The Children's Pool

So, years ago, they sectioned off this area of beach in La Jolla to create a safe swimming area. The seals quickly moved in and claimed it and it is illegal to mess with them. So... guess who still lives there? Who, me?

There are so many different colors of seals, and you can get pretty close to them. There is a rope, and signs stating that you can swim, but it's not recommended due to diseases in the water. Nice!

Cool tree, huh?

We watched these two swim in, one at a time, up the beach a bit. They each had to wait awhile for the waves to get high enough to jump onto the rock. The first one wasn't sure that he wanted to share his rock, but eventually stopped complaining about it.

Hittin' the Beaches

One day was beach day. We went to Mission Beach, Ocean Beach, and Pacific Beach. Somewhere in there we had lunch at Hooters. Unfortunatley, my boys think it is one of the best places ever- ugh! They think it's funny that the girls wear "short pants" and owl shirts. The kid food must be ok, but the adult food stinks! I know, I know, people don't go for the food.

A very long walk. There is a cafe in the middle. I guess a wave completely ripped the roof off a few years back. Scary-

Ok, so far in the distance in the photo above you can see a dark object. It is a pair of dolphins playing in the waves. We saw them off and on for about an hour. I could never get a good shot though. I couldn't guess when they were going to jump- imagine that!

"Bury me!"

They never complained they were cold.

Todd's Turn

Todd had a few things that he really wanted to do on vacation. So... one was to walk down the beach until we hit the Mexican border. I now know why there are so many illegals in the country. Check out the pictures. We also saw very few border patrol trucks, etc. while there. In fact, there was only one other person on the beach while we were there, and he was probably just a curious tourist like ourselves. They were in the process of building a new chain link fence, but I'm curious how deep it will go. I do want to warn you that this was a long, boring walk. First, there was a horse trail that was about 1,000 yards- Todd said that wasn't far, but hello, it's 10 football fields, in the dirt, with manure piles. FUN! And when we hit the beach, the border fence was so far away that you could barely see it.

This sign states that there are objects under the water. My guess is that the tide comes in so high that most of the fence in under water when the majority of people try to sneak across.

The funny thing was when I got about 100 feet away from the border, my cell phone got a text that said, "Welcome to Mexico, to call the U.S.... etc." Huh, is the border in the wrong place? Funnier thing is, I had no bars until that point. Soooo, does Mexico have better coverage than us? Ha!

Next, he wanted to go to Kansas City Barbeque. I was a little skeptical, but Todd loves the movie Top Gun, and as one picture states, the Sleazy Bar scene was filmed here.

Todd loved the hot links and the boys and I had BBQ chicken sandwiches. We even tried sweet potato pie. I had to fight the boys off in order to get a few bites.

Here is the actual piano where they filmed the scene.

Sea World

We went to San Diego for spring break this year. The boys were so excited to get on a plane again. We spent a few days at Sea World. Todd, Brady and I went to Sea World in Orlando 5 years ago. Brady of course doesn't remember the trip, so this was a first for both boys.

We had lunch next to the sea turtle pool one day. It was nice, but you had to watch out for the seagulls. They were vicious!

The Shamu show was a big hit. We were amazed that each time we saw a show it was different depending on the trainers involved. Some of them had better relationships with the animals and therefore could be more daring with their tricks.

Brady found a sea star. You had to be sure to keep them under the water so they could breath. There were also sea cucumbers and sea anenomies. (No, I am not going to look up the spelling. That's close enough.)

Colby picking up a Bat Sea Star. They are not called "starfish" because they are not fish. So why did people ever call them starfish? Colby was a little afraid to feed the Bat Rays. They came up and mauled your fingers to get the fish. He would drop it at the last second. He loved touched thier heads, backs, and wings though.
They had an area with each state flag and a plaque with the state flower, bird, etc. Brady was excited to find Washington, and Michigan, of course. ; )

Ok, the penguin area put ours in Portland to shame. They had so many different types of penguins and they were very active. You rarely see our penguins do anything other than stare into space. I loved the Emperor Penguins the most. They are so big.

We had lunch with a pair of ducks one day. They enjoyed our pizza crust.

The boys loved feeding the seals and the bat rays. Brady accidentally fed the birds twice while trying to feed the seals. Ooops!

That is one big shark mouth. Don't worry- Colby will protect us!

Colby is pouting because he got picked up and put on the manatee. This was a trip that he thought he could do everything all by himself. It made for looooong days!


Nothing like a penguin hug! This reminds me of how afraid Brady was of people in costumes when he was little. He would cry and then watch his back the whole time to make sure nothing was sneaking up on him. It was hilarious. He would only look down at Santa from the upstairs floor of the mall.



Dolphins out of order! Oops! I thought this was a cool picture though!

Colby joined the flattened penny club during this trip. Brady has been collecting them for several years. Any of you who know Todd, know that he takes collecting very seriously. Yes, I can honestly say that there is not a flattened penny in SeaWorld or Legoland that we do not have.

The dolphin show was great. It is amazing how high they can jump. We sat in the "soak zone", but were high enough to just get a few drips. There were lots of people that got soaked though. It was a little too cold for that in my opinion. : )

Boy, this big guy could splash. That was his job.