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So we returned late Friday night / early Saturday morning. And this was the scene at our house: 

7am the guys came to build the shelves in what will become our library. Thankfully we all slept through the commotion until 1pm!!! Yes, even Aaron!! Amazing what a long day of travel and jet lag will do for sleep. 

This was the dishwasher from Jeff while we were away: coffee and whiskey cups. 

Loads of laundry. When you mix skiing with the beach, you are in for a lot of different things to wash!

The finished library with books starting to populate it. 

San Diego zoo and farewell for now

All good things must come to an end. And so must our awesome vacation skiing and then time in San Diego. By Friday, flights were still getting cancelled due to weather across the country. The flight we were scheduled to be one was good for the first leg, but the second leg was already cancelled at 9am. And the last thing I wanted was to be stuck somewhere in-between San Diego and Raleigh with the kids. Far better to be in San Diego where we know our way around or home in Raleigh. I called the airline to see what our options were and they said Sunday (to not be on a red-eye). At this point, it was getting a bit crazy and everything was backed up. I asked about a northern connector (which we had been avoiding thinking that was even riskier for weather delays / cancellations. We snagged the last 4 seats on a northern route for that day, until Sunday. It was a bummer to leave, but seeing how everything kept getting pushed and cancelled, we felt it best to take these seats to get home before Jeff truly wondered if we would actually ever return. He's lucky he was at home or else we may have just stayed. :-) It meant leaving a few hours earlier than planned so we didn't get to say another goodbye to friends, but did save us some tears. Funny thing happened though when we landed after our first flight. The board announcing our flight to Raleigh didn't show the last one of the evening, just the one for the next morning. My heart sunk thinking we had run into one of the scenarios we were trying to avoid. Thankfully, it wasn't cancelled and we made it home after a long day of travel. 

Before leaving though, we used our unexpired zoo passes one last time to visit the squirrel monkeys who are always entertaining. 

The evening before, we had dinner with Betsy, Alice and family. We loved spending so much time with them and it was sad to have to leave. Thankfully, we know we will see them again. And in the meantime, we have FaceTime calls quite frequently. 

This is such a fun crew! Lots of kids, but lots of fun!

Beach again

This is what it looked like back in Raleigh. 

Boohoo we had to stay in San Diego longer. We cried many (joyous) tears over staying longer back in San Diego. Oh how we miss living there. Anyone who knows us knows that we love the beach, Coronado especially. So we hit the beach again to surf, boogie board and play in the sand. And during the week, in February, with school in session, it's pretty empty. We didn't mind one bit. 

Kyle had some fun sand surfing. And I had some fun playing with the slo-mo feature on my phone. 

Friends

Being back in San Diego was wonderful. We all got to see our friends and spend some quality time with them. We were gloriously stuck there due to our flights being cancelled all week (it was snowing / winter storming everywhere) so we got even more time to spend back in our old stomping grounds with our friends. 

Kyle got to have a tennis lesson with Nic. Nic has known Kyle and Emily since they were just 4 years old during preschool. Then Nic became Kyle's coach. Kyle still keeps in touch with him about things tennis. 

Aaron and Alice together, just like old times. These two spent the first 2.5 years of their lives together and just adore one another. Sure, they have spats like any old couple.... errr 3 year olds... but they love spending time together. Betsy and I have already arranged their marriage. :-) 

A little "Happy Birthday" song during bath time

Kyle, Emily & Simon. They have so much fun together.

Emily & Haiden. Just like we never left. These two are the best of friends and it's so sweet to see them together because they just click. 

San Diego Japanese Friendship Garden

One of my favorite places in San Diego is the Japanese Friendship Gardens in Balboa park. I just love the beautiful and perfectly manicured plants, trees, waterfalls, bridges and houses there. It's peaceful (except when my kids are running through there) and just a great place to visit. Further, I love the tea house restaurant there. They make the best potato salad which is nice and delicate - not your ordinary American potato salad. Their curry and rice bowls are delicious as well. Anyhow, we had to go there while back in San Diego because it truly is one of the San Diego highlights and really a hidden and perhaps under-appreciated gem. 

Cabrillo

After we dropped Jeff off at the airport, we headed out to Cabrillo. We always loved visiting Cabrillo for the beautiful views and just great place to be. We followed up our time at Cabrillo with our classic Cup of Yo for lunch. 

San Diego weekend

We had a fun, full agenda in San Diego as did the kids. Jeff, Aaron and I had dinner with Clark and his girlfriend while Emily and Kyle had sleepovers at Haidens and Simons. Aaron and I met up with Betsy and Alice at the zoo. We spent time at Betsy's with her family as well. We were all slated to leave on Monday, but the kids and I planned to extend our tickets since we were on flexible tickets. Jeff had to get back for meetings. Having been on vacation, having a great time and enjoying the great weather, we were shocked to find out Sunday night that our flights were cancelled due to weather in North Carolina. That was great for the kids and myself, but Jeff had meetings to get back to. After many phone calls and online searching, we found a seat for Jeff to get back for his meetings. 

San Diego Beach surprise

Betsy also didn't tell her kids that we were coming to San Diego so we got to surprise them at the beach. Emily's friend Haiden and her family came to the beach as well to play. We pretty much spent all afternoon at the beach boogie boarding and surfing and loving Coronado beach that we had missed so. 

Seaweed jump rope

San Diego surprise

So when we left Tahoe, the kids thought we were going home. They had no idea we had vacation part two coming up. Somehow we (I) managed to keep my mouth shut about this part of the trip for months. Betsy and I planned behind the scenes and we even said our goodbyes in Tahoe. 

We got to the airport and managed to check in on Southwest without the kids realizing it just yet. We don't normally fly Southwest so that was a potential for them to figure it out. We went to the gate but sort of hung out away from the seating area so there weren't big signs saying where the plane was going. When we had to switch gates, Kyle and Emily still didn't catch on. I think they must have been so exhausted from skiing and they had no reason to suspect a surprise extra vacation since I sent our beach stuff ahead of time. 

Sitting at the gate reading their books

Boarding

As we boarded the plane, the flight attendant flat out asked the kids if they were going to San Diego. Kyle replied, "no" and kept on walking. Totally oblivious. Then when the pilot came on and said that our flight was going to San Diego, Kyle looks over at me and says "they said we are going to San Diego". And that was it. The kids then wrote it off as a connection to get home since we had to connect to get to Tahoe. 

We got off the plane in San Diego and the kids still didn't think anything of it. Whenever we flew back home to San Diego, we were always in a different terminal since the kids never flew Southwest until this trip. We went down to baggage, kids still thinking nothing of it. We figured this was a good time to tell them. So we asked them if they wanted to stay in San Diego and of course they did. So we did. And it was awesome! 

So after we picked up Betsy's car, we headed to Lucha Libre for some glorious burritos that we have missed so much. We then went to the kids old school and watched their talent show because Emily's best friend was performing. 

Needless to say Aaron was exhausted after a long day of travel and awesomeness.