Spring Break

We just got back from a fun and busy trip to San Diego for Easter Break.  We planned this trip over a year ago so that we could be sure to get a spot at Capri By The Sea.  After we booked our condo, I asked my parents if they wanted to join us.  They are always up for another trip and immediately booked their condo about 20 minutes north of Pacific Beach.

Our current family vehicle has been having issues with the transmission, heat/ac and needed new tires which made driving it to California not a safe option.  After looking at renting a car, flying or buying a new car, Gavin decided it was time for us to buy our very first brand new car.  The boys were so excited and went with him to pick it up.

We drove all day and made it to San Diego just in time to get settled in the condo and go to sleep.  We woke up the next morning and opened up the curtains and couldn’t get over the view.  

Pacific Beach

We grabbed some yummy breakfast at a little spot on Pacific Beach boardwalk called Konos and then headed down to the beach for the day.  It was sunny but the wind made it chilly.   Apparently not too cold for Gavin and the boys who spent most of the time out in the freezing water, boogy boarding.

One of the highlights of the trip was getting to go to church in San Diego.  It was so good for my kids to see the diversity that the church offers outside of Utah.   They all said that it was the best sacrament they had ever been to and that they learned so much.  There was a sweet spirit present as we listened to so many newer converts share their testimonies.  And hearing Gavin share his testimony of the Book of Mormon and prayer was just an added bonus.

Balboa Park

After church we headed to Balboa Park for the free Sunday afternoon organ concert and (not-free) lunch.

We walked through the International Cottages and grabbed lots of free samples and since it was House of England’s turn to host there was a Beatles impersonator band and lots of English people walking (and bike riding) around.  We even saw people dressed up as characters from Alice in Wonderland.

Mormon Battalion Historic Site

We finished off the afternoon with a tour of the Mormon Battalion Museum.  We took the kids here 3 years ago but only the big kids remembered it.  Mia loved how the photos inside the picture frames came to life to take us through the tour.  “We should get pictures like that in our house, Mom!” And Mia even got to dress up in all of the gear that they soldiers wore in the battalion.

At the end of the tour the kids got to go back in time and pan for “fool’s gold”, wash clothes by hand and pretend to make bricks.

La Jolla Tide Pools and Children’s Beach 

The next day we drove into La Jolla for a kayaking tour.  Only we were 30 minutes late and had to reschedule for another day.  We drove a few blocks down to the tide pools and walked around looking for sea life.  It definitely didn’t compare to the tide pools we went to 3 years ago at Cabrillo but Jack and Ryan did find a few crabs.  We walked over to Children’s Beach and saw lots of seals (including ourselves) sunbathing on the rocks.

Universal Studios 

We only wanted to spend one day at an amusement park and gave the older kids the option of Sea World, Knott’s Berry Farm or Universal Studios.  They wanted to try somewhere new and chose Universal Studios.  We drove 2 hours from our condo to Universal Studios.  Morgan was so nervous the whole ride up and walking into the park.  She is not a fan of scary, fast rides.  We only had her go on the new Despicable Me ride and The Simpsons ride.  She didn’t like The Simpsons ride but acted like she liked DM even though she didn’t want to go on it again.  The big kids loved the Transformers and Mummy rides but everyone’s favorite was the Studio Tour.  Even though Morgan doesn’t like amusement parks at the time, it seems like she likes it after we are all done and back home.  She talks about Shrek 4D movie and that Princess Fiona needed help all of the time now.  Just wish she could enjoy it more while it was happening but the fear of the unknown takes away all of the fun for her.  Grandma and Grandpa joined us for the day and Ryan kept commenting on how cool it was that Grandma and Grandpa are so young at heart and go on all of the rides with us.

Kayaking

The next day we all just wanted to sleep in after walking all over Universal Studios and getting home late but no rest for the weary.  We had an early morning kayak tour set up in La Jolla.  We had already had to pay a $50 rescheduling fee for getting late and missing our first tour so we all woke up early and got ready to brave the cold waters.  Gavin, Jack and Ryan really braved the cold by not paying the extra $10 for a wetsuit rental.  We walked down to La Jolla and got into our kayak teams and headed out into the ocean.  I’m still not sure the purpose of our helmets.  Maybe it was just to let everyone else know that we didn’t know what we were doing.  The waves that we had to paddle over were huge, surfing waves.  The smallest person had to sit in the front of the kayak which meant that person got soaked on the way out to the smooth part of the ocean.  Poor Morgan, Mia, Griffin and Hadley. After the experience of the huge waves, Mia cried for remaining two hours of kayaking.  We kayaked over to some caves and then saw lots of sea lions on the rocks.  We all made it without tipping over except for Hadley and me.  We tipped over on the way back to the beach when we tried to go over a huge wave.

San Diego Temple

We spent the afternoon in the temple with Jack, Ryan and Hadley.  It was definitely a memorable experience.  Such a beautiful temple.

Coronado

We’ve never taken the family over the bridge to Coronado Island and thought we’d try something new.  What a beautiful part of California!! We had so much fun walking around the island and seeing the San Diego skyline in the background.  We rented surreys that held 6 of us and rode around the island.  We rode around on the boardwalk for about 30 minutes.  That was long enough for it be fun and not exhausting. 

Jack and Ryan were crazy drivers and almost crashed into us several times.

Hotel del Coronado

Seaport Village

We drove back across the bridge to San Diego and went to Seaport Village to walk around and get some dinner.

Las Vegas

Crazy how quickly the week fly by!  I think we all wanted one more day to just hang out at the beach and condo but it was time to pack up and drive to Vegas for the weekend.  We stayed at South Point Hotel.  It’s about 10 minutes from the strip and has a movie theater and bowling.  We were all ready to be home and didn’t do too much.  Gavin took the Mia and Griffin bowling one night.  We met up with Jeff and Rae and went to the New York New York casino so the big kids (and Uncle Jeff) could all go on the roller coaster.  Then we made our way down the strip to Serendipity’s so Hadley could finally try a frrrrozen hot chocolate.  We stayed at the same hotel as Weichers but only saw Sylvie and Surie.

Easter

The Easter bunny found us at our hotel and left everyone a basket of goodies.  Each basket had confetti filled eggs that we thought would be fun to break out in the parking lot on our way home.  This fun event ended with lots of tears and a confetti mess all over the sidewalk and in our hair.

We had a yummy Easter dinner in St. George with Nan and Papa on our way back home.

What a great way to spend Easter break!  After 9 days and 2000 miles of driving, we were all ready to get back home, except for Morgan.  That girl LOVES vacations and being out of school and doing whatever we want everyday.  And I have to agree that nothing quite compares to being on vacation.  Until next time. . .  stay classy, San Diego!

Vegas Birthday

Gavin had a business trip in Vegas over his 43rd Birthday so we decided to follow along and put to good use his suite at The Venetian while he was busy doing other important, business-related things.  Gavin and Griffin flew down and the girls (Hadley, Sylvie, Morgan, Mia and I) drove down and met them in Vegas.

We were only there for a few days and loved our big suite.  We stayed busy swimming, eating at the food courts, sightseeing on the Strip and hanging out in The Venetian.

We didn’t see Gavin at all on his birthday until late that night.  We met up for some gelato in St. Marks square and then Gavin and I joined up with his birthday twin, Adam and his wife, Cammi (and his brother Kipp and his wife, Chelsea) for a limo ride to The Paris buffet for dinner.

It was such a great, relaxing weekend.  We really should try to do it more often with Vegas being so close.  The kids had a great time and I loved the extra time I got to spend with them.

We felt pretty lucky that we all got to go on a trip to celebrate Gavin’s birthday even if we only did see him for a few hours the whole weekend.

Happy Halloween from Mykonos

For how much we all love the holidays, it’s crazy that not one of us thought about throwing in a few fake mustaches, eye patches, masks (or anything Halloweenish) into our suitcases.  This was the extent of our Halloween festivities...a few carved pumpkins on a table in the cruise lobby and Jenni’s scary spider necklace.

We spent Halloween on the islands of Mykonos and Delos.  Taking a ferry between the two of them.

I have no idea why Mykonos’ nickname is “The island of the winds”.

We started the day at Delos looking at all of the ruins with our crazy guide Yolanda who was more concerned about her free coffee and having us search the ruins for her lost map(ah) than giving us any information about what we were seeing.  

Delos is one of the most important mythological, historical and archaeological sites in Greece.  Delos had position as a holy sanctuary for a millennium before Olympian Greek mythology made this island the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis in 900 BC.  Even thought the guides claim to speak English, it is still so hard to understand what they are saying.  Yolanda liked to add an extra “ah” to end every sentence.  Gavin clarified with our tour guide that it was true that Apollo and Artemis were twins(ah).  And the answer is yes.  They are twins and were born on the island of Delos.  The only thing I got out of all of the ruins tours was how they collected their water with cisterns and an aqueduct system.  The rest I had to get from Wikipedia, like that a number of purifications were executed in the 6th century BC by the city-state of Athens to make the island pure for the proper worship of the gods.  All of the graves had to be dug up and moved to another island.  After that it was prohibited that anyone could die or be born on the island.  Delos - unlike other Greek islands - did not have an indigenous, self supporting community of its own so in later years it became uninhabited.

Standing in the Theater which at one time had enough seats to hold 5500 people

We took the ferry back to Mykonos and immediately fell in love with the architecture and bright colored doors and flowers against the backdrop of the white buildings and blue sea.  And the windmills?  Oh I loved the windmills!

“Petros” the pelican has been the official mascot of Mykonos for over 50 years.  In the 50’s, a wounded pelican was found off the coast of Mykonos shore and nursed back to health and remained on the island.  He was supported by the locals and known by the name, “Petros”.  He died 30 years later but three new pelicans were brought to the island and  now reside around the town of Mykonos.

Mykonos windmills

Little Venice--rows of fishing houses that line the waterfront with their balconies hanging over the sea.  

The streets in Mykonos are narrow and winding with little shops, restaurants and boutiques with the cutest white linen clothing and souvenirs.  And free entertainment for tourists who may not even be looking for entertainment.

Loved everything this beautiful island had to offer and that was without even seeing any of the beautiful beaches with the white sand and crystal blue water.

Up next . . . Kusadasi, Turkey

{Athens}

This trip was spent running from city to city so it was perfect to have a little break at the beginning in Athens.  We met up with Scott and Heidi (and the rest of the family), squished as much clothing as possible into our suitcases so we didn’t have to pay the hefty extra baggage fee on Easy Jet and started our journey from Rome to Athens.  Chad and Jenni flew out earlier in the day and found their way around the city and metro stations by our hotel.  It’s was obvious (and sad) to see what has happened to Greece because of their economy crashing and everyone wanting more and more from the government.  A scary sight of what can happen to our country if we continue in the direction we are headed.  Most of the businesses are vacant, locked up for good and covered by graffiti.

It was the perfect time to travel.  Fewer tourists, perfect weather and cheaper flights and cruises.  We got to Athens airport and found a car that could fit all of us.  Our driver kept saying how our hotel was in a very scary location and to be cautious walking around outside.  We couldn’t stop laughing since Scott booked this hotel without any input from the rest of us.  We were nervous getting out of our taxi and shocked to see Chad and Jenni walking around the corner after a leisurely walk around the neighborhood.  Jenni said the next neighborhood over was really scary but it seemed to be safe by our hotel.

There were some positives to our scary neighborhood hotel -- rooftop pool with amazing views of Athens and the Acropolis.  

Chad and Jenni wanted to take us to this great little spot for gyros and greek salads for dinner.  The gyros were yummy and only cost 1 euro ($1.30).  This is when where we found out Chad is Greek and at one with his people.  One of my favorite things about Greece is the food.  I’m not a big pizza and pasta fan so after only one day in Rome, I was ready for a change.

 Yes, those are french fries inside the gyro. Delicious!

When we first started planning this trip, I was most excited to go to Athens and back to the Acropolis and Parthenon.  I went to Athens when I was 7 years old and was anxious to go back and see what I could remember from that trip, besides feeding and holding pigeons and catching frogs. 

My brother, Chad,  had this great idea of reenacting our picture from Athens.  35 years later.  Wish I still had those awesome tube socks with footprints on the top and tennis dress (and those legs!).

We toured all around Athens.  Starting at the Acropolis--an ancient fortress on a high rocky hill above the city that has buildings that were constructed in the 5th century BC-- with our tour guide and personal photographer, Kula.  I remembered the Parthenon from 35 years ago but didn’t remember all of the stairs that it took to get to the top of the Acropolis.  I also remembered being able to walk inside and touch the columns.  Our tour guide, Kula, confirmed this memory and said it’s just been these past few decades that they've stopped letting tourists inside the temples.

As we walked up the hill towards the Parthenon, we were able to get a great view of the Theatre of Dionysus Eleuthereus.  This theater could seat 17,000 spectators.

When we came to the top of the stairs, the Temple of Athena Nike was on one side and the Erechtheum was on the other side.  This ancient Greek temple was dedicated to both Athena and Poseidon.  The entire temple is on a slope and built entirely of marble.

Kula did some crazy moves to get this picture and lots of “excuse me, excuse me” to other tourists who were getting in the way of our personal picture. On a side note, Blake was also transformed into a huge Greek God on top of Acropolis.

We finally made our way to the Parthenon,  a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena.  It is considered the most important surviving building of Greece and one of the worlds’ greatest cultural monuments.  We saw a lot of ruins on our trip but I think this was my favorite just because of the memories of seeing it for the first time as a child and being able to return and see it again.

I have way too many close up pictures from this trip thanks to the timer camera app on my phone.  

We walked back down all of the stairs and made our way over to Mars Hill.  This is where it is said that the Apostle Paul gave his sermon.  After seeing all of the idolatry, temples and statues built up to Greek gods, he preached to the Athenians.  He taught “you shall have no other gods before me.  You shall not make for yourself any carved image. . .”  His sermon had 3 main points.  1.  The power of God and that  His power “made the world and everything in it” (Rom 1:20).  2.  The omnipresence of God. “He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:27-28).  3.  God’s plan is that “repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations” (Luke 24:27).

We sat on top of Mars Hill and looked around the city and up at the buildings on top of the Acropolis as we listened to Scott read Paul’s words from the New Testament.  It was definitely a highlight of the trip.

We made our way through ancient Agora and stopped to strike a STATUE pose (this used to be our favorite thing to do on our European vacations back when we were teenagers) until we got the whistle blown on us and had to get down before we were thrown out.

The Temple of Hephaestus can be seen from the Acropolis.  It is just a short walk from the acropolis to Agora where this temple sits on a hill.  It is one one of the few temples with the roof still intact.  It was built around the same time as the Parthenon and used as a Greek Orthodox church from 700 AD to 1821.  

We did a little shopping in Plaka and learned more about the charms and key chains we were seeing in every shop that looked like an eye.  Made to fight off the evil eye.  And of course we had to purchase lots of these lucky charms to take home to our loved ones.  Mia wore her “lucky bracelet” to school the first day after we got home and came home disappointed.  “This bracelet isn’t lucky.  The whole class had to do time out for not listening during story time."

Gavin and Scott were able to have a race on the track inside the original Olympic Stadium, Panathenaic Stadium.  It looks like Gavin may have had a little bit of a false start but they both somehow ended up taking 1st place.

Next we made our way to the Temple of Olympian Zeus.  This is the view of the temple from the Acropolis.  Construction began in the 6th century BC but was not completed for almost 700 years.  

This temple was the largest in Ancient Greece (even larger than the Parthenon).  Today only 15 of the 104 massive columns remain standing.  The 16th column was blown over in a severe windstorm more than 150 years ago and was left where it fell.

The Arch of Hadrian is right in front of the Temple of Zeus.  The gate separated the old city from the new city.  The side facing the Acropolis says “This is Athens, the ancient city of Theseus.”  The other side, facing the temple says “This is the city of Hadrian and not of Theseus.”  You can see the acropolis through the arch.

Very few Athenians spoke English which made for interesting conversations.  Gavin and Scott only added to the confusion as they switched between English and Spanish while talking to the locals.   And who knows what Gavin was doing when we were trying to speak with our cab driver, who only knew a few words in English, and was asking us what “holiday” meant in America (since we use the word vacation instead of holiday for a trip).  Gavin, in all seriousness,  looked at the taxi driver and said, "Christmas is coming.  The goose is getting fat. Please do put a penny in the old man’s hat.  If you haven’t got a penny, a ha’penny will do.  If you haven’t got a ha’penny, then God bless you!”  

The best was when we stopped in a bakery for breakfast and nothing was in English.  We decided to be adventurous and all get something different and try our luck.  Scott asked the worker if there was cheese inside as he pointed to something.  She hesitantly nodded her head.  He took a bite and found a hot dog inside, he yelled “HOT DOG!”  The worker laughed and said, “Yes!  That’s it!”

We had a few hours the next day before we had to get on the cruise ship and spent the morning at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens which I liked for the first 60 minutes then I sat on a bench while the rest of the group explored every room.  Heidi wasn’t able to join us since she stayed back at the hotel to take care of some scheduling back home (even though it was 1 in the morning in the states).  She missed out on a lot of great picture opportunities. 

We got back to the hotel and gathered all of our belongings and started the 20 minute journey to the metro station.   Walking through Athens, pulling our luggage behind us.  In an area where we were warned to not carry backpacks or purses.  

It was time to say good bye to Athens as we made our way down the metro to the pier to board our ship!

Next Stop, Mykonos . . .