San Diego

While Brendan went to Alaska for two weeks, I drove down to San Diego by myself with the three littles.  I'd made it to Boise by myself, why not San Diego?  I decided to break up the first half by driving to Vegas and staying the night.  I was prepared to leave early in the day, but when I heard the tires squealing I decided to go get them checked out at Costco.  They all needed to be replaced before I left.  Luckily I was able to get them done that afternoon, but I didn't get into Vegas until midnight.  All three kids were sleeping, so it made it very difficult checking in.  I had to park the car and get the double stroller out and put both the girls in it.  I had to put Niels in my wrap, and then I tried to take stuff out of their suitcases that we would need for the night and stuff it in the stroller.  I had to walk forever through a casino to the check in and then the line was forever.  The kids were all very tired and starting to get a little fussy.  I was seriously so exhausted.  I'm sure people around me were wondering what the heck I was doing by myself at midnight with three little kids in Vegas, because that's what I was thinking.  The next day driving was a little long, but we made it.  

We were actually going down there for my niece's baptism, so my parents and some siblings were also going to be there.  I had previously bought a plane ticket for my sister Holly so she could drive back with me and help me out with the girls and then fly back to Sacramento from Utah. By then Brendan would also be back from Alaska and Canada.  So it worked out great.

 The girls had SO much fun putting on all of their cousin's dress ups.  It seemed like they were coming out in different outfits every 10 minutes.  (Brendan took our nice camera on his trip, so these are all phone pics in low light unfortunately.  Our camera was also dropped on Brendan's trip and broke, which I didn't find out about until our next trip.)

Porter was practicing the violin to play at the baptism, and Hattie wanted to play too.  She kept telling me she was playing ballerina music.  Hazel and Hattie dance to classical music all the time, so I thought her connection was cute. 

Whitney, Dawn, and Breeze were the missing sisters in this picture.  I didn't get a picture of Denali in her baptism dress unfortunately. 

 Hattie fell asleep in aunt Paige's arms.

 After the baptism on Saturday we all went to La Jolla beach and ate pizza and roasted smores.  It was nice having uncle Blake around to help me with the kids.  Hazel and Hattie love him.

 On Sunday we went to the Mormon Battalion in Old Town San Diego.  It is such a fun place for the family.

I was stuck in stop and go traffic down there and saw this car driving next to me.  I tried to keep my distance.  I think they were heading to Mexico.

The second half of our stay we stayed at my sister Paige's house, which is in Fallbrook.  It is a little more in the country you could say.  They have lots of fruit trees in their yard.  I'd never had a freshly picked fig, and it was delicious.  

 Their neighbors let us feed their goats.

We went on a little walk around their neighborhood in the nice weather.