Final days in Cali!

The idea of leaving nearly 80 degree weather to go home to 20 degrees was a hard reality to swallow! So, we decided on our last day in the sun, we would soak it all up with another day at the beach! There was this great play area that we had found on a walk, and Aiden was THRILLED!!!

Aiden has no problem making friends! He will find a kid his age anywhere we go. He found a little boy with sand toys and the two of them played for hours!

I realize how much Aiden has "only child sydrome" when it is time to leave a friend. He gets upset and never wants his friends to leave....but we coaxed him back to the condo for an afternoon of swimming! He found two new friends at the pool, and played until almost dark!

The great thing about this pool, is that it's only 1 ft deep, so Aiden could roam around, and David and I just laid in the sun! It was heaven!

We couldn't leave with out one more walk on the beach to see the sunset! That was my favorite part of the trip...the amazing sunsets!

The next morning....we headed for home. The bitter cold of Idaho! Oh so hard to go home, but oh so nice at the same time!

Oceanside Harbor Resort, January 23, 2011

Day 7- San Diego Zoo

Animals, animals, animals!! We saw LOTS of animals while enjoying the sunshine! Friday we went to the San Deigo zoo. I was walked out after about 20 mins there.....that place is HUGE!!

The "sky train" as Aiden called it....was a HUGE hit with the little man! He would have ridden back and forth all day long if we had let him! David was great with this high rise floating car....I was a little nervous! I had never had problems with rides like this before, but that was before my 3 year old was flying in an open cart WAY above the tree tops!

He had no problem with heights! He made me more nervous because he kept peeking over the side of the cart!

In order to get him off of the sky train, I coaxed him into the play ground.....

The boys were completely tired of the camera by day 7....so getting them both to cooperate for photos was a victory in and of itself!

I gave myself the coolest mom award for this next photo! This was an ice display, and it was TINY under there! Aiden begged me to go in with him, and I was totally being stared at! O-well, my kid thought I was AWSOME! :)

Of course you can't have a post about a trip to the zoo without includng some animals! These were Aidens favorites!

Day 6 -Authenic Mexican

Thursday, we were so darn tired from all of our hiking/walking at the Wild Animal Park, that we decided to make it a lazy day and go out for some "real" mexican food. We found a great little restaraunt in Old Town San Diego that was AMAZING!!

The food was out of this world, and the qauint little place was perfect, including occasional serenading!

Authenitc food takes a little bit of waiting....Aiden was getting very bored and wanted to take some pictures. He took this one, and said, "Mom, this is my favorite of Shamu!"

This guy was standing on the street coaxing people to come into his restaraunt! I am very glad that we let him talk us into eating there! His name was Roger and he didn't speak much english, but we understood that every other mexican restaraunt in town was,"Not so good!"

Day 5- San Diego Wild Animal Park

Wednesday was a day full of walking....alot of walking! The wild animal park of San Diego is over 1800 acres of natural looking habitat for alot of "wild" animals. The park does alot of breeding for re-introduction into their natural habitat, and so they have alot of baby animals right now.

We watched that movie Madagascar on the way to California....about 5 times, so Aiden called all the animals by name! He saw Marty's, Melman's, and even an Alex! It made it kind of a game for him to find all the animals from the movie.

As I mentioned there was ALOT of walking involved in the "Wild Animal Experience." The view from the top of an exibit was pretty amazing though.

January 19, 2011- San Diego Wild Animal Park

There was a wild animal merry-go-round that Aiden was more than happy to try out! He was able to find his Madagascar characters there too! His first pick....Marty the Zebra, who seems to be his favorite!

The best part of the park was the Animal Ambassadors, which are tame animals that you can pet and feed. Since it was the "off peak" season, they didn't have alot of animals in the pen. Mainly deer and goats, but, there is a baby cheetah that was being trained to be an ambassador!

Aiden loved petting the animals! That was his favorite part of the day!

Since the park is so large, they have a bus that takes you on a guided tour around the park. Aiden thought it was a train, and so of course he enjoyed it!

This rhino is one of only 7 of its kind in the whole world. All 7 of the existing rhinos are very old, and can't breed anymore. This rhino's ovaries were taken and frozen, and her DNA will be the first to be used to try and save this species! I thought that was pretty cool!

Of course by the end of the day, Aiden was once again ZONKED! We managed to wear him out on just about every outing we went on!

Day 4- Sea World San Diego

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN- SHAMU!

Tuesday the weather was amazingly warm, so it seemed like a great day to hit sea world! We had told Aiden about Shamu and the dolphins and he was excited to see them. As we walked in the front gate, he saw this otter by the entrance, and forgot all about large fish! He would have hugged this big guy all day!

Our first stop was the dolphin tank....they had just started their play time, and we got to watch them throw balls to each other. Aiden wanted to jump in and play with them!

We missed the dolphin feeding time, so we fed the stingrays instead. They eat squid...squid smells, and its slimey! Aiden wasn't really thrilled about touching the icky-ness of of squid, so grandpa and I had to help him!

Since we had seen them at the ocean, Aiden was very excited to see the star fish! He reached right in and pet them!

New to Seaworld....since we have been there anyway, are the kiddo rides and the sesame street play place. We went on Abby's spinning star fish, Elmo's flying fish, and Oscars Eel ride. Aiden LOVED the rides, and could have gone on all of the spinning/rocking/twirling rides all day!

The main attraction and Aidens favorite was of course SHAMU!! Aiden was getting tired, and was actually being kind of a turd....until the Shamu show! He perked right up and squealed and laughed through the whole show! He decided that he wanted a Shamu as his vacation souvenier, and he hasn't let "little Shamu" out of his sights since!

Another huge plus of our Seaworld visit, was meeting Elmo and Grover! What kid doesn't dream of meeting Elmo? Aiden was so very excited to see them and ran right up to them and gave them both a big hug!

This smile made the whole trip worth it! I would drive 13 hours again and pay the money all over again to make this little boy happy!

By 5:00 when the park closed Aiden was EXHAUSTED!! He zonked out....still keeping a tight hold on Shamu!