We made it. We survived our trip to Ventura. Originally planned as just a quick visit to see Amber’s sister Ashley get married we decided to extend the trip and try to squeeze a bit more out of those pricey plane tickets.
The trip started out great. The kids were fabulous on the flight into LAX which was thankfully nonstop. When we got to the rental car place things took a turn for the worse. I quickly realized that I didn’t have my wallet. Which was in my backpack with my laptop and cell phone. I didn’t leave them on the shuttle bus, I left them in the overhead compartment. With all the hustle of getting us off the plane, not losing any kids, and dragging a car seat I clean forgot it. I called Southwest who had already turned the plane around. After several hours on the phone I got them to hold my backpack in Oakland. I dropped Amber and the kids off at the hotel and drove nonstop from Ventura to Oakland. I am here to tell you that you can drive 85 mph the entire 371 miles of this trip and not get pulled over. I drove so quickly because the baggage place closed at 10p. When I left the GPS was telling me I would arrive at 10:03pm. I arrived at 9:34p, got my stuff, turned around and headed back to Ventura much more slowly. I slept for a couple hours someplace in the middle and made it back to the hotel by 6:30a.
Later that day we had the wedding rehearsal. I always kind of wondered why they do a rehearsal, but now I know. Many plans were changed (or made for the first time) during the rehearsal. By the end they pretty much had it worked out. The location was nice and the weather was fabulous. 70F for a high temperature. That is cooler than our usual night time lows. The wedding went off without a hitch. People did what they were supposed to do. Wesley carried the rings and only got a little lost on his walk down the isle. Congratulations to Ashley and Greg!
The rest of the trip was ours. We had a few plans, but left lots of downtime too. The kids had plans of their own. Mostly not sleeping for more than 60 minutes at a time all night long. We were wiped out and wishing we could go home by the second or third night. But, being too cheap to pay the $300 fee to change our flight we persevered. We spent time visiting the places Amber remembered as a kid. We played at a couple of parks she used to play at, ate at a few restaurants she used to eat at and visited with a few friends and family. It was really nice getting to see everything that she remembered from when she lived there as a kid.
Our two big planned trips were to the Santa Barbara Zoo and the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. Both were fabulous. The zoo trip was great. The average time at the zoo is about 2.5 hours. We spent about five. We fed giraffes, rode the train, slid down the “ant hill” a couple hundred times, and visited the penguins and snakes on at least three occasions. It was a great trip and the kids had a blast.
The aquarium was also excellent. It is only ten years old and the exhibits are really nice. We spent a lot of time at the touch tanks where we touched a couple of different kinds of sharks and rays. Wesley was in love with the touch tanks. We spent most of our visit there. Jillian liked any of the tanks that went floor to ceiling. She was enthralled with the fish swimming right up to her. Of course we saw a few hundred “Nemos” which made Wesley happy. We also visited their Lorikeet exhibit and fed the little birds some nectar. The kids were a little apprehensive, but Wesley did eventually touch one of them.
All in all a great trip. The flight home was a nightmare and we left our umbrella stroller on the shuttle bus (I guess we were destined to lose something), but we made it all in one piece. We spent the whole day (and most of the weekend) recuperating and uploading pictures. Almost 800 in all. There is lots more to tell and of course if it were up to me I’d make you look at every last picture of my kids, but I’ll stop now before I bore you too much.
Pictures from our trip:
Note: You’ll see more pictures if you are logged into Flickr and marked as a “Friend” or “Family” contact of ours in Flickr. You’ll see many fewer photos if you aren’t, which may be a good thing depending on how many pictures you can handle.
Tags: Amber, Aquarium, California, Jillian, Joshua, Santa Barbara, vacation, Ventura, Wedding, Wesley, Zoo
[...] week, counting down the sleeps until he arrives. We haven’t seen him since…gosh…Ashley and Greg’s wedding in 2008. Because we have been having such warm, dry, sunny weather we headed down to Picnic Point, [...]