Day 3 - Zoo and Beach

Fair warning.  This post has a lot of pictures. 

We started the day off at the zoo.  It was overcast and cool which was great in light of the whole "allergic to sunscreen" thing that was going on.  We made it to the zoo right as it opened and headed right for the tour bus.  From this vantage point, we could see the majority of the animals. 

On the bus ride.

Funny story about this.  This is the hippo pool.  We were unlucky enough to be right behind a school tour group which were awful, rude little children.  Well, they made it to the hippo pool before we did.  This massive hippo was in the tank and several of the kids were saying "Wow.  That is a cool statue."  Then they were banging on the glass and making all kinds of rude comments.  Suddenly, the "statue" moved and looked right at them before turning back and holding perfectly still again.  Several of the kids screamed because they really thought it was a statue.  No, it was a 9000 pound killer wild animal that you just insulted.

What a beautiful day.  And a beautiful happy kid!

The famous San Diego Zoo panda.  She was walking around pretty restlessly and the tour guide reminded everyone that she would no more go into that enclosure than with a wild grizzly mama bear.  They look so cute and cuddly, but they are still wild.

This is the best part of Aiden's day so far.  We rode the Skyfari tram.  It is a gondola that goes over most of the zoo.  He loved it. 

The zoo was fantastic.  One thing that we learned from a guide is that they use "psychological barriers" whenever possible.  For example, giraffes don't like to climb over things more than 18 inches, so they don't make the fences that high, even though they could technically climb over them. 

Also, I didn't know that the San Diego is a major breeding program for a large portion of the world's endangered species.  They have a big safari park (tomorrow's adventures) that does a lot of the breeding as well.  It was fascinating. 

After that, we went back to the hotel and snoozed for a while then went to the beach.  In hindsight, I wish we would have spent more time at the beach, but we had so many things planned.  Next time we go to San Diego, we will plan one more day and just hang out at the beach.  We only got about 90 minutes.  It was a little cool and the water was freezing, but little monkey loved it the most of anything we did.

He fell in the water.  Okay, not really.  We were standing on the beach and the water came up and scared him and he fell backwards.  Not even to his knees.  Drama!!

 I love the beach and the ocean.  I could stay there forever.  Next time, we will go when it is a little warmer and we can really enjoy the sand.  Aiden and I kept burying his feet and pretending they were missing.  He would poke them out and laugh and laugh!  He wanted to be a turtle, so I let him just lay and play in the sand to his heart's content.

Day 2 - Sea World!

First off, let me give a little shout out to my girl, Jessica!  She is on her mission in Rome, Italy and has been given permission to view family blogs.  So!  We will be posting MANY more pics and daily goings on here.

So - day 2.  First thing, when we woke up, we decided that this hotel was not only scary, but the beds were uncomfortable.  So, we vowed that by day's end, we would be in a Holiday Inn.  (Spoiler... we moved to Holiday Inn...)

We went to Denny's for breakfast since the "continental breakfast" at Scary Hotel was less than great.  And then... off to Sea World.  Would you like premium parking for $5 more? Why, yes we would!  This would be a factor later when Homeslice needed a nap.  We arrived right before the park opened, rented a stroller and OFF WE GO!

This ride will play a major factor in our day.  This is like the Teacup ride at Disneyland.  We would end up riding this six... count them, six....times.  And it was a blast.  When we would decide what to do next, we would always end up back to this ride.  Aiden absolutely loved it.

Inside the spinny ride of the day.

Waiting for the Sea Lion show.  The pre-show was hilarious.  Aiden laughed and laughed at the guy who was dancing.

Who would have thought that a sea lion could tango?  These sea lions were amazing!  There was a little otter there, too, who was great.

From there, we rode the spinny ride a few times, then high-tailed it over to our animal encounter.  For those of you who go to these parks, I highly recommend the animal encounters.  They are great.  This one was a little pricy, but we were able to feed dolphins, eels, and turtles.  It was amazing.  It was more of a behind the scenes tour with all the insider information. 

More than anything, Aiden loved being up close.  He is not much of a "ride" kid (except the spinny ride) so he does better with the one-on-one interactions.

Feeding the dolphin...

Feeding the turtles.  I love the little "crack".  Aiden's pants never fit right.  They are too big in the waist and too short in the legs. Thank goodness shorts season is almost here.  We can go back to 12 month shorts.

These turtles were huge. They loved the lettuce.

After feeding the animals, Aiden was ready for a nap.  So, we went back to the car.  (remember the premium parking? The car was about one row back from the entrance.  SWEEEEET!)

He slept for about an hour and then we headed back in for lunch and Mister was still pretty tired.

Waking up in the car...

We rode the spinny ride again, enjoyed some animals.

This is in Bay of Play.  It is a cute Sesame-Street themed place for toddlers to play.  Aiden loved the toddler bounce house.  He was hilarious. 

Then we headed to the Shamu show.  It was fun and there were eight killer whales that put on a great show.  We sat in the splash zone, but alas, we were not splashed. 

Then after the Shamu show, we rode the spinny ride a few more times until they closed.  It truly was fun.

One really great day.  So fun.  Aiden sunburns really easily, so we slathered sunscreen on him.  As the day went on, he was getting more and more red, so we kept putting on sunscreen, but it just kept getting worse.   The next morning, he had a bad rash.  It turns out that Aiden has developed an allergy to sunscreen - the same sunscreen we have used since he was born.  Luckily, the rest of the trip was overcast and we didn't have to use it. 

Later that night, we ordered pizza and relaxed in the new and improved hotel room and watched Spongebob.

San Diego Day 1

Okay, before I begin, I have tried about a million times to get some of these pictures to rotate.  I found a fix online, but, frankly, it would take me another three hours, so you will just have to rotate your head instead.

We spent some lovely, lovely days in San Diego.  So, let's begin with the dreaded picture journey recap of our trip.  I went to San Diego with Aiden and Chris.  It was barrels of fun.  And, surprisingly, the drive was not bad at all.  Aiden was lovely as a driving buddy.  He just sat in his chair and played with the Ipad.  (Bless that invention...)

I picked up Chris in Lehi at about 6pm and we drove to Vegas.  It was exhausting and late when we arrived at the Luxor.  It was the cheapest room in the town that wasn't scary, so we went there.  Aiden was so tired and we had to wake him up so we could get to our room.  He jumped on the bed and then fell asleep.  

The next morning, we woke up happy and well rested.  

Aiden's little corner in the car.  Since he really REALLY hates the sun on his face, we just put up his blanket.  He is playing with the ol' Ipad and was happy.  Notice, he also had full access to his own little red cooler.  Sweet life.

Driving.  And Driving.  And Driving.

We got tired of driving and needed a potty, so we stopped at Barstow at the train station that is also a McDonalds.  We didn't eat anything, but walked around for a bit because there were trains.  TRAINS!!!

After driving for a VERY long time, we made it to San Diego.  We checked into our hotel and decided it was HORRIBLE, but we would deal.  So, we headed off to tour the Midway Battleship.  It was incredible.  We had a lot of fun walking around, but it was closing, so we didn't get a lot of time.  I was getting so very, very sick so the short tour was good for me.

The lady at the snack station had made churros and wasn't going to be able to sell them before closing time, so she gave us one.  This churro was as big as Aiden.  And he loved it!!!

This was a great way to start off the trip.  Very cool.

That night, we went back to our serial killer hotel and I took Nyquil and crashed.  Aiden and Chris watched Megamind (Aiden's favorite show right now...) I was so sick and we were travel weary.