Spring Break Safari Park Trip

One of the nice things about living in San Diego is that it's basically a tourist destination with loads of fun things to do.  The thing is though, living here, doesn't guarantee anybody funds or free time to take advantage of all the great things to do.  I mean, SURE, it's awesome that the beach is about a half hour drive across town.  But honestly, we only really make it there 2 or maybe 3 times a year at best.  And of course there are amusement parks and zoos a plenty, but there just is never enough time or money to go that often.  There has got to be a good dozen awesome museums down in Balboa park and I'm pretty sure I've been in exactly 2 of them (and one of those was before any of the kids were even born.)

Sometimes I think people believe if you live in California or Florida or where ever that you are like constantly on vacation.  It's just not like that.  We probably do get to the fun parts of our town more frequently than people who have to travel here from out of state, but most of the time we are just living our daily lives, trying to get homework done and balanced meals on the table.  

And, even if there were time, who on Earth can afford to constantly be doing fun vacation type things?  Even with annual passes (which we no longer get because the kids are in school) that stuff is EXPENSIVE.

Except, try explaining that to the children.  Our nanny took A.J. and Lucy to the Safari Park waaaay back at the beginning of the school year on a kids-free week and she has been begging to go back ever since. She doesn't really read yet, but I'd swear she can figure out z-o-o and sees the signs and commercials everywhere and then wonders why we torment her by not going.  

There is just never any tiiiiiiiime.

But we ARE moving soon and there really is NOT a good zoo where we'll be.  My girl will be heartbroken.  What's a future animal scientist supposed to with herself without a zoo to visit?  

So, since it's spring break, and since Matt has use-or-lose leave to burn and he took the whole week off with us, we decided we could take them all to the Safari park once again.

It's been awhile since my last visit.  You know the one right?  Yup, the one where I was 5 months pregnant with Peter and fell down and broke my foot and had to be carted out of there on a stretcher?

Fun times right there.

I swore I'd never go back after that embarrassment but 6 years is a long time and I love my children and also, ELEPHANTS.

They've changed a lot since and the whole area I was walking through, waddling up the hill by the old tiger overlook on my way to my beloved pachyderms is GONE.  Or, well, I guess it may still be there (probably not because they seem to have totally reworked the tigers' thing) but in any case as a regular park guest you can't even go that way around any more.  

And honestly I'm not the biggest fan of losing that way through.  But whatevs, it doesn't matter (much.)

Anyway, other than a guy with a snake chatting casually at the people when we first arrived the first animals we encountered were some very, very sleepy meercats.

They looked dead to be honest.  One would think burrowing animals would sleep IN their burrows.

But, I guess, zoo life changes things doesn't it?

Just, every other time I've seen them (at any zoo) they are always popping up on their back legs staring at everybody and maybe yipping or squeaking (what the heck sound do meercats make anyway?) to each other all the while.  Not that day.  It was probably 10:30 or so in the morning by the time we got to them, and they were all still out like lights.  Looked like they'd had a quite a night of it actually.  

I wonder if they're supposed to be nocturnal.

I asked A.J. but she didn't know.

Right.  She's only 4.  But you never what somebody knows until you ask do you?

Anyway, next we headed out and over this big duck pond and started making our way towards the gorillas and the big safari part of things.

This thing was in with the ducks.  I couldn't find a sign telling me what it was but it just kept standing there like that looking rather scary.  Reminded me of something that would have been in one of the pictures of the old illustrated version of Alice in Wonderland I had as a child.   Gave us all the creeps so we moved on.

Soon enough we came to gorillas.

And come to think of it, why on Earth do they have gorillas at the Safari Park?  Safari makes me think it's all African plains animals and the whole place mostly is.  Gorillas don't live in Africa do they?  Certainly NOT the plains anway, but do they???  I don't know actually, but I guess I thought they were more in like Southern Asia.... maybe.

Wait.  Congo.  That movie was about Gorillas.  Now if only I knew where the Congo was.

In any case, maybe the Gorillas are just still there from when the whole place was called the "Wild Animal Park" because most of the animals had big huge open enclosures and could run free as if they were wild.  Except I think that name scared some people, because maybe they got the wrong idea about how wild the animals really were.  Or maybe the animal rights activists got unhappy that the animals weren't really in the wild at all.

I don't know.

Heck.  Maybe the novelty of the park's big enclosures and "free(ish)" roaming animals wore off because most zoos in the country go for that sort of thing now so they just needed to rebrand?

In any case, the whole name change is dumb, because honestly until the nanny took A.J. there and she started asking me about going back to the Safari "zoo" all the time, I still referred to the place as the Wild Animal Park all the time anyway.

We wandered some more.  Soon enough we came to the Lion(s) even though there was only one out.  Lions are Peter's current favorite animal.

I actually, don't think he cared all that much about them until A.J. became inexplicably obsessed with wolves and maybe he kind of felt left out or something.  

Then we went and rode on the big safari tram thing to see all the huge enclosures of various African animals in their wild type habitats big enclosures.

Next came lunch and then we headed over to my elephants.

They were doing work on one whole side of the enclosure so not all of them were out and I guess they moved a bunch to another zoo to make a new herd, but it was still good.  Not as many as before, but I still could have stood there and watched them all day.

Not my kids though.  

They resorted to playing in a nearby tree while they waited for me and then I got afraid one of them would fall and get hurt so I tore myself out of there.

We passed a little bat house which I don't remember ever seeing before and Peter and I decided to check them out.

Yikes.  I've seen MUCH smaller bats up close (one got in our apartment in Texas once)
and they weren't nearly this.... fuzzy. I didn't know whether to be fascinated or terrified.  These were
the size of small cats.  Two of them seems to be fighting as they hung
from their branch and another one I swear was looking right at Peter with his big creepy eyes as
it crawled around picking bits of food out of a dish of some sort.  

In any case it was blisteringly warm in their building and had a smell to match, to we got out of there pretty fast.

The kids then spent the next 30 minutes or so playing in, around and on top of this big fake hollow log.

Only the promise of the petting zoo got them out of there.

But the petting zoo presented as an even worse problem.  Who the heck knew goats were so much fun?

Oh wait.  They had brushes.  So instead of just petting, or maybe feeding them little bits of crappy food, you could brush them!  Wow.

There two kept getting into a fight with each other.  Lucy almost got taken out in the mix.

Kids will be kids I guess.

:)

Get it?

No?

Fine.  They were full grown goats.  BUT STILL.

A.J. found one lone little goat sort of lounging in small hole so she decided to focus on it.

Then Lucy joined in and just, made herself at home.

I honestly worried the only way we'd ever get out of there was with that goat and what the holy heck would I do with a goat?

There's another potential post-navy career option for you dear.  Goat farming!  The girls would love you for it.

(I can't really stand goat cheese though.... so good luck with that.)

Whenever we did FINALLY escape the goats we were pleased to find this baby rhino having a (alright FOUR) bottle(s.)

I wanted to take it home with me.

Then we went to find the tigers.

Which were all pacing and didn't seem too thrilled.

My three taking a break from walking on a random bench.

We also found the bald eagles.  So cool to see them up close, but also sad not to see them
flying free like we sometime used to see them in Washington.

Up at the top there was an  amazing view of the rest of the park and the surrounding mountains.

Eventually, Lucy gave up the fight and crashed out.

We got some ice cream, then hit up the souvenir shop.  Peter got a set of toy Lions.  A.J. got a stuffed meercat and picked out a little stuffed Tiger for her sleeping sister.

She did NOT get this wolf hat and mitten thing, but she really, really should have.

It was a good day.  Here's the picture they took of us before the safari tram.  Turned out pretty well.

And of course, not long after we got back to the car....

Haha.  Every time.

Also there was this....

I promise he actually wasn't sleeping.  He'd left his pain meds at
home for his pinced nerve and his arm was just really, really bothering him.

Happy Easter!

Easter morning came around 7 AM, which, all things considered was pretty reasonable.  Peter and A.J. had bounced around in their room for hours the night before.  Like, worse than usual, of course, because of their excitement over the prospect of candy and treats come the morning.  They kept finding new and only slightly creative reasons to pop out to the living room to harass us see if anything had been left yet.

Matt and I could just imagine them in there at probably 8:15 PM, after they tired of pretending to sleep for the last 5 minutes.

Peter- "Psst.  A.J.?  You still awake?"

A.J.- "Yeth.  Of courth.  You know I don't really ever sthleep."  

Peter-  "How long do you think it's been?  Hours right?"

A.J.- "Yeah.  It'th probably been hourth.  Maybe it'th morning already!?!?"

Peter- "You go see.  But if we're wrong, think of something really good to ask them so they don't get mad at us for not being asleep."

A.J.- "Okay, got it."  (Exits bedroom, pads softly down hallway and pops her head around corner at us.)  "Um.  Just one more thing...."

Matt and Jen- "WHAT?!?!"

A.J.- "Um, well, you see, I kind of.... "

Jen- "WHAT is IT you need?"

A.J.- "Well, you see..... my belly button.  It'th..... kind of.... it'th itchy."

This kind of thing happened at least a dozen times.

Mommy (and probably Daddy as well, though I can't really speak for him) was seriously on the verge of losing it.

Also, I'm kind of concerned because a certain boy will be 6 years old this summer.  That, in and of itself is bad enough, but then one of the 47 times I went back there to ask them to PLEASE GO TO SLEEP, he asked me the following...

"Mommy, why do you and Daddy always stay up after we go to bed?"

Really, it's a ridiculous question.  These days, 9 days out of 10 I go to bed just as soon as they do. But anyway, as much as I assured him that Mommy and Daddy had chores to do once they were in bed, and that we couldn't go to sleep ourselves until we knew for certain our children are safe and asleep in their beds.... I think.... he suspects something.

There's a really, really terrible part of my brain that kind of wants to sit that boy down and inform him just exactly how many more eggs the "bunny" might have filled with candies and hidden around the house had the "bunny" not have had to wait until well past 10 PM (the bunny's very latest regular bedtime) before getting started on any of it.....

ANYWAY.

So I guess Peter was up first but he was made to sit on the couch with his Dad until his sisters started to stir and then Matt came and got Mommy up and she got her phone ready to take pictures (because who on Earth knows where one of the camera battery chargers are) and then they were allowed to start the Easter morning fun.

There baskets were waiting for them at their seats at the table. 

Lucy missed the table at first and went for the empty baskets left in the living room for egg hunting.

I think she was confused.

But she figured it out soon enough.

Once they'd each dug through their baskets, it was time for breakfast.  It would be time for church before any of us knew it.

The part of me that used to be a really diligent mother who posted things like when he first born started eating with a spoon, took this picture and included it just so her youngest child wouldn't feel like she was completely left out of the milestone tracking.  She's been using a spoon for awhile lately, but, at 19 months old, it's still a fairly new skill for her and... well, close enough.  

After breakfast, we wrestled the children into their nice new church outfits and then we took a few pictures to prove it.

So then, we went to church.  We went straight to the "overflow" service down at the Holy Family Center where there is always plenty of seats even with the all C.E.O. (Christmas and Easter only)  Catholics suddenly popping up.  

It was a lovely service.  My students and Peter's classmates were everywhere which is always simultaneously odd and charming.  I think I'm going to miss that part of our church and school community the most.  

Anyway, when mass ended we headed home so that the children could search for all the eggs left throughout our living room.

Then, with the eggs all found and and the candy removed from them, the children ate lots and lots and lots of candy.

Eventually I just couldn't handle the amount of chocolate Lucy was drooling out onto her nice dress and I insisted she take it off.  This upset her greatly but when Matt took her to choose another dress from her closet, all she wanted was an old pair of her shiny dress shoes that barely fit any more.

Other than that, the kids just spent the day eating candy.  There was a lovely ham dinner at mid day of course, but the kids cared more for their candy.

Praise you Lord Jesus, our risen savior.  We are so thankful for your suffering and that you rose from the dead inspite of all you went through in order  to redeem us for our sins and to open the gates of heaven for us.

And also we're thankful for chocolate and marshmallow candies, apparently.