The San Diego Zoo and then home.

I won tickets to the San Diego Zoo! If I hadn't have won them, we wouldn't have been able to go. Winning things is awesome. We took the bus ride around the park first thing.

 Look at those handsome boys!

Turtles LOVE it when you ride them. Seriously. 

 goats love it when you pet them too.

 So we petted as many as possible.

B doesn't look to happy to be the fly....J's excited for his meal though :) 

 See, told you Turtles love giving people rides!

 Check it out, a Panda!

 The interactive part of the Polar Bear exhibit.

 We walked down the hill at the zoo and rode the sky tram back up it. J likes sky trams......and, don't tell him, but he has a monkey on his back.

 Beautiful Balboa Park from the sky tram.

See- proof, we were at the San Diego Zoo! 

After we left the zoo we went over to the Model Train Museum at Balboa Park, but it's closed on Mondays- BOO! So instead of looking at model trains, we looked at this really really big tree, It's tied for the biggest fig tree in California. When I was a kid, on field trips, we would always eat lunch here at this tree- back then it wasn't all fenced off and we would eat and play right under it. My boys had fun running around the fence. 

We took a tiny train ride. 

 J was super excited for a picture near the tiny train engine...B.....not so much.

The next morning, we packed up and went home. It was about Noon when I understood WHY my parents would leave San Diego at 4AM......Noon in the middle of the Mojave is no fun.

 We stayed the night with the Fears family of Henderson, where they boys enjoyed a nice long sleep at my very nice cousin Angie's house. 

 And that was our Big Adventure!

The Mormon Battalion and the Temple

We went to Old Town- but more specifically- the Mormon Battalion visitor center there in Old Town. It's changed A LOT since the last time I was there. It's pretty awesome.

J got to be the helper while the Sister Missionary was talking about how a soldier would have been outfitted.

 He probably needs to grow a foot or two.

 But he's a pretty cute soldier. 

We panned for gold!

And tried to use binoculars,

And then we went to dinner. Guess what? These boys really enjoy Calamari!

The next day we went to church at the Ward I grew up in. It was lots of fun. After church was nap time :)

Then we went to the Temple!

My boys like to climb.

Oh, Brotherly love. Sometimes I'm convinced that they actually like each other.

San Diego- The Beach

Oh, La Jolla Shores, I miss you! 

We played in the sand......

....we sat in the sun.....

.....We built sand castles.....

.......and more sand castles.......

AND we went in the Ocean!!!!!!!!

Little B saw a crab.

J made a Sand Angel

B put his sandwich down on the sand, and pushed it around....then he didn't want to eat it. Odd.

There was a nice kid who let us help dig a big hole in the sand.

He's just too cute not to take pictures of.....

SEE! The camera is DRAWN to him!

I made the boys sit down in front of this succulent garden, They didn't understand why, but their Grandpa Turner would. 

We drove over to La Jolla Cove for a short walk.....

And then our day at the beach was over! 

Oh, how I miss the beach.

Trip to Vegas, Celine and a nice little family trip to the Strip.

We took a trip....at the end of June :) When we got home I started loading pictures onto the blog so that I could put together some blog posts....and then the computer shut down while I was moving pictures and I got mad and NEVER WENT BACK......well, it's time to let go of my frustration and just get it done. AND to be completely truthful....did you know I'm almost 28 weeks pregnant :) Yep, and I'm tired and my house is a mess and sometimes I feed my family cereal for dinner.....and I feel slightly bad for blogging when I can't get all those other things done in a normal manner. Now that I've told you the deepest secrets of my pregnant soul, Here's our trip! Vegas and San Diego and back again! It will be several posts, and you will probably see them all backwards- what FUN!

Check it out- we saw a dinosaur!

I love that my children sleep on long car rides :), it's a blessing that I do not take for granted. Also, notice how little B sleeps? It's genetic, he gets it from me.

Checking out the view from the Penthouse :) Awesome! 

This pool is 50% of the reason we stayed in Vegas for a few days.....I love lounging in a lazy river, and apparently so do my boys.

Our boys have had some swim lessons, but they don't swim- SO this 1 foot to 18 inch  baby pool was also much loved.

They would crouch down and walk around on their hands with their legs trailing behind them and scream "I'm Swimming!" or "I'm a Crocodile!" 

Nap time for Mommy, I don't have a cute plaid blanket for my head, so I just use a pillow.

And the other 50% of why in the world we would take a trip to Vegas in the middle of Summer. Celine! It was an amazing show, in fact I cried a little, which is weird because I wasn't the one who was totally excited about seeing the show.

We took the boys down to the the Vegas Strip, because we are totally awesome parents, as you can tell from this picture of our totally awesome children. 

And of course we had to see the sign!

Our condo had a shuttle bus that would take us to the south end of the strip....

 ...we then proceeded a 3.5 mile round trip, to Harra's for their buffet. It was the most expensive free meal we've ever had- thank goodness for meal vouchers, AND for the Gelato Bar at the Buffet!

 After we stuffed ourselves silly we walked over to the Pirate Ship. There was no show, which was okay with us, we just wanted to see the ship.

We arrived at the Bellagio fountain just a minute or two before a fabulous show. I think I like the fountains at the Bellagio more than fireworks!   

By this point most of us were hot and ready to go take a nap

Well, we eventually made it back to our condo and went back to the pools. 

Check it out, even my shadow has a cute little pregnant belly!

When you've got a penthouse condo, even the second bathroom has a really nice tub!

When your parents don't bring toys on trips, you have to come up with other ways to entertain yourself.