Vacation Finale - San Diego Zoo, Old Town and Heading Home

Day 7, Friday, October 15^th, 2010

Last night I sent a text my friend Stella to get some breakfast recommendations. We didn’t have plans for Friday so we decided to go out to breakfast.  She sent me a few suggestions, and we picked the Broken Yolk in Pacific Beach.  We got there about 9:00 am and it was busy. We had a really good breakfast. We both had omelets with home fries.  Nicholas and Jackson ate the muffin that came with my breakfast with pancakes and bacon.

It had been sprinkling since we woke up and we weren’t sure what we were going to do. Mike thought we should go to the zoo to keep the kids entertained. Kids were free for the month of October so we headed over.

We got to the zoo and even though it isn’t really that far from the water, there was no sprinkling. It was cool but not wet.

Here are some of my favorite shots from the day. I had some animals that really liked to pose for the camera...

I think this sleeping Koala Bear is so sweet...

Look at the bears eyes...

The leopard was named Princess or something like that, she loved to pose.

The giraffe's were cool. Some of my best poses were in to the sky, and were too washed out, but I like this one. At the Phoenix Zoo all the food spots are up above so they don't have to bend down like this.

Love this kangaraoo

Kissing camels (they really were, the one in the back though had some gross stuff coming out of his mouth that turns some of the better shots of the front two into something less than pleasant)\

Llamas?

Nicholas walked a lot of the zoo on foot....

Frogs/toads near the elephant exhibits

This elephant was dancing, with her trunk bouncing back and forth....

Yes this is the kid that will not wear shoes and socks. He is just like his mama, hates shoes. I know there were people looking at us like we were crazy.

Spacing on what animal this is, but many of them were happy to pose for us.

This is probably one of my favorite shots from the day. Right after this, the lion got up on a rock and strated making all kinds of howling and roaring noises, I would have photographed it but his butt was to us, so nothing great to look at, but cool to listen to.

Nicholas was interested in the tar pits.

Another model, I mean cooperative animal.

Hills do not slow my boys down.  Jackson is peeking back at Nicholas and me, happy he isn't walking.

The gorillas came right up to the glass viewing area.

These minature alligators didn't move, they were like statues.

It looked like they were posing for us.

Nicholas checking out what is going on...

This monkey was talking to another one right below him...

Tourists.

This was really cool but everyone was trying to get the picture of this hippo with its eyes and ears above water and it's huge body below the surface. This was the best I could get without people in it.

There is something just weird about how these turtles look swimming.

This lizard is looking right at me.

Looks like the tortoise is as well.

We stayed until the zoo closed and then decided to go straight to dinner at Old Town. Old Town Mexican Café had been recommended by both my friend Stella and Scott and Lori. So even though it looked packed we decided to try it. It turned out there was only a 10 minute wait that ended up being less than 5 minutes. We had guacamole and chips with margaritas.  For dinner the boys had tacos and quesadilla and Mike and I both had combos with Mexican beers.

Towards the end of our dinner the Mariachis came in to the area to play and Jackson loved it.  He was whipping his head around to watch them and giving them big cheesy grins.

To burn off dinner we walked around Old Town before heading back to the hotel.

We got back early enough to let the kids just chill out watching Disney shows while I started packing us up.  We got the kids in bed around 9:00 and Mike and I talked about next year’s vacation. We decided after this trip that the boys are ready and more importantly we are ready to take them to Walt Disney World next year. So I checked out pricing so we can start saving.

Day 8, Saturday, October 16^th, 2010

We got up around 7:00 and got ready and finished packing. We were going to grab Einstein’s for breakfast but there was a huge line and it was a bit cold to sit outside. So we headed over to the Red Marlin for breakfast. We had the buffet breakfast and were in and out of there pretty quickly. We loaded up the car to get on the road and were on our way around 10:30. We stopped quickly once and made it home around 4:00.

It turned out to be easier than the boys than we expected. Taking kids is definitely a different vacation than the old days of late nights, fancy restaurants and going as fast or slow as we feel like. Everything is at their pace, but they were very flexible and good little travelers. So I look forward to many more vacations with my little family.

Now that we are home, Nicholas asks us at least once a day if we had fun in California or Disneyland. He is still talking about the trip a lot a week later.