Super Fun Tuesday

On Tuesday on vacation we went to the San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park in Escondido. It was so fun! We took so many pictures our camera ran out of memory by the end of the day. Here are some:



We went on a little safari bus ride through their Africa exhibit. I think that's what America should do with all the golf courses -- wild animal sanctuary. We saw white and black rhinos, all types of antelope, giraffes, ostrich, vultures, cheetahs, lions, zebras, lots of birds, and more. It was incredible.


The third picture in the third row is of these amazing antelope that live in the Sahara desert. Their internal body temperature can get to 113 degrees without harming them. Amazing. The third picture in the fourth row is of a lion. I've never been that close to a lion before in my life. It was so cool.

There was this exhibit there on dinosaurs -- all these mechanical dinosaurs outside in their own little section of the park. They moved and roared and scared H very badly, but S and O kept wanting to go through the exhibit again and again. There was one that spit water at regular intervals to represent the poison scientists believed it used to immobilize its prey. O was not fond of that one!

We had some dippin' dots, watched a bubble show (yes, that guy has fire coming out of a soap bubble), and had the opportunity to pet some domesticated deer. It was an awesome place.

The Wild Animal Park was AMAZING! I can't wait to go back some time and see the San Diego Zoo.

Awesome Old Town Tree

There is this incredible, huge, old tree in the Old Town Square. It kind of bugged us that, in the little model of Old Town in one of the exhibits, the tree was not included. It is a huge tree. It must've been there when the first settlers came in. So here is our tribute to the beautiful old tree:

...Part The Second

On Monday we went to Old Town. Our kids weren't happy about it; they wanted to stay at the hotel and watch tv. We decided they were being too whiney, so we threatened them with the Old Town jail



Pioneer children sang as they walked and walked and sat in the wagon and whined -- oh wait...


I have three boys -- of course they're going to go for the cannon. According to O, they shot twenty hundred, fifty three thousand million people. Thanks for keeping us safe, boys!


We drove to the San Diego LDS Temple. It was closed for remodel/cleaning so we just walked up the sidewalk, looked at it, and then got back in the van and went to the hotel. Can we say, "What up, H?"

My poor whitey husband. He slathered himself with sunscreen, waited the appropriate amount of time before going out in the sun, waited even longer before going in the water, and still got sunburned. It may have something to do with all the monkeys clinging to him in the pool, thus wiping all the sunscreen off him. Or he's just really white. His sunburns hurt for days and then they itch. My sunburns, if they can even be called that, are slightly tender for about 4 hours. I need to write myself an instruction manual on the care of whitey husbands.

California, Part I

After a day of travel and a night in a hotel, we made it to the beach!

J spent most of his time taking too many embarrassing pictures of me and trying not to get sunburned (it didn't work).
The boys played in the sand and chased seagulls around the beach

While I am reluctant to make California our vacation Mecca, I have to admit that Coronado Island off San Diego is a beautiful place. We stayed at the Coronado Island Marriott Resort (for free! There are perks to having J travel so much for work! Thank you, Marriott Points Reward Program!) There's a great bike/walking path that runs right by the hotel so I was able to go running. From our patio we had a beautiful view of the San Diego skyline. The weather was perfect. It was so nice to get away for a while.

Gone Fishin'

O's been asking to go fishing, so we headed up to Deer Creek and spent the day.
















We bought each of the boys a fishing pole. J showed them how to put the bait on and watch the top of the pole.

















With H's tiny little pole, J caught some weeds















J & O













We didn't catch anything, so as we were packing up, we let the kids throw rocks into the reservoir. That was their favorite part of the day.













































O well, maybe next time. As J reminded the kids, it's not just about catching something, it's about the experience. Peeing by the lake, eating candy, and drinking root beer -- yeah, I think they enjoyed the experience!

I Think This Kid Likes Baths

What do you think?

Little Sahara

We took a Saturday drive and ended up at the sand dunes. It was farther away than we remembered, but worth the effort and the "Are we there yet?"s


Uh, O, that's a zoo map. No giraffes here.


My fearless explorers contemplating the trek ahead of them


According to J, "...so much sand it'll freak you out!"

Which I think it did, for H at least

Sorry, can't get this one to turn the right way

H finally got down from J's shoulders...

only to demand to be picked up by me. Not too fond of the sand getting in his sandals

But he adapted

long enough to check out the bug corpse S found

disgusted and fascinated all at the same time!