Ed Week - Day 1 - Air and Space Museum

My little brother is here visiting from the far far away land of Las Vegas.  It's only a 5 hour drive, really not that far, but he has a busy life there and I have a busy life here so we rarely see each other even though we intend to. So, this visit is a nice treat!

Friday:  We were slow getting started with our day; eventually everyone was dressed, fed and ready to go somewhere. The question was: Where?  I packed the trunk of the car with the wagon, beach towels, swim suits, extra clothes, jackets, dvds, and snacks. We were ready for anything!  I forgot the dvd player though.

Our first stop on our day of adventures was Mike and Donna's house. We were meeting up with Mandi and Eden and going from there, taking two cars. We figured we would go to the beach. Eden really wants to see the ocean! When we got to Blocks' house, Eden was sleeping and Mandi was too tired to go anywhere. We decided to go to the beach together the next day, leaving at 10:30am. Of course, with four little kids, the time and plan is tentative.

We left Blocks' at 2pm and ran through In n' Out for burgers and fries. Squeezing three kids in the back seat is an exercise in patience and I thought if we threw food at them it would keep them from arguing for a while. We went down to San Diego and walked around through Balboa Park.

We went to the first museum that we saw: San Diego Air and Space Museum. It is included in our Balboa Park Explorer passes. I handed the kids their passes and I had mine, then I gave Ed Lexie's pass. It was a gamble and I'm not sure what they'd do if we got caught sneaking Ed in as a pass holder, but we were feeling daring and so we tried it. It worked! We handed our passes to the clerk and she lined them all up and scanned them and then said "Two adults and three kids". Yup. She didn't look at names, just the corner where it said Adult or Child. Then she asked for ID. I got my driver's license out and showed it to her while Ed had a silent heart attack behind me; she said ok and I scooped up our passes and we all went in. Whew!

The kids had a good time in the museum, but they ran through pretty fast. They wanted to touch everything and sit in the planes. Charlie kept climbing over and under the barricades to the exhibits. Egads! We're gonna get tossed out yet!  Ed and Charlie tried the Hurricane Simulator. It wasn't all that exciting for a bald guy, but Gracie wouldn't get in there. Charlie thought it was loud, but otherwise not a big deal.

After the airplane museum, we wandered down the main walkway, past the Koi Pond and to the big fountain. Charlie wanted to put his toes in the fountain water, so I said ok. Just your toes! I knew he'd stick his feet in anyway. Libby and Gracie wanted to put their toes in too. Charlie ended up wet from the shoulders on down, Libby got the hem of her dress and her panties wet (she sat on the edge and water sloshed up and got her little tush wet) and Gracie managed to keep her shoes and clothes dry. Her legs are longer though.

Good thing I packed dry clothes! I had the two wet kids change in the car before we left and I used my wet bag that I made for myself to pack up their soaking wet stuff. I was proud of myself for having enough stuff in my trunk for situations like this, until I realized I had no pants for Charlie and no shirt or panties for Libby. Whoops. I managed to clothe them in dry stuff for the ride home though.

It was a very fun day!