Trip to the San Diego Zoo

Before I begin this post, I just have to say that my family and friends and church family have been beyond, beyond, beyond wonderful during this deployment.  THANK YOU.  Seriously, it's been amazing.

Long story short, kids get in free to the zoo in October and when I asked a friend, she said, "Let's go!".  We made a day trip out of it and it was fabulous.

Grandma sent Eli some film for an "old school" camera and he was set on taking his own pictures.

What's really funny about this picture is that Eli wouldn't get out of the stroller.  I debated about bringing it, but thought Colin might need it.  Nope, the 6 year old still wants to ride.

The zoo had some great animals!

The boys watching the hippo:

Lesson learned: always take friends with you to the zoo.  The White boys fought over who would push the stroller.  Win!

And Laurel brought this awesome wagon that the little boys could ride in.

 

More than that, the kids loved having friends there and it lessened my load of listening to questions.

boys petting a goat

All the kids:

Alison, Aline, Tolson, Eli, Colin, Jon, Ben

I'm pretty sure the boy's favorite part was the reptile house.  Colin and Tolson were laughing so loud at the ants.

I first thought of Laurel when debating about this trip because A.) I just really enjoy spending time with her and B.) We are pretty similar in a lot of things.  Those attributes made for a great trip.  Laurel is a little more adventuresome than I am (must be a thing when you have 4 kids) and when we came to this giant camel, she said, 'Here Alison, I'll hoist you up!". 

I was really impressed with all the animals we got to see and how close they were.  I read several blog posts that said the lines to see the panda's was out of control, but we didn't have to wait at all!

Looking at the Panda's:

 

We had to make a special trip to the other side of the zoo so Colin could see the elephants.
 

Aline turns 11 in a few weeks, but her and Alison get along great and have so much fun together.  Aline also understands the long leg/clothing problem so they have much to commiserate about.

Oh, the many stories I could tell of these two.  Let's just say they wore vests to evening church to go with these hats on Sunday and I had to take away guns they were playing with during worship.  Then they both looked at me in shock, like I was the crazy one for thinking gun playing during church was unacceptable.

We chose sitting on the beach over sitting in traffic and it was the best decision EVER.  Laurel and I sat and made plans about another trip.  The kids played together on that beach, so content and happy and we thought maybe if we came together, we might actually be able to read a book!

Colin stayed pretty far back from the ocean.  He was happy drawing in the sand.  This is his snowman:

We cleaned up at the car and went to Smash Burger for dinner because apparently that's where I go when I'm in San Diego.