Sunny San Diego

Last week we were lucky enough to spend the week in California, with my parents. We stayed at a resort in Escondido (thank you Grandma Jill :), which is about 30 miles north of San Diego. It was glorious. We filled the week with the Wild Animal Park, a trolley tour of the city, the San Diego Zoo, a visit to a vineyard, the beach and hanging out at the pool. We were also able to spend some time visiting with my mom's brother and his family who live in Encinitas.

During the week Ava also enjoyed working with Grandma Kim on crawling (she's getting very close). We also discovered that Ava's new favorite toys are those things that aren't actually meant to be toys (a water bottle with change in it that Grandpa Dave conjured up, spoons, Tupperware, etc ... Mike has since started to wonder why we spend money on the expensive toys?!). She tried an ice cream cone for the first time from Grandpa - yum! Grandma also taught her how to "butt heads!" And she liked riding in the Bjorn with Grandma! We were also there during a small earthquake, but only Grandpa felt it. And as you will see in a few of the photos, Ava has started waving back and loves to do it for the camera!

Throughout the entire trip Ava was a gem. She did very well on the flights and also with being on the go a lot. Our biggest hang up has been adjusting to the time changes - getting her onto Pacific Time, and now back to Central. But overall she was such a trooper and seemed to really enjoy all the activities. We went out to dinner with my uncle on our final night there and toward the end of the meal a man came by and commented on how good Ava was the whole time we had been sitting there and wished his kids were that good in restaurants. What a nice compliment and testament to how good Ava was the entire trip! We sure are lucky.

We took over 150 pictures during our travels. It was so tough to decide which to post that I just did a whole bunch! I've also posted a little video of Ava's first experience playing in the sand. Enjoy!