The Stark Family: May 2009

DAY 1

We love California! We started out our trip with Disneyland!

Samuel on the Jungle Cruise!

Tea Cups! We love this ride (except John, it makes him really sick)

The only "kid" ride we went on (winnie the pooh) and it broke down!

Highlight of Samuel's day - Jedi Training!!

I love this little Jedi!

Congratulations Samuel, it is official, you ARE a Jedi Master!

DAY 2 San Diego

The day started off really early. Samuel woke up at 5:00 am and couldn't breathe. Thank you Croupe! John had to rush him to the emergency room where he was given breathing treatments and steroids (2 shots in the leg). The crazy thing was he was just fine after that. He honestly acted like his normal self, who knows????

Here is the view of the resort we stayed in, it was beautiful!

We spent the morning swimming at our hotel. It was so fun and relaxing.

After swimming we headed to Coronado. I love this place! I could seriously live here. We ate at the cutest little pizza restaurant. All the shops and restaurants are so quaint and fun.

We love the beach. The kids are so happy to play in the sand and water.

Minus the rough start to the day, this was our favorite. Nothing like relaxing in the sand and sun!!!

DAY 3 Legoland!!

There was a building where you could build your own race car and then see how it worked. Samuel loved this, Ellie.... not so much!

Overall, Legoland was our least favorite outing of the trip. It is geared for pretty small kids. The rides seemed really young compared to Disneyland.

We had the best restaurant at our hotel that overlooked the ocean. It also had a natural "aquarium" surrounding it with sea rays and sharks.

Ellie was so funny at the restaurant, what happened to her being shy??

DAY 4

The San Diego Zoo is absolutely beautiful and amazing. Kind of makes me think twice about my season pass to Hogle Zoo, not quite the same!

What the??? Half zebra, giraffe, and horse maybe?

After the zoo, we went to La Jolla for dinner and fun. This place is so fun. It has a long board walk with the most amazing views.

Every year seals come to this beach between December and May to have their babies. The kids thought this was the greatest. It was a very small area for so many seals.

After La Jolla we went back to our hotel and the kids collected sea shells. Did mention we could walk to the beach from our room? It was a bay so there weren't any big waves.

Roasting marshmellows on the beach!!!

DAY 5

Today we drove up from San Diego to Newport Beach and had lunch at Tommy Bahama's grill. The food was really good and they even had live entertainment. Thank you Crayola for saving me in restaurants!

After Newport we went to our "new" hotel. They had a really incredible water area for kids. Plus, it was all shallow so John and I could relax and just read our books!

This big bucket would fill up and just dump all over the water area. The kids loved it!!

After we got done swimming it was time to go to Downtown Disney. I love this place! John took Samuel and Ellie to pick out some Lego's at their huge store so I got a little me time. It is Mother's Day afterall! Hello Sephora!

Ellie went to Build A Bear in Downtown Disney and her dog Lizzy was born! After we were all done shopping we went to MiMi's to eat. It was right by our hotel (which also happened to be right by Disney) we could even see all the fireworks that night!

DAY 6

California Adventure and back to Disneyland! My kids have always loved California Adventure. It is perfect for little kids. However, this time they are older and can ride bigger rides, so Disneyland is more appealing. Ellie was finally big enough to ride California Screamin'! We did Soarin' over California and a few small rides for Sam (Tower of Terror is his favorite) and then went back over to Disney.