San Diego Zoo

It was another hot day in San Diego. We loved being in short leaves and feeling the sun on our faces; we even put on sunscreen. This is amazing if you remember in Utah it is snowing.
A nice family helped to take our picture. Caleb is doing his "cheese face."
They had these bush animals all over the park. It reminded me of Cindy Bame my friend and visiting teachee and how she loves elephants.
Another picture of the cool elephant bushes. I was hoping that I would get one good one with out the glare of the sun. No luck this time.
There were also many hummingbirds throughout the park. I caught in this picture on the left bottom of the screen. It is green. They were beautiful!

Seaworld, San Diego CA Sesame Street Bay of play

Someone got smart and put it a place for the little guys that want more hands on fun...Sesame Street Bay of play! We climbed up this big netted rope to the top of a play area then a some choices as to were we could go walking or crawling through a tube. I went with the boys and crawled... bigger people aren't meant to do this. The boys just zoomed through then lid down the slide to the finish. I opted to take the stairs down not because I wanted to but because I was too big. There is that height restriction again. It can go both ways.
After the rope expedition, we tried out the rides that everyone could ride.This one was Elmo's Flying Fish. We also went on Oscar's Rockin Eels' a roller coaster ride that caleb actually liked. Abby's Sea Star Spin was another ride where you sit in a saucer thingy and have a wheel in the middle that you can spin. Caleb deemed himself the only one who could spin us. We went a number of times because there were no lines. What great fun.
Last but not least we did " Splish Splash" a water area for little kids. Caleb got his turn to be wet for the day. When he was done we gave him a diaper change and rang out his shirt he was soaked and loving it. There was another little boy about his age that ran around with him and joined in the fun. All the adults sat back on the benches and just laughed. Their expressions were hilarious!
Zach and Kirsten ran around the area too trying to miss the sprays of water shooting up from the ground.
Here we are at the end of the SeaWorld day! Exhausted from the walking and all the fun!. Caleb shirt is trying to dry on the stroller.

Seaworld, San Diego, CA Continued

At the dolphin discovery show we watch a family interact with the smaller whales and feed them fish. It was funny at some points.
The best part of the show was when the trainers rode on the whales or dolphins like in this picture the black rock is really a whale. I wasn't fast enough with the camera to get the really cool shots. It was pretty impressive!
After the show we headed over to the dolphin tank to visit the dolphins that hadn't performed in the show. Zach enjoyed the walk down view of the tank that you could see up close with.
When we went up top side a dolphin came up to Caleb and I. I came up right along side the cement and then blew it's blowhole out on Caleb and I. We felt so impressed that we were chosen to in essence get sneezed on. Then I was able to pet or feel it. It was very smooth and cool. The dolphin had enough contact and went back under before the other kids got a chance to feel it. But we stuck around and waited anyway. they are amazing to watch.
Finally we got to see the Shamu Show. Zach was in no way interested in getting wet anymore as he was still wet from the wreck ride and stood behind Nathan to be shielded. We didn't get wet though even though the trainers noticed our section got missed and tried again to get us wet. The kids enjoyed watch the enormous animals though.

SeaWorld, San diego, CA Continued

We were getting a little warm by the afternoon, (it being 80 degrees and all) so we jumped on the shipwreck rapids ride. Kirsten, Zach and I went down first and got mildly wet on our pants mostly. We loved the whole ride though.
We are still smiling we hadn't gotten cooled off yet. Zach is getting a little nervous now.
Then Nathan took the kids on again and I stayed back with Caleb. Being little stink sometimes. Zach had a wave of water come over the top of the raft and soaked him really good.
Here they are going up the belt at the end of the ride.
Here are the troopers at the end of the ride. Both kids pants are sagging from the weight of the water, but they had fun.

Seaworld, San Diego CA

The kids were so excited to go to seaworld on Monday! They were really excited about the sharks... or at least the boys were. We went down underground in tunnels and saw the different shark passing over us. We were close enough to see their hideous teeth. Zach loved every minute of it.
This is the largest shark tank underground and Zach stood here in ahh for a long time following the sharks. If you look in the top of the picture you'll see the belly of a huge shark.
Caleb was impressed by it all. He would run from one display to another. This big tuna fish caught his attention though. Look at his expression in the glass reflection.
Looking is great, but touching is soooooo much better at least for the kids. There was a star fish pond that you could reach in and catch a star although the attendant did require that you keep it in the water and not put it in your pocket. Caleb wanted to jump in a couple of times and the weather was beautiful but the water smell was not.
We also visited the seal and had the option to feed them some dead fish. My reaction was the same as caleb's to feeding the seals. This seal was waiting for his snack. Caleb is saying his favorite word these days, " ewhhhh."

Our next stop Hemet, CA

From St. George we made our way 6 hour drive to Uncle Sam, Aunt Carrie, Corey, Wyatt, Keegan, and Makensi Stevenson's house in Hemet, CA. It was superbowl sunday and of course the boys tuned into the game on the big TV. The kids didn't mind and took advantage of once again being without seatbelt restrants and jumped on the tramp and played with the dog... Daisy.
Keegan posed with the kids before heading off to school on monday morning. All the cousins were great in entertaining the kids with their toys and of course Daisy took the initiative to entertain to. Kirsten is playing tug of war in this shot.
Caleb never quite warmed up to Daisy even though Daisy tried her best to look small and nice. Caleb would shriek every time she came with in a foot of him. The other kids thought this was funny.
Zach and Kirsten almost stayed with Daisy and skipped the rest of the vacation.
Kirsten loved Daisy the most of course. She wants or has wanted to be a vet for as long as I can remember... although being a teacher is still in the running.

St. George, UT

We left on Saturday January 30, 2009 and stopped in St. George to visit Grandpa & Grandma Stevenson. Even though the kids had only been in the car for 3.5 hours, they enjoyed a walk around the housing park and ended up at the club house and the pond/ rocks drew their attention.
The movie Sound of Music has a song that says, " Climb every mountain." Zach's song is "climb every rock form..."
Caleb added his lerics to that song of Zach's with a "me too, me too."
Grandma likes to make everything look nice and so when the kids were exploring she started weeding. Before long she had some helpers. Grandma would pull a chunk of weeds and then hand them to Caleb and he would put them in the garbage can. He loved to help.
We enjoyed our visit to St. George. We had a yummy pizza factory dinner with Grandma fabulous salad and then a short game of the famous Mexican Train game. We were tired out from our many sleepless nights of flood control and didn't get to play long, but we loved every minute. We want a rematch! Before out grandparents left for church on Sunday morning we all posed for a group shot. Thanks for letting us stay with you guys! See you soon.