I can't believe it, Omar and I are headed to EUROPE!!! I know I'll have a million photos of our Europe trip to so I wanted to post our summer vacation pics and blogger won't let me. I've been trying to post pictures for over a month now. ARRGGH!! Here's the post that I wrote though...hopefully I can get it all figured out soon.
For the longest time we had been planning to go to San Diego the summer of 2013 and accompany Omar for a conference there. We figured it was family friendly and had never gone. After revisiting Omar's schedule for the week, I decided I didn't want to go because he would be working most of the time. Omar had accumulated enough miles for each one of us to fly free and I quickly realized it made more sense to go anywhere we chose later and he could take time off for a "real" vacation.
We brainstormed locations, and me the California lover wanted to go there and show the girls the bay area, where we lived. Well, just as I had remembered, the bay area is expensive and we wouldn't be able to spend a lot of time there. Somehow Omar's free hotel nights decreased to two anywhere in the bay area. He looked at Portland and that would be 3 nights. Finally, after much back and forth Omar decided and then decided to keep it a surprise for a short while. I was skeptical but remembered what a wonderful surprise he planned for our 10 year anniversary.
Well, I was definitely surprised when he told me we'd visit Milwaukee Wisconsin!! "What, are you kidding, I asked?" Of course I knew nothing about it, but I also didn't know anyone to choose it as a vacation destination. Turns out, it was just what I wanted in a summer vacation. It wasn't scorching hot like in Texas in August. It was cool enough to wear jeans and stay at the zoo from open to close without ever breaking a sweat!! Normally, in Texas we go to the zoo quickly planning how soon to leave before we melt. But it was also perfect because it was a take it easy type vacation. We did just the right amount of activities per day for our 3 little kids and didn't stress or feel like we needed a vacation from our vacation afterward. It was the kind of vacation that made you dread returning home because you were worry free. I love that it was low cost too but still did many things that we would've done in a bigger, more touristy type city. We stayed at Staybridge for two nights. They have free breakfast and dinner there! Highly recommend it for families. Then we stayed at another suite type hotel for another two nights. We got 3 free nights as opposed to the two we would've gotten in CA. Finally, there was the salt less beach! How cool is that? The girls now wish Texas had fresh water beaches. Of course we explained that this beach was in fact a giant lake. Here are the recap photos.
