Vacation time!

Before I start on our grand California vacation, I just noticed that the blog had 23 views today.  I don't really think that 23 people read this, so I'm a bit astounded by that.  Maybe they just come on and leave.  I don't know how that's tabulated.  Anyway, shocking.

So we went to California.  I have a love/hate relationship with that.  I love that there's so much to do there that is neat.  I love the weather.  I hate the drive.  I hate the traffic (yes, those are almost the same thing).  I hate the amount of people there.  We took this trip a bit last minute because Nate found tickets to an LA Galaxy game on Living Social and this was the only date (Father's day) that the game didn't start at 7:30pm.  Also, since he's a student at Concordia Irvine right now he gets discounted tickets to Sea World and Universal Studios, so we decided to take advantage of that before he's no longer a student there.  I was dreading the trip, and it turned out OK.

Word to the wise, Nate gets road rage when there's traffic and tries to use his cruise control even when there's a bajillion cars on the road and he's going to have to keep quitting cruise control every 5 seconds.  This is why I typically drive to/in California.

We got to the soccer game late because of the traffic on the way to LA.  What we saw of it was great.  It was fun, not bad being outside, and I got to see David Beckham and Landon Donovan, which was kind of neat.  It would have been way more fun to see them up close.

Braelyn at the soccer game (after it was over)

David Beckham

Father's Day picture!

The next day we went to Universal Studios.  I don't care for Universal Studios that much.  Nate had never been, so I figured he shouldn't feel like he's missing out.  Thank goodness we didn't pay full price for the tickets because it's basically a bunch of photo ops and shows.  There are a few rides, but since Nate doesn't like any fun rides, he didn't go on any of them.  I went on The Mummy ride, which wasn't that exciting anyway, so it was kind of a bust.  Braelyn did have fun with the female Woody the Woodpecker (I have no idea what her name is) and got a little scared by Curious George.  She also did not care for the Studio Tour tram ride (all the fun parts were too scary because the tram jerked around so much), but she did like the animal show, but got upset because she wanted to pet the dogs.  I will say that Universal has excellent customer service.  They also are excellent at providing for their guests with lots of misting fans and shade.  Way better than Disneyland and Sea World.

At Universal, I think after the female woodpecker meeting

This was at the children's play area at Universal.  Funny face!

Watching the animal show.

That last picture of the Universal sign...this guy asked us to take his picture with his wife or girlfriend or whoever she was by the sign.  So then we asked him to take our picture.  Seriously, three times he took the picture of ONLY the sign, not us.  We could have done that ourselves.  Thanks buddy.

The next day we trekked to San Diego to go to Sea World.  I've also been there before, but Nate hasn't and it was really great.  However, all the shows are now "shows" as in great production values.  It's nice, but I kind of liked it when the animals just show you all the tricks they can do and we don't have to have lots of Cirque du Soliel type stuff with it.  Braelyn loved the aquarium parts where she could stand and touch the glass.  She wasn't too impressed with the shows.  In fact, she actually fell asleep (I don't know how) during the actual Cirque show they have--meaning it's a show that only features acrobats, no animals.  It was good, and pretty neat since it was actually on the edge of the ocean.  It got cold there in the evening!

At the sea turtle exhibit, Braelyn's favorite

Touching sea stars at the tide pool exhibit

The Cirque show set

The last day before we went home Nate insisted upon taking Braelyn to the beach so she could experience the ocean.  She doesn't care too much for sand in general (she's been in a couple of sandboxes) but she liked walking on the beach on the part where there was wet sand.  She wasn't in love with the water part of the ocean (just got her feet and legs wet), but she was OK with it after a while.

She's walking well, still a bit clumsy and trips over lots of stuff, but that's to be expected.  She's into shoes a lot more.  She still doesn't eat much, but she is getting all four molars and I think even a canine so I'm sure her mouth doesn't feel really good right now.  She's "talking" a lot more too, but I can't understand much of it, though I think she tries to say bye and woof.  She also knows that if I say food is hot that she should blow on it.  And, she certainly knows how to express that she wants something!