365 Days in SD, Day 33: The San Diego Zoo

So this was actually two days ago. But between Calen's double ear infection, Camden's boycotting of sleep and me attempting to break my habit with Pepsi, I didn't get to it until today. Sue me. 

You obviously can't visit San Diego, much less live here, without at least one trip to the San Diego zoo. Luckily for us, it's five minutes away from our house. Even luckier, the military offers discounted annual passes which we indulged in. Monday we took our first ever trip to one of the most famous zoos in the world with some Coastie friends, and man were we not disappointed. 

This zoo is big. Big big. For four years we were accustomed to our cutesy little free zoo in Cape May, in which a single tiger and a lion were about as exotic as it got. Don't get me wrong, we loved that tiny little zoo. Especially the free part. Especially free with smaller children that lose interest after an hour. By the end of that hour, we had walked the entire zoo already and it was time to go home. Done and done.

Now that the kids are a little older they can tolerate/enjoy bigger and better things. I don't think you can get much bigger or better than the San Diego zoo. We spent four hours there, and didn't even cover half of the exhibits. It's hard, being there amongst the trees and the wildlife and humongous habitats, to remember that you're still within San Diego city limits. And there's not a palm tree in sight. Maybe that's why I like it there so much. There's also animals I've never seen in person, particularly PANDAS, which I kind of wanted to kidnap and take home and snuggle and pretend it wasn't going to eat my face. 

Munching on bamboo. Can I keep her?!

Anyways, we went in the late afternoon because they have a summer program called Nighttime At The Zoo, where they keep the zoo open late so that you can see all the nocturnal animals actually be awake and active after dark. That was an especially neat experience for us, not only being at the zoo after dark, but seeing the tasmanian devils and koalas actually awake, bouncing around, eating, and being particularly adorable. 

I want a koala too. To go with my panda. Military housing will totally allow that, right?

Because we have annual passes and because there's so much to see, we'll be going back a lot. Calen said it was his favorite thing he's done so far. Maybe we'll make it a weekly thing. 

Friends at the zoo observing one of their own kind

Rewarding Bad Behavior

We've had a hard week.

All of us came down with a wicked cold and some crabby attitudes, for whatever reasons. And after a full week of dealing with mouthy, snotty kids with bad attitudes, I did what any good mom would do to discipline them.

I took them out to donuts for breakfast.

AND a Slurpee for pre-dinner. 

Okay so maybe it's not what Supernanny would do. I could envision her giving me the look and waggling her finger at me going "mmm mmm mmm....that's not the way to deal with them!" in her British school teacher voice. It's not what I would normally do either. 

But you know what? At this rate, by the time they actually start behaving, they'll be 17 and 15 and too old for their mom to take them out for donuts because they sleep through breakfast and halfway through lunch.

And honestly, we all need a do-over day sometimes. 

We went with friends this morning to Krispy Kreme to start off the day. There goes my diet, right into a huge raspberry filled glazed donut. (Worth it.) The kids actually did wonderfully there and since it was (my kid's) first time, they got to watch donuts be made before their very eyes while we waited. That's like, education, right?

Watching the birth of donuts

Later today we decided to partake on the celebration of July 11th by going to 7-Eleven and getting ourselves a free Slurpee. For dinner. Because what better way to raise your children properly than by giving them dessert first, right?

Good thing we went before dinner too, because they only had one flavor left and it was running low. 

This was also a first for them as we've never wasted our time at 7-Eleven in Cape May since the ever-better Wawa took precedent. 

Yum

Let's face it, sometimes breaking the rules is worth it. 

For the record, the boys were having a much better day starting yesterday afternoon and I think we all deserved to have a little reward for tolerating each other for so long without a break. Seriously, is school starting soon or what?

365 Days in SD, Day 21: San Diego County Fair.

For our kickoff to our third week here in sunny San Diego, we decided to go to the San Diego County Fair. 

Fun useless fact: this is the third place I've lived where the city I live is the same as the county. i.e: Snohomish in Snohomish County, Cape May in Cape May County, San Diego in San Diego county. How original. Facts you NEVER wanted to know.

The fair here is big. BIG. Washingtonians could compare it to about 1.5 times the size of the Evergreen State Fair. Except less animals, but way way WAY more food and rides. 

We also showed up on a day where there was a monster truck competition, which of course my monster truck-obsessed kids absolutely DIED over. I've never seen either of them so excited over anything in their entire LIVES.

Monster trucks!!!

After the monster trucks and a few barns full of animals, we had a corn dog and a plate full of deep fried OREOS AND TWINKIES, holy amazingness!

Deep fried oreos and twinkies

(Note: the deep fried Oreos were amazing. The Twinkies, not so much)
Then some rides, and spending too much on one carnival game so the kids could each take home a minion, and then we called it a day. We really couldn't outdo the monster trucks anyways. Also, the shuttle back to the parking lot was a double decker bus and the kids went nucking futs over sitting on the top of it. 

Riding a mini coaster by themselves!

On the double decker bus

It was one of my favorite days here so far with the kids. As hard as it is making all these memories without Brad, we are definitely making the most of it.

The end of an awesome day. Cam was upset because he was hot and thirsty and didn't want to leave the fair and because of all the starving people in Africa. And because he's three.