I have a TON of photos, so just picking a few wasn’t easy. I did it almost haphazardly. Anyway, here we go.

WEDNESDAY: Arrival at our beach house in La Jolla, San Diego, half a block from the beautiful Windansea beaches!

This is a prime location, altho the house is old and the week stay cost us a month’s worth of our mortgage. But it was a nice roomy 3 bedroom house, well-kept and clean. Fully stocked kitchen.
We walked down to Windansea beach (talk about an affluent area) as soon as we settled in. There were lots of big rocks to climb and sit on, and perfect surfing waves.

Allie had a rough time that night settling down in the playard in a foreign room. It was like sleep-training all over again. She nursed fine, was sleepy when I put her in her playard, but as soon as she realized I was leaving, she stood and cried. Her iPad was playing white noise and I closed her bedroom door behind me. She cried for maybe 10 minutes then went to sleep. It was a painful 10 minutes for me. Thank God we had her fuzzy bear in her playard. She curled up on that familiar security item. This protest crying lasted for 2 nights, and 2 naps. After that it was just like at home, where she’ll curl up on her fuzzy blanket for her nap or her fuzzy bear for bedtime and tell me, “Night night,” suck her thumb, and watch me leave.

THURSDAY: The morning started with a visit to…

Allie doesn’t mind the hiking backpack, altho sometimes she’ll want to explore on her own. Then she says, “Ou? Ou?” for “out.” We had her in part of the time and out to burn some energy whenever the area was flat and uncrowded. She saw and pointed out the “mock-nees,” which surprised us because real monkeys don’t look like her cartoon or stuffed monkeys.
Allie: Mama?
Me: Allie?
Allie: *pointing* Mock-nee?
Me: That’s right, monkey!

We also watched polar bears.

Two cats.

Allie played with the baby elephant for a bit, then found herself patting the leg of the big elephant next to the baby elephant. She looked up following the leg, and noticed the adult elephant for the first time. “Beeeeeeeg!” she breathed. Her new expressions of “beeg” vs “leetle” are funny. I was handing her organic baby puffs to eat on the drive (looks like Cheerios) and gave her a crumbled piece about a quarter of a normal piece. She rolled it between her thumb and forefinger and said in a high-pitched voice, amused, “LEEtle!” After that she would ask for “Puff? Puff? Beeg!”
We spent the morning at the zoo, came back to the beach house for her nap, and in the afternoon, walked with her to the beach. “Beace? Beace? Wa-wa. Bubble!” Yes, the beach is where is water and lots of bubbles and foam. She’s never been in the water when the waves were that big, and whimpered at first, so I’d pick her up so she didn’t get swept out to sea.

Allie warmed up to the beach quickly and had fun.

Lots of big rocks to climb and sit on.

A puddle of ocean on a flat rockbed is fun, too.

Catch-and-release sand.

Dada and baby footprints.

That afternoon, the two stepkidlets got there and we all had a quiet evening in. These two are MELL-OW on vacation. No partying, no bar-hopping, they just took a walk to explore the beach when Allie was going to bed and then wanted to watch the Game Show Network the rest of the night after having dinner in the outdoor patio. I’m not complaining, believe me. I’ll be just fine never having to care for another drunken person.

FRIDAY: Back to the zoo in the morning. This annual pass thing comes in handy.

That afternoon, the stepkidlets’ respective significant-others showed up. They worked out their carpool arrangements pretty well so that each couple had a car for their trip back. Allie, meanwhile, had her first dip in a jacuzzi. The verdict? “Wa-wa. Bubble. Hot.”

She stayed in there maybe 15, 20 minutes before asking for “ou? ou?”
The kids all hung out at the house keeping an eye on Allie (thru the babycam) while Mr. W and I went to pick up pizzas for dinner. Seriously, mellowest group of young adults ever. They went for a walk at the beach, came home, watched some TV, hung out in the jacuzzi for a bit, went to bed. The entire house was dark by 11-ish.

SATURDAY: Mr. W and I doubled-dated with the stepdaughter and her boyfriend (plus Allie) and took a walk to breakfast while the stepson and his girlfriend slept in a bit. BTW, the sleeping arrangement the kids (all in their early 20s) worked out between themselves in the largest bedroom with a queen bed and two bunk beds is that the guys took the bunks and the girls took the queen bed. I did not expect that. That’s pretty courteous. After everyone had their breakfasts, we drove over to the Underwater Park area to see the many seals, sea birds, and play in the cove. And I thought it was a scenic enough area to force everyone to take group photos I wanted. Heh heh. Here are Mr. W’s two daughters.

Here’s the group with the horizon tilted cuz Mr. W had to set the camera up on a rock with a timer.

Mr. W’s three kidlets.

In the afternoon, as the kids all prepared to leave, my parents arrived. Stepdaughter helped me change the sheets on the queen bed in the big room. And soon, the kids were off to return to their busy lives at home, and we continued our vacation with a new set of babysitters for Allie. We took my parents to explore the nearby Windansea beaches, too.

Poor baby threw up her lunch this afternoon, and had runny poopies the next day. I think it was from the introduction of all the foreign bacteria in seawater, since she kept sucking the ocean salt off her fingers after she’s done playing at the beaches.

SUNDAY: Sunday morning, we did what my dad and Mr. W had been looking forward to for YEARS. My mom said my dad hasn’t stopped talking about the champagne brunch seafood buffet at Tom Ham’s Lighthouse since we took them there 4 years ago. The place was closed for renovation and only opened up that weekend, and was serving their very first meal THAT brunch. Were we lucky with timing or what?

Allie and my dad had fun exploring the new grounds.

Allie had lots of shrimp, a bite of lobster, and more crab than she’s ever had before.

Since we were the first ones to arrive for their first meal served and had made their first reservations, we were seated at a corner with full panoramic windows around us at 90-degrees. We even caught a live show of some trainers working with their dolphin, teaching it to jump, flip, hug, etc on command. This was probably a dolphin from nearby Sea World.
The weather took a turn that day, however, and started raining. We spent the afternoon visiting an aquarium for something to do. The La Jolla area had virtually no indoor options, Mr. W was unhappy to find out. Even all the malls were outdoor open-air styles. But Allie still had fun looking at fish, petting starfish and playing with “babies.”

She even got up close and personal with a shark encounter.

MONDAY: It rained all morning, but did clear up in the afternoon. We took advantage of the sunshine and drove to the La Jolla rocky cove section again, so that my parents could explore the area. Allie did some rock climbing herself.

She did not want to get off this high perch with the great view of the ocean and the seals sunning on their rock islands.

There were even twisted trees to climb.

What’s twistier, the trees or the grandparents?

Grandpa Gong-gong and Grandma Po-po left this evening. We were finally on our own for a few days. It was eerily quiet.

TUESDAY: The weather was decent all day, so we hit the zoo in the morning again, and in the afternoon after Allie’s nap, we took a long bike ride along the coast, exploring the “trendy,” more “night-life” part of the San Diego beaches, through Pacific Beach Park down to Mission Beach and back. Man, there are a lot of vacation weekly rental properties along the shores. I guess that’s one way to get help paying the $30K monthly mortgage. Here’s Allie at Mission Beach where we let her out to go run around a bit.

When we were dressing her that morning, she said, “Mimi?” That’s her word for Minnie Mouse, and we looked around, but didn’t see any Minnie items in the room.
“Minnie? Do you see Minnie?”
She pointed at her pants. “Mimi?” she said again. Ha. Never knew she noticed Minnie’s attire, but yes, that’s definitely Minnie’s classic color theme.

WEDNESDAY: We packed up and left Wednesday morning. I hadn’t expected to stay the whole week since Mr. W had been wanting to leave once it started raining. Good thing the skies cleared up after a couple of days. Allie woke up so early that morning that she fell asleep for half an hour in the car on the drive back, which is unusual for her. It did mess up her nap routines and bedtime a bit, but overall she still came out fine in the hours of sleep she had. What vacation doesn’t screw up a kid a little, right? She was so cute sleeping, tho.

I rarely get to be next to her when she’s asleep, so I got to study her sleeping form. Made me sleepy, as well.