San Diego: the park I forgot . . .

So, as my mom and Erica made me realize, I forgot a park in my last post. We also went to the Zoo's Wild Animal Park, which they are renaming the Safari Park at the moment.



We were a bit "looking at animals"ed out by the time we got there, but it was a good park. Only deserted! I guess the off season is not kind to this place, because there was hardly anyone there on a Saturday. We walked past the "hour and a half wait from this point" sign and hopped right on the tour. Once again, moving tram rides are not a good place to take good pictures from, but this baby rhino was adorable. And we saw lot of other cool stuff too.



These birds were fun. If anyone bought the food and came into the aviary, half a dozen of them would land on the person to get the food.



But the highlight of the day (at least for Kaitlyn) was the carousel. We thought the kids would love the "talk to a zebra" show where a cartoon zebra comes and talks to the audience, but they were too shy (and there were only 2 other kids in the audience for this poor guy to talk to). But Kaitlyn had ridden on a carousel just like this at Hogle Zoo, and spotted it from a long ways off. We talked her out of it at first because it looked like it was $2 a ride, but it turns out it was included with our 3 for 1 ticket!



When we walked up, the carousel was stopped because there was no one to ride it. And the nice lady told us we could stay on and switch animals, just riding as long as we wanted to.



Kaitlyn was in heaven. She picked out one animal, and then another. She studied mechanism that moved it up and down. She was soooo happy.



But after four rides (all of which were past her nap time) mommy and daddy were quite dizzy. That poor girl sobbed and sobbed when we pried her off. I still feel bad. But Christopher pointed out that she would probably scream after the 8th ride as well, so off we went.



They really were tired. They did this almost every day, actually. And Tyler doesn't normally take naps. But worn out by too many fun things in one day is a good day for toddlers.

San Diego: Parks

Our first stop on the "places to tour" list was the Zoo.



Neither Christopher nor I had been there since we were 12 or so, and so all we can remember is that it is A: huge/amazing and B: full of hills. Oh, and I remember getting my food in a cool little bucket. All of those things are quite true, in fact. It was a great zoo. We especially loved that they have a tour on a bus, so even if you spend the rest of the day trudging around and barely see anything else, you can leave feeling like to got to see the whole zoo.



Of course, moving buses are not good places to take pictures from. That one above is the best I could do. I have to say that nature and wildlife photography is the type that draws me the most . . . but I just don't have time for it. If I wanted to take awesome pictures of animals, I would need to set up a tripod and spend an hour or two waiting for each animal to do just what I wanted to see them do. Not happening with toddlers. Oh well, I can enjoy it for a few minutes at a time. I spend the rest of my time trying to make my monkey stop climbing on all of the fences to see things better.



Sorta like this monkey. (Don't let the mean face scare you, he was acutally laughing at me.)



Good thing there were productive things for my monkey to do. Like pretending to be a sea lion.



Or a polar bear.



Tyler is a tough sell on zoos, mainly because he doesn't really like to look at what people tell him to look at. So finding the animals off in the distance isn't really his thing. Kaitlyn was happy enough for both of them, though.



And he did like petting the goats. That was nice and up close for him.



And lunch. We packed our own sandwiches, but the tables were sure cute.



We also went and saw a sea lion show. This little girl was picked out of the audience to play with them, and when she headed back up to her seat, Kaitlyn turned to me and said "my turn?!" Sorry, nope.




Our next stop was Sea World. This was my husband's favorite park, since there was a lot of fun stuff to see and it was all close together (with no hills).



Tyler thought the dolphin show was hilarious- he laughed whenever they jumped out of the water.



And I loved the acrobats they had performing with the dolphins - it was very impressive!



The Shamu show was a fun challenge for me. It was a really fun game to try and watch the trainers and the dark blobs under the water to try and guess where the killer whales were going to jump up next. And I am really proud of this shot! You know, minus the stairs in the background.




There were a lot of fun things to see and do too - the kids loved touching the starfish with daddy, and I think the penguins were pretty cool too.



Also on our list was a trip to Old Town. We didn't head there early enough in the day to see everything we wanted to, but we did get to the Mormon Batallion museum. They have some fun toddler things at the end, like making bricks and panning for gold.




And last, but not least, we headed to the USS Midway. This is a view from our sailing trip a few days before. It is a large aircraft carrier that you can tour, complete with over a dozen aircraft sitting on it.



I was really looking forward to this one because my dad was actually stationed on a carrier just like this in Vietnam. His was called the USS Oriskany. We can't tour that one, though- they sunk it intentionally off the coast of Florida to make an artificial reef. Well, you can tour it, if you know how to scuba dive.

But I digress.

The kids were a bit bored with the rest of the tour (which fascinated us), but they did like sitting in the cockpits whenever they got the chance.



The rest of the tour was interesting though. We were especially suprised by the enlisted men's barracks - where my dad would have slept. They were stacked three high in tiny little mattresses. It was bad enough when we saw the first stack, done up in the hallway so you could see what they looked like. Then we passed an entire room full of them. They must have packed thirty people in a room 12x20, it felt like. And you didn't even get a bed to yourself - they rotated shifts on them!



I talked to my dad before we left about what his job was on the ship. He said he was a "communications yeoman", and it was his job to sit in the squadron ready room (VA Squadron 153) and sort through messeges, relaying them back and forth, as well as writing in the pilot's log books for them. Twelve hours on, then twelve hours off, seven days a week.

Best I could figure, this guy right here was my dad, sitting at a desk in the ready room.



I don't know that it meant much to anyone else, but I thought it was really cool to see a bit of . . . family history like that. It was fun to talk to my parents about the years that they lived in San Diego, the things my dad did in the Navy while he was stationed there, and all of their memories.

It was a great trip!

San Diego: Water

One of the first things we wanted to do was go sailing. Christopher just finished taking a sailing course here in Utah, as his latest hobby, and was really pumped to take us all out on a boat. So we rented one of these and headed out.



The picture didn't turn out well, but I did think it was funny when Kaitlyn decided to help Tyler get his life jacket on.



And with that done, we were off! It was a bit of a cloudy morning, but the wind was just great.





Kaitlyn liked to help Daddy steer the boat.



We sailed close to the downtown area, and got some great views.



It was a lot of fun!



And of course, you can't leave without going to the beach at least once. We went once in the early evening, and once in the morning. The kids had a lot of fun- Kaitlyn loved to walk out a bit and then she and Daddy would "run away!" when the waves came at them.



I had fun testing out beach and sunset photography.



And Tyler was in heaven, with the biggest "sandbox" he had ever seen. I think that kid would have stayed out there digging an entire day if we let him.



Kaitlyn got into the sand a bit too, and made a lovely wall.



Now, I am not usually a "trendy" photography person. I like traditional pictures, not the tilted, sunburst, over-photoshopped stuff that everyone else goes for. But I did love this look. The bright colors look great with this action!



On our second trip to the beach, Christopher rented a surfboard. He loved surfing in Maui, but found it was a bit trickier than expected here. The waves didn't break for nearly as long. But he still had fun, and we even saw some dolphins that swam right up next to the surfers!

San Diego! (Part 1)

When we were picking out a vacation for this year, we debated on if we were going as a couple or a family. Last year we went on a cruise in the Mediterranean as a couple, but since we just got a chance to go to St. Thomas alone as well we felt it was time to include the little people in this. The problem is that toddlers, in general, aren't fond of traveling. We needed a place with lots of things for them to do.

San Diego to the rescue! I have to say, we fell in love with this place after spending a week there. Did you know that the year round temperature is high 75 low 55? ALL YEAR? My family lived there for many years before I was born, and my mom said that she didn't miss the variation of Utah climate one single bit while she was there.

Anyway, we debated on staying at a beachfront resort, but the online reviews showed me that those places mostly overcharge for smelly and dingy rooms, because they have the location and don't need anything else. We stayed at a Homewood Suites right next to the airport, and (at the risk of sounding like a commercial) would never stay anywhere else! The area is much more quiet and family friendly, and our two bedroom suite meant we could give the kids their own room. Free hot breakfast, parking and internet- all things that were expensive at the beachfront places - yeah, pretty awesome.

Enough with that though. On to the pictures.



This walkway bordered the water behind the hotel, and was great for walking around on. And finding cool flowers to take pictures of. I have to admit I am madly in love with Bird of Paradise.



I don't know what this flower is, but it reminded me of a Christmas ornament.




Tyler loved the bridge, and the ship that is right next to the hotel. In the sand. I guess the Navy (including my dad, when he was stationed there) used to use it to for training. Not that I got a picture of the ship itself.






This playground, part of a very large park and only half of the playground itself, was about a five minute walk from our room. The kids LOVED that. I thought it was fun that they had sand in there for kids to dig in as well as stuff to climb on.




Kaitlyn loved spinning on this thing SO MUCH. She had to learn to wait when other kids were on it, but once she got on she wanted to go as fast as possible. I thought she was going to make herself sick. She did make Tyler very dizzy though- we laughed hysterically while he tottered off a couple of times. Is that mean?



We did a lot of things while we were there, and I will have to make seperate posts for those. But since we our first full day there was a Sunday, I thought it would be great to take the kids to the temple and have a little lesson and picnic on the grounds. And since my attempts to get family pictures taken have all fallen through lately, I decided we would get dressed up for pictures and make use of my tripod, since all temples have beautiful grounds that are perfect for family pictures.

Problem #1:
It turns out that the gates to the temple grounds are locked on Sundays.



Problem #2:
The temple is half covered in scaffolding.



I did manage to find a nice spot in the driveway for pictures, and decided we could make the best of things and try anyway. Which brings me to . . .

Problem #3:
Not only do people not smile very well for a camera with no person behind it (this is a composite of many shots to get all the smiles) but humidity makes my nice, shiny and sleek hairdo into a frizzy mess. This is also the only visual evidence I have that I was on this trip.



Sigh.

Thankfully, everything else we did turned out great.

School time

I've seen a lot of my friends blogging about sending their kids to school in the last week. Many of you are reported tears as you dropped off your Kindergardener or First Grader, and couldn't fathom being without your little one for so long.

It is a bit of a different experience for me. Tyler has been in programs and schools for years now, despite the fact that he is still a little four year old in diapers. This is the longest for us yet: four days a week, gone all day. But it isn't new to me. I wasn't upset about him being gone today. But I am quite nervous if we are doing the right thing for him.

It is a new school, once again. The wonderful school that he went to this summer didn't have enough room for him at the moment, so we are back with the school district. I have mixed feelings about this. It is nice to have free school that picks him up and drops him back off again. But this class, while only 10 kids and 3 teachers, is for Autistic kids only. And Tyler isn't actually fully Autistic. The teacher talked a lot about how she tailors everything to each kid, so hopefully that will make up for it. But I was quite concerned yesterday when the teacher was describing things they do in the classroom, and showing things that Tyler was working on two years ago. I'm not trying to say he is too advanced for this class, but . . . I just don't know if it is the right fit. He is a very high-functioning kiddo, who can talk and interact with us a lot. I just don't know how many of those in his class are the same way. He does still need a lot of help though, and it is help I am not qualified to give him all by myself.

The upside is that by the time the wonderful (and expensive) school has room for him again, I will have checked out all the options available to me. I won't have to wonder what this other school might be like, or if there is something we haven't tried yet. I will have spent time in each option, and so I can make a good decision.

I hope.