For the record, I am not a fan of staying in hotels with children. On a more basic level, I am not a fan of sleeping in the same room as my children. They keep me awake, I keep them awake. It is zero fun. Brisbane loved it though because he had an audience bright and early every morning. We had not planned on going to the beach on our first day in San Diego, but after the devastation of the night before when the kids realized that we were not immediately driving to the beach, we decided to change our plans. But first I wanted to go to the aquarium and so we went there first.
Aren't we cool?
The kids were surprisingly interested in looking at the fish.
Reese and Jessenia balked if we skipped a fish tank. They wanted to go back and make sure that they got to see every one. I learned that in some ways aquariums are more interesting for kids than zoos. At aquariums the fish are almost always moving. Pointing out a moving creature to a child is way easier than trying to explain where the completely still snake is hiding on a limb or the one African deer really far away and lying in the dirt is located.
Then we got to the educational part of the aquarium and the kids were less excited.
But humored their parents just the same.
Then we went outside to the water works playground area and they thought that was pretty cool.
With a little help from their parents...
they were able to see-saw. (If they had figured out how to kick off these two would have been excellent see-sawing partners. They weigh within three pounds of each other.)
Then we shoved them in a cage and the sharks attacked them (the kids are all looking at the people who were googling at them and declaring how adorable they are....we know, thank you, thank you, they get it from my side).
And then one of the sharks got these two and that was the end of the aquarium.
So we headed off for the big excitement. The moment we had all been waiting for. The moment that we had been counting down to for months.
We walked down to the water...
the sand was wet...
and cold...
but we loved it!
The water came in...it was very exciting!
Until one three year old boy got knocked over. Best. Picture. of. the. Trip! When the tide started coming in, Reese and Jessenia started running away. They were laughing and they thought it was funny. Until the water started going out and they were still running to shore and it knocked Reese down (his face didn't even get wet). He started crying and crawling as fast as he could, like a mad fool (it was straight out of a movie where the person yells, "I'm drowining, I'm drowing!" and they are in two inch water). Mack told Reese to stand up. And oh boy, did he ever. He stood up and started running as fast as he could. Through the wet sand, over the rocks, up the bank, and plopped himself down by our beach towels. His parents were walking behind him, yelling for him to stop, and laughing the whole way. Then they took a picture of him in his misery.
We did talk him into coming back down to the wet sand. But everytime the tide came in he would start crying. Any time Mack, Brisbane, or I went in the water, he would start crying. It was lame. After all of this build up about the beach and the ocean, this is what we got. Of course he ruined it for Jessenia because she too was also terrified at that point (not because of anything that happened to her, mind you).
Mack, Brisbane, and I eventually pulled ourselves away and took the wimpy kids back up to the dry sand and the sand toys. Then they were all smiles.
Mack convinced the kids to let him bury them. Jessenia doesn't look too thrilled with the idea here.
Reese found the experience much more relaxing.
This is how I found Reese at one point. He isn't asleep. He is just laying there. Weirdee!
We ended up with some pretty filthy kids...
but we know how much my kids like dirt, so they were in heaven.
We did convince the kids to come back down by the water at the very end. Mack took Brisbane and Jessenia down first. He said there was a little bit of crying from Jessenia but she was ok. I eventually persuaded (aka bullied) Reese into going down. I told him I would just hold him while I stood in the water. I tried walking out deeper and deeper so the waves would hit his toes, but he kept creeping his legs up higher and higher around my body. By the end his legs were in my armpits and I knew it was fruitless.
The next day we asked the kids if they wanted to go back to the beach. We recieved an emphatic "NO!" in response. After the trip we asked them if they liked the beack, "YEAH! Can we go back!?" Um, yeah, sure. Maybe after we visit everything else in the world we will try that special brand of Parental Torture again.
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