Breakfast With Sham Sham

There was one more place we had to go while we were in San Diego. Sea World. It's been four years since our first visit and Harris still talks about Shamu almost daily. We wanted to do something special and memorable for him involving Shamu, besides the daily shows, so we booked "Breakfast with Shamu". This is as close as you can get to Shamu. Needless to say Harris was really excited.

The kids are obsessed with "Slug Bugs" so they were super excited to see this parked out front of Sea World when we arrived!

We got there early to get checked in and then headed to the waiting area to be seated. Harris was immediately plastered to the glass waiting for Shamu to swim by.  And Shamu didn't disappoint.

I love this picture. It was like Shamu was saying "hi" to Harris. He just hovered there. It was priceless.

When we got seated it was right next to the glass! It was so fun. It was pretty much a private show for those of us eating breakfast. Well, it was more than a show. There was a lot of talking about the whales: their likes/dislikes, personalities, size/weight, how they train them, things like that. There was also a Q & A. Harris was enthralled with everything. He especially loved how close we were.

Sooo excited when Shamu finally came out!

Watching Shamu is more fun than eating breakfast

Shamu waiving to Harris.

Sham Sham (as Harris calls him) doing tricks for us.

Harris once again plastered to the glass trying to be as close as possible to Shamu.

Saying goodbye after breakfast.

When we were finished with breakfast and were leaving we ran into one of the trainers. Liv and Harris were pretty excited to talk to her. They had tons of questions (that they didn't ask during the Q & A) that she was happy to answer. Harris asked her how he could be a trainer and Liv wanted to know if her ears ever hurt after diving so deep (40ft)  into the pool.

After chatting with the trainer Harris was ready to see the sharks so that's where we went.

The shark tunnel

I think it is time for Sea World to redo the "Shark Encounter" area. It's way too crowded and you can't really see anything very well because of it. Harris didn't seem to mind though.

I don't remember what Harris was telling me but it is a cute picture. :)

From the sharks we went to the Sea Lion show. We had never seen it before but Liv is going through an "I love Sea Lions" phase so we made sure to see it. I'm glad we did. It was hilarious!!! We will definitely see this again.

This is Clyde he is the star of the show. He is soo cute!

When the show was over the kids wanted to see and feed the other sea lions that are outside of the stadium.

They sit up against the wall and wait to be fed but if you aren't careful and feed them quickly the seagulls will swoop in and snitch the food out of your hands. It's so funny to watch them fight for a spot up against the wall.

This guys wasn't interested in eating. He was working on his tan, I guess. ;)

Harris loves the show "River Monsters" and last year when we were there they had his favorite river monster, the alligator gar. That is what he wanted to see next. We headed to where they were and were surprised to see that they were gone! They had redone the "river" area into a "sea turtle area". Harris was very disappointed about this but he enjoyed watching the turtles. And the area is pretty cool.

There were probably 30 (3 or 4 different kinds) sea turtles swimming around.

When we had had enough sea turtles we headed out to see if they had moved the river monsters to a different area. We didn't find the gars but we did find the piranhas. This was pretty exciting because they were going to be feeding them.

Harris was pretty excited to see the piranhas.

The feeding was not as exciting as we had thought it would be. Since they are in a tank and not in the wild they get fed regularly. So there was no feeding frenzy, mostly just nibbling. The kids still enjoyed it.

As we continued looking at the fish in the piranha area we did find one small gar. Not nearly the 10ft giants they had last year.

Harris and his best gar impression.

Harris had been begging all day to ride the roller coaster that they have which gets you wet. It wasn't super warm but we finally caved and decided to go on it.

I thought I was zoomed in a lot closer than this but they are in the back 2 rows.

When we were done with the ride it was time for the Shamu show to close out the day. Our favorite spot is off to the left of the center stage and up about 5 rows. We have learned that getting a good spot is was easier if just one person goes in and gets a spot to save for everyone else. So Chet usually runs ahead and sneaks in solo to save the rest of us a spot. It works out really well.

Happy when the show starts

The show this year was all new and was really cool. It seemed that there were a lot more tricks and way more water! Harris loved it! He oood and awwwd and laughed and cheered through the whole thing. His favorite part though was when they tried to feed Shamu just one tiny fish and he shook his head "no" so then they offered him the whole bucket of fish and he nodded "yes". He laughed and laughed at that. It was a great way to end the day.

As we exited the show we stopped at Shamu's tank to say goodbye. This was not an easy thing to do. Harris feels the same way about Shamu as I do about Disneyland.

Having a hard time saying goodbye to Sham Sham.

After saying a tearful goodbye we packed it up and headed out to our next destination, Disneyland!

On to the Beach

Saturday morning we were up early and ready to continue on to San Diego. Our first day there was supposed to be our beach day. It was 65 degrees which is nice but not nice enough when the water is only 60 degrees. We still headed to the beach, however, just not in our swimsuits. :)

We decided to go to Mission Beach. Mission Beach is nice because there is a carnival, some shops and places to eat. Which was nice since we weren't planning on spending time in the water. We walked through the shops down to the beach and immediately the kids had their shoes off and were running to the water. They were a little shocked at how cold it was but after their feet went numb they didn't seem to mind. ;)

Getting a feel for the water.

Chet and the kids enjoying the water.

One of my favorite things to do, as a kid, at the beach was dig for sand crabs. I remember my dad teaching me to look for the "v's" in the sand after the wave receded. I showed my kids this last time we were at the beach in San Diego so they knew right what to look for and waisted no time in getting digging. They didn't have to dig very much though because there were hundreds of them as soon as the wave washed ashore (they must have just had a hatch). Even in your footprints they would collect! It was crazy! The kids loved scooping up a big handful of sand and then feeling all the crabs trying to dig out. 

Diggin' for sand crabs.

Looking for the "V's".

We had made dinner reservations about a mile up the beach and decided that it would be fun to walk the beach to get there. So Chet gathered up the shoes and we started walking. We were almost to the restaurant when we noticed that one of Liv's shoes was missing. Crap! We had zigzagged a mile up the beach to get to dinner. Her shoe could have been anywhere! Since we needed it for her to get into the restaurant Chet took off running on the beach to try and find it. About 20 minuted later he came back empty handed. We decided to head to dinner anyway.

We ate at a steakhouse called Saskas. It was awesome! When we were all finished eating the kids begged us to walk back along the beach again, which was fine with us. We could look for Liv's shoe again. It was a beautiful walk. The sun was setting into the ocean and most of the people had left the beach. We decided to stick close to the water so the kids could stop and dig for more crabs. As we were walking we saw a big purplish blob in front of us. It was a giant sea slug! Unfortunately it was dead and kinda gross so we didn't take a picture. So we left it and moved along. We were almost back to where we started when we spotted something silver sticking out of the sand ahead of us. Guess what it was? Liv's shoe!! Chet was so mad, he had stopped looking only about 5 feet away! At least we found it. It was a happy ending to a happy day.

Road Trip

On July 29th we packed up Chet's car and headed out for Cali, road trip style. Since I hate to drive we made sure to make lots of stops along the way. Our first stop was in Beaver at the DFA store for some squeaky cheese and ice cream. (I remember stopping there with my family when I was a kid.) We continued on to Fillmore and went to the original state capitol. It was actually not as boring as I thought it would be. There were lots of really cool pictures of the locals that helped build the building and lots of antiques that family's who have lived in the area since the beginning have donated. After we had our fill of Utah history we made our way to Las Vegas where we spent the night at the Golden Nugget. Yep the Golden Nugget. We stayed there because they recently did a 30 million dollar renovation on the pool and built a shark tank with a pool around it and a slide through it. The tank went all the way down to the bottom of the pool so when you were under water you couldn't tell that there was a tank there! It freaked Harris out. He would go under and then pop back up as soon as a shark swam by and say "too close, too close!". We had a great time at the pool and got a good nights sleep before we finished our journey to San Diego. (You can click on the pictures to make them bigger.)



7/31
Solana Beach was our first stop in Cali. We spent the day with my dad playing in the waves, boogie boarding and building sand castles. Harris and Liv both did great on the boogie boards! They both got slammed at least once but got right back on the board ready for more. That night however both the kids had sand scratches on their tummy's. Liv said the cutest thing to me when she got out of the shower, she said "Mom, I have sand scratches on my nibbles.". Suppressing a laugh, I just smiled and said "I'm sorry, do you want the Neosporin?" Could she be any cuter?!





8/1
We went to Sea World two years ago for the first time as a family. While we were there we bought Harris a small stuffed Shamu that he fell in love with.(He's holding it in the picture with the Shamu character and it's in his shirt at the show. He had to show Shamu to Shamu.) He has slept with that Shamu every night for the last two years! He was so excited when we got to the Shamu show that he was shaking! (Sea World is like Christmas to him.) We went to both Shamu shows that day and got there an hour early for the second show. It was worth it! We were right next to Shamu! He was hanging out right in front of us for the whole hour before the show started. Harris was in Shamu heaven! It more fun to watch Harris than the show. His eyes would just light up every time Shamu would jump out of the water. Needless to say it was hard to leave. Harris was so sad he cried. It broke my heart, but I promised him that we will go back next year.



8/2
The San Diego Zoo is awesome! When we got there is was already lunch time and they were doing some of the animal feedings. We jumped right in line to feed the giraffes. The kids thought it was great and a little gross. The giraffes would stick their long blue tongues out and take the biscuits from the kids hands leaving behind a trail of slime. When we were done with that we made our way through the zoo with our map in hand. The next stop we made was to see the new elephant exhibit. It was awesome. It did a history of ancient animals in California. Like the Woolly Mammoths, and Saber Tooth Cats. (Which the kids are sitting on a statue of.) Which lead to the big cats and the elephants, obviously. We made our way to the Pandas and then the hippos which Harris had to sit on the ground and watch swim. That was cute because last time he was terrified of the hippos and wouldn't even look at them. I really wanted to see the Okapi. They are a giraffe and zebra mix. They are beautiful! Well, the San Diego Zoo is ginormous and we got lost trying to find it! When we did finally find it it was way in the very back of the cage eating! Lame. Oh well. All in all it was a fabulous day.





These are some pictures we took of the animals that we got to see. It was the Panda's 4th birthday that day. He was so cute! The Okapi is in the next picture. Can you see him? The Capybaras are giant rodents that love the water and were swimming around the whole time we watched them. And finally, the most awesome lion I have ever seen! He was gorgeous and knew it!



Chet's grandparents and great-grandparents (Liv and Harris' great and great-great-grandparents!) live in the San Diego area so we were fortunate to spend two nights hanging out with them. The first night we went to dinner at the Fish Market, it was wonderful. The next night we got together they were kind enough to invite us over to their house for a home cooked meal. Chet's grandma Cheryl is a wonderful cook! It was such a nice break from eating out. After dinner, Harris played ball with Papa Jay, his great-grandpa, and Liv learned a little bit of guitar from her great-aunt Lauren. (Who just turned 24.) I am so glad that we had the opportunity to spend time with them and look forward to spending more time with them on our various trips to Disneyland.



8/3
We never go to Disneyland in the summer (too busy!) but since we were in California and we have annual passes we had to go see the new "Summer Nightastic" . I really wanted to see all of the things that they were doing for it but some of them overlaped, so we chose the parade and the fireworks. The parade was kind of lame. I was very disappointed. It was just some dancers and some characters dancing around in the street and then riding around in these little chariot things. The fireworks, on the other hand, were amazing! They were the coolest fireworks I have ever seen. I did wish that they would have played more songs though. We also spent some time in California Adventure where Harris got to do Grizzly River Run and Mulholland Madness for the first time. He has been wanting to do GRR forever and he finally got to do it. Yay! Chet and Liv did Screamin and sat in the front which is their fave. I was happy walking around and looking at all the renovations they are doing. It is going to be so much better when its done! I can't wait!



It was a wonderful week! I am so grateful for the many opportunities that we get to go on vacations together. I look forward to every single moment I get to spend with my family.