A Seriously Good Weekend

I was going to write up the next installment of my trip stories from our recent Colorado vacation, but I decided I wanted to tell you about my weekend, instead, because it was a really good one. I'll post about our visit to Colorado Springs later this week.

Our weekend started with a Friday evening visit to our local park after dinner. Mr. Snarky got off work early, so we had a slightly early dinner, which gave us time to walk down to our park and play a bit before bathtime. The kids were delighted by the change in routine, and didn't even complain about the fact that we were walking to the park instead of driving.

Saturday morning, we took a trip to the new downtown San Diego Library, which was one of the things I'd put on our 2014 Family Fun List. It was indeed a very fun trip. My biggest complaint is that when I searched Google Maps for "parking near (the address of the library)" it didn't show me that there was parking actually AT the library. So we ended up walking a lot farther than we had to. That was not a huge deal, although the kids sort of ran out of steam on the way back to the car and I ended up carrying Petunia quite a bit. So, note to other San Diegans: there is parking at the library, and the first two hours are free with validation. We'll use that next time.

The library itself was nice. There is a good-sized children's room, with lots and lots of computers (which the kids loved) and a kids' non-fiction section. We often struggle to find non-fiction books for Pumpkin at out branch, because there the kids' non-fiction is mixed in with the grown up non-fiction, so you can't really browse.

After we checked out our books at the fancy self-checkout counter (which the kids also loved), we headed to the downtown location of the Broken Yolk for breakfast for lunch. We had a rare meal in which everyone liked what they ordered at ate without whining.

Saturday afternoon, I delivered on a promise to Pumpkin and took the kids to get a Hawaiian Shaved Ice. There is a place called Ice Blast that isn't too far from us. It was the first shaved ice any of us had tried, but we all liked it and agreed it was much nicer than a regular snowcone.

The shaved ice place is in one of the parts of town where Asian business cluster, so I was intrigued by the bakery in the same mall. I wondered if it might be a place with interesting Asian pastries, similar to 85°C. So after we finished our shaved ices, we went to check it out. The Big Joy Bakery turned out to be more about cakes and cookies (they also have sandwiches and coffee) than pastries, but it was still quite good! I let the kids each pick out a cookie, and I bought a slice of a passionfruit mousse cake to take home to Mr. Snarky. They also had some other interesting looking cakes, like a green tea cake with custard filling, so perhaps we'll go back as a family some time and sample more of their offerings.

Sunday, Mr. Snarky went for a long run, and the kids played nicely together for an entire hour while I wrote a post for my Tungsten Hippo site. It is a "read together" post, in which I recommend two short ebooks that I liked on their own but think complement each other to make an even better pairing, sort of like a wine and cheese pairing.

A little later, we went to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's. The kids had a blast, and I managed to stay pretty zen about the noise and chaos until the very end, when I had to restrain myself from yelling at the people who were creating extra chaos at the counter where you exchange your tickets for crappy plastic things and candy. This may be a new record for me, though, so perhaps I am finally learning how to get into the Chuck E. Cheese spirit.

We ended the day with a visit to some friends for a swim and BBQ. The swim was almost ruined by the fact that we forgot to bring the kids' googles, but luckily two of the adults who came had goggles and didn't mind sharing them. Thanks to the rescue goggles, the kids had a great time swimming. I am blown away watching Pumpkin swim. She is a strong swimmer now, and has a particularly beautiful butterfly stroke. I look at her swimming and flash back to her early days in swim lessons, when she essentially just sank if the teacher let go of her. Petunia is not quite as strong a swimmer as Pumpkin (yet!) but she has more body fat, so she floats a bit better. Also, she is fearless and loves to swim. After the swim, the kids, Mr. Snarky, and one of our friends went to the park in our friends' complex and had races with the crappy rocket launchers we had bought with our Chuck E. Cheese tickets earlier. Then we had a delicious BBQ followed by an even more delicious pavlova (our friends are Kiwis).

Since this is a three-day weekend, we got an extra day for fun. Pumpkin really wanted to go to Pelly's Mini Golf to show it to us- she'd gone there on a camp field trip. Our kids do best if they have something organized to do for at least part of the day, so we headed up to Del Mar this morning and played a round of golf. I have to hand it to Pumpkin. It is a really nice course and we all had fun.

Not shown: the cool ocean breezes

Petunia has a very unusual golf style, but she loves to play.

Her stance is uncharacteristically normal in this shot. She often holds the club backwards.

And she scored two holes in one, so perhaps I should ask her for advice instead of trying to fix her stance!

I demonstrate my so-so golf skills

 All in all, it has been a great weekend. Pumpkin starts second grade tomorrow, so this is officially our last summer weekend. Unofficially though, summer goes on at least through September, and we have more fun planned. The San Diego Pacific Islander Festival is coming up, and we want to go this year. Mr. Snarky and I went one year, and we've been meaning to take the kids pretty much since Pumpkin was two. This year, I wrote the date on our calendar, so I suspect we'll actually make it. We'll probably sneak another beach day in, too.

So, I'm not sad to see summer end. If anything, I'm excited to be able to walk Pumpkin to school in the mornings again, instead of driving her down to the YMCA for her summer camp. Still, I'm glad we've seen the official summer off in such style. And really, we've still got more seeing off to do- Mr. Snarky and the kids are in the back yard having a water gun fight. I think I'll join them!

Another Way to Enjoy a Half Day

Awhile back, I wrote about taking a half day from work and treating myself to a chill-out afternoon, at the local mall because it is convenient to work and day care, has a restaurant that serves quite drinkable margaritas, and has comfy outdoor chairs in which to read.

Today, I took another sort of half day, which was far more tiring but still quite restorative.

I took Petunia to the zoo.

I told her about my plan last week, and every day since I told her, she asked how many days until we would go to the zoo. She was unbelievably excited about our zoo day. So excited that she insisted I wash her favorite Minnie Mouse dress, which was a handmade birthday gift from my Mom, and which must be worn with her favorite Minnie Mouse shoes and Minnie Mouse socks and, yes, Minnie Mouse underwear (and yes, we will change our underwear if we find we're wearing Dora underwear on a day on which we want to wear our Minnie dress).

Anyway, I picked her up at about 12:30, and we drove down to the zoo. She was very excited to get to carry the map without having to fight her big sister for the prerogative, and in fact insisted that we stop almost as soon as we got the map and figure out where to go.

We decided to go see the monkeys first, because she wanted to know how monkeys sleep, and her teacher at day care didn't know. Luckily, the San Diego Zoo has an entire Monkey Trail, and even more luckily, one of the monkeys (a Colombo monkey) was sleeping when we came upon him (or her, I didn't check). Based on the evidence in front of us, we decided that monkeys sleep in trees.

Then she wanted to go see the zebras. I convinced her that we'd need to stop and see some birds and hippos before we got to the zebras, and the map came in quite handy for this. I also got to stop and see the okapis, because (1) they are right next to the hippos and (2) they are my favorite zoo animal (I sympathize with the whole "seems to be put together from spare parts" vibe, since that is how my life sometimes feels).

We did finally see the zebras, as evidenced by this picture that Petunia insisted on taking.

This picture is cropped and enhanced

We next stopped by to try to see the polar bears, but all we saw was one polar bear butt (a source of much amusement later, during dinner). Even Petunia didn't want to take a picture of that.

She wanted to ride the Skyfari from the minute she saw the green gondolas in the sky above us, so after our disappointing visit to the polar bears, we got in line and got into a gondola. I wondered if she'd freak out once we were airborne, but she didn't. She loved the ride, eventually shaking her hand loose from mine and peering over the edge.

The highlight of the day... until we got to the train

After we got off the Skyfari, she played at the playground in the children's zoo area, and then we bought her some new binoculars. Her old ones were unbelievably crappy- it is a good thing they came in her stocking so she thinks they were from Santa and not us. I'd bought Pumpkin some binoculars on a special mommy-and-me zoo trip a couple years ago, and Petunia coveted them. She was thrilled to pick out an almost matching pair- she got blue to Pumpkin's red.

I convinced her to go look at the koalas before caving and buying her a cotton candy (and myself an ice cream). Then she said she was tired and wanted to go home, and so we did. But she perked up quite a bit once we realized the little train that runs outside the zoo was open, and she insisted that we run to catch the departure that was loading when we saw the train. I felt a little silly running for a train that I knew would run again in about 15 minutes, but the smile on Petunia's face when she settled into her seat next t a giant stuffed bear was worth it.

My feet are pretty tired tonight, and my thighs are not letting me forget that I carried Petunia up the hill to see the zebras. But my stress levels are very low, and I have some unbelievably cute pictures, so I call the day a win.

I occasionally lapse back into true mommyblogger mode, because among other things, this blog serves as a way to capture some of things I don't want to forget. But please do continue to comment on yesterday's Ask Cloud post about telling your boss you're pregnant and planning your leave.

Weekend Rambles

I think I've mentioned before that Petunia's class has a class stuffed animal who visits a different kid each weekend. She is in the Penguin class, so their class "pet" is a big stuffed penguin named Pete. He came home with us this weekend. Since we went to Disneyland last weekend,* we would probably have just lazed around the house this weekend. But the presence of Pete spurred us into doing something, so that we'd have something to put in his diary.

It was sort of cold (low 60s...) and almost raining, so being wimpy San Diegans we couldn't do anything outdoors. Instead, we went to the San Diego Model Railroad Museum in Balboa Park. It was cheap (total cost: $16) and the kids really liked watching the trains.

There was some sort of choir concert going on at the organ pavilion, so parking was a mess. We ended up having to park down in the "remote" lot in Gold Gulch. This was actually an unexpected treat- it wasn't all that remote at all, and we walked up to the prado on a path through fields of wildflowers instead of along a street clogged with cars trying to find  parking place.

More pleasant than walking through traffic

 And we discovered the Zoro Garden, which I've somehow never seen before.

Petunia smells the painted flowers

The real flowers were pretty, too

So in the end, Pete got some outdoor time, too.

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As I mentioned on Friday, I've been reading Escape From Cubicle Nation, by Pamela Slim. It has been an interesting experience. I currently have ideas for two businesses and one non-profit. I also have a renewed respect for the difficulties I'd face in trying to make any of them reality, so they may never go any further than an entry in my ideas notebook. 

I have decided, though, that I should check out some of the other social media out there, in case I ever need to do some serious marketing, or just decide to make one of my ideas a serious side project. I haven't yet been able to bring myself to sign up for Facebook**, but I did get a Pinterest account. It is linked to my real name, but if you would like to connect there, send me an email (wandsci at gmail dot com) and I'll tell you how to find me. I think I will mostly use it for travel-related things. So far I have two boards, one of places I want to visit and one for ideas and tips for making travel more fun/easier. Given its focus on the visual, it isn't a completely natural fit for me, but I like the idea of being able to easily gather and organize things to come back to later. I may check out some of the other similar options out there, too, to see if there is a service that feels like a better fit for me.

I also finally got a GoodReads account a month or so ago, just in time for GoodReads to get bought buy Amazon. I'm enjoying it, too- again primarily for the lists, in particular the "to read" list. I think that over time, I'll like having a record of what I've read, too. I used to keep an old fashioned notebook for that, but keep forgetting to update it.

What other social media are you active on? Any recommendations for me?

*I'll probably post about that at some point- the short version is that the kids had fun and the grown ups were exhausted. 

**I dislike Facebook's privacy policies and they way they keep changing behavior to share more by default, so I do not have an account. This is why I am so amused by people who complain loudly about Facebook's policies or behavior. People, if you dislike it, you don't have to be on it! Unless you are a small business, in which case, it seems like you sort of do have to be on it for marketing, so complain away.

Good Weekends, Present and Future

Our last few weekends have been a bit hectic- too many commitments, and not enough time to relax. This weekend was a better balance- we had an evening playdate/dinner with one of Petunia's classmates Saturday night, but were otherwise unscheduled at the start of the weekend. We got enough of our chores done on Saturday that we decided we could have a Family Fun Day today, as long as we picked one of the things that wouldn't actually take an entire day. So we decided to go on a surrey bike ride in Coronado.

We got a late start because we all slept in a bit- which is still rare enough to shock me when it happens. It was 11:30 a.m. by the time we set out from the rental place by the Hotel del Coronado. They were out of single surreys, so we opted for a side-by-side recumbent Deuce Coupe instead, which was also fun. I wanted to see Silver Strand, so we headed south. This was a bit of a mistake, because for most of the ride we couldn't see much water at all, but we did get a great view of the Coronado Bridge at the start.

A nice start

We rode for about an hour, then had lunch at the Coronado Brewing Company and a quick play at a nearby park, and then drove home.

Later in the afternoon, the girls decided they wanted to do some art, so I set them up on their little plastic table outside and spent about an hour thinking I would get to sit and enjoy my drink, but getting up every couple of minutes to help someone squirt paint from a tube instead. But the girls had fun.

Artist #1

Artist #2

And they produced quite a few paintings.

Future fridge decorations

The single color ones are largely Pumpkin's. She called them her portraits, and specifically chose to do one in each color.

I also spent about an hour researching Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure. We've decided to take our first trip to Disneyland with the kids, in honor of Pumpkin's 6th birthday. I found it too stressful to figure out how to handle a birthday party this year- we have friends from day care, kindergarten, and before/after care. We have no desire to orchestrate a party for that many kids, no real idea for how to prune the guest list without causing offense, and no idea how to deliver invites to the kids at school. Mr. Snarky laughed at me for worrying about those things, but quickly came around to my way of thinking when I said that he could be in charge of figuring it out. So we are buying our way out of the dilemma and going to Disneyland. Pumpkin is incredibly excited.

This is not a cheap solution at all, and we have no intention of returning before Petunia's 6th birthday presents the same set of problems, and then probably not for another 5 years- I just can't see how it can possibly be worth this much money to go more often. Therefore, I'm determined to make the most of this visit. Pumpkin's birthday falls during spring break, so we can actually be at the park on her birthday, which I hear is a fun thing. We've bought two day park hopper tickets for Friday and Saturday. We'll drive up Thursday evening, and drive home Sunday morning.

So now all I need to do is figure out how to arrange our two days of Disney fun. We aren't going to try to see everything- which is helped by the fact that I don't really like roller coasters (I get motion sick) and Mr. Snarky went with a friend from New Zealand not long before Pumpkin came along, so he's had his chance to do the bigger rides. Therefore, we're focusing only on things for the kids, except perhaps a visit to the Muppet attraction for Mr. Snarky.

However, even with that focus, there are a lot of options, and a lot of ground to cover. Given my planning tendencies, I can't help but try to plan it out. I want to have a loose plan, with enough slack for improvisation. Here is what I have so far:

Day 1 - Start in CA Adventure, end at Disneyland

Morning: Ride Red Trolley, Car’s Land, Paradise Pier

Lunch: Ariel’s Grotto

Afternoon: A Bug’s Land, over to Disneyland for the Disneyland Railroad

Dinner: Somewhere in Disneyland?

Evening: Disneyland Parade

Day 2 - Disneyland

Morning: Main Street USA, Fantasyland

Lunch: Daisy’s Diner in Toontown

Afternoon: Critter Country

Dinner: Downtown Disney (Rainforest Cafe)?

Evening: Swim at the hotel? Stay for Parade again? Go see the World of Color?

Are there any Disney-philes out there? What do you think? Am I missing something that a 3.5 year old and a thrill-adverse 6 year old would really enjoy? I have heard that it is nice to start to with Main Street in Disneyland, but I want to do the Ariel's Grotto Princessapalooza on Pumpkin's actual birthday, which is the first day. Am I making a mistake by not having Main Street be their first taste of Disney?

Any and all advice gratefully accepted!

A Tale of Two Weekends

I intend to finish posting trip stories about our Texas vacation, for myself and the three or four other people who like those sorts of posts. But first, I have to tell you about two recent weekends, both of which involved me untethering from the network.

Weekend #1: I turned 40. To celebrate, my husband and I took two whole nights away from our (delightful, adorable, but energy-sucking) children, courtesy of my parents. We drove up to Newport Beach. The location was picked via a link @Calee sent to me after my crowdsourcing my travel plans post. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency. We had a bit of a rough start to our weekend, as there were three or four weddings being held at the hotel or nearby, and all the guests were trying to check in just as we arrived.  We had to wait for our room- luckily, the bar was fairly nice. However, the lobby was frankly not up to that level of chaos, and I was frankly not up to the required level of "being happy for others" as once I was called to come collect our room keys, I lost my place in line three times to a swarm of happy relatives all kissing the cheeks of the one relative standing in line to the left of me. To the woman who was offended by my exasperation: I'm sorry. My reaction had nothing to do with your ancestry (Middle Eastern? Armenian? I didn't know and only noticed after you got offended.) It had everything to do with the fact that I was tired of waiting for my room and desperately wanted to start my short and infrequent romantic weekend away with my husband. Also, I respond poorly to people who disrupt queues. Ask the people of Rome, if you want verification on that.

Anyway. We did eventually get into our room, and get settled in and changed for dinner. We walked to dinner at 3 Thirty 3, which satisfied my requirement of providing drinks (and dinner!) with a nice view. 

The view from our table

The next day, we had a leisurely and large breakfast at The Back Bay Bistro, which is truly right on the water- and just across a parking lot from our hotel. Then we changed into our water gear and headed across the parking lot again and around to a kayak rental place. We paddled out through the bay and up the estuary. As we paddled out past the moored boats, we indulged in a favorite kayaking activity of ours- checking out the puns in the boat names. Our favorite from this paddle was "floating point"- in Courier font, of course. Hubby spotted it first, and laughed, saying "spot the boat owned by a geek." 

Once we got into the estuary, motorized boats were banned, and it was a wonderfully peaceful paddle. There were lots of birds to watch, and also quite a few jumping fish. We had decided to go out for a paddle for old times' sake- we used to kayak quite a bit before we had kids. The beauty of the paddle was a nice bonus.

We kayaked up there!

We'd had such a large and late breakfast that we weren't really hungry for a big lunch, so after we cleaned up, we decided to just walk over to Balboa Island and have a couple of Balboa Bars for lunch. Last time I had one, it had been built up to be an amazing treat, and I was disappointed. This time I went in with realistic expectations, and was very happy with my yummy ice cream bar.

We strolled around Balboa Island a bit, and bought some "surprises" for our kids. Then we headed back to the mainland and the margaritas with a view that I wanted for my birthday. We ended up at Sol, a Mexican restaurant that is right next door to the place we'd had dinner the night before. Because of the "old Mexico" styling of the restaurant, the view wasn't as good as the night before, but that stopped mattering after a very large, very good margarita! The chips and salsa were good, too. So I was happy.

We had dinner over on Balboa Island, and ended the day with a soak in the hot tub. We had another late and leisurely breakfast the next morning (at Plum's Cafe- I can't believe we used to think there were no good breakfast places in the OC!), and then we headed south on the Coast Highway, towards home. We stopped for a light lunchtime snack and a beer at the bar that overlooks Doheny State Beach. Sitting there, it occurred to me that this spot better fit what I had said I'd wanted for my birthday- that bar has an amazing view. You sit on the patio or in one of the window tables, and look out across the coast road and the train tracks to a beautiful beach. We've driven along that stretch of road many times, and even stopped in at the bar in an earlier incarnation as a British pub once or twice. But I'd forgotten about it. Maybe next time!

We got home to a house that had been decorated for my 40th birthday party, which was great. 

All in all, a great birthday weekend.

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Weekend #2: We took the kids on their first camping trip. The parents of one of Pumpkin's day care friends organized a big group of us to go camping at Dos Picos Park, near Ramona. This is a great campground if you have kids. If you don't have kids... well, you'd better like kids. They run all over the place, riding bikes and scooters around the loop road, chasing each other and laughing. There were at least two other large groups of kids there. None of them were obnoxious, but if you had booked into the campground hoping to commune with nature, you were going to be disappointed. Of course, if you booked into a campground this close to civilization hoping to commune with nature, you're a bit insane.

Don't be fooled by the trees. You won't be communing with nature here.

Anyway, Pumpkin and Petunia both loved camping. Hubby and I had fun, too, although I was very grumpy Friday night when I discovered that Hubby (who was in charge of this trip, since I'd organized almost all of our Texas vacation) had not brought pillows. I can see making do with a rolled up sweatshirt if you're backpacking. But we were car camping. We should have brought pillows. On Saturday, I drove into Ramona and bought two pillows at the Kmart. And I slept much better for it.

Other than that, it was fun. They had all sorts of activities for the kids- a nature talk (which I missed due to the need to go buy pillows), a bat hike (which I skipped out of because Petunia was tired and needed to go to bed), crafts time...

What? Don't you wear a bicycle helmet when you do crafts?

...and the Earth Ball.

Mommy and Daughter Earth Ball Time! I'm in the red shirt.

Once I relaxed into the spirit of the place, it was great to let Pumpkin run around on her own with her friends, secure in the knowledge that she was always within sight of one of the parents in the group. Petunia needed a little more supervision, but she was also doted upon by many of the parents who do not have a second kid and therefore miss the toddler phase. To be fair, she is almost criminally cute right now, with her big eyes, cute dimples, and almost there toddler speech patterns. On the first night, she and Hubby roasted marshmallows while the adults sat around drinking their adult beverage of choice and chatting and the bigger kids watched a show in someone's RV (yeah, whatever- we can worry about instilling the proper camping ethic later). Petunia passed out marshmallows to all the grown ups, and charmed everyone. During the day, she conned shoulder rides from several Daddies, who all swore they were happy to do it. I didn't quiz them too hard, though, because she is heavy and Hubby kept disappearing whenever a hike was starting, and my arms were getting tired!

Pumpkin, meantime, spent as much time as she could on a borrowed Razor scooter. She had a blast, and desperately wants one of her own. We may oblige, with a rule that the scooter only gets used at the park until she gets good at braking.

So all and all, a fun weekend. But an exhausting one. If I'm honest, I preferred weekend #1... but only because I know that I can have a weekend like weekend #2 whenever I want it.

Beach Day

On Labor Day, we took what may be our last outing to our favorite beach for this season. It is not that September isn't a good beach month- it is in some ways the best beach month in San Diego, with warm weather and fewer crowds. But we're pretty busy this month, so we might not get back to our beach.

We like to go to Bonita Cove, which is on the part of Mission Bay that is closest to the ocean.


View Larger Map

This gives us the calm waters of the bay with a feeling that the water is somehow "fresher" because it is close to the mouth of the bay. I don't want to hear it if you can prove that we're deluded- we're rather attached to this location now.

As usual, Petunia headed straight for the water when we got there- this time, dragging our boogie board behind her like some sort of pet.

Unfortunately, it was not a particularly warm day (it even rained on us as we left the beach!) and neither girl really spent much time in the water. But the sand was still a lot of fun.

Petunia enjoyed burying and then uncovering Hubby's feet. Pumpkin played for quite awhile with the "river" she and Hubby had built.

I mostly just sat in the sand watched them play.

And even though the weather wasn't perfect for the beach, it may have been my favorite beach day of the year.

At least so far.

Local Tourist: Sea World

As I wrote in my recent post about happiness, we're trying to get out more, to enjoy our city and region. It is, after all, a major tourist destination. I've decided to also try to write posts about at least some of our outings- after all, I write posts about our trips elsewhere. I've started a new San Diego label, and tagged a couple of my older posts that fit the description- a post about our trip to Legoland and a post about an outing to Coronado. I have apparently never written a post about a trip to our "world famous San Diego Zoo"- something I may have to rectify some day.

But today's post is about another famous San Diego destination- Sea World. We live literally 10 minutes from Sea World by car. We drive past Sea World anytime we go to our favorite beach (another thing I should post about for this series, I guess). And yet, we had never taken Pumpkin there. In fact, I hadn't been since before I moved to San Diego the first time- i.e., in graduate school. The last time I was at Sea World, I still lived with my parents! Part of the reason we hadn't gone earlier is the cost. There is no way to stretch the definition of the word "cheap" to include Sea World. We bought our tickets online and got a discount- they were "only" $62 each. Including for Pumpkin. At least Petunia can still get in free (kids get in free until they are three). The other problem is that I remember Sea World how it used to be, when it was more like a zoo and less like an amusement park. I miss the simpler "old" Sea World.

But a lot of Petunia's friends have been, and she knows all about Shamu. She's been asking to go, too, so we promised that we'd make it happen this year. Last weekend, we made good on that promise. In fact, we bought the "two visits for the price of one" tickets (no reason not to- they cost the same as the regular admission tickets)- so we'll probably go back again in a couple of months.

Despite my grumbles about the cost and the proliferation of rides and the fact that we now know in hindsight that Petunia was getting sick, we had a great time.

We arrived before 10 a.m., and took a quick look at the dolphins in their feeding area before heading to grab some seats for the Shamu show.

Petunia didn't appreciate the ~15 minute wait for the show, but Pumpkin was thrilled with our seats at the front of the splash-free section. Pumpkin was suitably impressed by the show, which included the jumps and splashes that you'd expect.

Petunia was less impressed. She fell asleep and slept through the show, which was the start of an extended multi-part nap that covered most of the rest of the visit. She had a fever when we got home, and we wondered if we'd let her get overheated (it was a fairly warm day), but I came down with a fever Wednesday night, so now we know that she was just sick. Hopefully she'll feel better on our next visit- I think there were some things that she would have liked.

She did like the penguins. I'm not sure if that is because they are cool animals (and they are!) or because their building is kept super cool. The dark, cool enclosure also provided an excellent place to let her nurse.

(By the way, if you are visiting San Diego unencumbered, or with older kids, a fun thing to do is rent kayaks and paddle around Mission Bay. You can paddle around the back of Sea World, and see some penguins playing in the water- there is a caged off enclosure there,  which you don't see from Sea World itself. )

After cooling off with the penguins, we had a surprisingly tasty lunch at Pineapple Pete's before heading into the Sesame Street section, called the "Bay of Play". Pumpkin enjoyed the splash area, but Petunia wasn't interested. Again, I suspect she would have had fun if she'd been feeling well- although there were big splashes and big kids, so maybe not. 

Petunia was mildly amused by the Elmo show, but to be honest, I think the sight of Elmo and crew dancing and singing "Hot, Hot, Hot" amused the grown ups more. Maybe next time, when she's feeling better, Petunia will be excited to see Elmo.

 

Pumpkin enjoyed a ride on some spinning tea cups in the Sesame Street section, but I don't have any pictures of that since Hubby took the camera on the ride. (Spinny rides are strictly Hubby's responsibility- they make me sick.) She also really enjoyed this boat over by the sharks, which didn't go anywhere:

I had to wait outside with Petunia (who was sleeping in her stroller) while the rest of the group went in to see the sharks, so I still don't know if what that exhibit is like. Hubby tells me that the sight of sharks swimming over your head is pretty cool.

After the sharks, we headed to the tide pools that I remember from the "good old days". They are still there, and Pumpkin definitely enjoyed getting a close look at a sea star.  The narration is well done, too.

By this time, everyone was getting pretty tired, so we headed out, stopping by to say goodbye to Shamu before we left:

All in all, it was a good trip. Pumpkin certainly enjoyed it, and Petunia did OK, despite the fact that she was coming down with a fever. I think Legoland might be a slightly better destination for kids the ages of our girls (4.5 and almost 2), so we won't buy a year pass yet. For instance, neither of our girls really had the stamina to wait for another show- we'll have to see the dolphin show next time. But if I were visiting and had the time, I wouldn't hesitate to bring kids their age to Sea World. There will be enough to keep them interested, and the adults will probably have a nice time, too.

In Which the Gods of Family Outings Smile Upon Us

It has pretty hectic here lately. Petunia's still pretty congested, possibly due to the last cold she had, and her sleep is therefore all screwed up. Hubby and I both have deadlines coming up soon at work, so we're both a little stressed and a lot busy, and needing to log in at night and do some work. My usual 40-45 hour work week is creeping up towards 50 hours, and I'm still feeling behind... blah, blah, blah.

Borrrrring.

I don't want to write about that. I want to write about our fun outing on Sunday- we went to Legoland! Legoland is in Carlsbad, which is about 40 minutes north of where I live. We went once before, when Pumpkin was about 2.5 years old. It was fun, but nowhere near as much fun as this visit was. I think Pumpkin is at the age when Legoland really starts to be fun, and Petunia had fun playing in "Duplotown", which is a playground with several different play houses. She seemed to like the jail best. I wonder if that should tell us something?

She was pretty fascinated by the toenails on this Lego dude, too.

However, Petunia's real favorite thing at Legoland was the bag her lunch came in. It provided an excellent prop for a game of peek-a-boo.

Pumpkin's favorite thing was the horse ride. It is very tame, but it involved being out of sight from us for a while, which, to our great relief, did not involve any tears. In fact, she had a huge smile on her face anytime we saw her. Really. She just turned her head right before Hubby took the picture. (Isn't it great that this blog provides us a use for our failed pictures?)

Pumpkin also liked Miniland, although not quite as much as her Daddy does. I'll spare you the gazillion photos he took, which look eerily similar to the gazillion photos he took last time, except this set also includes photos of the new Star Wars miniland.

Pumpkin liked steering the toy boats... but again, not quite as much as Daddy did.

The highlight of miniland for her, though, was catching sight of the castle she stayed in when we went to Las Vegas.

By this point, Petunia was napping. She followed our plan exactly, and fell asleep in her stroller after lunch. Amazing.

All in all, it was a really good outing. I had to write it up so that I can come back and read about it the next time one of our family outings goes all pear-shaped and ends with tears and tantrums!

Some Good Things

Petunia may have learned how to say "cracker", which is her favorite food (she likes the graham variety). Today at the end of dinner, she got fussy and started looking over at the buffet next to our table, where we keep a tupperware container of graham crackers. We finally caught on and gave her a graham cracker, which made her smile. We said "cracker" and signed it. When she wanted another one (we give them to her one quarter at a time), she fussed and looked and got another cracker, prompting another big grin. Again, we said "cracker" and signed it. About halfway through her second cracker, she looked at us and said "daa-duh", took a bite of her cracker, and gave us a big grin. She repeated this three or four times. We'll see what she does tomorrow night when she wants a cracker!

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Both of our girls tend to behave really well on vacation. We think it is because they are so busy seeing new things that they forget to be cranky. So yesterday, we decided to behave a bit like we were on vacation. After all, we live in a vacation spot! We picked up my sister and drove across to Coronado, and played for awhile at the playground mentioned in yesterday's Zenbit.

One of the things we noticed on our Oregon trip was that brewpubs make excellent family dining. They almost always have a kids menu, the general hubbub drowns out any noise the kids make, and the beers make the adults happy. So we went to the Coronado Brewing Company for lunch. The food was standard brewpub fare, done more than adequately. Hubby and my sister enjoyed their beers, and I enjoyed eating out.

We finished off our mini-excursion with a trip to the Hotel del Coronado. We had drinks on their sun deck (margaritas for the drinkers, lemonade for me and Pumpkin). Then Hubby and my sister took Pumpkin down to the beach to put her feet in the water and appreciate the glitter effect of the sand in the water. (For some reason, the sand at this beach looks like gold glitter when it is in the water. It is very pretty.)

I stayed up on the sidewalk with Petunia. She was a little annoyed at the wait and desperately wanted down to crawl around. Given the bike and foot traffic on the sidewalk, there was no way that was going to happen. So I gave her Pumpkin's Dora straw cup to play with. And she figured out how to drink out of the straw! I was impressed.

After the beach visit, we headed back to our car and went home. The girls napped, and Hubby and I congratulated ourselves on a great day out.

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Finally, Hubby has found us more fun things on the internetz:



And we just wasted far too much time checking out some of their other covers. I so want to see these guys play sometime!