365 Days in SD, Day 80 (yesterday): Bouncing Around and Nighttime at the Zoo

First of all, how nice is it to finally live in an area where Groupon actually means something? 

A friend and I bought some Groupons to a local inflatable bouncy place. Lots of big bounce houses, slides, even a couple water slides. Calen went down a I-shit-you-not two story water slide with his 4 year old friend and while I was convinced they would both panic, they absolutely loved it and did it maybe five times. 

Seems legit

That night, we once again did the zoo.

When you live ten minutes away from the world famous San Diego zoo, it's not hard to spend a lot of time there. By a lot I mean a lot. We usually find ourselves there once or twice a week. The way the math works, when we bought our not-cheap annual membership, if we went more than twice in a year, we would pay for our membership. So since we've only been here two and a half months and have gone to the zoo something like seven or eight times, I think we've gotten our moneys worth. 

And since the zoo is bigger than any two zoos combined ever, there's something new to see each time. Literally, each time. 

My favorite part of the zoo here is their summer program called Nighttime at the Zoo, which means that they stay open later than normal, until 9pm. Since all the animals wake up after dark, it's far more exciting. We haven't been to the zoo in the normal daytime hours yet. Generally we eat dinner then head over around 5:30 or 6. 

Nighttime at the Zoo ends on Labor Day, and since that's a school night for Calen (booooooo....hisssss), we decided that last night was our last nighttime zoo run. 

Acting like seals. Watch out for that polar bear!

On the skytram at the zoo at sunset

Pink lights shining on the flamingoes at night made them look like they were glowing

Each time we go, we walk past this booth where this incredibly talented artist hand paints these beautiful names with animals painted in. Even though it was absurdly expensive, I finally decided to just do it. After all, we might only have ten months or so left here. And what better keepsake from this city for the kids than their names gorgeously painted at the infamous San Diego Zoo?

Both boys got to pick which animals they wanted, and it only took an hour to paint both of them. 

Calen's

Camden's. He picked all his own animals, and I was impressed!

365 in SD Day #79: Playing Hookie

Today is Thursday which generally means 5 o'clock tball practice for Calen. 

Can I take a moment to whine about a 5pm-6pm practice time slot? Do the people who determined this schedule you know, ever eat dinner? Or expect 12 five year olds to perform well at the end of a day during dinner time? Especially after I have to force dinner down his throat at 4pm in order to make it to practice on time (and then feed him a second dinner right before bed since he ate dinner too early). Okay, I'm done. 

By the time we got home from Calen's kindergarten orientation (don't even get me started on the disappointment that is California schools) at 9:30 in the morning, it was already 85 degrees. So the kids had popsicles for brunch and I made an executive decision that there was no way my kid was going to practice baseball on a shadeless field in 90 degree heat. Besides, we had far better things to do today.
Like go to the beach! Obviously. 

Due to an offshore hurricane down in Mexico, the crazy violent surf made it a "red flag" day (the lifeguards, for those unaware, post flags describing the swim conditions each day. Green means gentle surf, yellow means strong swimmers only, red means holy shit stay out of the water swimming prohibited). So even though we couldn't really swim (I may or may not have broken the rules and dived in a couple times just to cool off), the kids and I still jumped the shallowest waves and played in the sand. 

The newly found almost-surfer in me wanted to grab a board and try the waves out. Then I came back to reality and remembered I've only actually successfully stood up on a surf board like six times. Ever. In baby wussy waves. 

Yeah...no.

Playing on the beach....look at those bigass waves!

Calen the sand monster!

Camden created a new game called place his toy Coast Guard boat in the sand, then run away from it like it's a lighted firework with a short fuse. When the waves would come in, the boat would "sail" all the way up the beach. Rinse, repeat. For three hours. 

Calen really wished he had a toy boat to use so he found a piece of wood that he called his "boat". It floats and works just as well and even though it's not nearly as super awesome as Cam's real toy boat, Calen was just as content and thrilled with the game. Which just proves to me that even in 2014, little boys can make toy boats out of driftwood and have just as much fun as the newest gadget. 

Calen's super rad driftwood boat (smothered in sand)

Way better than tball practice. 

Everything Is Awesome! (Legoland, CA)

Probably the best (and most dangerous for this Lego obsessed family) of living in San Diego is having none other than Legoland, California less than half an hour north of our house.

Ummm, THAT'S happening. 

We had decided to save it for the short 2 week period that Brad has here at home before he deploys again. We had planned on going next week, but I woke up with a serious Legoland itch this morning and made an executive family decision that we were going NOW. 

We've went to Legoland Florida during our Disney vacation this past fall. Which was a blast and all, but the park here in Cali has it beat by a mile. It's bigger, it has more to do, and it has a rocking water park. (This opinion is skewed, partly due to the fact that we went in fall/winter in FL and was closed for the season, so I can't really compare).

We opened the park at 10am and left an hour before closing at 7pm. We hit the water park first per the Internet's request. The theory is the waterpark is less busy in the morning and completely PACKED in the hot afternoon. It was correct. How did we plan anything ever without Google? Someone give it a Nobel Peace Prize.

The water park itself is just rad. There are areas with flowing water ways and piles of Lego Duplos to build custom boats and see if they will make it all the way down the water way. Or take some giant foam Lego bricks and connect them to your intertube on the lazy river to create your own raft. And then go do all the normal water park stuff (slides, wading pools, etc), but add Lego animals, Lego people (sorry, minifigs. I still don't get the name) and Lego bricks absolutely everywhere. 

People probably thought I was mentally handicapped, since I would notice something throughout the park that would remind me of a Lego set of my childhood and giggle to myself loudly. 

Cam was being pissy about the water until he found this Lego alligator. Then he gave it a smooch (for good luck?) and actually started to swim. Ooookay.

Post water park and lunch, we went to the standard part of the park. Lots of rides, some shows, Lego Movie characters (still mad that Batman didn't make an appearance), and monsterous Lego structures wherever you looked. Oh and uh, gift stores. Everywhere. Lego gift stores. Dangerous for mom and dad the kids.

It's Emmett!! AWESOME.

I could have just gone without the kids and totally been okay. 

It's a Legossaurus

They had these Lego building pits everywhere

The best part of Legoland (in CA or FL) is the Lego city. Real U.S. cities are built to scale, some buildings (particularly in Lego NYC) easily would surpass my ceilings in my house. Calen and his little engineering mind went absolutely bananas in the cities. You could see his eyes light up and the gears start turning inside his head. I told Brad he should work for Lego. Brad said "uh yeah so we can get free Lego sets!" We are on the same page when it comes to parenting.

Lego NYC

Lego Rushmore. And now that we've seen this version, who needs to go see the real thing??

Lego San Francisco

It was just an awesome awesome day. We left talking about if we could afford annual passes (we can't) and watched Cam fall asleep in the car eating Doritos (mid chew...found that used chip in his mouth later....gross) and Calen fall asleep holding a book up to his face. Now that's tired. 

And the best part? A short half hour drive home. 

I can say, if you aren't into Legos, shame on your face!! then you probably won't geek out about this theme park as much as say, my family did. It's still fun, especially for kids, but don't go looking for super thrilling rides or crazy rollercoasters. The whole point of the park is Legos. This sounds obvious but I overheard some people complaining that "there isn't anything non-Lego to do here!" (ummm....why are you here??). If you aren't into it, avoid it. If you are, brace yourself for awesomeness.