from we to three.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

vacation: part 3

our second activity that we did during the week was take avery to sea world. i had been once when i was a kid and charlie had never been. we thought avery would like this better than the zoo since she's much more into the aquatic life. i think she did like some of the animals better, but she's definitely more into the fish than the mammals. we had some of the same issues at sea world that we did at the zoo, namely avery didn't want to ride in the stroller or hold charlie's hand and at times was really upset over something completely unknown to us. since sea world is a lot smaller than the zoo it was a lot easier to get around and we didn't have the same challenges with the hilly terrain.

charlie attempting to shade her head from the sun.

one of the things that upset avery on this trip was that she refused to wear a hat about 95% of the time. she then ended up with a sunburn on her head, which hurt her but couldn't make the connection between her head feeling better and wearing a hat. so the sea world trip was one of the times where we tried to make her sit in the stroller as much as possible just for the shade, but of course she wasn't happy about riding in her stroller.

our first stop at sea world were the whales. the underwater tanks were awesome for viewing a lot of the animals and without them she never would have been into the animals as much as she was.

she was less impressed with the dolphins, turtles, seals, and sea lions. they had a tide pool with a bunch of starfish that the kids could touch and she LOVED touching the starfish. she was a little apprehensive at first but once i showed her she was all about it. we touched a lot of starfish and i'm pretty sure she would have crawled right into that water to catch all of the ones she couldn't reach from the edge. she kept talking about how she touched the starfish all day and even now when she sees a picture she'll tell you exactly what was going on.

at the whale show.

i think one of the biggest attractions of sea world is all of the shows that they have. we went to two. the first was a show with mainly cats and dogs and a few pigs and kangaroos, too. the show was amazing and avery absolutely loved it. every black dog was 'henry' and every tabby cat was 'toby' and she kept asking for 'more cat' and 'more dog'. both charlie and i were really impressed with the show, too. they use all rescue animals which is even cooler and at the end of the show the kids could come up and pet the animals. avery really like petting the cat but didn't want to pet the dog. i don't have any pictures from the show because i spent the whole time holding avery and trying to cover her head up from the sun. we also went to the whale show, which was less impressive. is it sad that i'm more impressed by cats than whales? and avery wasn't nearly as into it. this was the last thing we did that day and she was so tired she fell asleep as soon as we got her into her stroller after the show.

there's also an arctic section of sea world with beluga whales, polar bears, a walrus, and penguins. i thought that avery would be really into the penguins since she talks about them a lot but she was more into the whale and the walrus.

overall i think she liked sea world better than the zoo, although it's hard to tell. charlie and i joked that we should have saved our money and just taken her to the aquarium in san diego since we knew she would have loved that. sea world had a very small aquarium section that she loved and could have stayed there for hours. i guess the good thing about these trips is that we now know that a season aquarium pass is a better investment for us than a season zoo pass.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

vacation: part 2

i have to break this vacation recap into multiple posts because we had way to many pictures for just one post. also, since we never take vacations i wanted to remember the awesome/awfulness of vacationing with a toddler. :)

while we definitely wanted to spend most of our time on the beach we thought that it would be good to get out and do some activities with avery to keep her from getting bored. it turned out we were wrong and everyone probably would have been happier had we just stayed at the beach every day, but nevertheless we attempted two big activities during the week. the first was the san diego zoo since everyone raves about how amazing and huge it is. avery is really, really, really into animals these days so we figured that this would be a popular destination for her as well. i'm not really a zoo person so without avery i never would end up at the zoo on my own.

the zoo was amazing and huge. it was really well set up and really cool just to walk around. again, i actually hate zoos but this one was really well designed. it was really hilly which meant that there were a lot of sections that were too steep for avery to walk on her own and she was fighting the stroller like it was her job. we carried her a lot and also forced her into her stroller a lot if we had to walk somewhere far. she's definitely in a 'mommy' phase right now and at 28 weeks pregnant i can only carry her around so much. she was really into walking a lot, which was great but of course would only hold my hand and refused to hold charlie's.

we did have a lot of close up animal encounters, which was pretty cool. our first stop were the chimps and they came running up to the glass and started banging on it. i definitely was not expecting that but unlike me, avery wasn't phased and thought it was pretty cool.

we got really close to the hippos, which was one of the animals she had been talking about a lot before the trip. she loved them and we even stopped back at the end of the day to visit them again.

the polar bear was also a huge hit since he was bored out of his mind and therefore swimming laps back and forth in the water.

charlie really wanted to see the panda bears since he had never seen one. this was towards the end of the day and avery was pretty tired and just over being dragged around to see different animals. when we got to the panda exhibit we found out that they made such a big deal about them that it took 40 minutes just to go through the exhibit. i really do not get the panda hype and was ready to just skip them, but we ended up staying. i guess they're cute, but i can't say they were worth the long wait and i'm pretty sure that avery felt the same way. although she did pick out a panda stuffed animal at the gift shop, even though i pushed the hippo pretty hard, so maybe she liked them more than she led me to believe.

she was really excited about the tiger and we got lucky again since we were able to see him up close. in general, avery's much more into fish and sea animals then land animals. we have a season pass to the denver aquarium and usually go about once a month (sometimes twice) and she loves fish. i was just at the dentist and they happen to have a fish tank there and we spent about 20 minutes after my appointment staring at the fish. anyway, the denver aquarium also has a tiger. i find this very odd, but she loves the tiger and has a tiger stuffed animal from the aquarium that she sleeps with every night. so it was cool for her to see the tiger up close at the zoo since we knew that she'd enjoy him. i also think that she thinks that tigers are just big and cuddly toby's and ollie's.

once we were done, we actually managed to see the whole zoo, we headed back to the hotel and avery passed out in the car. she was pretty happy to get back to the hotel that night and just hang out and play with the few toys that we had brought for her. i think the zoo might be a better destination when she's older and can appreciate some of the animals more and can also walk everywhere on her own. since it's so expensive to get in, both charlie and i wanted to get our money's worth which meant that we couldn't meander around at the pace avery was more comfortable with. but it still was a nice activity to break up the week and the drive from our hotel to san diego was beautiful.

Monday, September 16, 2013

vacation: part 1

the only picture we got of all three of us.

we just got back from a weeklong vacation in southern california. this was actually the first vacation that charlie and i had taken together that wasn't to visit family or 'just' a long weekend. we stayed for 7 days and 7 nights all thanks to some awesome credit card points. all the traveling that charlie does for work is finally paying off. :) we originally had plans to go to hawaii but changed that once we found out that i was pregnant since neither of us thought that a 7 hour plane ride when i was 7 months pregnant was the best idea. my doctor had actually said it was fine to go, but i was more comfortable with the shorter trip anyway. it's a good thing that we did because a 7 hour plane ride with avery would have been miserable. i'm pretty sure we won't be making that trip until all of our kids are old enough to entertain themselves on a flight like that.

the flight out was sort of painful. all avery wanted to do was to sit in the seat and buckle and unbuckle the seat belt. unfortunately, she didn't have a ticket of her own and therefore had to sit in my lap during takeoff and landing, which she threw a huge fit about. the woman sitting next to us wasn't very happy but there wasn't much that we could do about it. she was actually pretty unhappy and restless the whole flight, which made me very happy that it was only a 2.5 hour flight and not a 7 hour flight.

we landed late on saturday and had just enough time to get our car, drive to the hotel, and grab something really quick to eat before attempting to put avery to bed. we got a portable crib from the hotel but i think both charlie and i were hoping that she would just sleep in the bed with us as putting her to sleep and keeping her asleep would have been so much easier. but that first night she made it pretty clear that she was not going to be able to sleep with us at all and it took us over an hour to get her to sleep.

the view of the beach from the hotel.

walking down to the beach.

we had plans to just take it pretty easy the next day. we went and got breakfast and then stopped at target to stock up on a few things for the week before heading back to the hotel and just hanging out at the beach that day. one of the reasons that we picked the hotel is that we wanted something right on the beach so we could just walk down whenever we wanted. that part of the hotel was actually really nice. they had everything that we needed, beach chairs, umbrellas, toys for avery, water, and even sunscreen since we forgot to bring some. the beach was actually a public beach (i can't remember the name of it now) and was pretty crowded on the weekends but really empty during the week. they did have a surfing competition on friday and saturday but it still didn't seem to get really crowded, there were just a lot of surfers in the water. both charlie and i are beach people and if we took a vacation sans kids all we would want to do is sit on the beach all day. since avery loved the beach in june we thought this would also be a pretty good option for her, too. although going to the beach with a toddler isn't exactly relaxing.

overall, i think this part of the trip worked out really well. it was nice to be right on the beach so that getting there wasn't a big deal and we didn't feel pressured to spend hours there once we got there. if avery wasn't in a great mood and it wasn't working out it was no big deal to leave and come back later that day.

avery was pretty happy with the beach situation most of the time. she really liked digging in the sand and was really into having charlie dig holes and then sitting inside them and covering her up with sand. the beach toys that the hotel had were great and she really liked playing with those, too. there were definitely times where for no apparent reason she would decide that sand was horrible and insist that i wash all of the sand off of her and then freak out if she had to touch the sand. this happened maybe twice during the trip and it was actually pretty funny to watch her attempt to play on the beach without touching the sand.

she also really liked going into the ocean with charlie. he took her out there quite a few times and she had a great time watching the waves and getting splashed. the water was definitely cold but not as cold as i was expecting. sort of like maryland in june.

the ocean was pretty calm until our last full day when the waves were huge. even at low tide the random wave kept coming up and pretty much soaking the entire beach, which pushed everyone up against the edge and soaked more than a few people's things. it also created this tide pool that ran parallel to the beach that avery had a blast running circles in. i walked around with her for what seemed like forever until my back hurt too much from bending over.

he dug her a hole and then she insisted that he get in it.

it was a good thing that bunny and tiger made the trip with us. she brought them everywhere.

by the end of the week we had sort of developed a routine for our beach days. we would get up, usually very early thanks to avery, and then walk to this little breakfast place which was pretty much the only thing within walking distance of the hotel. after breakfast we forced avery into her stroller and walked along the path by the ocean in hopes that avery would fall asleep. the few times that she did were really nice. it gave charlie and i a little bit of time to talk and the views were really pretty along the coast. i love colorado, but i really do miss the water. after avery woke up we'd head back to the hotel and get changed for the beach. we spent most of the morning there and then packed up, put her in the car and then drove around for a bit while she napped again. then we'd head back to the beach for a bit before grabbing dinner.

the balcony at the bar.

a stolen rose.

dancing.

the hotel was pretty fancy, not really the best place to bring a toddler, but had this one bar/lounge area that was outside and overlooked the ocean. it was the most low key place to eat in the hotel and the only place that we attempted to eat with avery. there were roses everywhere, which avery loved to smell and there were elephants everywhere that she was totally into. they each had names and karma was her favorite. we had to stop and say hello to this elephant a lot during our trip.

it was actually a really nice trip. the only few downsides were the everything was so expensive, avery got a sunburn on her head because she refused to wear a hat for 95% of the time and then was pretty upset about the fact that her head hurt, and she hurt her arm in sort of a freak fall one evening resulting in an er trip. thankfully everything was fine, and the assumption was that it was a supinated elbow, but i'm not looking forward to getting that bill in the mail. we also didn't sleep well because avery's loud at night! and therefore returned home pretty tired. i think that next time we'll definitely look to stay in a place that is at least a one bedroom so that we can sleep separately from her as i think that may have made it easier to sleep at night. however, it was really nice to spend an entire week as a family even when avery was being a cranky toddler.