Day 6 and 7

Friday: San Diego Zoo
For our last full day in San Diego, we spent one last time at the Zoo. First off, we took the Skyfari down to see the Polar Bears. Apparently they are supposed to be more active in the morning. Not so, they were hanging around eating carrots. After watching them for a little while, long enough to apply sunscreen, we made our way back through the artic aviary, the hippos, and took the bus ride again. Afterwards we ate lunch before entering the Children's Zoo. This was a favorite among the kiddies. They have places to have your picture taken as various animals or characters. My favorite was the fly stuck in a spider's web. They have a small petting zoo with rabbits, goats, sheep, with cows and pigs in a pen. I thought lil' L would be a bit timid about the animals, but after petting a rabbit, he was happy to chase around the goats. The children's zoo also has a great viewing area of otters. They were happily swimming about when we went through. We walked down Bear Canyon. During this walk downhill, lil' L fell asleep. I walked down with him behind me rolling backwards, to keep him laid back. He slept the entire time down the hill, while we shopped for a few minutes and most of the way back up the hill through Cat Canyon. Boy, was he tired. I love seeing all the bears and cats! We walked through the Giraffes and Elephants. By this time, about 3 p.m., F wanted to go back and see the Polar Bears one last time. This would entail a skyfari ride, walk down a steep hill, see the polar bears for the 3rd time at the zoo (5th if you count Sea World), a walk up the steep hill, and one last skyfari ride. I had to be the big bad parent and say no. lil' K had already spent a good amount of time telling us she was tired of walking. Therefore, no last look at the Polar Bears. Instead we headed out to Mission Beach. The children played in the sand for a little while, (still only content with the dry sand) until time for dinner at In-N-Out Burger. F has had a shirt since his mission, that is more or less falling apart, so I bought him a new shirt for his souvenir. On our way back to the hotel, we exited the freeway and went to the temple grounds. The kids were most fascinated with running on the soft grass. We talked with a missionary for a few minutes. She showed lil' K pictures of the Temple. When we got back to the hotel, guess what!?! One more dip in the pool. After putting the kids to bed, F and I packed up our stuff. Saturday morning, we ate breakfast, cleaned up and headed to return our car. We got to the airport about 2.5 hours before our flight was scheduled to leave. We got checked in and went up to the security check. There were not many people in line, about 50 people ahead of us. We had been in line just a few minutes, when they stopped moving people through. TSA couldn't tell us anything but that no one was going through and that no planes were coming or going. We waited, watched the line grow longer and longer behind us. Pretty soon, they were evacuating the terminal. All employees, people ready to board, even some planes. TSA was squeezing people down the stairs, over a sky walk, any place they could. We happened to be at the right spot. The people behind us in line, were pushed back to open a walk way to the stairs, which was filled with people who came out of the terminal, meaning we kept our place in line. We heard that TSA had pulled a bag to be checked, at the same time their system froze, and the person with the bag disappeared. It got to be such a big deal, the news showed up. I was hoping to get an on camera interview as weary traveller, but I don't think I looked weary enough. The wait ended up being an hour before they moved people through again, and also to not ever find the missing bag/person. We got to our gate about 10 minutes before the plane was scheduled to leave, but of course they couldn't because we were some of the first passengers there. They figured it would be 40-45 minutes before they could even think about it. They were close. 45 minutes later, security still had 2-3 hundred people to get through security. Overall, we were delayed an hour. Not too bad, but I certainly would not like to do that again with the kids. I do have to say, they did really well being in cramped quarters filled with people. We had others comment on how behaved they are. I was quite impressed, but was even happier to get on a plane. lil' L ended up falling asleep as we took off and didn't wake until we had landed. This made for an uncomfortable flight for F, he was the one holding lil' L the whole time. The trip was a blast! So much fun, it was the first big vacation we have taken as a family which did not include extended family.
Pictures on the Left side: Polar Bears; lil' L sleeping peacefully; Spider K and Fly L; lil' K and lil' L at the Temple; The kids swimming.
Pictures on the Right side: Kid on the hippo statue; Big...big bear; Petting zoo; Good looking couple we found at the beach; The same good looking couple at the Temple.