San Deigo : Part I - Balboa Park

A trip completely unrelated to work? Yes Please!

A trip where we get to meet up with Nana & Grandpa? WAHOO!!

A trip where we get to see our Miller Family and 

celebrate Shelby & Jimmy tying the knot? 

San Diego here we come!!!

We had been anticipating this trip with great excitement and it did not disappoint.

We had such a wonderful time in Sunny San Diego with our Family!

It was so relaxing and so fun, it was really hard to come home at the end. Really Hard.

I think it was really good for Skyler to go. I think he has forgotten what it is like to travel with out having to carry his briefcase and tools and not have to worry about helping clients and fixing machines. The biggest thing we had to worry about was picking where we would eat, and that's kind of fun. I could tell the lightened load did him good.

We got there a day before my Parents, so we decided to take our little family to go visit Balboa Park. We got the explorer pass so we could visit 5 different museums. Each of us got to go somewhere we enjoyed and matched our interests, so it worked out perfectly. 

Balboa is such a pretty place. I love spending time there, 

especially when the weather was so perfect.

1.

Our first stop was the Air & Space Musem. Skyler has a real passion for all things air & space. I think, no - I know-, that if he could turn back the hands of time he would have figured out a way to be a part of the space program. Perhaps it's genetic, because Skyler's Grandpa Briggs worked on airplanes, specifically the Bell X-1 (nicknamed "Glamorous Glennis") which Broke the Sound Barrier on Oct 14, 1947 piloted by Chuck Yeager. Is there any wonder why "glenn" is a Briggs family name? :)

Both my Fly Boys had a great time running around the museum climbing into hands-on exhibits and playing in the pedal plane. My heart smiled deeply as I watched Skyler sharing his passion with his son, excitedly taking him to look at things. River was thrilled, especially will all the buttons to push.

2.

Lunch Break: We ate at the Home Plate Cafe located in the Hall of Champions Museum. I was a little skeptical at first. I thought "oh they'll just have some hot dogs and popcorn", but it was delicious with gourmet sandwiches and a very yummy tomato bisque soup. 

3.

My sweet husband let me wander around the Museum of Photographic Arts at my leisure as he pushed River around in the stroller until the boy passed out.

and I LOVED IT!!

I can't even begin to express how much I miss being in that "world", the educational side of Photography. I miss having discussion and critiques. I miss showing my images to actual people and talking about them, instad of posting them online and hoping some one is seeing them.

It did my soul some real good. 

It reminded of the kinds of images I want to make, and the kinds of things I want to say.

These are the 3 exhibits I saw, the last being my favorite.
Reminded me of my photographic roots at Waterford.

4.

Our fourth stop of the day was the Natural History Museum. It was very exciting for a couple reasons: the dinosaur exhibit was cool with one side a skeleton and the other what they thought the dino looked like. I LOVED the SKULLS exhibit. My favs were the bird skulls, and Skyler liked the Turtle Skulls and was able to correctly identify all the Northern American  Predator Skulls without looking - it was so amazing I had a really hard time believing he didn't cheat but Sky doesn't lie to me so I believe him.

The most exciting thing that happened is that we had to buy River dinosaur pjs cause he had a major blown out. I was totally unprepared because its been so long since anything like that has happened. So in between the time I brought him out from the bathroom and finding a store that had clothes, He ran around in his diaper with a t-shirt and shoes. Although I was traumatized it was actually pretty cute and funny to see his little chicky legs running around and River I think loved the freedom.  Skyler was giggling the whole time. It was quite the experience.

**notice River's wardrobe change? yeah **

*Whenever Skyler has a chance to draw something it's always a Ninja Turtle. Always. 

So how could he pass up the chance to draw one almost life-size ? He couldn't. And it was beautiful!! *

5.

Final Stop was the San Diego Model Railroad Mseum and our little River boy was in Heaven. River has a deep love and passion for Thomas the Train or as he's know around our house "Tom Tom". His eyes were wide as he watched the Engines pulling their cars along the miniature tracks and squealed "tom tom" as the passed by.

It really was pretty amazing, all the detail and work that was put into designing the "set"  or landscape the model trains roll through. I had a great time seeing the different scenes someone had set up, like drag racing in a back alley, wedding pictures being taking in front of a church, a chain gang slaving with pick axes under the gaze of a shotgun toting overseer. I was in awe of the attention to detail.

They had a kid train room, all decked out for Halloween, but the BEST part was that we found an actual Thomas the Train engine on the tracks and there was a button you could push to make him go, and of course River loved pushing the button again and again.

Pretty Great Day at Balboa!!