Sunday, February 26, 2012

San Diego Trip

Lukas' homeschooling group had a field trip at the USS Midway last weekend, so we decided to go down for the long holiday weekend.  It all started when we picked up Natalie after school at noon and drove down to the San Diego Zoo.  We were inside the zoo before 2 pm!  We spent 3 hours checking out the animals before the zoo closed.

Dominik didn't spend very much time in the stroller.

There's a lot of construction going on at the zoo, and Lukas and Konrad used the time while Natalie and I went to the bathroom to climb a tree so they could see the construction better.  New exhibit idea!

The meerkats are one of our favorite!

We usually visit the zoo in the morning, so it was a completely different experience to see all the animals at the end of the day.  The back end of the elephant...

...and joining with a stampede of elephants...

...before climbing on a mother and calf.

Posing on an extinct North American tiger.

Natalie and Konrad popping out of the ice at the polar bear exhibit...

...the polar bear was not very interested in us.

Konrad enjoyed the tram ride back to the front of the zoo.

After dinner, Konrad said, "What is that?" as we drove by this thing.  Tom turned around and drove in the parking lot so we could get a closer picture.  Your guess is as good as mine.

The next day, we played at a park before Tom, Lukas and Konrad went to the Midway.  Here's Natalie doing her favorite thing: swinging on her belly.

Dominik loves climbing on everything...

...as do his brothers.

He definitely has no fear!

And then someone got caught in a spider web!

Natalie likes to climb too!

And there goes Konrad!

Of course, Tom forgot to take the camera along when the boys went to the Midway, so we have no pictures.  You'll have to refer back to our last trip to the Midway.  Then on Sunday we had breakfast with Tom's cousins, Leif and Carla, went to church and then had lunch with them.  After a nice long lunch, we went for a walk in the evening at the Presidio.  Natalie does so great with walking half a mile or so...I know that walking to and from school has built her endurance for walking.


Dominik had fun seeing the world from a higher vantage point.

Monday it was time for more play!  Really, the museums didn't open until 10 am, which is very late in the day for The Happy Ones.  So we went to a park near the museums to run off some energy.

Natalie loved spinning on this tea cup...although she did beg me to do it more slowly after I spun her a little too fast the first time.

More climbing boys.

Then we visited the San Diego Natural History Museum. I was so excited that we got in for free with our annual passes from the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana...we will definitely visit more of the parks in Balboa Park since we can get in for free (entrance fees for a family of six can add up quickly!)

We found a few saber tooth tigers.

And Tom really enjoyed touring the gem and minerals section with Lukas and Konrad (no pictures, because I kept Natalie and Dominik occupied so he could focus on the displays).  Lukas is definitely his father's son...he is very interested in gems and minerals, just like Tom.

So that was our trip to San Diego.  It definitely gets easier as the kids are getting older...which makes us want to do it even more!

1 comment:

Patty said...

What a fun weekend!!! I just love the SD zoo. That spinning thing at the park looks like great fun - Stephen would have been signing "more, please" over and over until you were going fast enough for him. Clearly, motion sickness is not an issue for our kiddos, huh?