Southern California Vacation

What we did on our California Vacation!

Last week we took the whole family on vacation to California. We stayed with Steve’s parents in Corona, in Riverside county. We have done this 18-hour drive before, and were pretty happy that we decided to fly this time! 


Our first full day of vacation took us to Pennypickle’s Workshop in Temecula, In n Out for lunch in Oceanside and then we spent the afternoon near the Oceanside pier. We loved the Oceanside beach! Plenty of clean sand to play in, parking up the street was just $5 for the whole day and the water was just so much warmer that what we get on the Oregon coast 🙂

On Friday the family actually split up. Meagan was dying to try out some fast roller coasters, so she and Steve spent the day at Knott’s Berry Farm. Emily and Asher were not interested/not tall enough for those crazy rides, so I took them to Legoland instead.

We made it to about 8, then decided to head home. Meagan insisted on closing down the park with dad, so they didn’t leave until 10! 

Saturday was our recover and do-nothing day. We hung out with grandma and grandpa, read and played games. That night, Steve and I went out for an anniversary dinner while the kids played games, did puzzles, and ate candy with Grandma. Sunday was church and family dinner.

On Monday we headed down to San Diego and visited the San Diego Zoo. It was a pretty fun way to spend our 13th wedding anniversary. Since the kids love watching Cupcake Wars, we stopped at a Sprinkles cupcake shop in San Deigo too before heading home for the night. 

Tuesday we left bright an early to get back to the airport, leaving lots of time to get through traffic. Turns out there’s no “I don’t live here so I shouldn’t have to drive in traffic jams” lane for out-of-staters. But we made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare.

We had a great time seeing some fun attractions and spending time with lots of family. We’ve also been happy to be back in our own beds and gear up for the last few weeks of summer which involve violin camp, swim lessons, day camp for the girls and back to school shopping! Hope you’ve all had a good summer too, and if you still have some left–enjoy it!

Dont miss my review of the Kia Sedona we drove for the week, so watch for that.

If you are looking to plan a trip to Southern California, click over to Get Away Today for their discount tickets and vacation packages. Use the code CITR for extra savings. Plus you can already book Disneyland packages for 2016.