We recently returned from a 6 day trip to San Diego, and it was much needed and wonderful!
My best friend from high school lives there and we wanted to visit. It also helped her out because she is a teacher too and her oldest son is on a different schedule than her. He was out of school but she wasn't so she needed someone to watch him for her last couple days of classes. We drove down on a Tuesday and came home on a Sunday.
While we were there we went to some fun tourist destinations. We went to the USS Midway, which was A. MAZ. ING. It was actually a little pricey and cost my family of 4, plus my friend's son, $62 to get in and that was after taking off the AAA discount. Having said that, it was worth every penny. The kids were able to climb into real military airplanes and sit in the cockpits. We were able to explore almost the entire ship, including the bridge, and so much more! As a teacher, I feel like it was definitely good value for the money.
We also spent one day at a city water park. We had to buy a wristband for each of the kids. The wristbands were only $2 and we stayed for over 3 hours so again, I really feel like we got value for the money spent. Another day of our trip was spent at the beach which was free (yay!) and beautiful. It was a picture perfect day and the kids got to spend all day in the sand and the surf and the adults got to visit. We couldn't have asked for anything better.
On our last full day, we had decided to take the kids to the San Diego Zoo. They had been before, 7 years earlier, when we were in town for the same friends wedding. For those of you that don't know, the zoo is crazy expensive: $50 for adults and $40 for kids! Kids are only 3-11 so one of our kids was going to be the price of an adult to get in. If you are keeping track, that comes to a grand total of $190 just to get through the gate!
As we didn't go on a big vacation this year, we were going to pay the exorbitant price and take our kids, but luck was on our side. Randomly, the day before we had planned to go to the zoo, my friend got a private message through Facebook from someone she knew. It had been sent out to my friend and 25 other people. The message said that she had free tickets to the zoo for the following day if any one was interested. We didn't get the message until several hours after it was sent and thought for sure the tickets would be gone... but they weren't!
We were able to meet this friend of a friend in front of the San Diego Zoo to get the free tickets! When she gave them to us, she let us know that they came with a free lunch. Then, when we came through the gates, the ticket-taker let us know that the tickets also got us onto the bus tour and the sky tram. It was so awesome and saved us so much money!
We packed lunch and snacks for the day so what could have been a very pricey day turned out to be almost free. Because we didn't have to pay for tickets or food we decided to buy the kids an ice cream treat in the afternoon. It was definitely some good fortune!
I'm always so quick to see when "lucky" things happen to other people and I think a lot of times, I overlook when "lucky" things happen to me! This would absolutely qualify as one of those times and I want to remember it and be thankful for the blessing I received!
Overall, the entire trip was done on the cheap. We drove instead of flew. We stayed with a friend, not in a hotel. We ate many meals at home and packed lunches for a few of the trips, Most importantly, we spent time as a family and with friends, and that was PRICELESS!
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