Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Balboa Park (Road Trip Day 8 & Last Day in San Diego)

We decided to spend our last day in San Diego enjoying Balboa Park www.balboapark.org. Balboa Park is home to the San Diego Zoo and many very nice museums, gardens and amazing Spanish architecture. www.balboapark.org/maps/BalboaParkMap.pdf
It is vast and a great place to take the kids and stroll on a nice summer day. There is lots to see even if you do not go into any museums and very child-friendly. We even brought the dogs!

We walked around the Spanish Village Art Center where Vanessa and Josie bought beautiful gemstone necklaces. The town was decorated in bright colors and beautiful landscaping, and the stores had interesting Spanish-themed art work for sale.


Inside the park, the kids enjoyed walking around the fountain and we had a delightful lunch just outside the San Diego Museum of Art. Of course, we tried to take advantage of any photo op and also capture the interesting architecture in the park.





At last, for the dogs, we visited a great dog park just across the bridge from Balboa Park. I think Fletcher and Sassy both enjoyed time to let loose and socialize with K9s.
After leaving Balboa Park, Mike, Colette, Josie and I headed to Pacific Beach boardwalk to pick up a few souvenirs. Just a few shots of us by the beach.



While we are very pooped from all our activities, we are very sad to see our vacation end. We had been looking forward to this trip for months and to have it whiz by so quickly is hard!

We absolutely LOVED meeting sweet little Alex Dutton and spending some really nice quality time with Kris and Mike. They were the perfect hosts and were such great sports when we just kept going and going and going. We will miss them very much and can't wait until they come up to Portland in July for little Alex's baptism! Thank you, Aunt Kris, Uncle Mike and Baby Alex! We love you!

So tomorrow, we embark on our 2-day trip back to the Pacific Northwest. We are going to try to get to Corning, California--just South of Red Bluff, CA and just North of Sacramento. The drive home will be tough, but knowing that we will be arriving home by Friday and sleeping in our own beds will be motivation enough. The kids have been amazing and, although they each had their moments, were very well-behaved all things considered. Mike and I really couldn't ask for more. I'm proud of them and am glad that they, for the most part, are troopers and travel so well.

If there is something worth posting about our trip back home I'll do so! I'm sure, as always, it will be an adventure for our traveling circus.

Much love, hugs and thanks to Kris, Mike, Baby Alex and Fletcher for letting us invade their home for a whole week!

1 comment:

The Thomas Clan said...

Okay, I admit, I fell apart when I received your box of goodies. Wept for a good 5 minutes!!! Thank you so much you guys. So thoughtful, so kind.
Looks like you are having a wonderful trip. Let's catch up when you get back home.
Love ALL of you.
Em
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