SoCal - Post 6

On Friday we went to the San Diego Zoo.  This was special for me because I'd never been there, so it was both mine and the kids' first time.  I'd heard a lot about it (mostly from watching Madagascar over and over), so I had high hopes for it.

BABY!!!

There were more zebras later, so I'm not sure why these two were paired together.

Breakfast time!

 We were in the right place, at the right time and got to see the cheetah being moved to a different enclosure for the day.  We learned that the dog and cheetah are best friends.  They have the dog come out first so that when the cheetah follows, he goes off of the dog's emotions.  If the dog is calm (and is 99% of the time, apparently, that's why the zoo got that breed of dog), then the cheetah will be as well.  The dog and cheetah stay together all day long, even in the enclosure.

The cheetah stayed in the corner, while the VERY large dog walked around and checked things out.

The Hogle Zoo's meerkat enclosure looked like a cabinet compared to this one.  It was HUGE!

Lexi "helping"  haha

 I loved that there was more than one play area.  It's a very big zoo.

Guess what he did next?

Yup, jumped.  ;)

 

Feeding time meant lots of great butt shots

Can you see the lion?  My kids had never seen a lion before!

More babies!!  It was seriously SO tiny.  This picture doesn't do it justice.

Kaden was like, "Oh! THIS is where Santa's reindeer come to rest after Christmas!"

Lunch time!

They had escalators!!

Do you know why flamingos are pink without Googling it?  I do!

The aviary

This guy was hilarious.  Totally mugging for all the people watching.

Shhhhh

Play time again!

 

They even had a petting zoo!

This chained off area was where the animals went when they needed a break from all the love.

Ari woke up just in time to pet some goats.

For some reason, this one was Lexi's favorite.

 

Spider-Kaden and fly-Lexi

This guy was so much fun to watch.  He was swinging all over the place.

The zoo was a lot of fun!  A TON of walking, but still fun.  I've been to the Safari Park before (used to be the Wild Animal Park), and I was expecting the zoo to be on a scale closer to that.  It wasn't, so I was disappointed about that, but it was still incredibly large when compared to the Hogle Zoo.  :)

SoCal - Post 5

Thursday we headed to the beach!  Kaden was so, so, SO excited to build a sandcastle. It's all he talked about for a full month before our trip.

Danny and Kaden

Kaden holds the record as the first child of mine to step foot in the ocean.  :)

The girls staying warm

 It was in the mid-60s, but very breezy.  Steph and the girls stayed on the towel at first.

Steph and Ari going for a walk.

Lexi finally warmed up enough to venture out into the ocean.

She loved it.  :)

Danny getting more water for the sandcastle.

Lexi picking up a shell.

Ari finally tried out the ocean!

Ari, me, and Lexi

Still workin' hard

The finished castle!  Complete with moat and everything!

The water for the moat kept sinking back into the sand.

We only got to be there a little over an hour.  We had to get to the Pirate Dinner Adventure!

It's a dinner show with pirates.  ;)

Danny and Steph bought this package deal for the kids to get swords, eye patches, hats, and their faces painted.  They LOVED it!

Kaden didn't want his face painted, so we had Ari do it!

Our choice for Ari was the same as Lexi, so I turned into the meanest mom ever when I decided not to have Ari get a scarred heart like Lexi...I opted for a more manly route...

BAHAHAHA  The girl painting faces checked three times to make sure I was serious about the goatee.

Arg!!

They introduced the pirates (everyone was on a "team").  Our pirate was the silly one and our team color was purple.

Steph, Lexi, and Danny

Scurvy pirates

Shane, Ari, me, and Kaden

He was in heaven!

The show was really fun and the food was good!

They had an aerialist on silks who made me think of my friend, Christy.

This wasn't our pirate, but he was HOT!!

Lexi and our silly pirate after the show

It was a really fun show!  I only had one complaint and that was that the main girl in the play (not the aerialist!) was dressed like a skank!  I could see much more cleavage and lower butt than I wanted to, and this is marketed as a KIDS show.  I was really surprised by it.

If you ask the kids what their favorite part of California was, they will undoubtedly tell you the pirates show and the beach.  It was a really great day.  :)