These Days

I have visited San Diego, specifically El Cajon/Santee many times so I thought I've seen all there is to see around the area. I was wrong. On Saturday, December 27, we went to the Santee Lakes to let the boys expend energy outside the house. This was a very short drive from Nang Lani's house. There are 7 lakes and many activities for visitors to enjoy. Luke and Neil played at the playground, fed the ducks, biked/rode the scooter (Rich jogging alongside), while Nang Lani and I had a picnic then walked around the lake. Feeding the ducks Biking/scooter Picnic On December 29 we went to another nearby park, the Santee Town Center Community Park despite the chilly weather because we've been indoors the whole day.

Our main agenda for the day after Christmas was to see the 24th Big Bay Balloon at the Port of San Diego. We took the trolley from Santee to County Center/Little Italy. We let the kids play at the Waterfront Front while waiting for the parade to start at 3PM. It's a really nice park/playground. Neil and Luke had fun. More than 100k people came to see the parade but it did not feel crowded at all.  We stayed at the area near the County building, which was the starting point. Aside from balloons, there were a marching bands from different states, other groups, government officials and Meb Keflezighi, the winner of the Boston Marathon who's from San Diego. We walked to Seaport Village to have dinner, to also avoid the crowd on the trolley.

San Diego's Petco Park was turned into a Holiday Wonderland from December 5 - 24.  I learned about the event from the Goldstar website, then Nang Lani and I decided it would be fun to take the kids and let them experience some snow (Neil has been asking why there's still no snow when it's winter, at least where we are) and other winter themed activities. We took the trolley from Santee to the Gaslamp Quarter, which is a short walk to Petco Park. They open at 5PM but we were there early to get our tickets.  We also had dinner at the first restaurant we came across which was Lolita's. Good food and reasonably priced, too. By the time we finished dinner, a long but fast-moving line has formed outside Petco Park. There were many attractions inside.  Our first stop was the snow area for the tube rides.  We let Luke and Neil frolic in the snow, too. There were long queues for the carousel and the polar plunge (large bouncy slide).  Long wait b