Happy Birthday, Mr. President...

Since we had a 3 day weekend for Presidents Day, we decided to head on down to San Diego for some fun. David and Melissa and the boys decided to join us too. Sunday, after church, we drove to San Diego and checked into the hotel. We had a room right next to David's and Melissa's, which was cool because it meant that we could hang out without having to go all over the place. Also, the boys thought it was way cool to go back and forth between the two rooms. After we checked in, we went down to Old Town to tour the Mormon Battalion Visitor Center. My parents and I had been there before, but David and Melissa had not. It is way cool now that they've changed it up. After the presentation, we went to the back courtyard where the boys got to pan for gold and use an old fashioned well water pump. The boys loved it! Cy got super soaked and it was freezing cold, so we went back to the hotel when they had had their fun. Here we are at the visitor center:

You can tell how much fun they had by how soaked they are!

The next morning, we had breakfast at the hotel and then went to the zoo. We, of course, saw a bunch of animals. However, it was the big fake animals that seemed to capture the boys' attention the most.

After several hours in the zoo, we went to Balboa Park, which is pretty much right outside the zoo. David, Melissa, and the boys went on the little railroad train that was there. My dad rode that train when he was a little boy, and so did David, so it was cool that David got to take his own kids on it.

My dad said it was painted exactly the same even when he was a kid.

The boys also went on a little flying swing ride and enjoyed themselves.

They also rode the carousel, which has also been there since my dad was little.

I love the way the carousel is painted. I'll bet the pictures drawn and painted on the carousel are original because they look like something straight out of the era. I love it when history (even little paintings on a kiddie ride) is preserved! I think it's even cooler that they even still had the brass ring! Way cool!

After that, we decided to go to a place called Phil's BBQ for dinner; it was recommended to David by some co-workers and we wanted to try it out. We drove all the way there, only to find a sign that said, "Closed Mondays". Seriously!?!?!
We ended up going to Old Town to eat and we had some amazing Mexican food at a restaurant that was in the courtyard right next to Geppetto's.

***Side Note: Geppetto's toy shoppe is BACK!!! It's a little toy store that we used to go to every time we went to Old Town throughout my entire childhood, which was very often. We used to have a shelf in our house that held a bunch of little cartoon figures and it was quite a conversation piece. Many of those little figures came from Geppetto's. Sadly, we went to Old Town about a year ago and it was closed and completely empty. Sad, sad day. This time, I looked, longingly, over to where it had been all those years and was amazed to see that the beautiful Geppeto's sign had returned! Of course we went in. It isn't quite the same as it had been before...not as well stocked, but it was there and that's good enough for my nostalgic self! : )

After that, we headed home to get ready to start the work week. Blah! ; )

Love it!