San Diego: Disney Land & The Beach

We headed out onto the open road promptly after Conrad's nap Thursday afternoon, (being that this is the happiest time of his day). We were all excited and ready for the beach and to spend time together getting to really relax and have some fun. We entertained our toddler with toys, snacks, & books for the first 3 hours of the car ride, but sadly, the last 2 hours he spent crying and kicking the backs of our seats. Awesome. 

With 2 ear infections, molars popping through his gums and being bored out of his mind,

 I can understand.

 I call it a success only crying for 2 out of the 5 hours that we traveled! 

Friday, we headed to Disneyland thinking that since it's the happiest place on earth, our son would be the happiest baby on earth. Not the case. I should have known that the people in costumes would scare him. 

A few weeks ago we went to town square for dinner where a man dressed in an ice cream cone stood outside of Dairy Queen as still as a statue and once you got closer, he jumped up and said "Rawr!" (Since when do ice cream cones roar and jump up in the air with their arms out and hands flexed like claws?) Conrad was on my father in laws shoulders and quickly went into hysterics clinging to his head and trying to find his way down while he screamed and cried. (It was hilarious), but also really sad.

I should have known that Mickey and Minnie would be just as frightening.... 

So we tried to ease our way into the Disney festivities. Our first ride was the carousel. In this photo below, Conrad had just started to cry, wanted to be turned around to be held, and at this point, i pulled the Binky out to see if we could get back on track and not totally flip out by the moving, robotic, fake horses and flashing lights. Nope. He stayed like this the entire ride.

After the carousel disaster, we walked around to find some lunch and see what other rides we could check out. Everything else looked way scarier than the carousel, so we continued to walk around. I thought it might be cute to get a photo with Ariel and it just so happened that she was right next to a pond of ducks, so instead of looking at the pretty lady standing next to him and turning so mommy could get a photo, they just pointed at the duck together. (We spend the next 30 minutes at this pond looking at this duck. It was the high light of his trip to Disney land. Dustin hunted down the security guard to ask him if there were any other ponds or animals in the park. The security guard said that he could escort us to a restaurant where a lot of stray cats hang out and we could feed them, but we opted not to feed stray cats. Instead we pointed at a duck for a half hour. Disney Land was truly memorable.) 

After we visited the duck, we headed over to the California side and found a little water park. 

The guys hanging in the back yard of our friends house watching air planes fly over.

The beach started out rough. He HATED the sand just as bad as he HATES grass apparently. Again, we should have known! The waves were his favorite. He actually smiled and enjoyed the waves, which was cute to see.

He wouldn't let me put him down to walk... 

Holding his legs up so he doesn't touch the sand... 

Over all, our trip was really great. Sunday was the day of my race (which was amazing. I'll write about it soon.) We spent the afternoon with our friends Matt & Vicki enjoying their company, going down town for delicious cup cakes and the kiddos got to play together as well. Before we headed back to Vegas, Matt cooked us up an incredible dinner which was so nice. Seeing our friends made us realize how much we have missed them. 

Matt & Dustin.

Conrad fell asleep on the way home and slept for the entire 5 hour drive 

(plus, he slept in for 2 hours this morning! Score!) 

I have a feeling we will be going back to San Diego soon. 

We had such a wonderful trip.