mission beach

With a little persuasion from Aunt Angie, we decided to go to California for part of Zach and Natalie's spring break.  Angie found a cute little rental house a short walking distance from Mission Beach.  When we first arrived we had an hour to kill before the house was ready so we walked down to the beach.  We told the kids just to put their feet in since we weren't in swimsuits yet so, of course, they all decided to basically go swimming in their clothes.

The weather was a little overcast some of the time, but lovely.  Mission Beach was a lot quieter in October than in the summer. We could basically walk to everything so we didn't really leave a one mile radius the entire time.  

Belmont Park is an old boardwalk amusement park that is right on Mission Beach.  We spent our fair share of time there.  Jimmy was the only one big enough to go on the Big Dipper roller coaster which is old and wooden and awesome.   He was pretty scared to go on it, but he still really wanted to.  I sat with him on his first ride.  He kept his head down the entire time and I couldn't tell if he was going to throw up or pass out from excitement.  Then when he came to a stop and sat up, he said, "That was totally worth it."  I laughed and felt relieved that he had a good time.  We had gotten him a park wristband so he road it two more times and kept his head up so he was able to enjoy the view a little more.

Nora was most excited about the carousel.  

Gus went on that with her and a few other smaller rides, but he was wishing he was as big as Jimmy.

So we went and made a wish to Zoltar...

He didn't have the same results as Tom Hanks, but he was okay with it.  Fortunately, the thing he was by far the most excited to do was play a western rifle shooting game on the boardwalk.  It had been closed in the morning when we passed it so he thought about it and asked about it all day.  When it was finally time to go back that night he was so excited (and yes, he wore a Spider Man costume which Angie had given him as a present).  When you shot different things in the game goofy stuff would happen.  The favorite was a skunk that shot water right into Jimmy's face.

But despite lots of time at Belmont Park, most of our time was spent relaxing and playing on the beach...

After Sunday Mass and brunch at a cute restaurant we headed back to Phoenix.

It is so fun having Angie in San Diego.  It is a great place to visit and an even better person to visit.  I hope more trips are in our future.