San Diego 2007

So we made it to San Diego in our canary-yellow PT Cruiser, and without wasting any time we headed straight over to the San Diego Zoo. Man, is that zoo immense. I venture to say a few little legs didn't even see half of that place, but we sure enjoyed what we saw.


Here's Evan tickling a bronze statue of a gorilla.


More of Evan "monkeying" around.


The giant panda bear really was impressive. Hollyn greeted it with an affectionate "oooohhhh."

The little warthog babies were cute in an ugly pig'ish sort of way.


This hippo was very impressive in its size and how graceful it would float through the water. At one point it came straight towards the glass and intimidated Evan a bit.


The statues were a great chance to rest and take a couple pics.


Can't recall what these were called.


If you look close over Evan's left shoulder you'll see an alligator lying on the ground. Evan thought that was pretty cool.


Tribal Evan!

Not quite a fit, but still cute!


The petting zoo was a smash. Evan got to hand feed straw to goats and sheep. Hollyn gave it a whirl too, but ended up just throwing the straw on the goat's back most of the time.


After the zoo we went looking for a place to find some dinner. A hotel worker told us Mission Beach had some nice places, so we found a little pizza joint right off the beach front. Evan loves playing in the sand and water, but Hollyn isn't quite so fond of it all.


The next morning brought a 30 mile trip north to Legoland. What a fun place for little kids to go. Almost everything there is made of legos.


Hollyn shoots water into lego-alligators...with a little help, of course.


This rope ride ended up being a bit more "work" than Daddy thought it would be. We pulled ourselves to the top, then let go for a fun little drop. Evan loved the rush.


Evan earned his "driver's license" on this Volvo lego race course. We told him he had to drive us back to the hotel but he said no.


These "helicopters" weren't quite as fun as I thought they'd be. Two controls allow you to go up-n-down or left-n-right, but it's done in such a gradual manner, it really wasn't as exciting as it looks.


Posing on the lego lion.

More lego statues.



This water canon ride would have been a lot more fun if Evan and I would have had ANYONE to shoot at. Instead it felt much more like we were sitting ducks. People standing by waiting to ride could fire on us from the sidelines. We still had fun though.


Evan's favorite part of the day was probably just splashing in the water area. He would'a stayed in there forever if we would have let him.


Hollyn enjoys a relaxing swing while Evan runs wild in the background.


Every so often a bucket would fill and dump on whoever stood below. Evan took great delight in being its victim.


We capped the day by riding this fun roller coaster. At this point it felt like we were shooting straight down!


Evan thought it was cool that the lego guy had "lego guy hands."


Day 3 in San Diego was SeaWorld, and the first thing Evan wanted to see was the SHARKS! SeaWorld has a tunnel that runs through the shark tank. Pretty creepy having all those teeth that close to your head.

No contest who the big mouth here is!


SeaWorld had a bunch of great shows. The first we saw was called "Clyde and Seamore's Risky Rescue" and featured a couple sea lions and walrus. Hollyn thought the sea lions were pretty funny.


The next show was Dolphin Discover. Very cool stuff, but we learned the hard way that Evan was devastated we didn't sit in the first 12 rows (soak zone) to get splashed. Heather took him back to a later showing just to make sure he got drenched!




The pride of SeaWorld is obviously the Shamu show. Truly amazing to see these huge whales glide through the water and explode into the sky.


Here three or four whales blast the audience with their tails.


All in all this vacation definitely rated as a 10. The kids had so much fun and we made so many great memories. We definitely pushed the limits of what we could pack into a six day trip, and although we are still recovering, we wouldn't have changed a thing. Hope you all enjoyed the pictures.