After twelve months of raising a little nugget human bean, Neil and I thought it was high time to take an official Robinson family vacation. Where would we go? Well, there were a few things to consider.

1. Peter had never flown on a plane before and we didn’t know how he’d handle it.
2. We wanted good weather.
3. We wanted to go somewhere where we didn’t feel pressured to jam-pack our itineraries.

With those three things in mind, we settled on the wonderful locale of San Diego, California. All three of us had never been there before, so it made for a fun trip. Here are the highlights:

Pete loves airports.

We’d never really traveled with a toddler, but any anxieties we may have had before our trip were set to rest the instant Peter got on board the Parking Spot bus to take us to the airport. He was like, “do you mean I don’t have to sit in a car seat!?” SOLD. He loved people watching and having lots of space to run around. And the planes! Basically, he was living his best life. Thankfully, onboard he was pretty entertained, too.

Coronado Island is beautiful.

We started our adventure with a weekend stay on Coronado Island. I have a good friend from college who lives there with his wife and they offered to host us for the weekend (thanks, guys!). It’s really a magical place. Peter was more enchanted with our host’s dog and cat than anything, but Neil and I thoroughly enjoyed traipsing around the island, visiting the pretty beach and gawking at the amazing houses. This was where we planned to re-introduce Peter to the beach, and unfortunately the experience only cemented his hatred of the ocean.

The San Diego Children’s Museum was a hit.

Our friends highly recommended we attend The New Children’s Museum, and GUYS, it might be the greatest place on earth. There was a sign on the wall that said “there are no rules.” Basically, Peter had free rein to play and explore to his heart’s content. Everything there was designed to expand his experiences and test his imagination. It might be the happiest I’ve ever seen our little guy.

The San Diego Zoo is uh-mazing. 

The highlight of our trip was always going to be the zoo. We are a zoo-loving family (provided that the zoo takes part in conservation, rescue and rehabilitation, and education efforts) and we were pumped to visit The San Diego Zoo, AKA the greatest zoo in America. It did not disappoint. I’ve told Neil at least twice that we need to go back and spend an entire day there because there was so much we didn’t get a chance to see. Peter is at a great age for zoo exploration and he was giddy most of the time (until he passed out). He was very excitable until we reached the gorillas, at which point it was clear he understood the reverence owed to such majestic creatures.

The coast is lit.

I’m not going to lie, being in a state with varied elevation is a far cry from the expansive plains I’m used to and I find it really disorienting. That being said, we visited several hillside towns and burbs on our trip and all of them were pretty dope. We visited La Jolla and saw the seals. Got bubble tea in Clairemont. And finally, we met my cousin in San Clemente so that our kids could finally meet. We grew up like sisters, so it was a really neat to watch our children play together.

Although our trip was just a week long, it was chock full of new adventures and lifelong memories. And we loved doing it together as a little family. Peter has proven that he’s a great travel buddy and we can’t wait to take him on more vacations in the future.