Zing Zang Zoom

We went to the circus for the first time ever! It was interesting, to say the least. We had a lot of fun. Here are some pictures:

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A Very Merry Unbirthday

Yeah! Aunt Della made it to Washington. Boo, Aunt Marcia (the birthday girl) did not make it. What were we to do when we were ready to party? Have a Very Merry UN-birthday party, of course!! Here are some pictures from the party:

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The Last Days

The last days of our trip were comprised of low-key activities.

On Tuesday, Aug 5th, Grandma Pauline, Grandpa Harold, Brooke and the kids came down to our hotel. We went to Olde Town San Diego and had lunch at a Mexican restaurant that I can't remember and we walked around a little bit before heading back to the hotel so the boys could swim in the pool. Later that evening, Bruce, Ryan and I went to the Atlanta Braves vs. San Diego Padres game with Bruce's friend, Brian. The Braves won:)

On Wednesday we took a quick trip to the Marine Military Museum for Brian, who is an ex-marine. It was really interesting to hear stories from a person who was actually in Vietnam. It was also really sad what people had to go through ~ I hate war. Afterwards, the boys went to the Braves game while I got to go shopping in downtown San Diego.

On Thursday we planned on leaving (so sad about it)so we played at one of the parks in San Diego (there were so many). We were trying to keep clean and dry before our flight ~ that didn't work out for Ryan. He loved playing in the sand and water and wanted to live there. (We want to live there too. Maybe, someday....). So sad to leave, but we were already making plans on going back to Cali next year and hanging out with Brooke and her boys a little more.

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SeaWorld

Day 5. We got up early to get to Sea World before the crowds. We had a lot of fun in the morning feeding seals, dolphins, and bat rays. The seals were definately the noisiest hungry critters. Of course, I would be noisy too if seagulls were constantly stealing the food people were trying to give me. I had 2 fish taken by seagulls! The dolphins were pretty cool, of course, so it was really crowded there. Luckily we did this early or we probably would have never done it later. I love, love, love feeding the bat rays even though it freaks me out. They are so soft and smooth feeling. I was wondering why they continued to hover over your hands after they had gotten the fish.

We went on the Ship Wreck Rapids ride and got SOAKED! This little girl across from me was crying because she got a few drops of water on her back, meanwhile I'm getting buckets of water dropped on me, but whatever. We have a picture of Ryan and me after the ride under the sign becuase we were the wettest.

We saw the Shamu Believe show, the Dolphin show, the Sea Lion and Seal show was really funny (but we didn't have a camera at that time). We saw every animal in SeaWorld except for the sharks. The line was horrendous and there was no way we were standing in it. I guess we should have done that the night before.

Here are some of our photos:

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La Jolla and Sea World after dark

Day 4 of our trip we originally planned on driving to Huntington Beach and hanging out with my family at the beach. We needed a light day from all the parks and that way Evan and Ryan could play together and I could visit with the family and meet Brooke's other little boy, Adam. Unfortunately, Evan got sick - probably from having too much fun 2 days in a row (he went to a few play dates the day after Legoland). We were heading north anyway so we stopped in La Jolla to visit the Birch Aquarium and check out the beach.

The Aquarium was tiny, as we expected, and the beaches were packed, as we didn't expect since it was overcast. Here are some photos of us at the Aquarium and a few on the beach. We looked for crabs, shells, hermit crabs and seals (on Seal Rock). We had some gelato and sorbetto ~ yes, that's right, Ryan tried something new. He said, "It wasn't too bad" as he was practically licking the bowl.

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We headed to Sea World after for the night show. Sea World at night was pretty awesome. We went there with the intentions of giving Ryan a teaser (we had unlimited entry for 5 days) but we had a ton of fun with not a lot of people around. We went to some of the attractions that we thought would be busy the next day and visited some shows you could only see at night. We did the aerial tram and the sky tower to look above the park. Ryan loved the Arctic simulator ride where we 'flew' on a helicopter in the Artic during a storm, then we saw the Arctic animals in the dark. The beluga whales looked like ghosts so that was cool. I finally got to see the Cirque de La Mer show which was a lot cooler than I thought it would be. There was acrobatics and comedy. The highlight of the night, though, was Shamu Rocks in which they did a show with the trainers and the whales set to rock music and lights. It was really entertaining, but late. We were pooped after that. Sorry the photos for Shamu Rocks kind of stink, we couldn't see the whales coming so we did the best we could.

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Wild Animal Park

Day 3 of our trip we went to the Wild Animal Park. At first I was scared that it was going to be a dud compared to the other things we had done, but that was not the case. The Park is beautiful and spectacular. Unfortunately it was a lot hotter because we were further from the beach, but we could rationalize it as an authentic trip into an African safari or an Asian exploration. We saw a lot of animals that were similar to the zoo, since it is a breeding facility for the zoo, but we also got to see Dino Mountain where they had moving dinosaurs in the forest. It was cool to see even though we had to walk up a mountain in the heat. The view over the free range exhibits was amazing. We could have taken balloon rides there and viewed the park from overhead. There were spritzing stations to walk through beacause of the heat. The pond areas were amazing looking as well. It wasn't your ordinary animal park.

We went on a 3.5 hour photo caravan tour, which was definately the highlight of the day. We were able to get up close and personal with the free roaming animals. We fed giraffe's twice and we got to feed rhinos and pet them! We were surrounded by rhinos at one point and they were snorting for more food but they were so friendly - we LOVED it!!! We have a ton of photos of animals but I'm just posting the ones of us in them:

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Legoland

Day 2 of the trip we met up with my cousin Brooke, her son Evan and her cousin Bryce. It was so much fun going to Legoland with another kid because Ryan and Evan didn't seem to notice that they had been standing in lines. We were there from 11am to 8pm and we didn't get to try every ride. We spent too long in some lines that ended up being dud rides but the fun roller coaster rides were fairly quick lines - we will definately remember that for next time. We got a lot of pictures of us from the roller coaster rides but I'd have to scan those in to post:( Instead, I'm posting pictures of us around the park. There were lots of Lego creatures to be on the lookout for and tons of little rides to go on - boat tours, helicopter rides, horse rides, boat rides, the list goes on. We competed in a firetruck race where we had to pump the fire truck from one end to the other, put out a fire, then pump the truck back. We were in second place (but I think we could have done better if we had coordinated better). So much fun ~ here are the photos:

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