Our San Diego Getaway (and how we can never seem to get away from trouble)

Last weekend we gratefully left town to spend some quality time with the beach. All we really wanted was time together as a family relaxing and playing together. As you can see by the millions of pictures we took, we had an amazing time. We drove into San Diego at about 2:30 pm, checked into our hotel, and headed out for the ocean. We played in the water and the sand until until the sun went down, spending about 3 1/2 hours total at the beach. Our family has been under a lot of stress and pressure this past month so it was amazing to be able to sit, relax, have fun, laugh, and get a little bit dirty. One day when Ben makes it big we dream of actually living in San Diego paradise. We can always dream big, right?

Tommy and Daddy played a lot of ball ball, of course. That little boy has a pretty amazing throw. Tommy loved being able to run around and have lots of freedom while he played in the sand. He was covered from head to toe in sandy goodness by the time we left. I am happy to report this year that Tommy's swimsuit doesn't reach all the way down to his ankles:)

Tommy was a little bit afraid of the water this time around. I think it was because it was a bit chilly on his little toes when we first dipped our feet in. We played Ocean Tag with him, which he loved. The rules are that you run into the waves as they break, touch the water, and then run away as fast as you can so the water doesn't "tag" you again. Hauling 35 pounds of Tommy made it difficult to outrun the water, but it was fun anyway. That game wore Ben and I right out while Tommy begged for more.

After we watched the sun set we headed back to our hotel, intending to return for another glorious beach day the following day. This didn't actually happen, unfortunately. We woke up Saturday morning with high hopes of eating breakfast quickly and getting back to our sandy paradise as early as possible. Ben left to get McDonald's for breakfast. He returned to the hotel without breakfast and without our car. Awesome. At this point we didn't know what to do. The front desk hooked us up with a mechanic and a tow company. Our car always seems to die on us on roadtrips. Next time we are renting a car!

Ben has an old roommate (Jake) that lives with his family in San Diego so we gave him a call to see if he could help us. Bless his heart, he dropped everything, drove 40 minutes to pick us up at the hotel, drove us back to his house, and gave us a place to stay that night. He and his wife, Michelle, were so good to us. They have a daughter, Lizzie, who is just a few months older than Tommy, who loved having a little playmate around. The kids played, the adults chatted, we got to listen to Conference. Once the kids were in bed that night the four of us adults went out and lounged in their luxurious hot tub and ate ice cream. It was amazing. We got up early the next morning and drove back to Phoenix without any more trouble from the car. What a miracle.

This is Lizzie and Tommy playing at the park together. Look at those blond little heads!

Even though the trip didn't go exactly as we had planned it, we still had a great time. We are so blessed to have such amazing friends who are willing to drop everything to lend a helping hand. We were able to relax and enjoy our time together, which is really what we were after. And what a blessing that we were able to get our car back quickly and that it ran (and still runs) perfectly fine. We hope we can return to San Diego soon!