We had a wonderful So Cal trip Apr 10-14, 2010! This was our vacation far away from the bay area after a long time. And, boy, we had fun!!
We left on saturday morning - first made a customary stop at San Mateo. Then went on a flight to Santa Ana. The flight was delayed, so obviously it was a hassle, but when we reached Santa Ana, we first saw the Atrium hotel where my brother-in-law had stayed when he was in the U.S for work in 2000. At that time we had driven all the way (8 hrs.!) to meet him, and kept thinking how hard it would be to drive all that distance now with 2 little kids! Phew, so glad we flew - despite the flight delays and S1 having inner ear balance problems , it was still less tiring than driving. The cottage condo we stayed in was very nice. Its proximity to the beach was unbelievable! We all could walk there bare foot, and not worry about our slippers being washed away by the waves. It was nice to hear and see the ocean all the time. But the thing we realised as soon as we got there was that it was cold! The ocean was chilly and it was breezy (and rainy intermittently), so even the swimming pool was pretty cold.
The next day we went to Legoland. It is an amazing place with lots of complicated structures made out of legos: from people and cars to musical instruments and buildings! And it had something for each one of us ranging from a 2 yr old to 40 yr old, which is rare at these theme parks. And the weather was good for this kind of a visit - cloudy and not too cold or hot. It is very hard to visit theme parks in very hot and sunny weather. So this time we could spend 7 hrs straight with all of us in a reasonably good mood at the end of it :). I recommend this park to everyone at least once in a lifetime. That evening we ate pizza which was in a little shopping area nearby our condo complex. Then we ate icecream at cold stone. The pizza was great, but the combination with ice cream gave me a stomachache. I was uncomfortable all night. We went grocery shopping that night, and kids slept in the car at 7 pm!
On Monday morning, we had cereal and toast for breakfast. Then went strawberry picking. I had never seen a strawberry farm before. What a wonderful sight! Dark green leaves with dark red strawberries. It was an interesting experience. It had rained the night before so the field was full of puddles, but we found a nice dry spot where kids could get in and have fun gathering and eating those huge and juicy strawberries. The next thing we did was go to the flower fields of Carlsbad - this was one historic and mesmerising place! They are a few small hills full of long, neat rows of ranunculus flowers. We took a trolley ride to the top of the hill and appreciated how colorful and beautiful the fields were. The flower fields are open from Mar - May. And there are plenty of activities for kids to do - eg: run around in sweet pea maaze, stamp a piece of paper for each landmark we crossed while visiting the fields. S1 worked hard to get each square stamped and earned a gem mining activity - he got to mine stones like early miners did AND got a small bag of gem stones to own. He was very excited. We concluded flower fields trip by a large glass of lemonade from the big lemon shaped stand. Both kids were very happy with that too!
After flower fields, we wanted to eat. So we found a great Indian restaurant, called KC tandoor. The food was pretty good. Then S1 saw a McDonald's across the street and he wanted to play in the play structure. So we got icecream and let kids play there. S2 went all the way up the play structure and got stuck. Oh, I dont understand why she even went up there. The boys of the family graciously brought her down - phew! We then headed back home and S2 took a short nap on the way back.
I really wanted to hang out at the beach. So after coming back, we got sand toys and went bare-foot to the beach. Did I say that the location of our condo was just awesome? Despite the weather being a bit chilly and windy we had a great time at the beach! There is nothing like watching a 2-yr old play in sand (with a jacket with hood and shorts on), and a 5-yr old playing on the sea shore. S1 chased waves and then when they came closer he attacked them with stones and sand. He played this same game for an hour and I really enjoyed watching him do that. It was such a great and memorable sight - him running around freely on the beach, very close to the waves, with wet sand in his hand. Oh, I wish we had the camera to capture that - we are so pathetic that we had forgotten our camera at home and the iphone could only take so many photos.
We came back from the beach and went to the swimming pool which was not that warm, so we were not happy about that. But we all still went in: father-daugther sat on the stairs while mom-son had fun playing piggy back rides. And then came the moment which we enjoyed the most in the whole entire day - a dip in the 90 degrees spa! Wow, that felt perfect after the cool ocean and pool :). Kids did not want to come out! That night we ate khichdi and maggi for dinner. Then had a great board walk and kids slept in the car at 7:30 pm!
On tuesday, we went to see the wild animal park in San Diego - it was only 25 min from our place, but seemed really long as S1 had a little inner ear balance problem :). Oh well, the park was actually pretty good. The safari tour was cool - I had never seen giraffes, rhinos, falcons, zebras etc in the open before. I definitely liked this place better than San Diego zoo. We did not see the entire park because it required a LOT of walking and we were a little tired. And food there was ridiculously expensive, so if we go there again we will bring our own food. After coming back to our apt, we went to the pool and spa again. Enjoyed the spa again, and the pool was again cold. We came back to the room, ate left over restaurant food from the day before, and khichdi and cereal. Kids played for a little more time in the room, and then slept at 9 pm.
We did all the packing the night before, and left the house squeaky clean when we left on Wednesday morning. Then we spent couple of great hours on the board walk. We watched surfers for a long time - the sea was unusually calm and they had to wait to catch big waves to surf. But it was really fun for me and S1 and S2 (because SDS had a work phone call, yikes!). We sat down and watched surfers come by right under us while surfing. We also did fishing and even caught a fish - this was the first time in my life for fishing. Didn't really enjoy it, but kids got to pat the fish before we released it back.
Even though we forgot to take the camera which I really repented, we left So-Cal with really good memories. Definitely worth spending the 4 nights there. In summer it would be even more fun because you could do more activities closer to home! But going at this time allowed us to do a lot more local and seasonal stuff. The day we left was specially nice - very sunny and warm. There were quite a few people in the waves, and I was jealous. We will hopefully be back to oceanside, and to north coast village and create some more happy memories.
