San Diego

Lately Rachel has been fascinated with animals...dogs, cats, birds. So when Steven decided to take this week off, we thought that a trip to the San Diego Zoo was a perfect thing to do.

We went to the Zoo yesterday. We had a great time and was blessed with beautiful weather. The sun was bright and shinning and it hasn't too hot. Most of the animals were out and about and easily spotted. Because this zoo is so big, there are buses you can hop on and off of at several spots throughout the park. Knowing this ahead of time, I planned to not use the stroller and just take advantage of using the bus. We ended up only taking the guided tour and didn't use the bus the remainder of the day, Rachel walked just about the entire day and did a great job at it. It was so much easier just carrying the backpack and not hassling with the stroller.

This was Rachel's first time to the San Diego Zoo, and she loved seeing all the animals this zoo has to offer. In the middle of the day, Rachel spotted a little girl who had had her face painted to look like a Dalmation puppy face. Rachel wanted a "puppy face". Seeing how the prices are cheaper than what we're used to at Disneyland, we told the girls we'd get their face painted. However, upon discovering that the price to have the entire face painted was $11.95, we went into the nearest souvenior store and were able to get off with purchasing them each a Panda mask. LOL. These are just a few of the many pictures I took on our adventure at the San Diego Zoo. To see more of our pictures, you can see them here.

A trip to San Diego wouldn't be complete without having dinner at our favorite Mexican restaraunt. Over the course of enjoying our dinner, we decided we weren't ready to go home and wanted to explore some more of San Diego. We made our way to the only place we knew we could access the internet, The Apple Store, and got on Orbitz to look for the best hotel deal. Rachel didn't quite understand it when Hannah kept telling her we were going to spend the night. But for someone who was falling asleep at dinner, she found another burst of energy once we got to the hotel room. The girls wanted snacks, and at 10:00pm, a trip was made to the vending machine and both girls came back to the room with chocolate. One of the enjoyments of being on vacation - having candy at 10:00pm. LOL. Rachel eventually fell asleep, clutching onto her bag of M&M's. This morning we got up and took advantage of the free breakfast the hotel had and then we were off. The USS Midway is on display and open for tours, so we planned to head there. However, it didn't open until 10:00am, so we walked Front Street and looked at the Tall Ships on display. The Midway was a fun adventure (althougth not if your prone to claustrophia). Rachel enjoyed all the little areas she could explore, and did well for the four hours it took to explore the aircraft carrier. After the Midway, we headed towards home, with one more destination in mind, The San Diego Wild Animal Park. We barely made it in time before they closed the gates to incoming guests. We had only an hour before we had to be off the grounds, so we went straight for the Safari tour that takes you out onto the animal grounds. This is a new tour, as their old way of touring the grounds got too expensive to repair, etc. This tour takes you in trams out on the animal grounds were you are eye level with the animals, which was awesome!When our tour was over, the Park was officially closed and we needed to make our way out. Rachel was disappointed she wasn't getting to see more animals. Now that we have a membership to both the Animal Park and the Zoo, we'll be back when we can spend more time there.

We had a great two days in San Diego. Rachel really enjoyed all the animals she got to see. And it was fun getting away.