This is the part of the vacation where we discovered the batteries in the camera were nearly dead and didn't get them replaced until two days had passed. I hope my verbal descriptions suffice.
On Wednesday, we were pretty darn tired from all the fun and walking and heat and sun we had been participating in. We also had a resort presentation to attend at 10:00 in the morning to encourage us to buy into the system (we didn't). As an incentive, they gave us $75 in AMEX gift cards, which we promptly used part of to buy lunch at the Mexican restaurant across the street. This was another of the blessings we felt during our trip.
We also learned the lesson that, if your kid takes their hat off, hangs it on the chair, and promises to take care of it, you should probably put it back on their head (or your own) if you want to remain in possession of said hat after leaving the restaurant. We didn't notice it was missing until the next day, and when we checked with them that evening, they didn't recall anyone turning it in and couldn't find it in any of the areas they would have kept it. Hopefully the child learned a lesson as well as the parents.
We had seen several signs on Interstate 8 that said "Beaches", so after lunch, we got on the interstate until it ended (right by Sea World), and then followed some surface streets until we came to a beach. It turned out to be a beach where you could let dogs run freely, and many people were indeed doing so (we noticed on the way back out that the non-dog beach was just about 50 yards away, but it didn't really matter to us). The kids had never seen the ocean in person before, and they had a great time walking in the sand, running sand through their hands, getting sand all over their shoes and socks, grinning at the dogs until they came close enough to cause screaming and panic in our little 'fraidy cats, and enjoying the cool breeze. I should mention that all of this happened in the 2 or 3 mintues it took to walk from our car to the actual shoreline.
Being silly landlubbers, we went to the beach without any swimwear, towels, or any other useful items. Thus, the youngest (who waded about a foot into the ocean before a tiny wave made him rethink walking) and myself (who felt that someone might need to stay dry and thus didn't even remove my shoes, let alone enter the water) were the only two out of the six of us to not get soaked to at least mid thigh. My wife, older sons, and daughter all had great intentions of wading without letting the water get above the bottom of their shorts or rolled up pants, and the waves quickly removed them of all such inhibitions.
My sons enjoyed wading until they realized their shorts were wet, and then deciding to race the small waves back to shore, only to trip in the water, nearly literally falling onto their faces, and soak themselves head to foot. They repeated this event a few more times for good measure.
My wife and daughter enjoyed finding sea shells. My daughter continued to collect them in the shallows while my wife went to help the boys. My wife was soon realizing that her pants wouldn't survive the rise and fall of the water without a good soaking, and so she and the boys walked out about 40 yards and enjoyed the water. My daughter, not seeming to notice that the tide was slowly rising, as was her distance from the shore, continued to squat down and pick up sea shells until a slightly larger wave managed to tag her backside and the bottom of her pants.
I mostly held onto my youngest as he grinned and waved at dogs until they got close enough to cause him to squeal and backed up a few steps every few minutes to avoid the tide.
After about 30 minutes at the beach, my wife found some free floating seaweed to bring home many of the shells my daughter had collected, my sons were wondering if they could find a way to get the sand off their legs so they could put their shoes and socks back on, and we all made our way back to the van. After a few attempts at brushing sand off with hands and napkins, we finally just put the wet, sandy feet into plastic garbage bags and headed back to the resort. Judging from the general sense of elation coming from the kids, we were starting to feel that the short time at the beach was putting in some serious competition to Sea World for most favorite activity of the vacation!
Upon returning to the resort, we showered and bathed those in need of it, started some laundry, and just relaxed. Napping, watching TV, playing on the computer, and snacking were all enjoyed. We layed the youngest down for a nap (which he had not had much in the way of in the previous 4 days) around 5:00 PM PDT, and he ended up sleeping clear through to 7:00 AM PDT. The other kids and I made our daily outing to the resort pool for a bit, because as every kid knows, you can't go swimming too much while on vacation. We finished the day up with dinner brought back to the resort from a nearby Wendy's. It ended up being a great day for fun and true relaxation.
More to come later.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
San Diego Vacation Part 3
On Tuesday, we were off to Sea World. While it was only about 5 miles away, my wife had purchased a special lunch deal where you had lunch brought to you during the killer whale show. The food was average, but the kids got some Shamu-themed lunchboxes to bring home. The show itself is amazing to see.
Almost as amazing to see is the dolphin show. My wife was particularly excited for this one because our daughter, literally days before we were leaving on vacation and having no idea that we were going on a vacation, let alone to Sea World, had said something to the effect of "Mommy, I love dolphins. I want to see dolphins someday." Not only did she get to see them perform in a show (twice that day), but we even crowded into the construction-restricted dolphin holding area and managed to let her, my wife, and my oldest son touch one as it swam nearby. The second oldest son tried to touch it as well, but the positioning was such that he was unsuccessful. That was really the only major disappointment that we had with Sea World.
In reviewing our pictures from this day, I see that we only took the time to take pictures during the killer whale show, so that's what you get.
"Shaking hands" with a trainer
Leaping clear out of the water. As amazing as this is, there are things even more amazing in the show.
This is probably after one of the leaps, but it might also be during the "Shamu Slam" portion where they get the whales to intentionally splash as many people in the "Splash Zone" as possible. Our lunch tickets kept us out of the Splash Zone this time, but the kids made sure we were there on Friday.
You can see the whales entering and exiting the performance area during the show, which creates additional excitement as you see them dive immediately and then try to guess where they will appear next.
My wife got a 3 minute video of the show that I tried to add, but it didn't finish uploading in 3 hours. You may have to see that another time and/or place, if I can get it available somewhere.
More to come later.
Almost as amazing to see is the dolphin show. My wife was particularly excited for this one because our daughter, literally days before we were leaving on vacation and having no idea that we were going on a vacation, let alone to Sea World, had said something to the effect of "Mommy, I love dolphins. I want to see dolphins someday." Not only did she get to see them perform in a show (twice that day), but we even crowded into the construction-restricted dolphin holding area and managed to let her, my wife, and my oldest son touch one as it swam nearby. The second oldest son tried to touch it as well, but the positioning was such that he was unsuccessful. That was really the only major disappointment that we had with Sea World.
In reviewing our pictures from this day, I see that we only took the time to take pictures during the killer whale show, so that's what you get.
"Shaking hands" with a trainer
Leaping clear out of the water. As amazing as this is, there are things even more amazing in the show.
This is probably after one of the leaps, but it might also be during the "Shamu Slam" portion where they get the whales to intentionally splash as many people in the "Splash Zone" as possible. Our lunch tickets kept us out of the Splash Zone this time, but the kids made sure we were there on Friday.
You can see the whales entering and exiting the performance area during the show, which creates additional excitement as you see them dive immediately and then try to guess where they will appear next.
My wife got a 3 minute video of the show that I tried to add, but it didn't finish uploading in 3 hours. You may have to see that another time and/or place, if I can get it available somewhere.
More to come later.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
San Diego Vacation Part 2
My wife had bought some 3 for 1 passes at Costco that got us into any of the San Diego Zoo, the Wild Animal Park, and Sea World for 5 consecutive days. We decided that our schedule would be Monday - Zoo. Tuesday - Sea World. Wednesday - Rest and do whatever we felt like. Thursday - Wild Animal Park. Friday - Return to our favorite park.
We were trying to keep the kids on our MDT schedule while visiting the PDT time zone. This made for a few nights of putting the kids to bed at 6:30 California time (to match their normal school schedule bed time of 7:30). It also made for a few days of the kids waking up at 5:15 California time (I think they were excited). My dad says that 4:00 comes early in the morning, and I can attest that 5:15 feels awfully early too. As the week went on, they tended to go to bed later and get up later, but it seemed to help them when we returned to go to bed at close to the normal time.
Monday, we made our way to the "World Famous San Diego Zoo", as the GPS called it. We arrived to find that it was field trip day for about a thousand elementary school kids. We were afraid that it was going to be very crowded, and the whole point of going when we did was to avoid crowds. Our first stops (after the gift shop to buy my son a San Diego Zoo hat for his birthday, which you'll see in some pictures, and which he promptly managed to lose on Wednesday) were the flamingos and the reptile house, right inside the entrance. They were very crowded, so we made our way off to the side to an area designed for young children that the school kids seemed to be ignoring. From that point on, we seemed to do pretty well at being near a fair amount of people without feeling crowded.
Here are some pictures of some of the things we did. We didn't get pictures of everything we did at the zoo, but we got some of the human animals and some of the non-human animals. The kids seemed to feel that the highlights of the day were the "Skyfari" sky tram ride and the bus tour that allowed us to see far more of the zoo than we would have had energy to walk through. For my wife and I, the highlights were the fact that we were only 2 miles from the resort so we could go back for lunch and a short nap, and the fact that the churro vendor that we were going to buy some snacks from near closing time had already closed his shop and so gave us 6 churros and a pretzel for free, plus the fact that the 3 for one passes allowed us free rides on the sky ride and the bus tour.
This bench was at the entrance to the kids area of the zoo.
There was a petting zoo in the kids area. My son really knows how to pet animals carefully, don't you think?
There were lots of interactive things to play on and around throughout the zoo. These were in the kids area.
As fans of the Disney Channel show "Kim Possible", we had to get a picture of the naked mole rats. Rufus!
There were some bear statues near the polar bear exhibit that the kids thought would be fun to sit on. An interesting thing about the polar bear exhibit is that we didn't get to see the polar bear because it had been taken off exhibit. We heard that it was because one of the small deer-like animals from across the way had gotten into the polar bear exhibit. The story goes that they weren't afraid of the deer getting caught by the polar bear, but rather that the deer would fall into the very deep and steep pool at the front of the exhibit and drown. Supposedly, the polar bear was taken off exhibit to allow the zookeepers to rescue the deer. Sadly for us, we didn't get to see polar bear, deer, or zookeeper in the exhibit, and we ran out of patience waiting for any of them to appear. That happens pretty fast with small children.
I found that gibbons like this move the way that I usually think of monkeys moving - swinging from branch to branch, using vines, and so forth. They don't have tails, though, so that part is out. This one seemed to find us as fascinating as we found her.
My boy really knows how to enjoy a churro to the fullest.
This wallaby and koala were in the same exhibit. The koala was asleep and therefore not shy, but the wallaby didn't want to look at us. Or it just happened to be facing the other way when the picture was taken. They look a lot like small kangaroos when you can see more than their backside. I kind of think the backside looks like a huge rat in this picture.
Pandas are sensitive to noise, so we had to be quiet near them. When the bus tour went by, the guide told us we had to be quiet and he didn't say anything until we had passed the exhibit. We went back to see them since the exhibit was fenced from the road. They looked to be pretty pleased with their arrangement - all the food they could eat, relative quiet compared to the rest of the zoo, and comfortable surroundings. People even hope for them to reproduce the way an older couple "encourages" their adult children to get married and give them grandchildren! Sounds like a great gig if you can get it! *grin*
The gorillas were the penultimate exhibit we visited. They were kind of hard to get pictures of, but these statues held still much better, so we got pictures of them instead.
Last, we returned to the reptile house to see the huge yellow boa constrictor. Unfortunately, the picture got cut off just below the very tip of the mouth, so it looks like we took a picture of another tourist taking a picture of something with a yellow snout. The snake snout is at the bottom left.
More to come later.
We were trying to keep the kids on our MDT schedule while visiting the PDT time zone. This made for a few nights of putting the kids to bed at 6:30 California time (to match their normal school schedule bed time of 7:30). It also made for a few days of the kids waking up at 5:15 California time (I think they were excited). My dad says that 4:00 comes early in the morning, and I can attest that 5:15 feels awfully early too. As the week went on, they tended to go to bed later and get up later, but it seemed to help them when we returned to go to bed at close to the normal time.
Monday, we made our way to the "World Famous San Diego Zoo", as the GPS called it. We arrived to find that it was field trip day for about a thousand elementary school kids. We were afraid that it was going to be very crowded, and the whole point of going when we did was to avoid crowds. Our first stops (after the gift shop to buy my son a San Diego Zoo hat for his birthday, which you'll see in some pictures, and which he promptly managed to lose on Wednesday) were the flamingos and the reptile house, right inside the entrance. They were very crowded, so we made our way off to the side to an area designed for young children that the school kids seemed to be ignoring. From that point on, we seemed to do pretty well at being near a fair amount of people without feeling crowded.
Here are some pictures of some of the things we did. We didn't get pictures of everything we did at the zoo, but we got some of the human animals and some of the non-human animals. The kids seemed to feel that the highlights of the day were the "Skyfari" sky tram ride and the bus tour that allowed us to see far more of the zoo than we would have had energy to walk through. For my wife and I, the highlights were the fact that we were only 2 miles from the resort so we could go back for lunch and a short nap, and the fact that the churro vendor that we were going to buy some snacks from near closing time had already closed his shop and so gave us 6 churros and a pretzel for free, plus the fact that the 3 for one passes allowed us free rides on the sky ride and the bus tour.
This bench was at the entrance to the kids area of the zoo.
There was a petting zoo in the kids area. My son really knows how to pet animals carefully, don't you think?
There were lots of interactive things to play on and around throughout the zoo. These were in the kids area.
As fans of the Disney Channel show "Kim Possible", we had to get a picture of the naked mole rats. Rufus!
There were some bear statues near the polar bear exhibit that the kids thought would be fun to sit on. An interesting thing about the polar bear exhibit is that we didn't get to see the polar bear because it had been taken off exhibit. We heard that it was because one of the small deer-like animals from across the way had gotten into the polar bear exhibit. The story goes that they weren't afraid of the deer getting caught by the polar bear, but rather that the deer would fall into the very deep and steep pool at the front of the exhibit and drown. Supposedly, the polar bear was taken off exhibit to allow the zookeepers to rescue the deer. Sadly for us, we didn't get to see polar bear, deer, or zookeeper in the exhibit, and we ran out of patience waiting for any of them to appear. That happens pretty fast with small children.
I found that gibbons like this move the way that I usually think of monkeys moving - swinging from branch to branch, using vines, and so forth. They don't have tails, though, so that part is out. This one seemed to find us as fascinating as we found her.
My boy really knows how to enjoy a churro to the fullest.
This wallaby and koala were in the same exhibit. The koala was asleep and therefore not shy, but the wallaby didn't want to look at us. Or it just happened to be facing the other way when the picture was taken. They look a lot like small kangaroos when you can see more than their backside. I kind of think the backside looks like a huge rat in this picture.
Pandas are sensitive to noise, so we had to be quiet near them. When the bus tour went by, the guide told us we had to be quiet and he didn't say anything until we had passed the exhibit. We went back to see them since the exhibit was fenced from the road. They looked to be pretty pleased with their arrangement - all the food they could eat, relative quiet compared to the rest of the zoo, and comfortable surroundings. People even hope for them to reproduce the way an older couple "encourages" their adult children to get married and give them grandchildren! Sounds like a great gig if you can get it! *grin*
The gorillas were the penultimate exhibit we visited. They were kind of hard to get pictures of, but these statues held still much better, so we got pictures of them instead.
Last, we returned to the reptile house to see the huge yellow boa constrictor. Unfortunately, the picture got cut off just below the very tip of the mouth, so it looks like we took a picture of another tourist taking a picture of something with a yellow snout. The snake snout is at the bottom left.
More to come later.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
San Diego Vacation Part 1
As many of you may know, we just returned from a long vacation to San Diego. This was our first long vacation with just our family (meaning, we were on vacation with just us, not visiting other family for a long time, etc). It was an amazing experience, and I think that the kids have made some memories that will last a very long time too. A HUGE THANK YOU goes to my wife for putting it all together, my father-in-law for allowing us to use his vacation timeshare credits for lodging, to my wife's aunt and uncle for hosting us in Las Vegas on the way down and back, and to everyone else who helped make this possible!
Our camera's batteries were running low during the middle of the week so we didn't get any pictures of the beach or the Wild Animal Park, but we did get some fun pictures at the zoo and Sea World (we went there on two different days).
For starters, though, here are some memories from the trip down to San Diego, with a night's stay in Las Vegas.
Friday and Saturday:
My little girl had some MAJOR nose bleeds on the way from Utah to Las Vegas. I wonder if it was the AC running or changing environments, but we're talking major gushers! We pulled over to the side of the road for about 10 minutes to help out, stopped at a gas station for another break, and tried to keep ice packs on her neck the rest of the way to Vegas. Luckily, she didn't have any further problems for the rest of the trip. No pictures of this. You can thank me later. *grin*
My wife's aunt and uncle are getting up in age, but they LOVE our family, even if we are a handful! They have a pet rabbit (named Trouble, but the kids have, for some reason, dubbed it Strappy) that gets terrorized each time we stop by.
Here it is, facing the other direction but just as red-eyed.
We only permanently broke one thing that I know of. Here's something that was fixable.
Here we are enjoying the backyard before continuing on to San Diego.
I just missed the frisbee here, in case you are wondering why my arm looks so odd.
Other interesting tidbits about the journey included seeing a road in the desert part of California called Zzyzx Road (of particular interest to fans of "Kyle XY", though that Zzyzx was in a Washington state forest, not a desert), the GPS knowing where lots of things are, and also where lots of things used to be but aren't any more (paying $70 for a map update sure hasn't helped us at all, as we tried for about half an hour after arriving in San Diego to find a grocery store and a pizza place), and an eating establishment / playground / history center called "Peggy Sue's 50's Diner" in Yermo (near Barstow). The food was average, but the environment, from the 50's memorabilia to the "Diner Saur Park" in the rear, made for a fun family stopping point. Here are some of our pictures from there.
Part of the inside.
Part of the outside.
We were blessed to have the person behind us in line at the grocery store we eventually found let us use their loyalty card, thus saving us over $50 in groceries (about 25% of our bill otherwise). That was just one in a string of things that we felt were blessings from the Lord during our vacation.
On Sunday, we mostly rested at the resort, but we also looked up the meeting time for church nearby. It was scheduled to start at 11:00 AM, but when we arrived at that time, we found that it was a Stake Conference that was halfway over. We ended up sitting in the foyer for the last hour and then beating the traffic out of there and going to take a look at the San Diego Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. All of the temples are beautiful, but that one, in our minds, is especially so. Too bad we didn't take a picture though.
More to come later.
Our camera's batteries were running low during the middle of the week so we didn't get any pictures of the beach or the Wild Animal Park, but we did get some fun pictures at the zoo and Sea World (we went there on two different days).
For starters, though, here are some memories from the trip down to San Diego, with a night's stay in Las Vegas.
Friday and Saturday:
My little girl had some MAJOR nose bleeds on the way from Utah to Las Vegas. I wonder if it was the AC running or changing environments, but we're talking major gushers! We pulled over to the side of the road for about 10 minutes to help out, stopped at a gas station for another break, and tried to keep ice packs on her neck the rest of the way to Vegas. Luckily, she didn't have any further problems for the rest of the trip. No pictures of this. You can thank me later. *grin*
My wife's aunt and uncle are getting up in age, but they LOVE our family, even if we are a handful! They have a pet rabbit (named Trouble, but the kids have, for some reason, dubbed it Strappy) that gets terrorized each time we stop by.
Here it is, facing the other direction but just as red-eyed.
We only permanently broke one thing that I know of. Here's something that was fixable.
Here we are enjoying the backyard before continuing on to San Diego.
I just missed the frisbee here, in case you are wondering why my arm looks so odd.
Other interesting tidbits about the journey included seeing a road in the desert part of California called Zzyzx Road (of particular interest to fans of "Kyle XY", though that Zzyzx was in a Washington state forest, not a desert), the GPS knowing where lots of things are, and also where lots of things used to be but aren't any more (paying $70 for a map update sure hasn't helped us at all, as we tried for about half an hour after arriving in San Diego to find a grocery store and a pizza place), and an eating establishment / playground / history center called "Peggy Sue's 50's Diner" in Yermo (near Barstow). The food was average, but the environment, from the 50's memorabilia to the "Diner Saur Park" in the rear, made for a fun family stopping point. Here are some of our pictures from there.
Part of the inside.
Part of the outside.
We were blessed to have the person behind us in line at the grocery store we eventually found let us use their loyalty card, thus saving us over $50 in groceries (about 25% of our bill otherwise). That was just one in a string of things that we felt were blessings from the Lord during our vacation.
On Sunday, we mostly rested at the resort, but we also looked up the meeting time for church nearby. It was scheduled to start at 11:00 AM, but when we arrived at that time, we found that it was a Stake Conference that was halfway over. We ended up sitting in the foyer for the last hour and then beating the traffic out of there and going to take a look at the San Diego Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. All of the temples are beautiful, but that one, in our minds, is especially so. Too bad we didn't take a picture though.
More to come later.
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