Spring Break in San Diego

At long last I am posting some holiday photos. We had fun in San Diego and Disneyland on our trip. I would like to say everyone was healthy and things went super smoothly, but unfortunately Emily came down with a stomach flu the night before we were flying there. Luckily she was mostly sick before we left our place and I have quick reflexes with Ziploc bags so there were no unfortunate incidents. Bruce pointed out that actually she was easier to manage on the flight, than when she had more energy coming home! She was pretty subdued for the first few days of the holidays. Despite her illness we kept up a brisk holiday pace with 2 travel days and 9 full days of theme park visiting in the two weeks.

Flying out right before Easter Sunday was a bit worrisome to Matthew and Andrew. The kids were relieved that the Easter bunny indeed found us at our condo in San Diego. Matthew was even able to take part in this Easter Egg hunt at a nearby hotel on the beach down from our place.
Here are the boys looking at Ocean in La Jolla, a bit north from our place.

Emily thought La Jolla was great!

Here is what once was a Children's pool right on the ocean. That was many years ago and since then the Sea Lions have reclaimed it. Since the Ocean mammals are protected by law they can not be moved, though this is still a local topic of hot debate. Hoards of people come to see the Sea Lions, likely more than would be coming to the pool.

The place we stayed at was right on the beach, so the kids took advantage of this for a lot of sand and water play.

We also were strategically staying right next to a park and playground on the Bay which sold us on the location. The children were at the playground almost everyday, and met lots of new Californian friends.

Sea World

In San Diego we were a short drive away from Sea World and spent two days there. Of course there is a lot for the kids to see, but we learned that the park is owned by Anheuser-Busch, so there are free beer samples to the delight of the adults too.


The touch pool was popular, though Bruce was the only one who worked up enough courage to touch the starfish.


This starfish may look a bit more imposing to some, but was more approachable to the boys.

No matter where we went on our trip it seems there were flamingos. These happen to be a real favorite of Andrew's so we spent lot of time looking at our pink friends, and were able to feed them too.
Here is a little pre-Shamu show snacking. They have lots of whale, sea lion, otter and dolphin shows to take in. They are all slick, carefully scripted and seem to go off without a hitch to the delight of all the children. Though a friend shared a story she heard of where recently an unsuspecting pelican landed in the whale tank during the whale show and the Killer Whales did what Killer Whales do, as the crowd was gasping and bird bits were flying. Evidently that show was shut down pretty quickly and people were escorted out.


They have displays of every sort, as well as some rides too. Everybody liked watching the penguins.

San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park

The San Diego Zoo has a Wild Animal Park north of San Diego. It is quite well done and at times you feel more like you are in Africa than California.

Emily liked riding the zebra on their Conservation Carousel.

Andrew's pick was the tiger.

We went on an excursion around the faux African savannah seeing rhinos, giraffe, cape buffalo and the like.
The bigger land mammals may have impressed the adults, but the flamingos and nearby duck pond was the bigger hit with the kids. I think their favorite thing was feeding the ducks and large catfish here.
It was a good place to observe some homo sapien feeding behaviors. There was quite a frenzy around the 2:00 popcorn feed.

The San Diego Zoo

The San Diego Zoo is huge and they have all the big name animals. We spent a very full day there and were pretty tired from all the walking afterwards. Some people explore mainly by tourbus, but we walked it except for one tram ride.

I guess this is what we look like on display to the animals.

The zoo is so big and hilly so there is a sky tram to get from one end to the other. This was most popular with Andrew and Matthew.

Their pandas, including a new baby, are star attractions. The kids were enthralled with them, but mostly because of a Curious George episode where George watches the pandas on the Pandacam. This zoo also has a Pandacam on their website.

Another favorite, other than the flamingos of course, was the meerkats.

In the Children's Zoo area there were lots of fun interactive displays.

Here is our Spiderman.

Lego Land!

North of San Diego in Carlsbad lies every child's (and Lego loving adult's) dream...Lego Land!
We spent two very full days there taking in the displays, play areas, rides and shows. It really was quite something. Matthew really thought we should live in California and felt he and Bruce could get jobs as Lego land designers to support this ambition.

Emily really liked to take charge and do the driving. Of course it was almost impossible to get her out if another child was wanting a turn.

Here is Matthew doing time in the Lego City jail.

Matthew loved the freedom of driving his own vehicle and even got a Lego driver's license. He thought he'd try to save up his money to buy a Lego car for our house, or was thinking he could try to make one.
Here is our "train" as we make our way through the park. Pushing Emily in the stroller is a coveted task.

Here is the best water park we'd ever seen. You have to play "Where's Waldo" to see Matthew in the far left of the picture. The big bucket at the top of the pirate ship would fill with water and dump on all the children below. It was with such force we were surprised they were not knocked over!
The Lego building was beyond anything we'd seen before. Here we are in New York.

And here is a little look at New Orleans.

Andrew loved driving a Lego car too.

Well so did Emily, but hers was stationary.

Believe it or not they even made a Volvo out of Lego.

We took in almost all the rides. While Matthew was rushing for the roller coasters, Emily and I had fun on the mini train. This photo is also one of the only shreds of evidence that I was on the vacation as I am always on the other side of the camera.

The spinning Bionicles were enjoyed by Andrew and Bruce.

Disney

Most people would relax the last few days of their vacation, but we spent our last days picking up the pace to take in Disneyland! We spent three very full, 10 hour plus days there, and Matthew and Bruce even popped in for a couple of hours the day we were flying out to get some more rides in. The kids loved the rides and experiences, but they are not too familiar with classic Disney characters so that part was a bit lost on them. While other kids were racing around to get character photos and autographs ours would see Pluto or Goofy go by and say "Mom there's an....animal". There were many a little Princess dressed up in full costume, but of course Emily was a bit young for that.

There are two parks now, the original one and Disney's California Adventure (DCA). Here is Matthew at DCA. It has some pretty intense rides, more so than Disneyland itself. Matthew went on almost all of them including the California Screaming roller coaster. I was too scared for that one as our Guide book said it made Space Mountain look like the Dumbo the Elephant ride.

Emily liked looking at the bubbles while we were taking turns doing the California Soaring ride. It was an amazing virtual hang gliding experience ride, which is one of the most popular rides at DCA.

Andrew's favorite things were Mickey/Minnie's house, the play areas in Toon Town, the Buzz Light Year ride, and the Winnie the Pooh ride.

The Disney classics such as the Tea Cup ride are still there.

Here the guys are hamming it up in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle.

Here they are by the Winnie the Pooh ride entrance. I think I could repeat the script from the ride word for word as we did it 7 times! Emily and Andrew loved it, and it kept them happy while Matthew would do Splash Mountain nearby.

Here is Matthew with his mouse ears. We tried to buy one for Andrew, but he had received a new cap for his birthday and was adamant that one hat was enough for him. The Winnie The Pooh ears looked cute on Emily, but there was no way she'd keep them on.

The floral displays are as beautiful as ever and the nightly Fireworks show was outstanding.