San Diego: Part 1 of many

We got back from our wonderful vacation in San Diego this morning. I took about a million pictures so since this blog is also my journal/scrapbook, there will be a ton of pictures and posts to come.

We left early thursday morning. With our free stand-by flights, we've figured out that it's easiest to get on the first flight of the day. Yes, you have to wake up earlier but it's so much better than driving. We arrived in San Diego at around 9:00. The rest of the family wasn't going to arrive until later that night so we had a day to ourselves! We couldn't even check into our hotel until 4:00 so we rented a car and went to the Wild Animal Park. We were very tired since we had been awake since 4:30 that morning, but it was a blast anyway.



I love this zoo! For those of you who haven't been there, this "zoo" is more like a wildlife preserve. It's really spread out and you have to take a safari to see all the african animals. This is actually my favorite zoo. I don't know, I guess I just like seeing the animals in a more natural environment. Although it's enormous, it doesn't take very long to see, but it's very very fun.

I was so surprised with Kate on this trip. She loved the zoos! She would laugh, point, and clap at all the animals! I didn't expect her to care at all, so it was so much fun to take her and show her the parks.

The lions exhibit at the zoo is my favorite! The lions love to get right up to the glass. While we were there, the keepers fed the lions. They had a delicious snack of bunny rabbits. They were not like rabbits that you see in your backyard, they were white pretty ones like you would find in a pet store. They were frozen so we didn't get to see them hunt them down, but we did see them chow down on them. It was so crazy! I think it may have scarred the kids watching especially since I heard one mom say something like "see the bunnies? like the easter bunny?". Hahaha.



The elephants exhibit was also amazing. They had three little elephants and one is really tiny, it was just born on February 14th. So cute! I could have watched it all day it was so adorable.

How precious is that?



We left around 3:00 and checked into our hotel. The hotel was really nice and they even gave us complimentary dinner that night! We had chili and cornbread. The cornbread was delicious and the chili was not. But it was a completely free dinner so I can't complain! It was an awesome day and a perfect start to a great vacation!