Bubba Gump

AJ on the drive home Ayden and Ashten at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company

The boys were excited to see Sponge Bob

Today, we were on our way home and decided to stop in San Francisco. We didn't even get there until dinner time, but Armand really wanted to stop. We went to Bubba Gump Shrimp Company for dinner. It was good but too expensive. Afterwards, we walked around, looked at the shops and watched the street performers. The kids loved the guy who spray paints pictures of San Francisco. It is really cool how they do that. Have you ever seen them? Anyway it was just a quick stop here and then we got back on the road to head home. Armand decided that he wanted to drive straight through. It was a horrible trip home and took me days to recover.

Hollywood

Mommy and the boys at the Chinese Theatre Daddy and the boys at the Theatre

The Walk of Fame
The kids in front of Disney's Soda shop, I guess they didn't get enough of Disney in Disneyland

AJ and Ashten checking out Donald's star
Ayden playing in the fountain
He played for the longest the other boys took their time going in

Anderson was next in Ashten just sat by for a long time watching the other boys play. He was funny too, he would stand there and time it just right so that he could run into the middle of the without getting soaked. He stayed very dry for most of the time, this got many people's attention causing people to turn on their camera's (if they weren't on Ayden and AJ already.)

After helping me start some laundry (we stayed a couple of days longer than planned and ran out of clothes) the kids crashed. Aren't they too cute and cuddly.

This morning we got up and drove to Hollywood. I have never been there so I thought it was pretty exciting. It is not really a place kids would ever want to go, but we made it as fun as we could for the boys. The kids thought that it was cool to see the Stars on the Walk of Fame. Especially since some of them were "people" they would know like Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, and Donald Duck. We walked up and down Hollywood Boulevard for most of the day. We saw many interesting characters. Gene Simmons, Jack Sparrow, Superman, and a random jungle man with very little clothes (think Tarzan's loin cloth.) The kids thought they were pretty cool. Later in the afternoon a man talked us into going on the Hollywood Tour. We got to see many famous people's home including, Christina Aguilera's home which used to be the Osborne's, Michael Jackson's home, and my personal fave Lauren Conrad's house. We also drove down Rodeo Drive, and around other famous Hollywood spots. It was so cute because we would stop and look at these famous homes, which the kids didn't get at all. I thought they would be bored but Ayden thought we were just looking at nice houses so he would yell out every time he saw one that he liked, "Mommy, look at that house isn't it pretty."

After the tour, we were starving so we found a delicious Sushi place to have dinner. By the time we finished eating it was getting dark out and it is true that 'the freaks come out at night'. We stopped in an outdoor mall type place for some ice cream. Inside there was a huge fountain. The kids loved it and were running though it. Getting completely soaked! The boys had quite the audience. They made it to a lot of other people's home videos as they danced in and ran through the fountain. At home we wouldn't be able to get wet at this time of night because it would be too cold, but here it was still like a Washington summer day. The Californians probably thought we were nuts! Anyway, we made our way back to the car when they were done playing and got them into dry clothes, then we headed to our hotel that we had booked over dinner. It was a great day and so much more relaxing than the past week had been.

The San Diego Zoo

Mommy and the boys

Mommy and baby Koala...what a life
Isn't this eagle cool?! It is SO huge and pretty that it just looks so fake.
Anderson and Ayden checking the map. Where should we go next?

The Map...crazy right? We actually had to put X's through the places we had seen because it was so overwhelming.

The polar bear was swimming around, usually when I go to the zoo all the animals are laying around being bums.

Brothers

Not sure what we were looking at here
Camel, watch out may spit.
Armand loved the peacock on the roof, we spent several minutes waiting for him to get many pictures of it.
Armand likes lots of posed pictures ... lucky me:(

Ashten, AJ, and Ayden

Ashty riding the sabre tooth
I loved how the animal areas seemed so open, not like cages

Today is our last day in San Diego. We headed to the zoo after waking up late again. We've really wasted hours sleeping that could have been spent in a park, but this vacation has been nonstop so a little rest is necessary, (at least for Mom and Dad) the kids have been doing fine with the lack of sleep. Like the Animal Park yesterday this zoo is huge and overwhelming. It's so big that they have buses and bus stops that run throughout the zoo. We made use of these several times today because we would get to a point where we were going to have double back over a place we had already seen, or else we would realize we didn't have much time to see all the animals so we had to choose between them.

As soon as we got in the zoo we realized that the camera battery was almost dead...bummer! It was almost kind of nice not to have to be worrying about taking pictures the whole time, but at the same time I think the kids are so young that if they don't see the pictures they will not remember this trip.

Anyway, this zoo is so cool! There were a few 'features' that we were amazed by. One of them is the moving sidewalks. They took you from the bottom of a very large hill up to the top of it. Along the way you get to see into the animal homes. At the top of one of them is a bird aviary (I think that's what it's called). This was another really great place. Inside were waterfalls and bridges, and of course birds. The other really fun part is that we got to see a lot of animal babies. The baby rhino koala, and elephants were adorable. I wish we would have had more time at both of the parks here, but we made the most out of the time we did have, running nonstop until it closed. Afterwards, guess where we went?!? Yep, back to Sea World. This time we got there early enough that I could go on the Atlantis roller coaster again. I asked Ayden one more time if he wanted to go with me and he said YES! We got in and he started crying. The first day we were here Ashten had to get out because he was crying, so I said if you cry you can't come with me. He did his best to stop, and off we went! The people in our same car were very loud and excitable which only scared Ayden because they were screaming when there wasn't anything scary. He did fine until we went down the huge waterfall. Then he was super scared. He knew that was the easy part. Anyway, it was funny because as soon as we got off the roller coaster he said 'Mommy, you said you would buy me anything I wanted from the gift shop, if I went on the ride with you.' Oops he was right, I had said that two days ago.

The other thing we really wanted to do on our last day there was to sit in the splash zone at the Shamu show. We sat right up front, and there was no one in front of us. We stayed pretty dry until the last couple of minutes of the show, then we were SOAKED! It was GREAT!! The kids had mixed feelings about it, but they were fine after it was over. (It's a little shocking when it happens because the water is SO cold, and salty.) Anyway, off we went to go find Ayden his choice of toys there. The average cost of something in the gift shop is probably about $40.00. We were lucky that he found a basketball hoop for his bedroom door for only $11.00. What a good boy;) That's our day, we got back to the room and we all crashed nice and early.

Wild Animal Park

Our familyLucky boy getting to ride around
The kids weren't the biggest fans of the areas that had birds because those parts smelled really bad
Ashten, AJ, Armand, Amie, and Ayden at the Wild Animal Park My boys

Pretending to be a dinosaur hatching from this egg

Ayden and Ashten

Isn't the park beautiful. That balloon is something you can pay to go up, so you can see the whole park from the sky.

Checking out the birds and antelope

Ayden loved looking through the telescopes, I think we stopped at every single one Ayden and Anderson feeding the ducks

This is one of the 'animal encounters' we stopped and watched. Look how high that cat can jump!

The kids were fascinated by the fact that someone got their car stuck here.

AJ was loving the splash park here. The weather was perfect. I think Armand and I were both wishing we were kids so we could run through the park and cool off. Ayden loved it too, Ashten was the only one who wanted to stay dry.

The elephants were great! Right next to their area there was a camp set up where you could pay to stay the night and sleep right next to them.
My monkey

He looks so natural there

We woke up late, and I had to take a final this morning, so we were off to a later start. We go some breakfast and headed out. Since we bought the 5 day 3 park pass yesterday, we decided that the Wild Animal Park would be fun and thought we might be able to get through the whole thing in the amount of time we had. We were wrong we couldn't make it through it. The park is 1800 acres. http://www.sandiegozoo.org/wap/wap_map.html <--This is the map I was trying to post the actual map here, but I couldn't figure it out. Anyway, it is an amazing place. They have so many different animals. The kids loved it, but at this point it was so hot and we had been walking so much and staying up so late, that we tried to take it easy and not make it a priority to see every single animal. The park closes fairly early, so we went to dinner afterwards, and then decided to go back to Sea World for the night time Shamu show. Can you tell we really loved it!

Sea World

Ashten, Ayden, Grammy, Anderson, and Papa feeding the seals Look at the look on Ashty's face when a bird swooped in and stole the fish from him

The Dolphin Show During the dolphin show we sat in the splash zone, they aren't kidding.

Brad, Taylor, Britany, and Tana

Ayden didn't love the salty water burning all his little cuts on his knees. Seriously, if I had a dollar for every time one of my kids fell on this trip I would be very rich!

My boys checking out the flamingos they were fascinated that the birds could stand on one leg.

There was this spray park inside of Sea World. It was every mom's worst nightmare. There was no gate or anyway to keep them in that part of the park and it was a huge area. So being that there are 3 kids versus 2 adults, it was very crazy. Luckily, everyone was found, but just in case I had written my cell phone number on all of the boys' bodies. Next trip like this I will bring a sharpie!

The kids visiting the Clydesdale, mostly for Armand's entertainment.

Tana waiting for everyone to get back from riding the Atlantis roller coaster.

Taylor

AJ was watching for Daddy to come down the waterfall part

Brad, Ayden, and Armand on the Journey to Atlantis

Ashten ended up chickening out so Britany brought him back to me.
The calm before the storm

Brad, Me, and Armand We stopped in to see this show, it was like Saturday Night Live it was pretty funny. This is the Shamu impersonator (the walrus). Were laughing our heads off!
Walking through the shark tank

Our first Shamu show

This morning we woke up, had breakfast, and went to buy some shoes (my feet were dying) and Armand just wanted some shoes. Brad, Britany, and the girls, and Mom and Dad all trekked down to San Diego, about an hour away. It was a beautiful day despite the weather forecast of low 60's and possible rain. I don't think I had ever been to Sea World before so I was surprised that had rides there. It is a really cool park. Our favorite parts were the shows especially if we got to get wet. We also went on the rides. The best one there was the water roller coaster. Almost as soon as you got on it you were dropping down a water fall, then there was this elevator that the car rolled into that lifted you up while tipping you side to side...very creepy. Ayden and Ashten had been on some big rides at Disneyland, but for some reason they did not want to go on it. Ayden went once and then said he wouldn't go again, but I wanted him to come with me so I tried bribing him with choosing anything out of the gift shop, he must have been pretty traumatized because he wouldn't even consider it. Anyway, we watch a few shows, ate WAY too much (Armand). They had this deal where you pay so much and you can eat all day whenever, whatever you want. Armand's goal was to make his money back and then some. We were successful. I think everyone in our group helped him achieve that goal. Anyway the coolest part of Sea World was the end of the day when they do the nighttime Shamu show. It was great with cool lights, good music, and Shamu of course. Anyway, after a long day we had no hotel to go to so we had Dad find us a hotel on Hotwire and paid only $60 for a super nice hotel. (Which made me even more annoyed about paying $53 for the Motel 6). When we got to our room I worked on my finals a bit, while everyone else crashed. It has been so easy to get the kids to sleep this week. I am loving it;)