A Welcome Surprise

Alrighty, like I promised you yesterday... more about our San Diego trip. This was a very spur of the moment trip. Last Tuesday evening we saw a commercial for Hotwire.com and thought, what the heck... let's take a short little vacation before Marshall starts working on a movie the following week. We had never tried Hotwire before. They don't tell you the name of the hotel, only the location and the rating (how many stars) of the hotel. We happened to see amazing prices for a five star hotel and decided to throw caution to the wind.  We booked two rooms for three nights. And THIS was our hotel... 

Our rooms were adjoining which is super convenient, except when the kids wake up early in the morning and then wake US up early. Yeah yeah, it's my fault. I forgot the benadryl. 

Friday we went to The Wild Animal Park. One of my good friends lives 45 minutes away from there and joined us with her kids. She and I had a blast while Marshall took care of our kids.  Let me just say that double stroller rentals are pretty high up there among best inventions ever. 

You've seen animals before. You don't need to see pics of them. So let me move on to the crazy surprise we got while in San Diego.  On our way to the Wild Animal Park, I saw that I had a voicemail from my brother. The brother I talk to maybe once a year. The brother who has probably never called my cellphone. The brother I haven't seen in 4 years. 

His voicemail said he was flying in to San Diego for the weekend on business and he'd love to hook up with us. Apparently my mom had seen on my Facebook status that we were in SD and she told him. As soon as we returned from the Wild Animal Park, we met up with him for dinner. It was a great time, and he carved out some time the following day to hang out with us as well.  

One of the funniest things is that we realized that my brother and Seamus are hair twins.  Wanna see what I'm talking about? Hard to believe these two don't share any genes.

Seamus took to him immediately and hardly ever left his side. He also discussed Star Wars with Haven and made Marlie very happy by hanging her upside down, which she loves. 

It still blows my mind about this coincidence. About our last minute decision to vacation there, and his business meeting that had never before taken place in San Diego.  I love that he got a chance to get to know my kids. They absolutely loved him.

Now, on a completely different note, here are my two favorite iPhone shots from our trip. The first one was the sunset that was occurring when we walked out of The Wild Animal Park. Simply Amazing.  Second photo was taken inside Balboa Park. 

 More San Diego tales coming Wednesday and Thursday.