San Diego Trip, Part 2

Day 3 of our trip we went to Sea World. It was such a wonderful experience (especially compared to the craziness of Legoland!) First of all, we went on a Monday, so it was not at all crowded. Secondly, our house was literally 5 minutes from the park; so we were able to go for a couple hours in the morning, go home for lunch and a nap, and then return rested for the afternoon.

We LOVED the shows at Sea World. First we went to the Orca Whale show. I have always loved whales, and have been blessed to see them a couple times in the wild, but have never seen them jump out of the water. And, of course, that is what they are doing the entire show. It was amazing. There also was a baby orca that was really fun to watch. Next, we went to a dolphin show. It was a bit more theatrical (costumes, music, etc.) which Ben and I thought was pretty corny, but the boys loved. They’ve been pretending to put on dolphin shows wearing “bird costumes” and singing and splashing in the pool since we’ve been home.

Some other favorite Sea World memories:

-Putting our hands in the dolphin water and Ben getting his fingers nipped.

-For Seth and Sam, riding the kiddie rides

-Petting the manta rays

-Seeing the flamingos, sharks, and turtles

-Using special money Papa and Titi gave the boys to buy a souvenir at the end Ben and I especially loved the shark exhibit, although as I told Ben, it only reinforced my extreme fear of them while snorkeling! It was way too hard for the boys to stand on the moving walk way and look at the camera! Such a cute picture of Sammy Sammy and his penguin he bought

Day 4 was the San Diego zoo. I had read a lot of reviews of the places we would visit previous to our vacation, so I was prepared (and a bit intimidated) by the amount of walking that we would have at the zoo. However, it really wasn’t bad, and the foliage surrounding the walks was absolutely amazing! We only visited the animals we really wanted to see, and were ok not visiting the ones that we see frequently at our Portland zoo. Here were the highlights of our zoo visit:

-Seeing a peacock in full plume as we entered the park. Peacocks are Seth’s favorite bird.

-Watching a wolf on it’s daily walk with the zoo keepers across the rode. Yep, just on a leash being walked like a puppy dog.

-The boys seeing a camel for the first time.

-Seeing a ram running back and forth in it’s exhibit ramming it’s horns on various objects.

-Ben loved watching a jaguar pacing by the fence literally a couple feet from our faces. We definitely never want to see one of those in the wild!

-Unfortunately the three animals we had really pumped up to the boys were a bit of a bust: the kangaroos were missing, and the pandas and koalas were big, fuzzy sleeping lumps. The boys still state that they were their favorite animals to see.

-The gorillas were awesome!

-We saw a male lion gnawing on a big bone. Once again, do not want to see that in wild!

-Going on the sky tram together.

-Having a nice gentlemen offer to take a family picture for us at the end of the day. It’s the only family picture we got on the trip, and it actually turned out pretty good!

Jaguar—good thing the fence was there! Small red panda…at least he was awake! Seth, Mama, Sam Daddy and Seth Sammy and Mama Great pic of the boys Yah for a family picture!