San Diego Part 2

So, these are pictures from our tenth wedding anniversary.  Ryan caught a cold, and we spent most of the morning hanging out on the balcony of our hotel room.  It was kind of nice, actually, after running around so much the previous two days.  You can see Evan practicing his walking - although I didn't count any of that as officially "walking" yet - it was mostly going between two support objects by turning around.  He's so cute.  
   

Poor Sick Ryan

   
That afternoon, we got a sitter and went to the San Diego Temple.  As I mentioned previously, it was a really neat way to celebrate our tenth.
  
The next day (no time to be sick on vacation, Ryan, sorry!), we went to the San Diego Wild Animal Park.  I have to say that this was not as kid friendly as the zoo, but it was WAY cooler!  I mean, not literally - it was like 95 degrees outside - but it was a lot more interesting for adults than a regular zoo.  The elephant exhibit was a huge series of enclosures containing a whole family group.  We were there to see them do one of their "enrichment" feeding-times, where they let them into an enclosure where zookeepers had hidden/scattered some of their favorite treats.  It was amazing to actually see elephants running and interacting.  Connor took most of these pictures, and he was especially enamored with the baby elephant who went to get a drink.  
   

 
A good portion of the park can only be seen from a "safari", which for us meant this tram.  The kids liked the safari, but they were pretty tired and hot at that point, so I'm not sure how much they really absorbed.  Definitely something I'd like to do again, maybe in winter!
    

The tour guide said this rhino is the last of his kind.

Thirsty Baby

They got to meet a cheetah on a leash!

   
The day after that was Legoland.  I have to admit, the miniatures were pretty cool.  The kids have only seen the first Star Wars movie (Episode 4, that is), but that didn't stop them from liking this stuff.  
   

Lego San Francisco

The rides were hit and miss.  Most of them were great for Connor and Elise, but there wasn't much we could take Evan on.  
   

You can't tell, but she has a look of extreme nervousness on her face.

   
Ryan and Connor waited forever to do this ride that looked like a giant robot claw.  We watched people being spun around upside down, twisted sideways, every combination of direction you could imagine.  Then it was Ryan and Connor's turn.  Apparently they have different settings based on how old the passengers are, and I watched them be gently moved up, sideways, down, sideways, and be carefully unloaded.  It was pretty lame.  The kids had a great day, though, overall!
   

  
Our last vacation day was on a Sunday, so we made an attempt to keep it low-key.  We did a letterbox hike in a park in Escondido that was awesome.  The place was deserted, and had a beautiful pathway through trees and alongside a hidden pond.  When we found the letterbox, sadly, the stamp and book had been stolen, but we wrote our information with our stamp on it, and left it in the empty box.
   

Our letterboxing pseudonym is "Scared of Lobsters."
   

Next we visited the Mormon Batallion Historic Site.  Honestly, I wasn't expecting much, but figured it would be a good Sunday activity.  I guess they had recently remodeled it, though, and it was pretty amazing - all high-budget multimedia and totally kid-friendly.  You follow the story of the batallion via these semi-fictitious characters who appear to interact with the missionary/tour guide.  At the end, the kids got to pan for "gold" (something Connor considered himself an expert at.)
 

Elise got to be a washer-woman.

  
Before heading home, we drove down to the end of Point Loma to Cabrillo National Monument, a very cliffy peninsula famous for it's lighthouse. The "old" lighthouse functioned from 1850 to 1890, and we were able to do a self-guided tour.  The lighthouse building included quarters for the keeper and his family.  It was amazing how small everything was.  They had three kids in a room the size of a large closet, with no bathroom, no tv, no air conditioning - all isolated on this peninsula.  Diaries from those kids say that basically, they loved growing up there.  My kids loved eating take-out spaghetti there.
  

  
And that was what we did on our summer vacation.  Except for everything that filled the rest of the summer that I still haven't posted.  We'll see how long that takes!

Last Day of School / San Diego Part 1

The last day of school for Connor came at the end of June (does that seem late to anyone else?)  Earlier that week, he had been able to go on the school's traditional field trip to Mother's Beach, which was a total adventure.  I met him at the beach with Evan and Elise (families were invited), but he got to ride the bus there and back by himself.  Too bad I didn't get pictures (that no-camera-at-the-beach policy.)  At Celebration of Learning, he took some pictures of his classmates, showed off his project on Earthquakes, and showed everyone what they had been working on in Music Class.  They also shared some of the things they had done with plants and gardens.
  

       

After school was out, we went on our first-ever family vacation!  I mean, we'd been on weekend trips before, and we'd been to visit family, but this was our first week-long trip just for fun.  We rented a timeshare in Escondido (the Lawrence Welk Resort), and did the San Diego experience.  Our first big outing was a trip to the San Diego Zoo.  (The first day of our vacation we spent listening to a time-share presentation.  Yeah, bad choice.)
    

Tortoises

Jaguar with a big piece of meat

The panda we'd waited an hour to see

Chinese Plate-Spinners

   
Outing #2 was to Sea World.  After watching the documentary, "The Cove", I wasn't sure if it was PC to go to Sea World, but we researched it a little, and apparently all the dolphins in shows at Sea World were born there.  Elise decided after this show that she wants to be a dolphin trainer when she grows up. (Well, specifically, "a girl who swims with the dolphins.")
  

It was kinda hot that day.
  

   

We bought some fish to feed to the sea lions, and Connor decided the really BIG fish should be his.  He then proceeded to tease the sea lion a little.  See the white birds hanging around?  Right before he finally dropped the fish, a bird flew past and snatched it out of his hand.  Connor was SO mad.  We let him feed one of the little fish to the sea lion, but it wasn't the same. After another show, we did the skyway tram thing, which was wonderfully cool after sitting in the hot sun for so long.
  

Big Fish

Elise and her Little Fish

Ryan and the older kids did this "Oscar's Rocking Eel" ride, which was not terribly exciting.  Evan, however had the time of his life playing in the baby area.  The floor was a little bit bouncy, and there were foam blocks to throw and stack (his mostly just got stolen.)
  

 

The Thursday of our vacation was also Ryan and my TENTH ANNIVERSARY!  Crazy, huh?  We would have liked to do something amazing like a cruise to Europe, but that's just not realistic with a baby who's still nursing (even if it is mostly just a habit at this point.)  The family vacation was a great way to celebrate, though.  We were able to get a babysitter on the evening of our Anniversary and go do sealings in the San Diego temple.  It was the best thing I could have asked for.  (And we're hoping to do a no-kids trip of some sort later this year, when Evan's more leavable.)
  

San Diego Temple

 

Shake Shack

We had to go do some "research" for Connor's project on earthquakes, so I found a museum about 45 minutes away that had an earthquake exhibit.  It wasn't as good as I'd hoped, but it was still kinda fun.  The highlight was definitely the Shake Shack, which was an earthquake simulator.  It did replicas of three different historic earthquakes while showing a running video about them.

    

This museum was crazy dark - none of my pictures really turned out.

Connor demonstrating proper earthquake safety.

Connor demonstrating proper earthquake fear.

There were also a couple seismographs, a demonstration of "liquefaction" (when things sink into sand or mud during an earthquake), and a shake table.  Connor had fun, at least.  
  

Trying to make the seismograph move

Liquefaction

Shake table - it was kind of lame.

We spent the majority of our time doing this dinosaur-themed scavenger hunt outside.  You're supposed to check out these electronic wands and point them at things to collect fossils, then get tokens for each quest you complete.  Connor and I finished quest number one, but Elise was more interested in climbing rocks.  Connor was mad when I gave her my token despite her lack of participation.  
  

Ryan kinda looks like a missionary in this picture.

Also, Evan finally got his first turn in the pool!  Things just didn't warm up enough until the end of June.  He loved it, but couldn't stop splashing long enough for me to get a good picture.  I adore his pink Speedo.