in to work so we watched the inauguration which was pretty cool to watch.
That afternoon we headed to the zoo and got new passes. We did a loop and saw lots of cute animals. Can you identify all the animals?
It was a fun day at the zoo! Seeing God's amazing creatures up close is so fun!
Another picture of my view each morning as I did my BSF and reading. So pretty!
On Thursday we decided to take the day off from school and enjoy the beautiful weather and head up to the Safari Park. I wish we would have checked the schedule before we went and seen that the tram was closed due to high winds, but oh well. We still had a fun day. The Safari Park has unique layout and some really nice animal enclosures that make viewing the animals pretty easy. I think this was a newer area, because I don't remember seeing it when we visited the zoo back in 2016. But our first stop was this fun kangaroo and wallaby enclosure which you could actually walk through and see them up close. This albino wallaby was so cute!
And look at this little cat! It looks like a house cat, but obviously isn't. I think it is called a fennec fox. They have really big ears!
The tropical bat area was neat! The girls did not want to go in there, but they are pretty cool looking! It was a humid 80 degrees in there!
On our drive home we stopped in at the Fashion Valley Mall. It is huge and has a lot of high end stores. We didn't really shop, it was hot out. We got some snacks and drinks and then headed back to our place to swim in the pool and cool off.
That night we headed to the beach to catch the sunset and get a few pictures.
Our last day in San Diego we had a flight in the evening so needed to head to the airport around 3. We decided to head down and play some pickle ball. It was super windy though and very difficult to play. I was also distracted and worried about my travel day. But we had a little fun. Then we went and got Raising Canes for lunch. It is one of our new favorite spots to eat. We are hoping we get on in Silverdale soon, which we are supposed to.
Back home it was back to the to do list and all the things that needed to be done! Church stuff, homeschool getting caught up, and Christmas needed to be taken down.
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| Sammy cat! |
My amaryllis was still blooming...yay!
We were able to see Kelsey play some basketball one night! Girls had dance and I had to run them a bit, but it was fun to watch.
When we got home, the back door in my van had become broken somehow. The panel on the door was popped off and the door could not open because the panel would catch. I asked my neighbor to come over and see if he could fix it. He stopped by and was able to get it popped back in, but by then we had tried to open it too many times with it being blocked and the car had made a code that it was broken and wasn't going to open automatically. It needed the code cleared with a code reader. Fortunately, my other friends had one of those and were able to clear the code for me when they were over the super bowl party in February. The things that break when your husband is out of town is a bummer. And you just notice more because he isn't there to just fix things right away. I was thankful for friends and neighbors help.
On the last Thursday of January, the girls had a very sad last dance class with Miss Megan. Miss Megan is married to a man in the military so they were headed back to Hawaii. Miss Megan was such an awesome dance teacher and the girls miss her immensely still. I was glad that we had changed our San Diego trip to be home for the last week of January so they could have 2 more classes with her.
