San Diego Day 5

This was the day we chose to go to the famous San Diego Zoo. It's really a huge zoo (http://www.sandiegozoo.org/zoo/zoo_map.html) and the map doesn't do justice to the hills. We did the bus tour first. Anna wasn't fond of it. She cried and tried to get off because it was too much like the airplane or maybe because she was simply tired. And it was an hour long ride with no chance to get off early. Luckily she settled down and things got better.

After the bus ride, we went to the children's section of the zoo. They have some cute things there that are smaller and closer together for the kids to see. Plus there was a petting zoo. William enjoyed touching the goats, but Anna wanted nothing to do with them.

After getting some lunch we decided to try the sky ride. It was included in our ticket, so I wanted to do it. Big mistake. Both kids were terrified and cried the whole time. It took us up to the far side of the park and dropped us without our strollers and with two kids who refused to get back on. I was not excited about dragging two tired kids up and down all the hills back to the entrance to get our stroller and go home. We looked at the exhibits around the sky-ride exit and then, in a moment of weakness, I stole a stroller. There were like 20 of them parked at the entrance to th sky ride. They were park strollers, rented for the day by people who didn't bring theirs. They were all completely empty, no jackets or snacks or diaper bags, so they seemed pretty abandoned. I was fairly certain that people rented them, used them to get to the top of the zoo and then balked at the thought of pushing them all the way back to the exit. Instead, they paid the $2 or so to ride the sky ride, leaving their rented stroller high and dry. That was my theory anyway. After pushing Anna around in one for a while, my conscience got to me and I tried to return it. Anna wasn't having any of that. She screamed and clung to the stroller for dear life. There was no way I would get her to walk the miles back to the exit. After seeing another family load into one of the unclaimed strollers, I asked the woman at the food booth beside them if I could take one too. She said sure and confirmed my theory of their being abandoned. I took a double one this time so that William could sit with Anna and started on the long journey back to the front of the zoo. Anna promptly fell asleep and I took the walk pretty slowly, being tired and hot myself. It took us about an hour to get back to the bottom of the sky ride where my little stroller sat patiently waiting. Anna again threw a fit when I tried to switch her over to our stroller. I guess she really liked the hard plastic of the zoo stroller better than our softly padded one. But I bribed her with ice cream and we made the switch. By the time we were done, I was ready to collapse. William wanted to ride the bus tour again, but Anna cried when we talked about it, so we headed to the car to go home instead.

On the way to the car we passed a little train ride that went through the park near the zoo. It looked like fun and Anna acted like she wanted to do it, so I bought us all tickets. As soon as we got on, Anna started to scream. She just wasn't in the mood for that kind of thing. Another failed attempt at amusing her, I guess. We made it through the trip with her crying and screaming and I headed to the car in defeat. It was not the best day of the trip, though it was slightly more fun than lying in bed with a migraine.

San Diego Day 4

Our 4th Day in San Diego was spent touring all the museums in Balboa Park. We started with the Model Railroad Museum. It was really neat with all the different sizes of model trains and some very creative track lay-outs. William had too much fun and mortified me by having an accident in the wooden train kids play area. We rushed out of there (after borrowing some paper towels from the front desk) and back to the hotel for a clean-up. Then, we hit the Aerospace Museum and the Natural History Museum. William wasn't as interested in them, but the Natural History Museum had a big-screen movie on oceans he enjoyed and it allowed Anna to get an hour's nap in the stroller in the dark theater. When the museums closed we spent some time playing by the fountain in the center of the pedestrian way and ate some snacks. Then, we went to the hotel for dinner. Daddy couldn't join us, so we ended up getting take-out from McDonalds and eating a picnic on the floor of our hotel room.

San Diego Day 2-3

We spent days 2 and 3 in Legoland. It was a ton of fun for William. Anna had limited things she could ride, but there was still enough to keep her busy. I especially loved the Lego Duplo play areas next to each line so while I stood in line, William could build with Duplos until I reached the front. Then, he came through the gate and joined me. That made the hour-long wait for some rides a little better. William had a blast driving his own little car and did pretty well at it (no track even). Anna enjoyed seeing all the things built out of Legos.

San Diego Day 1

June 2 was the first day of our San Diego Trip. We had flown down the night before and discovered that Anna is really not fond of airplanes. As soon as we took off she started screaming that she wanted to get off and trying everything she could think of to get away from us. Not fun. I got a migraine during the ordeal and didn't manage to shake it with my regular medicines, so I spent day 1 crashed in the hotel reconsidering whether I'd already met my life's goals and it could all end and I'd be OK. Luckily, the pain eventually went away and things didn't look so bleak anymore. Meanwhile, the kids and Kip picked up our San Diego Go Cards and went to the aquarium. They had a good time. They enjoyed the water play areas and Kip and Anna got eaten by a shark but William had too much good sense to let it get him.

When they were done at the aquarium they went to the temple grounds and enjoyed the peaceful setting. Then, they came back and we all went to dinner at a hole-in-the-wall Mexican place that was really good.

Cookie Party

We had a fun birthday party for William on the 28th. It was a day early, but more people could come that day since it was a holiday. We iced sugar cookies since he had decided his theme for the party should be cookies. William and Anna both really enjoyed the new swingset Daddy worked all day to put in.