San Diego: A Half Day at Balboa Park

If you Google "family friendly vacation destinations" one of the top destinations is San Diego. There is so much the city has to offer and we love being tourists in our own city. On Saturday, we took a quick trip to Balboa Park to check out the free turtle and tortoise show and ended up spending a few hours exploring the park. If you are visiting San Diego with a LO, this is a must see. There are so many museums to visit, open fields to picnic on or run through, and of course, there is the zoo.

[Tuan and Parker having lunch by the Balboa Park Fountain. I'm happy I captured this father-son moment in front of the fountain where Tuan proposed to me.]

[Matching polka dot shirts. Parker is wearing Ben Sherman and Tuan is wearing JCrew.]

[Family selfie. This is not a great photo of Parker.]

[Checking out the turtles and tortoises at the free show put on by the San Diego Turtle and Tortoise Society. If you are ever looking for kid friendly things to do in San Diego, check out the events page on Red Tricycle. It's my go to guide for weekend adventures.]

[There was a strict no touching policy. Parker was a little scared so it worked out great.]

[After visiting the turtles and tortoises, we walked over to the zoo and checked out tigers, hippos and pandas. I love being zoo members! Hippo butts are my fave.]

[Since we were already in the area, we drove over the Hammond's Gourmet Ice Cream to celebrate National Ice Cream Day a day early. Hammond's has been receiving rave reviews and photos of their ice cream have been popping up all over my social media accounts so we had to check it out.]

[I love that Hammond's offers flights of ice cream. The little cones are the perfect size for tasting and for Parker's little hands. Pictured above are cherry royale, passion sorbet, jamocha almond fudge, mint oreo, strawberry cream and pineapple coconut cream. Pineapple coconut cream was my favorite!]

Shirt: Ben Sherman found on Zulily

Pants: H&M Kids

Shoes: Zara Kids

Swagger: Born with it