Fall Break

Even though the weather in Gilbert has taken a turn toward fall, we couldn't resist heading to San Diego for the first half of Fall Break. We tried a new Homewood Suites that has been built on the old naval base on the harbor. It was a great spot. This is Adam in the park by the hotel.

On Monday, Dan and the boys played a round of golf at the Sail-ho golf course that used to be a naval golf course. It was a 9-hole par 3 course. Dan liked it so much he went back for another nine holes early the next morning. Good thing we packed everybody's clubs.

We have a favorite store in San Diego at Seaport Village. It is Kite Flite; and as the name indicates, if it flys, they sell it. Dan loves stunt kites. One of his old kites was needing some parts, so we made a stop at the store. When we left, Adam had an "easy flyer", Dan had parts to repair his kites, and Bryce had talked Dan into a "no wind" stunt kite that will fly in next to no wind (it will even reportedly fly indoors).

With the afternoon waning, we headed to the park next to our hotel. With a fairly good wind blowing, Dan put the old stunt kite together and got it up. If you look closely, you can see both Dan and Bryce have kites flying. Soon Bryce had taken over, so Dan decided to put together the new "no wind" kite. Sadly it was missing a crucial part. Nevertheless, Dan tried his best to get it to fly.

In the meantime, Michelle assembled Adam's kite, and Adam joined the flying Dahls and put his kite in the air, nearly reaching the end of his string as the new kite lived up to its name - Easy Flyer.

That evening while Michelle, Bryce and Adam watched a movie in the hotel room, Dan returned to the kite store for the missing part. When he returned, he had a suspicious smile on his face. It seems he just "had" to buy a new stunt kite since Bryce had taken over his old one. He also had the missing part - and a new jumbo frisbee! It's dangerous to let Dan go shopping.

The next day we were off to Sea World. We took in all the shows - even sitting safely in the "soak zone" at all the shows (okay - we actually sat in the top edge of the soak zone). Adam was not looking to get wet. When Shamu started whipping his tail through the water to splash the crowd, Adam was out of his seat and over the bench behind us, standing in the aisle, ready to dash down the walkway should the salty water come his way.

We are happy to report that we came away dry from all the shows (except for a small amount of spray in the "Pets Rule" show - which was quite refreshing). But we did get our hands in the salty water to touch the sea rays - they are smooth, and slimy.

Our last morning found us back at the park. There was no wind, so of course we had to go fly the "no wind" kite. We spent the morning enjoying the beautiful San Diego weather - no fires or smoke in San Diego - and finally hit the road to head back to Gilbert.

We just had to add this last picture. There was a small building in the parking lot of our hotel. It looked like a snack bar, but had no identifying signs on it. The curious thing was the address - 2592 1/3. We have never seen a fraction address before, so we had to take a picture! Just one of those random things you spot on a vacation.