San Diego Day 3

I didn't have anything planned for this day.  I wanted Thursday to be a nice relaxing day in the middle of our vacation.  I kind of wanted to go to the beach, but Dustin thought I was crazy for wanting to go in October.  Plus, I didn't pack anything to go to the beach.  I forgot swimsuits, towels and all that jazz so I guess it just wasn't meant to be this trip.  So we woke up that morning, and decided to go out to eat for breakfast.  We ate at Denny's and while we where there we tried searching for a dollar theater or something fun and cheap to do.  In the end we just decided to go back to the zoo!  We already had passes and you can't beat free!  So back to the San Diego Zoo we went.  This was the best day at the zoo!  We weren't rushed, we had already seen everything, so we just strolled through the zoo and rode the buses everywhere.  It was nice and really fun.

Kate loved being so close to the orangutans.  This orangutan really liked Kate too!  She tried to give her a kiss!

I love this shot I got of the big gorilla.  He's beautiful isn't he?

  Funny story.  This guy was sitting right next to the glass and there were a bunch of people admiring him.  Then (remember how I said there were a ridiculous amount of kids at the zoo) some kids started pounding on the glass right next to him.  The gorilla got annoyed and hit the glass with his elbow!  It was such a human movement, as if to say "Quit it you kids!".  Then some other kids thought that was funny and started pounding on the glass again.  I asked them nicely to stop it, but they didn't listen.  Then I got annoyed, and I, quiet non-confrontational Erin, yelled "Hey!  The sign says to not tap on the glass!" They still didn't listen, so then Dustin yelled at them in spanish.  Then they finally backed off.  haha. I guess they didn't speak English.  Sometimes I feel bad for the zoo animals.  It can't be fun to be gawked at all day!

Check this out!  This hippos mouth is enormous!

As always one of the best parts of the San Diego zoo is the pandas. 

The thing that spurred this whole vacation in the first place is that Dustin's parents were going on a cruise and their cruise ship was docking in San Diego on that Friday, and the plan was to all meet up at Sea World for Friday and Saturday.  So we went to San Diego all week, Scott and Sherice went to Disneyland, and Jaron and Beth didn't come on this trip :(  We missed you guys.  Anyway... Scott and Sherice were getting into San Diego that Thursday so we decided to meet up at Sea Port Village that afternoon.  I've never been there before, and I just loved it!  There are so many cute little shops which I wish I would have had time and money to shop in, and there were battleships and pirate ships docked on the pier!  We took a hike to see all of the ships, then we stopped for dinner at a delicious pizza place on the pier.  It was so good!  I'm still dreaming about it!

This picture totally melts my heart :)

This is the ship that was in the movie Master and Commander.

I really loved this place.  If we ever take a trip to San Diego again, I am making this a stop on our trip!

San Diego Zoo

Wednesday morning we headed to the world famous San Diego Zoo.  The zoo was so crowded that day.  Since kids were free in October just about every school was having a field trip to the zoo that day, and the day after, and the day we were at the Safari park.  We were always battling herds of children!  We didn't let that dampen our experience too much though, we love zoos, and so do our kids! 

The kids especially loved the reptile house.  Max loved anything that he could see up close.

They also loved the children's zoo and the bug house.

We stopped for a snack over by the monkey cages, and this little guy really wanted some of our granola bars!  It was really hard to say no to this face!

 Especially when he stuck his little hands through the fence.

 Then to make us feel really guilty he brought over his friend who was also giving us sad eyes!  We obeyed the rules and didn't give in though.  So sorry little monkeys!

Oh funny story.  If you can't tell what's going on in this picture, these are pygmie hippos "getting friendly".  Of course as soon as that happens a big group a school kids enter the exhibit.  I heard one of the teachers say, "Oh they are just trying to play leap frog!"  haha.  There was also a monkey that was bothering them.  It would swing on the vines and splash water in their faces.  haha.  It was highly entertaining.  We also went to this zoo on thursday too, and when we got to this exhibit the hippos were at it again!  haha.  

We ended up seeing the entire zoo on foot that day.  At the end we rode the guided tour bus and we had such a fun tour guide!  She'd been at the zoo for 20 something years and you could tell it was a passion of hers.  She told us lots of random things about the zoo like how the monkeys like to ride the otters at dusk, how arthritic elephants take 20,000 miligrams of Motrin, that Pandas poop 30 times a day, she knew all the animals names and told us all about them.  At the end of the tour everyone gave her a round of applause.  It was really fun.

This was Kate's favorite animal of the whole trip. She loved the baby giraffe with the "crazy hair"!

More pictures of the San Diego Zoo to come, because we also visited this zoo the next day!

San Diego

We just returned home from our fantastic vacation yesterday.  We spent an entire week in San Diego and it was so much fun.  We visited the San Diego Zoo, San Diego Safari Park, and Sea World.

Tip: If you are ever planning a trip to San Diego buy the 3-for-1 passes that Costco sells.  They are 7 day passes that get you into all three of those park that I mentioned, and they are cheap.  We paid $100 for the adult tickets, and $80 for Kate's ticket.  Max is free.  If Sea World hadn't been a stickler, we wouldn't of had to pay for Kate at all since kids were free at all the parks in October.  But at Sea World kids were only free for one day with the purchase of an adult ticket at the gate.  So it just didn't work with our plans.  Anyway, still we got a smoking deal, and we really utilized those tickets to their full advantage!

We traveled to San Diego on Monday.  Our kids did so well in the car!  I'm really really surprised at how well the traveling went.  I was prepared and had "fun bags" filled with things to color and toys to play with that I would pass back to them periodically.  It worked really well and something I will be doing now on all car trips.  The crankiest they got was when Dustin got pulled over.  Kate just couldn't understand why we weren't driving!  We got off with a warning for being honest (yay!) and made it to our hotel at about 3 in the afternoon.

Our hotel room was so tiny!  We were quite packed in there with a king bed, a pull out couch and a pack and play crib.  It was quite an adventure at nighttime.  Max would NOT go to sleep with us all in the same room.  He would only go to sleep if Dustin (Superdad) would drive him around in the car until he finally fell asleep!

Here are a few pictures I snapped while we were playing in our hotel room.

I made it a goal of mine to actually get in pictures this trip.  Not to just be the photographer.

Kate's favorite part of the hotel was our window.

Max's was the iPad. He's ridiculous.

After our first adventurous night, we woke up the next morning and headed to my favorite zoo of all time, the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.

It is so beautiful there!  If you've known me for a long time and are a frequent reader of this blog you'll know that this is actually Dustin and I's 3rd trip to San Diego.  We love it there.  We went once while I was pregnant with Kate, and once when Kate was 11 months old.  I've always gotten a picture with her at the waterfall :)

This zoo is my favorite because it's so big and wide open.  You have to take a safari train to see all of the African animals.  It's really fun to see the animals in their natural habitat.  Well, as close as you can get without actually being in Africa.

This is the best shot I got on the tour.  Pretty cheetah.  But more about the cheetahs later...

 The gorillas were especially entertaining in the morning.  The whole family was out and about.  The baby gorilla was climbing in the trees, running around, and trying to climb on mommas back.  So cute!

There was a really fun spot in the zoo where you could go inside the Lorikeet cages and feed them nectar!  We had Dustin hold the cup first.  And it's a good thing we did because they flew right at him as soon as we walked in!

After awhile Kate really wanted a turn so we passed the nectar to her.

She really enjoyed it until a bird landed on her head!

We also had a lot of fun in the Bat house...

and the petting zoo.

The last thing we did that day was the cheetah run.    This was really cool.  They had a really long strip of land for the cheetah to run on.  The cheetah was SO fast!  It ran the whole 330 yard stretch in under 4 seconds.  The lady told me (and everyone else) that it would be better to put down your camera and watch because it would be really hard to take a picture of it and you'd probably miss the whole run.  And she was right!  But I didn't listen. haha.   I really wanted a picture of the cheetah running!  This picture I got after it had passed me and was starting to slow down.  Still really cool though.  I like how I caught it mid stride so it looks like it's hovering about the ground.

It was such a fun day!  I really love this zoo!  I'm so glad we had the chance to go again!  Posts about the zoo and Sea World to come...