San Diego - Weds & Thurs

So there is so much to write about with our San Diego trip that I am breaking it into several entries (we did so much!). Here is Weds & Thursday.

We were a tad concern with the weather in the beginning. With all the snow we were getting we were worried about getting snowed in or our flight getting cancelled, but all worked out well. We left Tuesday night and spent the night in Milwaukee and then left bright and early the next morning.

WEDNESDAY
One neat thing about the Milwaukee terminal is that they have large windows where you can watch the planes pull up and leave. Ky loved watching the planes move! He was glued to the window for a very VERY long time. He kept saying “pApAne!” (airplane). He was excited and I think he understood that we were getting on the plane. Once on the plane and taking off –he was excellent. Very well behaved and even slept for a while. The flight attendant gave him his own set of pilot wings. We had a brief stop in Kansas City (but we did not deplane) and then we arrived shortly after noon San Diego time.

Getting a ride to our hotel was a tad trying. First realize we are traveling with a toddler so we are carrying 3 suitcases, a car seat, a diaper bag, a back pack, a pack n’ play, and Kylan. That is a lot to lug! But we made it alright—we ended up taking a shuttle, where the people kindly shifted around to fit us in.
The hotel was nice. We stayed right downtown, just blocks from the harbor. We checked in and then decided to go for lunch (which was practically dinner) for us. We walked to a local lunch place and then walked by the water. It was neat to see the huge ships! There were aircraft carriers and battleships, cruise liners, sailboats—you name it, it was there.

Dinner at Sammy’s Brick Oven pizza’s—or something like that. It was delicious! We had some interesting pizza flavors and then got a free messy sundae—which was oozing with chocolate and caramel! YUM—and sadly we had to share with Kylan—yes he has a sweet tooth now. ARGH!

THURSDAY

We got up bright and early—thanks to Kylan and had breakfast with Paul at a local pancake house. Ky was excited to see Paul. He kept asking “Where’s Paul?” Paul also shared his sunglasses with him—this made them instant buddies.

Paul was kind enough to drop us off at the infamous San Diego Zoo! (We would have to figure out public transportation later.) And we were off to see the animals. First off one thing that is really impressive about this zoo is that they have the animals split up according to climate and they make landscape with vegetation found in the different climate regions. For example, there was a rainforest, which was very shaded due to lots of trees and in turn it was very cool and moist.

We saw just about every animal imaginable—and we didn’t see them all! There was not enough time, even though we spent the whole day there.

I have to say it seemed a bit hopeless, when the first animals we saw were ducks. Ky did not want to leave the ducks. “DUCK! WACK WACK! DUCK!” We had to pull him away crying. When he saw other animals, he recovered pretty quickly. We saw some of the weirdest animals. We learned that Dr. Seuss was actually inspired by some of the animals at the SD Zoo for his characters. I think the hairy pigs (pictured above) were definitely inspirations.

The pandas were neat to see. We saw the mom and her baby. You have to be very quiet around the pandas. Noise disturbs them.

We were lucky to see several koalas awake. They sleep 22 hours a day, so it is hard to see them awake. We saw several very active ones.

We saw this one very funny looking animal (it is showing its teeth in the picture above). I don’t remember its name. Anyways, this animal had a thing for Rob. He came up to the fence and kept grinning (teeth and all) at Rob. It was hilarious. I think he wanted a smooch.

The elephants were a blast to watch. We were so close and they would come near you. The signs would warn you to watch your clothing, since elephants like to grab loose clothing.

I put the meerkat picture in for Liz---they were posing! I swear.

The petting zoo was probably Ky’s favorite. He tortured those poor goats. I swear they were running from him. But he kept after them insisting on petting them. The pic I have above was his favorite goat. The only reason I think that goat was so complying is because it was hungry and was so focused on eating.

We stayed at the zoo until it closed and figured out what bus would take us back. After a brief stop at our hotel we walked to the local Ghirardelli Ice Cream shop. I am very sad to say, I forgot to take a picture for such a memorable occasion—especially since we are such ice cream connoisseurs. I enjoyed a mint fudge yummy goodness sundae and Rob licked up his toffee fudge sundae. Kylan enjoyed a scoop of blueberry ice cream with sprinkles. And yes we ate this before dinner. We have priorities! MMMMM…it was good.

After that we walked back down to the harbor and had dinner at a Buster's Beach House. The food was pretty good. Nothing to write home about. Ky was falling asleep on the walk back home, so we called it a night after briefly exploring the local mall---Oh yeah the mall—so cool—I will write more about it in my next blog entry, but they had an ice skating rink outside of it! So cool! And the mall was really an outdoors mall, with multiple floors. Santa was out and the tree was lit. It was neat….

One last comment for my first San Diego entry. It was cold. We traveled while good old SD was in a cold spell. We wore coats most of the time. I think the warmest it ever got was 67 degrees. The locals were shivering in there big winter coats (isn’t that funny!). Rob wanted to pack shorts, I told him not to. He never wore them. He insisted on wearing sandals one day, and then was complaining by evening when his feet got too cold. Silly boy!

Oh yeah—before I go, Ky milestones…
His vocabulary is unbelievable. For strangers it takes being around him to understand what he is saying (his pronunciation isn’t the best), but he talks and talks—and uses words and sentences. He is incredible. At his age he should know between 5 – 10 words (so say the books) Rob and I have counted over a 100 words in his vocabulary. And these are words that he says on his own without prompting or repeating—if I were to count those words he would probably be well over 200. Ky will say things like “Want bottle of Milk”. He distinguishes because sometimes he asks for a bottle of water instead. A full sentence with subject involved would be “Bear eat food”—this one he pronounces very well. He uses the word “My” correctly. For example “dat’s my bike”. We have taught him some etiquette too… Now after he farts he won’t just say “fart”—he will say “fart, scuse me”—This is a silly example, but it is really funny when it happens. He can count to four—though usually needs us to start him to get there. And he is not a big fan of the number 2---however he loves 3 and 4. So counting is more like “Duh (we fill in two) tree, four” He also says “ABC”. And will mouth along when we sing the alphabet—and occasionally sings some of the letters with us. He likes to say W “dubu vu”. This kid is incredible. His words are amazing. Tonight when rob tucked Ky in he actually asked for another blanket. We didn’t know he knew the word blanket. WOW this kid blows me away. I am around other kids his age, and have yet to see a kid comparable in vocabulary. Well enough bragging for now---I need to get to bed.