San Diego

SAN DIEGO VACATION JUNE 2011

The beginning of June we went to San Diego for 5 days. Reyn had his 17 day break so the first few days we hiked Havasupai, then went to San Diego. It was so nice to be there to relax and enjoy our time as a family. We didn't get to play in the ocean and we actually didn't go to the beach much at all. We arrived Monday mid afternoon and it was sunny and beautiful. The rest of the week was overcast, June gloom. We were just grateful for the weather, it wasn't 110 like it was here at home. So even though we didn't get in the water or become beach bums we still really really enjoyed our time there. :)











We went to the Mormon battalion museum in Old Town. Royce working the water.


My first hat ever. I really like it. :) I also like this picture of Royce and I.

Attempting a family photo ha. We just had my phone and just us to get the picture.

Birch aquarium. Kind of a funny story about this. Reyn parents mentioned coming here with us. So we all loaded up in our truck and we headed out to Birch Aquarium. When we pulled up Reyn's dad said "OK we'll let you out here" Reyn said "OK we'll get out and you will go park the truck?" And Doug said "oh we didn't tell you, your mom and I aren't going in, we are dropping you guys off and taking your truck to go shopping." Reyn and I were like "WHAT?!" It was their idea to have us come to the aquarium and they just dump us off. haha. So we went inside and they left, they told us we could call as soon as we were done and they'd be 15 mins away to come get us. Well we walked through the whole thing. There were a ton of kids there, must have been a field trip or something. So Royce wanted to be held the whole time and wasn't being much fun for us. Royce whined most of the time we were there. I think there was just too many kids there and they were extremely loud and EVERYWHERE. So Royce was clinging to Reyn for dear life.

I took a few pictures of the different fish and sea creatures in their aquariums. I liked this aquarium because of all the bright colorful fish. It is amazing all the different shapes, colors and sizes of fish that exist.

NEMO!

Some sea horses.

All Royce wanted to see was some sharks. There were signs for a shark exhibit and when we walked around to it, there wasn't anything there. Reyn went to ask and they didn't want to give him a straight answer. He said "where is the shark exhibit" and the lady said "oh there were some sharks in the aquariums". he said "well there are signs for an actual shark exhibit" and she said "oh that is closed til next month." So Royce was sad, we were disappointed. There was a little hands on area in the back, where you can hold the sea creatures or touch them. Royce didn't want anything to do with that. He was still crying and mad that we didn't see any sharks. Poor kid. Oh well now we can say we've been to Birch aquarium and we will probably never go back again.

Royce waiting for grandma and papa to come back and get us. Which ended up being a lot longer than 15 minutes haha. Oh well the weather was beautiful and we did have a good time seeing all the different kind of sea creatures. Makes me more afraid of the ocean haha. I was just happy to get to spend time with Reyn and have the 3 of us hanging out as a family.

Royce running down the pier. He is growing up so fast! We are grateful for Reyn's parents for letting us come stay with them for the 5 days. We really enjoyed the vacation. It is always so good to spend time together as a family. With Reyn in school we don't see much of each other. So any time together is precious time.

HAVASUPAI

Ok these pictures are way out of order. And this post is all over the place. I remembered I had some different pictures to add. so these 3 pictures are an after thought to my original post. Bare with me haha.


this picture was the hike down. I love how everyone is leaning on the rocks and resting.

Sarah, Me and Andrea.

reyn and the dog Rabes that followed us down. haha.

So the plan was that Reyn was going to hike Havasupai with his buddies from his class and 2 of them had their wives going too. I was going to stay in Lakeside with my parents. I didn't do anything to prepare for Havasupai so I was just going to have Reyn go. My dad and Donny were going to also go with Reyn. Well my dad ended up getting shingles and didn't know if he could go. And the Thursday before they were planning on going Donny wrecked his dirt bike. And tore up his knee pretty good. So he was out. Friday afternoon I decided that I wanted to go down with Reyn. So we went out and bought me a pack and got me all packed up to go to Havasupai. Saturday morning we drove to Lakeside, went to a graduation party for some friends had dinner with the family. Then Sunday went to church and finished packing up. *Now this was my first really big trip away from Royce and I wasn't so sure about it. It made me feel so sad to leave him. It was hard for me to get into my head that he will be ok! So Sunday we got back from church and ate lunch/dinner. Reyn and I packed up the truck said "goodbye" to Royce and drove to Flagstaff. Got some food there it was about 6:30 ish when we got to Flag. Then we drove to the Hilltop. We weren't 100% sure we were going the right way. We remembered driving on a dirt road to get to the Hilltop. And there wasn't a dirt road it was all paved, so we just continued driving along the paved road and eventually we saw a lot of cars. And there it was the Hilltop! It was about 10:30p.m. So we curled up in the front seats of the truck and tried to sleep. It was FREEZING! Poor Reyn couldn't get comfortable. Well I didn't get very comfortable either. We didn't get much sleep at all, maybe 3 hours. Our friends arrived at around 5 a.m. and we finished packing up. By 6 we were hiking down. This is when it hit me, "what the heck was I thinking!"

These pictures are backwards. I accidentally posted the last of the trip first.

Oh and my camera fell in the sand before we got down to the camp ground and it quit working. Andrea had her nice fancy camera but a full SD card so she wasn't sure she'd be able to take pictures. I had an SD card and a broken camera so we put the card in her camera. And she got some amazing pictures! It all worked out. My camera is now at Best Buy they are going to see if they can fix it.

Anyway so a few of these pictures are from my camera. Most of them are from Andrea's though.

Reyn and I on our way out. Andrea stopped to take a picture of us. And that was the last we saw of our big group. They hauled booty out of there. Reyn and I were slow and steady. But if I went any faster I don't think I would have come out alive haha.

Here is the mule with my pack. There is no way I would have been able to hike out my pack. Thank goodness for these horses and mules to pack them out for us :)

This pretty little red bird landed in the branch and I am glad Andrea was kind enough to take a picture of it for me :)

Reyn's cousin Jared and I following the trail to find beaver falls. Which we never made it down to. We stopped off at a different water fall area. Apparently we were only 3/4 mile from Beaver falls. so pretty Reyn and I at Mooney falls. it has changed a lot since the last time we were done here.

Climbing down Reyn and I with Havasu falls in the back ground

the cute little LDS church down in the village.

Looking down over Havasu falls

The new fall that was created in place of Navajo Falls. I still miss Navajo falls it was by far my favorite! But when it flooded a few years ago it was wiped out. :(

The group : Tim, Andrea, Joel, Sarah, Me, Reyn, Todd and Jared.

I am very glad I went. We had a lot of fun. We really enjoyed our time with this group. It is fun to get to spend time together and not talk about p.a school. I had fun getting to know Andrea and Sarah better. Thanks for the great trip! :) And thank you Reyn for being so patient with me. I was slow going and got feisty certain times during the hike.

I forgot to post the picture of Reyn with the dog. When we started hiking down a dog came along with us. We read the tag on the dogs neck and said it had it's rabies shots. So the dog was named rabies then shortened to Rabes. Rabes stayed with us all the way down to the campsite. Then he started hiking out with us. We lost him somewhere along the way. thank goodness, because Reyn said if he followed us all the way back up to the Hilltop then he would come home with us.