Legoland and the Sea Life Aquarium 2012

This park was by far my favorite from the trip. The rides were perfect for the boys....and for me, since I can't go on the big scary ones right now!

We started at the aquarium since it opened before Legoland. It was really cool. They had lots of pools to touch animals and lots of figures made out of Legos that were inside the tanks.

We headed into Legoland and Peyton rode on his first rollercoaster! He had such a good time and it was so fun to see him so excited to go on all the rides. We just wandered the park and went on tons of rides.

We headed to the van for lunch and a break. Then we headed back into the park for more fun! We saw Miniland which is a bunch of famous places throughout the world made out of Legos. They had the Sydney Opera House, the Eiffel Tower, New York City, Las Vegas, and a bunch of others that I don't remember! The special theme right now is Star Wars. Mason thought all of the Star Wars section was awesome. He just couldn't stop looking at everything. They even had famous people made out of Legos.

Mason did a driving course and then got his very own drivers license. He was so excited about that! We took lots of pictures and had tons of fun! Our boys were the perfect ages for everything there and really enjoyed Legoland!

Safari Animal Park 2012

Included in our zoo tickets, were tickets to the Safari Animal Park. This park is closer to where we stay at the beach...just inland. We headed there on the 4th of July in the afternoon. I expected it to be pretty busy since it was a holiday but it really wasn't. At this park, you wander through 'natural habitats' for the different kinds of animals. We started with the condors.

Then headed towards the tigers. We didn't see the tigers because they have such a huge habitat and we couldn't find them. We took a ride on the African Safari tram and drove through the safaris. It was really similar to a real African safari except they have lots of animals instead of trying to search them out.

Then we wandered through the wetlands and saw lots of birds and ducks. We ended the day with the bat house. It was so cool to see real bats!

As we were walking out of the park, there were some drums that the kids wanted to play.

It was a fun day and we were so glad we went. We didn't know if we were going to have enough time on the trip to come to this park. We were glad we took some time to go!

San Diego Zoo 2012

When we went on our Make A Wish trip last October, they gave us a World Passport at the end of the trip. This passport is amazing! It gives us access to a ton of different parks throughout the country for a year post wish trip. So, we have until this October to use the passes! Since we were going to California to go to the beach, we decided to add some parks in while we were there. The first park we went to was the San Diego Zoo. We knew the kids would LOVE to see all the animals.

We left the beach really early because we wanted to be at the zoo when they opened. We didn't have any traffic issues so we were really early. We wandered around the outside of the zoo while we waited for it to open.

We headed into the zoo and went to the Petting Zoo first. We wanted to beat the rush that would most likely happen later in the day!

We saw the monkeys next! They were so fun to watch. They were very active and you wandered through them on a boardwalk so you got to see them at all different angles.

We went to the hippos and then decided to eat lunch.

After lunch, we headed to the Skyfari that took us over the top of the zoo to the other end. On the other end, we wandered to the bears and other small animals. We decided to go to an acrobat show that was playing. The acrobats were children and teenagers. They were absolutely amazing. It was nice to sit for awhile and take a little break.

After the show, we saw the polar bears. Then we took the Skyfari back and picked up the strollers. Included in our pass was the bus tour. So, we got in line for that and saw the African animals on that tour. It saved us a lot of walking and Tanner even took a nap during the tour.

We had a great day at the zoo. The boys were so tired when we were done but it was so much fun!