Children's Museum of San Diego

We are so lucky here in San Diego to have a thousand different cool places to go each weekend, which is why it took us this long to visit the Children's Museum of San Diego.  (Not to be confused with the San Diego Children's Discovery Museum, which is actually in Escondido.)  Last Saturday, I took the boys downtown to try out this new place while Zach stayed home with Hannah.

Hannah probably would have had fun, but the exhibits and activities were definitely more appropriate for Dan and Ben.  We stayed three hours and did pretty much everything.  The weather was gorgeous so we took a break midway through to play outside on the playground across the street.  Ben liked painting the farm equipment outside and Dan loved climbing on the ropes and curvy jungle gym.  This museum is three stories tall, another reason I was glad to only have to keep track of two kids instead of three.  We will definitely go back with Hannah when Grandma and Grandpa come to visit.

USMC Birthday Ball

This year's Marine Corps Birthday Ball was our last one on active duty, since Zach is retiring next summer, and we went out with a bang!  Unlike last year, we actually knew people in the squadron this time around, plus the deployment is over, so we didn't have that hanging over our heads.  This year, the Ball was at the Hilton Bayfront in downtown San Diego and it was a really great time.  Lauren and Jesse stayed with the kids so Zach and I stayed at the hotel and went too bed way too late (11 pm).

It was wonderful to get dressed up and to have my hair and makeup done professionally.  I can't imagine when I'll have that done again for a big event.  I'll have to schedule a black-tie event at least once a year so we can look this good again.  Ha!

(The grainy pics are from my phone and the good ones are from my camera.)

With the CO's wife, Kim

With our buddy, Mike "Smack" Smith

With the XO, Maj Chris Roy, and the previous CO, LtCol Jay Holterman

With the CO's wife, Kim Giordano

With our friend, Meghan

Zach with his CO, LtCol Brett Giordano

Halloween (plus a little bit of Legoland)

Dan and Ben are very into Star Wars, so this year we had a Darth Vader (Ben) and a Shock Trooper (Dan).  Hannah was a sassy witch, but she didn't like wearing her pointy hat, so she mostly just looked like a saloon girl.  Adorable either way!

The boys wore their costumes to school last Thursday for the costume parade.  The whole school sits in the courtyard and each class parades by and everyone cheers.  There were lots of princesses and superheroes, as expected.  They had parties in school and then had the day off on Friday for teacher inservice.

Since every other school district had school, I knew that Legoland would be fairly empty.  Zach took the day off work and we had a great day there.  It was really awesome--no lines, slightly overcast, empty restaurants and shops.  We rode everything we wanted and just had a really good time.

The fun was not over yet because then we went trick-or-treating after supper.  Zach and Hannah joined us for the first part and then they went home to hand out candy.  Dan and Ben and I stayed out a little longer because the weather was great and we ran into some of their school friends to walk with.  Another successful Halloween!

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