Anna the teacher

Anna loves to read and continues to surprise us with how quickly she picked it up once she started. Something she loves to do is read to her brothers. They have been somewhat tolerant of her being the teacher. She told them that they were in second grade and they got upset, they are in room five! Of course they thought second grade meant room two at school (the one year old room!). How dare she insult them! :-)

Vacation! Day 10 (Tuesday 9/11)

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Drive home day.  It went well thankfully since everyone was sleepy.  We left San Diego at about 10:30 a.m., stopped for lunch and to play for a bit in Buena Park and made it home just before 5 p.m.   Home sweet home!  

Edit - one funny thing that happened on our car ride home is all of a sudden Mason started crying "there is something happening to my foot" and repeated it several time.  I realized that his foot had fallen asleep!  Funny to us, not so much to him.  

Vacation! Day 9 (Monday 9/10)

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A full day of Sea World was a good way to end our trip!  We arrived at the park when they opened and headed off to see the beluga whales, polar bears, and walrus.  They were all very active and it was fun to watch them move around.  We went back to the car for an early lunch so we could go back and watch Shamu at noon.  Anna had been talking about wanting to get wet at the show and was disappointed when we didn’t at the last show so we decided to sit closer where we were fairly certain we would get wet.  As the show time approached we asked Anna numerous times, are you sure you want to get wet?  She would say yes and was getting rather annoyed by the constant questions.  After seeing a special guest in the front row of our section I was certain we would be getting wet.  Sure enough, once the splashing started it kept coming!  We were soak to the core!  Anna was crying which made Mason cry (he may have even if she wasn’t) but Olivier had not problem with it!  After the first wave we used our hands to cover Mason and Anna’s eyes to try and keep at least some of the water off their faces.  There was a lot!  Five hours later we still were not fully dry and it was hot out.  We tried to make up for it after and went to the Elmo area to let them play in the sprinklers to which they had no interest because they could go on rides!  This was their first time going on rides and they really enjoyed it.  It really helped that there was no wait too!  We headed to the 4D movie but that didn’t go so well; it sprays water, which made Anna and Mason unhappy.  Ah, we were trying to score points and just made it worse!  We went to the touch tanks and visited the aquarium.  A great day at Sea World, even Anna and Mason would agree. 

Vacation! Day 8 (Sunday 9/9)

The kids have a book called Good Night San Diego and there are a bunch of things in the book that you can do while you are here.  One of the few things we haven’t done in our trips here was visit the lighthouse (Point Loma) and the Cabrillo monument.  Today we went with the kids and they had a good time.  We were hopeful that the tide would be out far enough to enjoy the tide pools but no luck.  I napped with the kids and we walked to the pier after.  A low stress but noisy afternoon, the kids can’t seem to stop talking.  My goodness they are noisy!  Maybe it just seems like more due to our tight quarters.  My new favorite saying is Olivier telling us “good luck”.  He goes in the kitchen when we are making dinner and tells us “good luck” and goes running out.  Silly boy.  And he tries to describe everything (loved how he got flustered trying to explain a hammerhead shark we saw the other day).  Great memories for tired parents. 

 

Vacation! Day 7 (Saturday 9/8)

We took our wild animals to the wild animal park.  J  We didn’t do too much of the walking because the kids are done walking for a bit (especially Mason) but we wanted to check it out and we did see a good portion of it in the two hours we were there.  They really liked the safari we went on and getting to ride on a “bus”.  We saw a lot of rhinos, giraffes and antelope (along with many other animals).  The boys are always excited to see pelicans, which is fun (we got them stuffed pelicans last December when we visited the aquarium that they are very attached to).  After rest we went to the beach to make sand castles.  Olivier’s hair is so white and he likes to make such a mess with the very dark sand it makes his hair look grey!  And Mason’s hair is so thick it gets full of sand quickly.  Thankfully Anna hasn’t been too sandy/messy from our beach trips. 

 

Vacation! Day 6 (Friday 9/7)

Back to the zoo we went!  We started by heading along the monkey trail because Mason really wanted to see monkeys.  We saw lots of monkeys!  They were having a lot of fun playing and at one point (of course I didn’t have the camera on for those five seconds!) a monkey came over with a large leaf in his hand and banged on the window right in front of Anna.  The kids weren’t frightened at all; they laughed and kept asking them to come back.  We saw a pygmy hippo and small monkey (can’t remember the type) playing.  The tigers were not moving and the bears were in hiding.  The kids enjoyed brushing the goats and being able to pick an animal (Anna – polar bear, Olivier – elephant, Mason – blue panda bear although his favorite animal was the monkeys).  After rest (another not so great one) we walked to a park next to the beach.  The kids have gotten picky though; they complained there was not enough there for them to do.  They seem to have a case of cabin fever or sick of each other fever! 

Vacation! Day 5 (Thursday 9/6)

Today started with a trip to the beach!  They were excited to see a tractor on the beach cleaning the seaweed that was on the beach.  As Olivier would say, "construction!"  Anna told Matt that she was going to be brave right away this time and she did really well.  We were there for about two hours and she didn’t leave the water or the water’s edge the entire time.  The boys were not so brave.  When we arrived at the beach they were quick to run to the water’s edge with Matt and Anna but once that first wave came in and Olivier ended up on his bottom, they did not go close to the water.  Mason acted like he wanted to but would come running back saying “go away wave, go away!”  It was hard not to giggle.  They finally took awesome naps (whew!) and we had an easy going late afternoon. 

 

Vacation! Day 4 (Wednesday 9/5)

We visited the San Diego Maritime Museum!  It was great to see a wide variety of boats and submarines.  The kids liked all the climbing but didn’t understand that people used to live on the boats for weeks or months at a time.  They saw no problem with five people having to share a space about as big as our closet.  And we think we go a bit crazy!  Back to the house for lunch and naps (thank goodness, although not nearly as long as we would have liked) and then off to Sea World!  We pet the rays, watched Shamu, and saw the sharks (twice, the park was basically empty and Anna love the people mover we got to stand on). 

 

 

Olivier had fun using the binoculars they got that morning to watch Shamu.  Now if only he used them correctly!  

Vacation! Day 3 (Tuesday 9/4)

We headed to the San Diego Zoo in the morning.  We saw about a third of the zoo in the two and a half hours we were there but the day was very warm and all that walking with hills did not go over so well.  We headed to the car for lunch on the drive back home for the afternoon.  The kids did not nap at all (except Mason’s 20 minutes in the car) so it made for a frustrating afternoon.  We made the best of it and went to the beach to make sand castles.  Amazing how they got more sandy doing that than when we went yesterday.  Yikes! 

 

 Anna and "ZeeBee" (the Zebra she got the when we visited the zoo two years ago)

The polar bear was playing "basketball" when we saw them.  The kids loved watching!

Vacation! Day 2 (Monday 9/3)

First was the all important grocery trip.  The grocery store was surprisingly busy for a Monday but when we realized it was Labor Day it made more sense.  It took a while to load up and the kids were anxious to go to the beach!  We got back to the house and did a quick snack and wardrobe change and we were off to the beach!  The kids had a great time and got brave and ventured out in the water a bit (with Daddy’s help).  After rest time, we walked to a local park and had a relaxing afternoon.