Comic Con 2008

We, the fam, just came off the best family vacation in the history of family vacations. I’ll try to keep it short, but I wanted to share my fabulocity with you. Rather than make a long(ish) blog even longer, I’ve uploaded pictures of the trip at my Flickr account…feel free to check ‘em out.

We left Austin for San Diego last Tuesday. I did a fabulous job chosing flights this time, as we were able to take a direct flight and cut our travel time down to only 2.5 hours. A perfect time limit for traveling with toddlers. Now if we could just figure out our packing! Getting through security with 4.5 carry-ons, 2 toddlers, 2 strollers, and 2 carseats is NOT FUN. YES, I realize we can rent car seats when we arrive, but kids travel on planes MUCH better if they’re actually IN their car seat. So we arrived in San Diego around 1030 in the morning; got our car; and navigated ourselves to the house we had rented…which just so happened to be next door to my ex, Steve, and his awesome new husband, Danny. As an added bonus, my good buddy, Shawn (Steve’s sister), drove down from L.A. to surprise us. We stopped to pick up provisions for a picnic later that evening and we all headed out to the most fabulous San Diego Zoo.

The zoo was fantastic. Adrian had set a goal to see all of the animals from “Kung Fu Panda”, and I think we might have accomplished that. There was a creepy guy working in the panda exhibit that was sitting in a chair talking in “sexy voice” about the panda exhibit. When we approached him, we noticed he was sitting with a blanket in his lap with a hand under the blanket. It was 90 degrees folks…it wasn’t like we were in Antartica. It was just plain creepy.

Wednesday morning Jed, the boys, and I drove a little bit north of San Diego to go to Lego Land. It was the most fun ever. Unlike Six Flags, the minimum height requirement for most of the rides was 36-40 inches…so even Nathan got to ride most of the stuff in the park. We ate lots of nasty park food and Adrian got to pick out some new Lego toys for himself.

Thursday morning we left early to head out to Comic Con International. I have never seen so many people in my life! We attended a couple of panel discussions on a variety of topics. A major disappointment for me was the panel on the “re-imaging” of the 70’s classic(s) Escape to Witch Mountain. We got to see the trailer for the movie and it, in a word, SUCKED. The film is going to be a TRAIN WRECK. It was a bit hectic navigating the convention center with the boys in their strollers. The size and scope of the convention was just overwhelming. One of the highlights of my day, however, was getting to meet Steve, one of my GuySpace pals. He was more obsessed with the convention than Jed was, and had already attended Preview Night, as well as getting there hours before we did…so he was able to offer us tons of tips and suggestions of where to start and fun things to do with the kids.

Thursday night Shawn came back down from L.A. and we all had dinner together. After the kids went to bed we drank every last beer in San Diego proper and played some poker. Now there’s a disagreement of who ultimately won it all, but Jed and I ended up taking the pot…the whole pot…all $25 of it! Not bad for my first time playing poker…and I must thank both Steve AND Shawn for replenishing my chips every time I lost ‘em!

Friday Steve and Danny took the day off of work and kept the boys for us so Jed and I could have a full da y of Comic Con without lugging the kids around. We met up with some of Jed’s comic nerd herd and hung out with Comic Steve some more. It was a completely different experience not having to fight the crowds with the strollers. We had a blast. Friday evening Danny’s parents came over to babysit the kids so the four of us could go out and have adult night. We started off with dinner and some “kick ass Margaritas”. And yes, they were…both of them. We strolled around the Gayborhood afterwards and played pool at one bar (more drinks) and went to another bar (more drinks) where I got to meet one of my podcasting friends, Wes Stone, from Live It Up!

Saturday morning, following breakfast with Steve n’ Danny, Jed and I headed out to the beach with the boys. We went to Hodad’s, a place I had heard about on the Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” for burgers and to meet Wes Stone and Nessa from “We’re Mean Because You’re Stupid”, another one of my favie podcasts. If you’re not listening to either of these shows, you should be! Nessa and Wes were just as charming as could be. Afterwards we all went down to the beach and drooled over hot lifeguard boys and chatted for a bit. We said our farewells and headed back to the house for a quick nap before hoping on the trolly and going back downtown to meet up again with Steve and his super adorable husbear, Dennis. They’re the kind of couple that make you wish lived in your city so you can hang out with them EVERY day. After dinner we headed back to the casa, put the kids to bed, then spent the rest of the evening packing for the return trip home.

Sunday was another flawless travel day. Made it through airport security in no time flat. Kids were in a decent mood the entire time we waited to get on the plane. The SECOND the plane took off, Nathan fell asleep in his carseat and slept for the entire trip…while Adrian watched movies on my computra. It was another direct flight, so only 2.5 hours of travel time. It couldn’t have been a more perfect ending for a more perfect trip.

I can’t thank Steve and Danny enough for all they did in helping put this trip together. They really went above and beyond. I also can’t say how much I enjoyed hanging out with all the new people we met on this trip. You each made this a trip I’ll never forget. I’m truly blessed to know so many wonderful people, and look forward to meeting more of you in the future. FYI: Jed and I will be in NYC coming up at the end of August…sanz kids…so if any of you want to meet up…or meet up again TRALFIE…let me know!