the grand finale... Trip #3

about 10 days after we got home from Mesa, Brian and I were off to San Diego for our annual vacation for some "us" time. It is so great to get away from all the stress and the kids (at our house those are ususally the same thing...) and just reconnect and get to know eachother and learn to appreciate eachother again! this year we decided on San Diego for our hot spot... as most of you know, Brian served his mission there about 11 years ago, and had not been back since.

The first day we got there, we picked up our rental car, (the attendant talked Brian into upgrading to a convertible), and we basically had dinner, checked into the hotel and checked OUT of consciousness!! we were both sooo tired that we just dropped! we kind of felt guilty about loosing a half day and a night of our time in San Diego, but I gotta say that we were completley worthless, we were so tired!! so after a really good nights sleep, we headed out to see some sights!

On our second day we visited the Birch Aquarium, the San Diego Temple (where we met two diffrent missionaries one was a sister from Spanish Fork, and the others were an elderly couple from Ogden... it was fun to talk about "home" with them!!), and then topped it all off with a Padres baseball game. We felt bad, because there was hardly any fans there, and half of them were cheering for the other team!! but we had a great time anyway!!

Our third day was centered on the San Diego Zoo... wow, that place is BIG!! when we walked through the gates we had the option of boarding a little open air bus to tour the zoo, or walking around. I know... everyone who knows me is saying "I bet she took the bus!" well, I opted to WALK around the place instead!! I know, in these days its nice and refreshing to see miracles happen, but I gotta say... I was SOOO hot and tired! Brian didn't even break a sweat, and I was about to die! About half way through the zoo, we realized that we were going through "backwards" meaning we were walking through the place going uphill all the way!! but by then it was too late to do much of anything about it, so we just went ahead and walked the rest of the way uphill. By the time we got to the end, we were pretty tired, so we took the aerial tram back down... (see pic above) it was so much fun that we did it about 4 times, back and forth... it was a fun and relaxing way to cool off and end our day!! So that took up most of our day so we just went to dinner and then decided to drive south to Imperial Beach (that is about 5 miles from the Mexico border). We had fun walking out onto the pier down there and watching the surfers and the people fishing off the side of the pier, then on the way home we drove over the Silver Strand, through Coronado Island and over the Coronado Bay Bridge, which is all very beautiful and scenic... we definitley recommend the drive if you are in San Diego!!

Day four was centered around the Wild Animal Park, where they keep and try to breed endangered wild animals... they have two southern white rhinos there (I think from south africa) and they are two of only 8 left on the planet!! we had alot of fun there, some of the hightlights were the lions... They had 2 female lions and 3 baby cubs together, (they have to keep the male lions seperate so they don't kill the babies) and one of the patrons wanted a lion to come over, so he kept pounding on the glass. Before we knew it one of those mama lions was prowling around right in front of us and roaring her head off! she was really getting upset, and you could tell she was looking for a weak spot in the glass so she could get out and eat someone... it was really cool! usually all the animals just sleep the day away and you can barely get a picture of them, but this lion was MAD!! it was great! the other fun thing was the tour called "Journey into Africa", where they keep alot of animals just out in the open and all living together as they would in the wild... it was fun to see the zebras and giraffes and rhinos all out there together. As you can imagine they didn't have lions or tigers out there, as the tour guide said... "that would be a whole diffrent kind of tour!"

Day five we went over to spend the day at Sea World... that was alot of fun too! we saw the Shamu show, the dolphin show, and the sea lion show. It was so much fun to see how just the smallest movement from the trainers, whether it was a flick of their wrist or the way they stand, told the animals what to do! We also walked through a glass tunnel with sharks swimming all around us, we saw polar bears, otters and walruses and we even went on some rides. We went on the "Shipwreck Rapids" where you get in a round boat and go through waterfalls and rapids... we were SOOO wet by the time we got off that ride!! we decided that if we go again, we will do that first, cause it really cools you off, and you need a couple hours for your jeans to dry out!! We also went on a "splash mountain" type ride... Can you beleive it?? Bri actually got me to ride on a roller coaster! that has not happened since I was about 5 years old at Six Flags in Fort Worth TX!! I was soo traumatized I have been afraid ever since! and NO... this experience did NOTHING to help me overcome my fears! I screamed my lungs out THE WHOLE TIME!! I just kept screaming and hoping it was over!! but I survived and Brian got a good laugh at me... and I can say I am proud of myself for having gone, even though I now need therapy!!

All in all it was a fun trip... Considering we never left the hotel before noon, I think we still managed to do just about everything there was to do, and kind of broke the bank in the process, but we have some great memories and some pretty terrible sunburns!! (well, Bri does... he just got redder and redder! Poor guy!)