Visit from the Palmers!

A few days after we moved, we had a great visit from some of our friends from NoCal: Justin and Tiffany, and their 4 kids! They have a timeshare in Arizona, and since we're at about the halfway point, we've been able to host them a few times. They were very gracious about sleeping surrounded by cardboard boxes -- we obviously scheduled all this before we knew we were moving! I'm also very impressed by their commitment to vacationing - they have 3 month old twins, a 2 year old, and a 13 year old, and they managed to pull together a two-week-long trip anyway. They actually scheduled an extra day to spend down here, so Ryan took a day off, and we all went down to the Aquarium of the Pacific. I'm not sure why I have no pictures of the fish. I'm equally confused that I took no pictures of the Palmers. Hmmm. Anyway, we do have a bunch of pictures of the lorikeet exhibit, where you buy a little cup of nectar to feed the birds, then wander around desperately trying to convince one that they should indulge you by drinking it. Despite the birds playing hard-to-get, Connor loved it. He did finally get several to drink the nectar, then begged me for my cup so he could do it all again.


The lady in this picture is about to get after us (again) for letting the kids climb on the fence.
After the aquarium, we went on a 45 minute harbor tour, which was a lot of fun (though windy).


Elise was heartbroken that we had to say goodbye to these sea lions. They were advertised as being "in their natural environment". I guess they evolved on buoys and abandoned barges. Luckily, we saw some more on the way back.
It was silly, but being on a boat for even 45 minutes was really fun and exciting for everybody. We need to find a kid-friendly cruise or something. Maybe someday we'll be brave like the Palmers, and actually go on a family vacation!