San Diego - Day 5

We decided this should be our last day seeing the sites in San Diego because we found out a big storm was coming the next day.  We had planned to visit Sea World and the zoo each one more time, so we visited Sea World in the morning and the zoo in the afternoon.  It worked out just great.

On the walk to Sea World, I posed for a picture by the birds of paradise on our resort's grounds.  They were really stunning...me? not so much.

At Sea World, Lily was much less scared of the shark tunnel.  She held my hand instead of tightly gripping my leg.

And we were glad we got to meet Big Bird (and Elmo, but we'd already seen Elmo).  Again, Claire was really  scared to see these HUGE Sesame Street characters and wouldn't go anywhere near them.

After lunch, we jetted off to the zoo to try and see everything we'd missed.  We rode the Skyfari, and aerial tram, to get to the back of the park and start our touring at the top of the hill instead of pushing the VERY heavy double stroller all the way up there.

We saw the pandas.  I've only seen pandas one other time in the zoo in Washington DC.  We happened to go while they were eating.  They peel off the hard outside layer of bamboo and eat the softer insides.  Neat to watch.

We finished off with the monkeys and apes.  The orangutans were our favorite.  This one has some admirable flexibility.

One of the orangutans really seemed to like children.  She came right up to the window and started playing with Claire and Lily.  She seemed to enjoy people watching and was slowly munching on a fist full of something, like I would eat M&M's.

Here's our girls giving the orangutan a kiss.  A small crowd gathered around and "oohed" and "ahhed" the cuteness of our girls interacting with the orangutan.  It was really neat.

San Diego - Day 4

Today we went to the San Diego Wild Animal Park (or Safari Park).  It was really great and reminded me a lot of Disney's Animal Kingdom....although Animal Kingdom was built later so maybe it should be the other way around.  The park has really large enclosures in its "zoo-like" area that you can hike around to see...and it really is like hiking.  Then it has a large grassland area where animals roam together.  You see this by riding a tram/long golf cart train.  Here are some views of the park.  It was really beautiful and kind of nestled up against the mountains.

The first thing we did was ride the tram to see the safari area.  Here are some of the giraffes.

 The lion was really roaring a lot and pacing.  Usually when I see a lion its asleep!  We found out later it was because his two females were kept inside longer than he was and he didn't like that.  Later in the afternoon, when his women had returned, he was sound asleep on top to the Land Rover in the exhibit.

 At around 11am, the elephant care-takers move all the elephants from one large enclosure to the other where they've set up new puzzles and hid food.  The elephants get really excited and typically run to the new area as soon as the gate is opened.  When we watched it, the walked through in a very orderly fashion.  Probably because Mom Elephant and her new baby of 2 months walked through first.  Very cute!  They had over 10 elephants and several baby's around 1 year old, but this little guy was the smallest (and most active) elephant I'd ever seen.

 The tiger enclose is huge.  We watched the tiger climbing a tree, trying to catch some birds, for quite a while. He's pretty tough to see in the tree, but that's him nonetheless.

They also took the cheetah out on a leash, with he dog best friend to keep her calm, and talked about cheetahs with the small crowd.  Jeff got a really good picture of a different cheetah in her enclosure.  They also had a cheetah cub in the nursery, which was really cute.

 We had a really great day!

San Diego - Day 3

On our third day in San Diego, we were still struggling with the time change - waking up at 6am.  To save money, I packed breakfast foods for us to eat in the hotel room.  Here are the girls eating breakfast.

Then things got a little bit silly.  Lily's in a phase of wanting to make silly faces whenever we want to take a picture of her.  Claire is picking up on this too.  I think they get it from their dad!

 Since we had a few hours before the zoo opened, we decided to try swimming first thing in the morning.  The pools at our hotel were heated, however in the morning they were at their coldest!  We ended up letting the girls swim in the bathtub instead.  They are so cute in their Minnie Mouse swimsuits.  Lily told me the ruffle on hers helped her to swim better.

 Here are some shots from the zoo.

 

It was cute to see the giraffes all eating together.  One of them was pregnant and "due any day".  I actually saw the baby giraffe in her tummy kick.  Weird!

 The koalas were actually awake when we were there.  Rare considering they sleep most of the time.

 Here's a monkey that sucks her fingers just like Claire.  Claire loves monkeys and its one of the few animal sounds she can make.

At the end of the day we visited the petting zoo.  Claire wanted to touch every single goat and Lily kept scooping up grass and feeding it to the animals.

The zoo was awesome and HUGE.  We couldn't see everything so we knew we'd be coming back.

San Diego - Day 2

Our second day in San Diego, we went to Sea World.  It was great for our girls, and definitely not crowded on a Tuesday in February.

We had a hard time adjusting to the time change, especially since the sun came up so early, so we were ready and waiting when SeaWorld opened.  Lily was so excited, she got out of the stroller and danced to the music they had playing.

SeaWorld has a Sesame Street themed area with some little kid rides.  It was fun to be able to take Claire on the rides.  She was more adventurous than Lily!

Of course we saw the killer whales.

I really liked all the pools they had where you could touch the animals.  Lily and Claire liked the starfish, but they were both pretty freaked out by the sting rays.

 After exiting an exhibit, they always had a gift shop.  Claire could not leave the Arctic gift shop until she's hugger or kissed every single polar bear in there.

By the afternoon whale show, Claire was wiped out.  I loved it because it seems like its been a long time since I've been able to hold her while she's sleeping.  It was sweet.

Before we left, we went back to the Sesame Street are to go on the rides again.  Lily and Claire were both excited to see Elmo and Grover.  Claire was really scared of them as we got closer and wanted me to hold her, so only Lily was in the picture.

San Diego - Day 1

Jeff and I had planned on going to Seattle to scope out the housing situation during his week off of school in February.  After some serious thought, we decided we really needed a sunny vacation instead, so we planned a last-minute trip to San Diego.  We had a blast!  Here is our travelogue.

After our long car drive we stopped at Torrey Pines State Park, just north of where we were staying.  There are really beautiful forested cliffs that overlook the ocean.  The rocks looked really interesting (and so did Claire's "car hair").

Here is Lily overlooking the ocean.  We were able to see some dolphins swimming out in the ocean.

Then we went down and walked on the beach.  I was LOVING the sunshine after being cooped up in the house all winter.

Claire kept finding rocks and shells on the beach...and then wondering why  her hands were so dirty.

After Torrey pines, we drove a little further down the coast to the Children's Beach to see the seals.

Claire loves the ocean and was so excited to show it to us!

Lily as Photographer

Today Lily wanted to take a picture of Baby Claire.  It turned out pretty cute.

Then Lily wanted me to take a picture of her and Claire together.  Claire had other plans....

So I ended up taking a picture of just Lily.  She's so sweet!  I tried to get a picture of the heart I made in her hair, but its still hard to see.  I tried doing Claire's hair the same way and it was a total failure.  She still has super-fine baby hair.

Sisters

Claire has entered a new phase (that will probably last to adulthood) of wanting to do whatever Lily's doing..or have whatever Lily has.  Lily wanted to have her hair look like Princess Tiana from Princess and the Frog. This is what I ended up with.

Well....Claire wanted to look pretty too!  So this is what she ended up with.

Not quite as refined, but still darn cute!

Claire's Hair

Curly hair is a new experience for me.  I've always had straight hair, but Jeff has curly hair.  Apparently Claire is taking after her dad.  I love getting her after she wakes up from her nap because her hair is always a surprise!