Vacay - Last Day!

After Legoland, Brian & I were theme-parked-out! We decided to forego The Zoo and spend the day at the beach. Well, when we woke up on Wednesday it was overcast and WAAAAY chilly! So we decided to go to The Zoo after all (like how I'm capitalizing The Zoo?) Our plan was to get the tour, see the koalas and then walk over to the pandas and call it a day.

Well, we started off golden! There was no wait for the tour bus. We got on a saw all of the important animals... giraffes, elephants, rhinos, lions, tigers, polar bears, camels, llamas, bears, cheetahs, gazelles, etc. We got off the tour bus and all hell broke loose! To this day I don't know what exactly happened. Jaxon asked for milk. I told him I only had water and Dr. Jekyll came out (is he the naughty one?) I found a nice little corner and put him in time out. Which was hilarious. Because people were walking by and whispering to each other about the kid in time out. He calmed down. We saw the koalas. Super cute!

Then Brian & I needed a potty break. I told Jaxon he was going in with me. Oh my! Here came Dr. Jekyll (or is it Mr. Hyde?) again. You'd think I told him to drink gasoline. He DID NOT want to go into the bathroom. So what's a good mom to do? I dragged him into the stall kicking and screaming. Hey, when a girls got to pee a girls got to pee. When we walked out Brian was standing there. FURIOUS! He said, "That's it! We're leaving." I started to protest, quietly. "But I want to see the pandas." "Anabelle. We are leaving. This behavior is unacceptable and he has to learn a lesson."

Ok. Off we went.

Jaxon screamed the entire way to the car.

Then he screamed for 10 minutes on our way to the hotel.

Finally he fell asleep. Poor baby.As mad as I was at him, I couldn't help but love him. We had pushed him too far. This was after all the 4th day without a nap. UnheWe all took a little rest and went swimming in the hotel pool for a few hours. Not exactly the beach, but still fun.

After swimming we showered and headed to Horton's Plaza for a little shopping. Where Jaxon was an absolute dream. Seriously, you would have never known that a mere few hours before he was a little devil. Oh well.

We worked up an appetite shopping for sunglasses so off to Casa Guadalajara in Old Town for some Mexican food.

Jaxon being his silly self. Wanting me to take pictures of him.

My favorite part of dinner was the mariachi band. Really, it was Jaxon's reaction to the band. The moment he heard the first note he became a dancing fool.

Dancing with his whale

Since we only got one family picture I thought I'd try for a few self-portraits before we all went night night.

All in all we had a good time, yes we had a few rocky moments, but the good definitely out weighed the bad. We do want to try again in a couple months and spend more time on the beach.... no more theme park for us! Oh, and we'll sneak in a nap here and there.

Only to Brian!

On Saturday Brian woke up and said, "I want to do something different today." Jaxon immediately piped up and said, "Let's go to the zoo!" So we did.

It was a nice, relaxing time and it was quite uneventful. For the most part.

We got to the bird aviary and of course Jaxon wanted to go inside. I am not a fan of birds. I think they are pretty. I like the way they sing. I don't even mind admiring them. What I don't like is them flying around my head or getting too close. I started to tell Jaxon no, we were not going to go in, but he was already half way in the door with no intention of coming out. I had no choice but to follow. Behind me Brian declares, "I know I'm going to get s**t on."

Jaxon is have a grand time looking at the birds and trying to match them to their guide so we can learn their names. He becomes fond of pheasant and insists on having a long, drawn out conversation with it. All the while, Brian is standing by the door urging us to leave.

Finally, we go. As I get closer to Brian I notice, that sure enough, he has gotten pooped on!

Before I can even form the sentence out loud I am doubled over with laughter. Of course HE's the one to get pooped on. Why wouldn't it be. Oh you can only imagine the colorful language that came out of his mouth when he realized why I was laughing so hard. I tried to make it better by telling him it was good luck to get pooped on. I know I've heard it somewhere. And since I've heard it, it must be true.

I have not laughed so hard in my life. Hilarious! I am still giggling just thinking about it.

The best part. Jaxon telling everyone the rest of the weekend that "Daddy got pooped on by a bird!"

We spent a little over an hour at the zoo (it's a small zoo) and I only took one picture.

Jaxon says he's going to be a salesman like his Daddy, but I beg to differ. I think he's going to be a teacher like his Mama. This is him walking backwards in front of us, clapping his hands and saying, "C'mon. Dis way. Follow me." Just like a teacher. Keeping his eye on his class!

We ♥ San Diego! Last Day!

Our last full day took us to San Diego Zoo until noon and to the beach after nap time. As we were planning our vacation, Brian & I asked our friends about the places we were going and if they had any suggestions. Well, NOBODY was a big fan of the zoo. They all said it was too big, too much walking, you didn't see any animals, blah blah blah. We were hesitant to go, but I made the executive decision that we would go and have fun. I was determined to be there right at 9:00 am, when they opened, and the FIRST thing we would do was the bus tour. Can I tell you how proud I am of us? We got there at 8:45 am! We are NEVER early for ANYTHING! It helped that it was so close to our hotel. Anyway, we beelined it to the bus tour as soon as they let us in and were were on the first tour out. This was fantastic because almost all of the animals were out and active. I just wish they would have stopped a little longer at each exhibit, but we still got to see everything. We had also decided that the pandas, koalas and reptiles (Brian's choice) were a MUST see. There aren't any pandas or koalas at the ABQ zoo so we figured it was important for Jaxon to see them. We stuck to our plan... went on the tour, saw our must-sees (and some other key animals along the way) and left by noon. Good thing too, because Jaxon was out by the time we left the parking lot.

Brian took a crap-load of pictures of the animals, which I never understood why we always take pictures of the animals, because I really don't print those pictures. I mean do people print them and put them in their photo albums? Anyway, since we have so many animal pictures, I think I may make an animal picture book for Jax. I think he would love it. I won't post all of those pictures here however, I mean you all have seen giraffes before right?

This is how Jaxon preferred to spend the bus tour... hanging out of the bus! He's going to give his mother a heart attack one of these days!Have you noticed that Jaxon only smiles when he's having his picture taken with his Daddy? Makes me mad! Brian says it's because I'm the one taking the picture and he's happier looking at me than him. Whatever! Ok, so I lied. I will post a few animal pictures!LOVE this picture of Jaxon! It makes me laugh. I think he had just hit his head on the glass trying to get a better look at the apes!

Notice the hippos face right next to Jaxon's? We've never seen a hippo so close. I was excited! Jaxon was a bit scared I think.


"Wake up hippo! Open eyes!"

How cute is that panda?

According to Jaxon this was "Mama toe-awa, Daddy toe-awa, & Baby toe-awa"

See what I mean about taking pictures with me? He doesn't even want to stand still!That afternoon at the beach a bunch of jelly fish apparently made their way onto the beach. Thankfully Jaxon was happier playing in the sand on this trip.

We would make dinosaurs... ..and he would destroy them and say, "Again! Make 'nother brontosaurus!" "I swide down Daddy"
We collected seashells...

and Jaxon tried to eat them... Why not?




Family picture #7(?) on the beach and my hair is messed up! Guess that one won't be our Christmas card!
These are my favorite pictures of the 300+ that I took! Seeing Brian & Jaxon on the beach together just filled my heart with so much love and put the biggest smile on my face. Those 2 are definitely best friends.




Another goal we had for this vacation was to get good Mexican food. Sorry to all of my New Mexican friends, but the Mexican food in NM is just NOT the same as what we are used to in Tucson and therefore, not as tasty (to us). We went to Casa Guadalajara. Brian and I have been there a few times before and we really like it. Of course, the first thing we order are margaritas! Well, who do you think wanted some of this tasty goodness? Brian ended up ordering a Virgin Maragarita for him and he drank the entire thing!

"Mmm. Dis good. Mama dis dwink good. Mmm"

My twin boys... this was not planned! How cute are they together??

That concludes the We ♥ San Diego series! Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed putting it together.