San Diego Temple

After we left the Zoo we checked into a fun hotel close by the airport.  Think retro, mod, fun.  We even had a little friend to welcome us in our room!

Jaws!  There he was in his fish bowl mounted on the wall.  Ella loved it!  We had our own private balcony, so I got my little model to pose for some pictures.  Hark! The many faces of Gabriella.

Unfortunately for me the hotel had a fabulous restaurant and night life, so while Steve and Ella slept I was wide awake.  I have a wonderful husband, Steve offered to find us a new place for our last two nights so I could get some sleep.

The next day we checked out and made our way to the Temple.  We needed a rest day in-between the Zoo and Legoland.  As you drive along BOOM! there is the temple, right smack next to the interstate.  It was a lot like seeing the D.C Temple and it was huge.  We met some very nice people at the temple.  I was able to take some photos for two friends and a family that had stopped by to visit just like us.

Steve took some gorgeous photos and I got some fun shots of Ella. 

The Zoo!

OK…I think this is my last post for this trip—Meredith will have to pick up the rest, since it’s back to reality for me tomorrow (back to work).  We got to the zoo, and were greeted by a group of flamingos, as well as this handsome guy:

We started to plan our day, with Ella as our guide.

We decided to head toward the Pandas first, but along the way, came across a variety of sleeping bears:

OK…the last one wasn’t sleeping, but he looked like he was having a good time.  In his same area, I got a chance to see how our new lens would do up close:

We found the pandas, and they were pretty funny.  The male and female that were on display were in separate areas.  The male was passed out asleep on the ground, which didn’t really net a good photo.  The female on the other hand, was ticked off.

Apparently there had been some construction noise in the area earlier, and she was really mad—she paced back and forth the entire time we were there.

What a prima donna!  After that, we found some more flamingos.  I learned that there are actually several types of flamingos, of which two were present at the zoo—the lesser flamingo and the Caribbean (or American) flamingo.  The lesser had some crazy eyes—even if it wasn’t about to fly over and hurt me, it looked like it wanted to.

The Caribbean flamingo looked a lot nicer—perhaps the lesser flamingo had been used as a croquet mallet by the Red Queen or something.

There were a lot of birds around the area—I also caught a shot of this cool looking duck, and an egret.

After seeing the birds, we made our way up the hill toward the Polar Bears.  Unfortunately the real bears were behind pretty smudgy glass, so I don’t have any cool photos of them, but Ella really enjoyed the fake ones.

As we were working our way around the polar bear exhibit, we came across this family of ducks.  they were pretty awesome to watch, though exceptionally hard to get all of them in one photo.  This is about half of them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We walked around for a while, and saw lions, elephants, and lunch, and then we decided to try the bus tour.  Unfortunately, it took us to most of the park we had already seen, but at least we had some time to sit down, and take some more pictures.

We had an awesome time, and there was a LOT we didn’t get to see.  We were pooped, but happy to see such an amazing display of animals—as well as Ella’s delight in discovering so many new things.

Activity 1 –Bahia Hotel

So I figured that the easiest way to show you our trip would be to divide it into various activities, since that matches the themes of the trip pretty well.  For the first two nights, we stayed in the Bahia Hotel in Mission Bay, so we could be near the beach.

We had a lot of fun at the Bahia, and much of it revolves around the activities that the hotel provided.  On weekends in the offseason (and every day during the summer), the hotel provides free activities for kids.  While I think you can actually leave your kid with them, we just tagged along.  First, Ella (and then the rest of us) painted a treasure box.

For some reason, Meredith decided to turn the camera on me here.  I am apparently extremely amused.

I also include this picture for the sake of showing that I wasn’t sunburnt at least once during the trip.  This is the morning after we arrived.

After painting treasure boxes (and Ella coloring a photo album and playing some Candy Land), we headed out to see the Pacific Ocean (and didn’t take our camera, unfortunately).  I did, however, grab a cellphone photo of one of the monster pieces of pizza we had for lunch.

After lunch, we headed back to the hotel, where we built sandcastles with our friend from the hotel, and then lounged around the pool a bit.

After that, we went on a cruise of Mission Bay on the Bahia Belle.

We first grabbed some cool shots from the upper deck.

After sitting on the top for a few minutes (it was pretty windy, as you can tell from the first picture), we went down to the lower deck, where there was an entertainer singing children’s songs.  Ella walked in a patriotic “parade” and did the limbo.

They invited the parents to come in and do the Hokey Pokey at the end.  I joined in, and as you can see, by this time I was totally sunburnt.

When I get sunburnt, my skin burns hot, which makes it hard for me to sleep.   On the bright side, I was able to finish two of the three Hunger Games books in my sunburn evenings at the hotel.  After our two nights at the Bahia, I rented a car, so we could move on to our next adventures.  More on those in another post.  Before I go, I figured it’d be better to end on a more attractive picture than of my sunburned face. 

Just Got Back

Well, we just got back from San Diego yesterday afternoon!  It was a great trip, and we took a LOT of pictures (over 400 I think), so we’re sorting through things now.  In the meantime, here’s a pic I took of Ella at the Zoo.

Will be writing soon!

Little Sponge

Ella LOVES Miss Patti and LOVES school. This post is all about my little sponge. They are working on the solar system in class right now and have already finished up sections on Dinosaurs and Arctic Animals..oh! and she comes home telling us new Spanish words she has learned. Aside from all the great things she is learning she has really good recall...things we did months or even a year ago she remembers. Today my friend Kimberly suggested we take Ella to the Nature and Science Museum and while there Ella talked about how my sister's toe was pinched by a crab. That was a while back so maybe it's because my memory is so poor but I'm banking that she got some of her daddy's smarts and a photographic memory. As soon as we entered she saw Elasmosaurus hanging from the ceiling and sang Kimberly the song she learned about it. It was a really fun day!!! Here are pics!