How I Spent My Christmas Vacation

Okay, here's a complete report on our vacation in San Diego for Christmas this year. It was pretty great, I have to say.

First off, my wife had Friday off, and spent the whole day packing and preparing so that we could leave as early as possible for San Diego the next day. Unfortunately for her, she had more to do than the time allowed. Among brothers and sisters, we have encouraged the kids to give homemade presents to each other for Christmas each year. The kids do their best, but for any of these presents to be worthwhile, they need their fair share of help. So, my wife was awake and sewing until 3:00 in the morning. It didn't matter, she wasn't going to be driving the next day, so she could catch a nice long nap in the car instead of staring out the window at mile after mile after mile of sage brush.

I, however, was going to be driving the next day. My wife told me I should probably go and sleep in our daughter's bed, but I wasn't particularly interested in that. Sleeping in your own bed is always more restful, and I wouldn't be back in it for a week. Besides, the cat sleeps with our daughter every night, so her bed is always full of gross cat hair.

The cat hair was probably the better option though. I didn't know how loud my wife's current sewing machine could be. I nicknamed my wife Thunderfoot, because that machine was as loud as a continuous clap of rolling thunder each time she stomped down on that foot pedal. I went to bed by midnight, but tossed and turned for a long time after that because of her noise. Then, after going to sleep, I remember waking up again and again as Thunderfoot stomped down once more.

In the morning, I was pretty dang tired. But there's that saying the druggies use, "better living through chemistry," and I guess I have to say that it's my mantra too. I got myself a bunch of caffeine, and used that to keep myself awake as my wife and the kids sat silently in the back of the car reading books, playing on their phones or snoozing away. I learned long ago that a road trip with this bunch is insufferable. It's like pulling teeth to get any conversation going that might keep me awake. So, Dr. Pepper it is.

Our trip south was to be broken into two parts. It's something we usually do when going to southern California. There's an easy and cheap stopping point in the middle of the trip. And it's also kind of fun as well. My wife had rented us a room at the Plaza hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was more difficult than ever before to get parked and checked into our hotel. They had a parking garage, but to get into it, you needed to swipe your room key. How do you swipe your room key before you park? You have to park so that you can go inside and get your room key, so it's impossible. We dropped my wife off at the hotel lobby, and drove around the block and across the railroad bridge where we found a public lot that we could park in and wait.

Eventually, we got everything squared away, parked our car in the Plaza's garage, and went up to our room. Little immediately started jumping on the bed.

I always yell at him when he does it at home, but it was his one chance to get away with it. Instead I smiled and filmed him. After a couple of minutes to get ready, we headed out to see some of the sights of Vegas. We were only here, however, to see the free sights. There's plenty to do at all the casinos, but they'll cost you plenty. There is a few things you can just stand and watch from the street, though. We learned about all of them way back when we stopped in Vegas on our way to Disneyland in 2010. There is an aquarium of sorts in the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace. More of a big fish tank really, but hey it's free to look at, so I can't complain.

We also stopped to check out the fountain at the Bellagio, one of my personal favorites. 

The one problem with seeing the free stuff in Vegas is that each thing is a very long walk down the strip from the last. The casinos are immense, but hey they can afford it the way people waste their life savings there. It's a long walk for a big, strong full sized adult like...my oldest son. So, for someone like Little, who is only three, it's like a marathon. He started acting grumpy and fussy pretty early on, and my wife realized that we should have fed him before we started. We cut our hike a little short, so that we could walk back to the car, and get Little some food. The rest of us were hungry as well, so nobody really complained.

We stopped in at the world's busiest In-n-Out Burger, and ordered a bunch of burgers.

Little wouldn't even eat his whole hamburger, I basically spoon fed him each bite that he did eat, so the hungry hypothesis was disproved. Maybe he just needed to be burped. Of course, by this time he was no longer fussy or grumpy, so I guess it didn't matter.

After In-n-Out, we went back to our own hotel, so we could hit the next free attraction. Across the street from the Plaza is a place called the Freemont Street Experience. What's there isn't all that amazing, just a bunch more casinos and shops, but what we wanted to see was the light show. The entire street is covered by a giant screen that goes for blocks. Every hour, the Viva Vision light show happens. While we were there, they played a few songs by The Who, and accompanied it with bouncing triangles and flashing colors. Their website talked it up a lot, but it turned out to be pretty underwhelming. Size doesn't always matter. Just because your video screen is the size of a city block, doesn't make it awesome if you're just showing Baby Einstein video set to The Who. Substance counts too.

But the other thing their website talked up a lot was the live music, and that did not disappoint. There was a band there called Alter Ego playing a covers of hits from the '70s and '80s. We had a great time with these. Well, I had a great time. My wife had a good time as well, but I don't think she was like me. I could have stayed there all night, until the band was done.

I have come to realize recently that my kids are not much like me in a lot of ways. For example, my oldest son refused to even come over and stand near us where we were enjoying the music. He insisted on standing way at the back of the crowd. I went back and tried to bring him over, and he stolidly refused. And he's a really big dude now, so there's just no way I could drag him even if I tried.

My younger daughter came over to stand with us, but she could barely pay attention to the songs that the band was playing. She couldn't focus on anything other than the feeling of the bass from the giant speakers vibrating her body. For some reason, this panicked her. She kept saying she thought she was going to die. Despite all the hundreds of other people around her experiencing the same phenomenon and not dying, she was convinced.

My older daughter is a different case than the other two, but still has her issues. She's a pretty heavily introverted person. She can go out and have fun with others, but can only do it for so long before it drains her of her energy, and she needs to sit in her room and read a book to recharge. She looked as though she was having as good a time as I was, and she probably was, but the life-force was draining from her like a video game boxer up against the ropes.

I was having such a good time, but it couldn't last, I guess. After a couple of songs, my wife decided to take my older son to do something he might enjoy. They went to look at some of the souvenir shops. Moments later, my younger daughter, who was still acting as though the bass vibrations were making her unable to breathe, told me that she needed to go to the bathroom.

There were no public bathrooms nearby on Freemont Street...at least that we knew about anyhow. So, we had to hoof it all the way back to our hotel at the end of the road to find one. By the time we returned from the bathroom, the party was over. The band was taking a break while the Viva Vision light show played, and my wife was hiding from one of those street performers dressed as Bumblebee the Transformer. Why, you ask? Well, let me see if I can tell the story.

Las Vegas is filled with people dressed in costumes of famous characters. We saw several of them while we were out hiking the strip, and Little was always very keen to go talk to them and maybe get a picture with them. Mostly, we steered him clear of them, because these guys aren't paid by Disneyland to be here, what they are expecting is a tip for their services. We did finally let Little get a picture with Batman and Iron Man when we made it to Freemont Street, and gave each of the guys a buck for the second they spent on us.

But I was looking for a bathroom, Bumblebee came along. This guy was much more enterprising. He wasn't going to just wait for someone to come to him, he sought out his marks, and reeled them in with tricks. For example, my older daughter walked past this guy, and he grabbed her and gave her a white rose, pretending to be courting her affections. It was cute, funny, and a little embarrassing.

My wfie took her camera, and got a couple of pictures of them. Then, she opened her purse, and went to pull out a dollar to give to the guy, and realized that she'd spent all her small bills, and a twenty was the smallest change she had. She sure as heck wasn't giving this guy a twenty for posing for a picture in a costume, but the guy was standing there with his hand out waiting. If she thought being approached by Bumblebee with a rose was embarrassing, now she was positively mortified.

"I don't have any change," she confessed. The guy had an enormous wad of change in his own hand from all the tips he'd gotten already that day, but he wasn't going to provide Shantell with change. His business model was to get himself a bigger tip, a five instead of a one, when people discovered they didn't have small enough bills. If he gave change to one person, then the next person would ask too, and soon he'd never get more than a buck. Instead, the guy started asking strangers passing by if they could help her with some change, further embarrassing her.

There's only so much embarrassment that someone so embarrassment averse as my wife can take. Once he started doing this, she quickly told him that she'd get some change and bring it back to him later. Which wasn't actually true. Once the guy had stepped over the line, he'd lost his tip, un-earned it. She was done with the guy, and just needed a way to escape him.

After all this, my wife was ready to go home. Little is only three, and this late at night, he gets tired. So, she wanted to get him to bed. My younger daughter wasn't having that good of a time to begin with, what with the lung-crushing bass from the live music stage. And my older son had never been interested in any of it. He'd sooner die than dance. Even my older daugher could take it or leave it at this point. Her energy seemed to have been drained. So, everyone went back to our hotel room to sleep.

I could have stayed for hours more. Alter Ego was back on stage, and playing "Paradise City" by Guns 'n' Roses, and another '80s metal cover band called Spandex Nation was starting up on the other stage, but nobody else shared my enthusiasm. So, I did the dad thing, sacrificing what I want for the whims of others, and followed along, going to bed early on a Saturday night.

The next morning, we got up and going as soon as we could, and headed for San Diego. Spending Friday and Saturday night in Vegas, and returning home Sunday morning is a pretty popular thing in Southern California, though, so the freeway was packed.

Last year, we drove into San Diego just as the sun was setting, and went straight to the beach to enjoy the last moments of daylight with the sand between our toes and the rainbow colored clouds filling our eyes. This year, we drove into San Diego just as the sun was setting, and went straight to Costco to buy some supplies for our week in town and to eat dinner in their food court. It was supremely busy, as you might suspect on the last Saturday before Christmas, so it took a long time to get out of there.

We got to our condo, just a few yards from the beach, after dark. We brought in all our gear and stowed it. And, eventually, made it out to the beach. It was, however, completely dark, and relatively cold too.

Little still managed to find some fun, scratching letters into the sand. Playing in the water was going to have to wait until tomorrow, however.

The first thing we did the next morning was head out to the beach. 

Of course, first thing is a sort of relative term, since nobody got out of bed for hours after a normal person would have. But it's vacation right? It's for relaxing. So, first thing the next morning was some time around 11:00 AM or so.

Anyway, the beach was only a 30 second walk from our condo. The proverbial hop, skip, and a jump away. We dropped our stuff, and started playing in the waves.

The thing Little wanted to do the most was still drawing letters in the sand. I guess he hadn't gotten enough of it the night before. His favorite to draw is the letter L, mostly because it starts his name, and also it's one of the few letters that he actually knows. He would play in the waves a little, but was always drawn back to drawing in the sand. Eventually, the waves started taking precedence, and he found them to be fun enough to ignore the sand for a while, but he did build a little sand castle with my wife before the day was out.

The other kids played in the waves as well. But they were soon wanting more. There was a set of boogie boards provided to us in the garage of our condo, so we grabbed them and tried them out. It has been a long time since I've done boogie boarding...in fact, I may have never done boogie boarding before. I think body surfing is the only thing I've ever done. So, it took us a while to get it right, and I wasn't what you would call the ideal teacher.

Part of the problem was that the lifeguards came along right before we started trying it, and told us that there was a dangerous riptide developing right in our area. They suggested we move down the beach, or at least stay in the shallows. We wound up doing both. We moved down the beach, and stayed in the shallows. Problem is, the waves aren't as good in the shallows. They're pretty small. Eventually, we figured it out, and moved deeper to get the good waves. 

It was time to wind things down. It was already hours late for lunch, but since we'd all gotten up so late, and eaten breakfast so late, we were only now getting hungry. So, we headed back to the condo to eat. For the afternoon, we figured we'd head up to our "old neighborhood" and go to some of the shops there and watch the sunset on the beach. That was my wife's way of putting it. It was our old neighborhood because that was where our beach house was for last year's trip to San Diego. Admittedly, we all missed it a little bit. It was much nicer and more spacious than this year's condo. This condo wasn't bad, but last year's house was just amazing. Also, we really loved the neighborhood up that way.

So, after lunch, we got in the car, and headed a few miles north to Pacific Beach.

It was really nice to be back in the old neighborhood. It shouldn't be that big of a deal, because we only spent a week there once, but I would definitely have to rank last year's vacation to San Diego as either #1 or #2 of all the vacations we've ever taken. It was so pleasant and relaxing that we just can't help but have fond, nostalgic feelings when passing through the area. Even Little, who can barely remember that far back, hasn't forgotten it, and remembers it fondly.

One thing we never managed to do last year, was walk out on the pier. I loved having the pier as a background for all our pictures, especially considering all the Christmas decorations on it. It was pretty. One time my wife and I went for a walk to the pier in the late evening, only to discover that the pier closes at dusk. There are homes built onto the pier, and they just want a little bit of privacy.

So, when we came back to Pacific Beach today, we headed straight for the pier. There were wreaths all along the pier leading out to the huge Christmas tree at the end of it.

And, apparently, it's a great spot for surfing. There were dozens of surfers right next to the pier, riding the waves, and waiting for that perfect tube to carve.

They were mesmerizing to watch. We all sat and stared at them for probably twenty minutes or more. Eventually, we moved along. We'd promised the kids before we left that we'd get some frozen yogurt. So, we walked over to a yogurt shop that my wife remembered from last year. Each of the kids filled a cup with frozen yogurt and candy chunks, and enjoyed their treat. I looked out the window, and noticed that as soon as we were done, we needed to hotfoot it back over to the beach or we were going to miss the sunset, which was one of the reasons we came, to watch the sunset on the beach.

We made it with time to spare, took a seat, and enjoyed the view.

Something about a beach sunset just does it for me. It's probably the prettiest place in the world to watch the sunset from.

After the sun slipped below the horizon, we headed back up to look at more of the shops. My wife and the girls looked through a clothing shop where pretty much everything was on sale. Little got bored, and the only thing that interested him were the mannequins in the shop window. He went over to look at them, but soon started imitating them. Several people walking past the store stopped and did a double take when they realized that was a live child holding the mannequin's hand in the store window.

It was funny to see, and getting such a reaction only made Little want to do it more. In the end, we had to carry him out of the shop to get him to leave. At this point it was time to head back to the car and go home. But right before I got in, I set up my camera to get this shot:

One of my favorite things at Pacific Beach was the pier lit up for Christmastime. Last year, I was never able to get a good shot, but this year, I got an app that lets my phone fake a long exposure picture. It gets me a picture that's bright enough to be worth looking at. Doesn't it look nice in the dark?

We headed back to the condo, and got out our gingerbread house kit. We may have fled the snow and cold for a warm relaxing holiday in California, but we haven't forgotten the traditions that make Christmas great. Every year we make a gingerbread house. Yhe kids insisted that we bring the kit along with us on our trip, and put the thing together while in San Diego.

The icing was pretty slow drying, and made for a lot of issues, but eventually the house was all assembled and we got down to decorating the thing. As is usually the case, more of the candy got eaten than what went onto the house itself. I don't think younger daughter actually put any candy on the house. I think she just pretended to try to place a piece on the house, then gave up and ate it instead, again and again.

We had a good time, and eventually, that house looked good enough to eat...which of course they would do soon enough, once their stomachs stopped aching from the candy they'd already eaten while decorating it.

As soon as the kids woke up the next morning, they started into the gingerbread house. Little was definitely the worst of them all. He kept disappearing for fifteen minutes at a time, until we would get worried about whether he'd somehow gone out the front door or something. When we went looking for him, we'd always find him next to the gingerbread house, crunching away on some candy. The house wasn't going to last long, but until it was gone, Little wasn't going to eat a real meal again.

It had rained all night, and the day had dawned cold, cloudy, and grey. Nobody was at the beach.

Last year, we'd had a rainy day as well. It had cut our visit to the San Diego Zoo short. This year, we were able to plan ahead a little better. We knew the rain was coming, so we scheduled a family trip to the movie theater to see the new Star Wars film.

I looked online to find the closest theater, and found that they were showing the movie about every half hour or so, so whenever we got there, we would be only a few minutes from the next show, so I didn't even really look at the times. We ate breakfast; a nice, big elaborate breakfast; then cleaned up after ourselves, and headed out to the theater.

When we got there, and asked for six tickets, they told us that it was unlikely we'd find two seats open next to each other.

"Okay, well, we'll just get some for the next showing then," I said.

The next showing, contrary to what I had believed possible earlier, wasn't for until 1:10 PM. It was only 11:50 AM right then, so we were going to have to wait. I'd misunderstood the every-half-hour-there's-a-new-showing thing. They had the movie on three screens, and each showing was spread out about 20-30 minutes from the last one, but only for three showings. So, for example, our showing started at 1:10, there was another one at 1:30 and another at 1:50, but the movie runs two hours and sixteen minutes, so our theater wouldn't empty until 3:26. So, between 1:50 and 3:30, people would have to wait. We had managed to land ourselves right in that dead zone between the start of the last show and the end of the first show. Bummer.

Worse yet, this theater didn't have assigned seating, so if we wanted a decent seat in the theater, we were going to have to wait in the line...or at least some of us would. The theater was situated in the middle of a shopping center, so my wife took the younger kids to shop for a while, and I waited in line with the older ones, who, like most teens these days, kept their faces down in their phones the whole time. It was a long and boring wait. At least there was an awning, so the light but steady rain didn't soak us. I called my wife to come back to line when it finally got close to the time they'd let us in, and we waited until they removed the rope.

Little must have been able to feel the energy from the crowd in the line or something, because he seemed to be really excited about seeing the movie. But once they let us into the theater, and the energy dissipated, he couldn't have cared less about the movie. For me it was so exciting it verged on a religious experience. For him it was a boring place he was stuck in for two hours and sixteen minutes without being able to leave. He wouldn't sit still and watch the movie even for a moment. He was most interested in eating popcorn and candy, and drinking our soda. He bugged my wife endlessly, and all I can say is that it's lucky he wasn't on my lap.

It's funny, because he's sat through several live-action, adult-oriented movies in the past. He's seen all the superhero movies and behaved much better, so I guess he just really doesn't like the Star Wars universe. 

Oh well. I can't fault him, he's only three after all. In a strange bit of coincidence, Little is approximately the same age I was when the original Star Wars was released in 1977. I didn't see a Star Wars movie until Return of the Jedi made it to video in 1984 or so, and became a life-long fan from there. Maybe he'll do the same with the third movie from this trilogy when he's much older and more suited to it.

That was pretty much the extent of our adventures for day two of our vacation. We went home, and made some dinner, then sat around the house for the rest of the day.

The next day was December 23rd, Christmas Eve!

Just go with it okay. Because of the availability of vacation days for my wife and I, or lack thereof, we were going to have to be driving back from San Diego on Christmas Day. So, we decided we would just pretend that the 23rd was Christmas Eve and the 24th was Christmas Day. After all, it's just an arbitrary date anyway. The older kids were educated enough to know the difference, but they still went with it, and Little didn't know any better, so he went with it as well.

What was on the docket for Christmas Eve fun? Well, my wife, while doing her research for this year's vacation, heard about a place called Belmont Park. It's an amusement park right by the beach with a bunch of different rides, including one of those ancient wooden roller coasters--this particular one was built in 1925. It looked like it would be really fun, and Costco sold discounted wristbands that got you unlimited rides. It reminded me of all the good memories I have of the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk from my own childhood. We were interested.

This was before we knew exactly how close our condo was going to be to Belmont Park as well. See on this map/satellite photo, there's the red X at the bottom on Dover Court...that's where our condo was, and the big pin at the top is marking Belmont Park.

Yeah, it's really close. Two streets, and we're at Mission Beach Park, and Belmont Park is just on the other side of it. It's a five minute walk tops. With it being that close, there was just no way we weren't going to take advantage of that. Heck, we could walk home for lunch and come back in the amount of time it would take you to find your car in the parking lot of most amusement parks.

It was still cloudy and a little bit cold from the storm from yesterday, so Belmont Park seemed the perfect thing to try today. After all, if it started to rain for a bit, we could easily walk home, wait it out, and go back when it was done. It wasn't supposed to rain today, but the clouds overhead didn't look completely trustworthy.

We walked over in the morning, got our wristbands, and started on the rides. Right next to the ticket booth was the carousel. I love carousels. They're so pretty and interesting, and on top of that, they're rides. I especially love when they're all lit up at night. My oldest son, on the other hand, does not love carousels. We practically had to push him through the gate to get him to go on it, and then he refused to sit on any of the horses...or bunnies or ostriches or cats or whatever else they had...and rode the ride the entire time just standing there.

Not an auspicious beginning for a day of fun, but all my kids are getting to that age where the urge to appear cool often overwhelms the urge to have a good time. I'm sure I was never like that, but if I was, well, I'm embarrassed about it, and I apologize to you now.

Luckily, there was other, cooler rides to try. Like the roller coaster, which was right next to the carousel The older kids hopped on that, while Little got to ride the little kid drop tower called the Vertical Plunge.

I don't think he liked going by himself very much. At first, he seemed pretty scared. My wife and I stood there on the ground nodding our heads and smiling to help communicate that this was supposed to be a good experience, not a frightening one, and eventually he smiled back, but I think he would have done much better had he been sitting next to the other kids.

Little had a lot of fun on all the rides he went on, but the one he was really waiting for was the bumper cars. On Sunday night, when we'd first arrived and we took our walk along the beach, we also walked through Belmont Park before heading back home. We passed the bumper car building, and Simon decided that he really wanted to ride them. He got upset enough that he threw a little tantrum about it, and wouldn't accept our reassurances that we would be going on the bumper cars in a few days time, but couldn't do it immediately. Then, for the rest of the week, he kept asking about those bumper cars. They never left his mind.

At last, his chance had come. He couldn't drive his own car, because he was too little, but his gearhead brother was happy to drive for him. When the ride ended, I don't think Little was particularly wowed by the experience. I don't think we even rode the bumper cars a second time the rest of the day.

Right next to the bumper cars was the extreme sports area. Normally, those rides aren't included in the unlimited ride wristband package, but that wasn't the case this time around. Each of the kids got two rides on the zipline. Another thing they had at the extreme sports zone was the Leap of Faith. They hooked you up to a strap that would lower you slowly to the ground, but only after you jumped out into nothing. There was two styles of jumps. My younger daughter chose the one where you jump out and try to catch yourself on a punching bag-type thing, My older two kids chose the one where you just jumped into nothing at all. Lastly, the adventure zone had a rock climbing wall. The kids were the least excited about this one, because it was something they had done before many times.

There was another novel attraction right next to the high-adventure zone. It was called the Lazer Maze. It was just an empty room with several laser beams criss-crossing it. The goal was to go inside, and weave your way through the lasers until you could press a button shutting them off. It was fun, and Little looked really cute crawling through it. They all went through it several times. The lines were short...or sometimes non-existant, as in this case...and we had unlimited ride wristbands, so this became a theme for the day from here on out.

Now we come to the ride that Little loved above all else. There was a set of bumper cars that were called the Krazy Kars. These cars only accommodated one person, but kids as small as Little were considered big enough to ride them. When he discovered this, he was in heaven. He went back again and again, riding those cars until the racket the cars made had given me a headache. Then he rode some more. Soon, the other kids were begging to go ride something else. They rode a few of the nearby rides, until finally, we were able to pry Little away.

There was an ice cream shop that had the most amazing looking ice cream cones, and we decided we had to try it. My wife thought it was possible that we might have a coupon for the place, though, because they'd given her a whole page of coupons when we'd bought our wristbands. However, we'd left those coupons at the condo when we'd gone home for lunch. I volunteered to walk back, since it was so close.

When I got the coupons, I found that there was nothing for the ice cream shop, but as I walked back, I realized that the sunset was upon us. I called Shantell, and told her about this, and she said that she and the kids would meet me on the beach. Anything to get Little away from the Vertical Plunge, which he'd been riding over and over in the time that I'd been walking to and from the condo. So, we saw another sunset on the beach.

It didn't disappoint.

Just as all the others hadn't disappointed.

Beach sunsets are one of the wonders of the world.

Each night, there's a new tapestry of colors knit for us in the sky, but also, reflected from the wet sand as well.

It took a lot to keep my younger daughter from jumping in the water like she usually does. Eventually, we headed back to the amusement park.

I love amusement parks, fairs, and carnivals at night. The lights, the spinning and flashing rides, the smell of the cotton candy and funnel cakes, the gaudy gingerbread of the carousel. I could sit and enjoy those sensations all day. I shared this picture already in its own post, but I'll include it once more because I can't help it.

We rode a few more rides each, and decided not to get the ice cream from the shop after all. Frugality overtook us in the end, and we told the kids they could each choose their very own carton of ice cream from the grocery store if they wanted instead. As anyone who has ever gone to an amusement park knows, buying an entire carton of ice cream at a grocery store is always cheaper than just getting a one scoop cone at the amusement park.

We finished up at the amusement park, then quickly went to the grocery store to get the few things we needed for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner. My wife had brought all the ingredients from home to make cookies to put out for Santa, but decided not to go through all the effort, buying some brownie bites from the store to use in place of the cookies. Santa wasn't pleased, because he really likes chocolate chip cookies, but brownies are better than a kick in the mouth, anyway.

While my wife made clam chowder, our traditional Christmas Eve meal, in the kitchen, Little continued demolishing the gingerbread house we'd made earlier. He'd pretty much eaten nothing but candy for the last two days. Every time we had a meal, he only picked at it, because he was already full of candy. 

After dinner, we started our Christmas Eve program. The kids sang, we watched a movie about the first Christmas on YouTube, and we opened our Christmas Eve present. Little was the only one to be surprised that it was pajamas. The rest of them all knew what was coming their way.

We did remember to bring our stockings. We didn't have a chimney by which to hang them with care, but then again, we don't have one at home either. We found a place for everyone's stockings, and then sent everyone to bed. My wife and I retired to our own room to watch Netflix on our phones until everyone was safely asleep. Then we sneaked out and filled the stockings and placed all the Santa presents around them.

In the middle of the night, some kind of stomach bug hit my oldest son hard. I remember once, in the middle of the night...I was only partly awake, but I think I was more awake than my wife was, because I at least remembered it the next day, and she did not...we heard a noise from the bathroom. My wife woke up.

"Who is that?" she asked.

"It's me?" my oldest son answered.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Regurgitating," was his response.

I don't think my wife was anywhere near awake enough to wrap her mind around a seldom used two-dollar word like that, the only thing she could fathom at that level of wakefulness was Christmas.

"Get to bed," she said, "and don't look at the presents."

He was sleeping on the mattress on the floor next to all the presents, so it was important that he not peek. My wife and I went back to sleep, but my oldest son went back to hurling up his dinner, and kept at it for the rest of the predawn hours. When it was time to get up and commemorate Christmas, he wasn't really all that interested. We rousted him from bed anyway, and pushed him into the girl's room, which had a door, and also contained the other three kids, and got set up to take pictures and record the kids enjoying their Christmas morning.

Each of them had a full stocking, and a few other presents. It wasn't very extravagant, but we purposefully did that. The Christmas money had gone to the trip. So in reality, the kids got things like gas, food, Star Wars tickets, hotel rooms, Belmont Park wristbands, and so forth for Christmas. And just a few things from Santa. Hell, a few things came from the dollar store, but it was still cool.

My youngest daughter got herself a nice warm blanket (so that she will stop stealing the one from the couch all the time), and some headphones (so it will be even harder to get her to hear that we want her to turn her Dr. Who marathon off and come do something), among other things. My older daughter mostly got a bunch of clothes, which is probably what she wants, but it also makes me sad when someone doesn't get any toys for Christmas. For my oldest son, it is the same deal. Shoes, clothes, at least there was a remote control car in there.

Once we finished looking at the Santa presents and emptying our stockings, it was time for Christmas breakfast. Since it wasn't really Christmas Day, and merely Christmas Eve for the rest of the world, everything was still open. So, in memory of the kids' favorite meal from last year's trip, My wife had me run out to Einstein's Bagel's and get the Baker's Dozen Box. In the meantime, she cooked up some eggs and, most importantly, bacon.

When I got back, those of us who felt good enough to eat, had a great breakfast of bagels, eggs, bacon, hash browns, and juice. I love Christmas breakfast. We always make it a meal worth eating, so there's that, but also it makes for a nice respite in between discovering what Santa brought, and opening presents from family. Soon, however, it was time to get back to the frenzy.

We opened most of our presents before we left home so that we could fit all the things that we needed into the car, so we didn't have that many things to open, just the stuff from our immediate family.

And, as I mentioned at the beginning of the post, my wife started the tradition of giving only homemade presents among brothers and sisters. It's a really cool idea, and the kids really enjoy it. They love making presents for their siblings, and I think they at least usually enjoy the things that they get as well.

It's fun, but also very difficult. It takes a lot more time to create a present rather than just buy one, and time is the one thing that is in the shortest of supply between my wife and I. It also requires a lot of research to come up with something that can be homemade and is worth having. My wife scours Pinterest the whole year through in search of worthwhile things to make. I think some of the best presents the kids have ever gotten, the ones they'll remember and treasure throughout their lives, were homemade, but there were also a lot of misfires and failures as well.

Little made and painted necklaces for the girls. They're made of a polymer clay that you can buy at craft stores. I think they turned out pretty cute. He made a custom cell phone case for his older brother. You get a clear cell phone case, then glue a picture inside. They originally tried to use actual pages out of a comic book for it, but discovered that it didn't work as well as they'd hoped, since cell phone's are pretty small. Instead they found some nice Spider-man themed paper that worked well.

The girls sewed a robe for Little. Sewing something is always the go-to thing for making presents, because it's a skill that my wife already has, and that she's been teaching the girls to do as well. Little has been wanting a robe. He's been wanting it bad enough that he's been wearing his brother's robe, which drags on the floor when he walks around in it. So, it's good to have it replaced with one that fits.

Then there is what ol' Thunderfoot was making into the wee hours the night before we left for San Diego. She made blankets that you can use while you watch TV. They're kind of like lightweight sleeping bags, basically. You pull them up over your legs to keep warm while you veg out. The one she made for my younger daughter turned out really well, but unfortunately, the shark one for my oldest son was made to be too small. It's going to need some alterations for the big guy to fit in it, and those alterations are going to wind up removing the mouth off the shark, which is of course the best part. Oh well, the dangers of making your own presents, I guess.

Once we'd finished with the festivities, we started getting ready to head out. With our remaining time in San Diego, we had a couple more things we wanted to do. One of them was to go back to play on the beach, and the other was to go to a beach with some good tide pools. My wife had looked around on the internet, and found a great place to see tide pools. It was at the Point Loma tide pools in the Cabrillo National Monument. Low tide was going to be soon, so we all, except for my oldest son who was just going to stay home and sleep, rushed to get dressed.

Once everyone was ready, we headed out to the car, and got driving. As we walked, I looked over at the beach, just yards away, and sighed. It was the perfect time to hit the beach. The weather couldn't have been better. The sun was out, the clouds were gone, and it was warm and pleasant. We had to save it for later, however, because tide pools can't be viewed at high tide. It had to be now.

On the drive over, my older daughter started turning green, and by the time we got there, it became obvious that she had the same illness my older son had. She was feeling awful. We all walked down to the shore, and she parked herself on a rock, and stayed there. Now there were only four of us left.

The tide pools were cool. We saw a lot of marine life doing its thing in them.

There were a lot of sea anemones.

My younger daughter even dared touching them with her finger. Looking back on it, that might not have been the smartest thing, since sea anemones inject their prey with neurotoxins to paralyze them so that they can ingest them. When I was a kid, we would poke them with a stick to get them to close instead of using our fingers. A quick internet search tells me that none of the anemones on the west coast of the United States are dangerous, so I guess it didn't matter.

She touched them a couple of times, and then said she didn't want to do it anymore. It wasn't because she was feeling light headed or woozy or having the urge to samba, it was just because they felt weird--sticky--she didn't like it.

The thing we saw the most of was hermit crabs. They were everywhere. Scuttling along in the water. Big ones, little ones, and even tiny ones. We also found several really large shells. We walked the beach by our condo, and gathered many shells to take home with us, but, unfortunately, here at the Cabrillo National Monument taking shells home was prohibited. I suppose it would make life hard for the hermit crabs if there were no shells around to move into as they grew, so I can't complain.

Meanwhile, my older daughter sat on her rock, and felt rotten, but it was time to go. She could go back home and join her brother. Hopefully, this was as far as the sickness would spread.

After we left the visitor center, we headed back to our condo for our last chance to play on the beach before we had to drive back home in the morning. My oldest daughter didn't come. She went to bed instead, but the four of us who were well enough went down to the beach to enjoy ourselves.

In an attempt to make the experience complete, my wife bought a little kite...wait no, I should call it a tiny kite. Seriously, the thing was the size of the palm of my hand. It's size notwithstanding, she bought it, and brought it with us so that we could fly a kite on the beach. Little was really excited about it, and pestered us all week about flying the kite, so when the time came, he couldn't help but dance around like a nut.

We were not the only ones on the beach flying kites. There were several, and even a guy who was kite surfing as well. What did that mean? That meant that it was really windy. Yeah, the beautiful weather that I spoke of earlier was gone. Now the sky was overcast, and the wind was strong. It was pretty cold, but it was our last chance to have fun in the ocean, so we went for it anyway.

My daughter took her boogie board out and started catching some waves. I could have joined her, but I wimped out. It was too cold.

The last time we were boogie boarding, we started out trying to make it work in the shallow water. Eventually, as the day wore on we figured out how to make it work a little better by moving into the deeper spots, and catching the wave when it was a little bigger. Now, she was having a great time, because the waves were carrying her and her boogie board much farther.

Meanwhile, on the shore, my wife and the Little guy were making a sand castle. They went at it for a long time, and it got later. By the time they finished up, we were freezing our butts off, so we gave up and ran for it. Back at the house, we warmed back up and had some dinner. Darkness was falling, and My wife thought it would be nice if she and I went for a walk along the beach while the sun set.

As we started down the beach, it was like many of the other sunsets that we had seen while in town.

But the longer we walked, the more the sky filled with color, until it was really quite breathtaking.

We walked all the way to the breakwater at Point Medanos where the entrance channel is for Mission Bay. With each step we took, the sky grew more beautiful, add to that the reflection of the sky off the water on the beach, and we had the makings of perhaps the most gorgeous pictures I've ever taken.

As we walked, my wife gathered dozens of little seashells off the sand. I had an idea to make a commemorative Christmas ornament to remember our trip to San Diego with. We'll see if I ever actually get around to it, but I do mean to.

Eventually, we reached that breakwater, and thus ended our walk on the beach. We walked back to the condo on the jogging path beside the beach, and that was that. The rest of the night we spent packing up and getting ready to leave. We were driving the full 732 miles back to the house in one day, so we had to leave early, especially considering that my wife was going to have to be to work the next morning at 2:00 AM. We had to get home early enough that she'd have time to get a decent night's sleep.

Some highlights of the drive...well, there wasn't much to it. It was a little weird to be driving on Christmas Day. Most everything was closed. Luckily for us, gas stations don't close on Christmas. They're like people that work at news stations, required to work all days of the year, unless you specifically ask for vacation...like I did.

In Las Vegas, we stopped for lunch at a McDonald's. It was, strangely, the busiest McDonald's I have ever been to. I don't know if it was just the only restaurant open in town or what, but that place was unbelievably packed. It took almost 30 minutes to get our food, just to get it, not to get it and eat it. We took it to go, and got out of there before we wasted any more precious time not on the move.

As we drove north, it got colder and colder, and correspondingly more and more miserable. Snow started piling up on the sides of the road, and there were a few stretches of the highway that were difficult to navigate, and forced me to lower my speeds to what really was an unacceptable rate. Eventually, we arrived back in our home town. As we made our way to our house, we saw the mountains of snow that were piled everywhere.

"Do you think we'll be able to get in the driveway?" I asked Shantell.

"I don't know," she replied. "It doesn't look good."

Well, it turns out no. We were not. The snow was probably two feet deep on our driveway. I was really grateful to not have been there when all that snow was falling. We'd definitely picked a good week to be out of town. Unfortunately, there was no way into our house. I parked the car half out in the street, and trudged up to the garage to get a snow shovel. My older son and I chiseled a path to the house, and then everyone else started unloading the car while we finished shoveling the driveway.

My wife took these pictures. They're pretty dark, but you can kind of see just how deep that snow was.

It was a long process, because of how much snow there was. It took me about an hour. By the time I was done, ,u wfe was already in bed. Finally, though, I was able to pull our car into the garage. We were officially home again.