This week

Ben left for a work training in San Diego, last Sunday.

Dinners are always different when he's gone.  They are always much more low key and Monday night we just ate whatever was left in the house.  I turned on some silly songs (aka preschool learning for Colin) to listen to while we ate, but the kids really wanted to watch the videos that went with them.  Most people would watch TV, but our kids huddle around my little phone.  I was the most surprised that Alison enjoyed the songs as well...some times I forget that she still a little kid too.

And still constantly surprised by the games the boys make up.  I wonder when the novelty of boys will wear off.  I went into their room to find that they had taped all of the "bad guys" onto their bed and lego table.  Why?  All I could do was laugh.

Tuesday, the kids and I drove to San Diego to crash Ben's work trip.  We only had to pay $10 to stay in a family room on base and I packed all of our food for breakfast and lunch.  It was pretty much a no brainer to pack up and cool off for a few days.

We spent Tuesday afternoon at Balboa Park.  We got there right at lunch time and had a picnic lunch right outside the park, only because that's the only place I could find parking.  San Diego traffic is not something I'm a fan of.

Pinterest largely mislead me on this adventure, but we made it work.  I snagged the last parking spot somewhat close to the park, but we were never able to find the trolley to take us up to the main park.  So we walked a lot.

 

We stopped by the visitors center for a map, which this one would not put down.

 

I was under the impression that a few museums were free, but found out once there, that we were a week early for the "free" days.  Every thing in San Diego is super expensive and I wasn't ready to commit $50 for a museum I wasn't positive the kids would enjoy/learn from.  So we settled for a little train ride, that the kids thought was a blast.

 

Our last stop was at the botanical gardens.  The highlight of the spot was seeing some little ducklings near the pond.

 

We met up with Ben for dinner and then crashed for the day.  We spent the rest of the week in San Diego and there are lots of beach pictures coming soon!