Trip to San Diego: Zoo

The next day we went to the San Diego Zoo.  It was rainy this day too.  So the zoo was also really deserted. 

We started out the day by seeing the koalas.  Apparently they sleep 20 hours a day, so it was really cool that we got to see them awake and eating.  Sophie said, "I must pet the koalas".  So I told the zookeeper she wanted to pet them, but unfortunately he wouldn't let her.  (I just think it is funny that she uses the word "must" all the time.  It makes her sound really bossy, but it made me realize that I say "You Must" all the time too her when I want her to do something.)

 Then we saw the giraffes.  Sophie said, "I must ride the giraffes".  Unfortunately we didn't get to do that either. ;)

We wandered around the whole zoo looking at the animals.  But we thought the coolest part of the zoo was the vegetation.  We really felt like we were walking through a rain forest or jungle a lot of the time (which was also due to the rain that would periodically pour on us).  Sophie did a lot more walking at the zoo and had a lot of fun.

At one point we walked through an aviary.  There was a small bird sitting on the railing we were walking past.  Sophie reached out to pet the bird, and it bit her finger.  I don't think it really hurt, but she was scared and started crying for a long time.  She finally stopped crying because a weird money was rolling on the ground in front of the windows and she got distracted watching it.

Also, I was really impressed with Sophie going potty on this trip.  She has been potty trained since around Halloween, but we haven't really gone anywhere without familiar potties before.  Sophie didn't have a single accident the entire trip.  She was such a trooper and told us every time she had to go.  A couple times Isaac or I would have to rush her away to find a toilet and were worried about how far they were going to be, but she did awesome.

Later that afternoon I had a really bad headache, probably from all the walking and dehydration.  So I was getting tired and ready to leave the zoo.  Sophie also wouldn't nap and was starting to get a little fussy, so we quickly finished seeing the rest of the animals and left.

I was worried about taking Aspen on this trip because she is usually fussy at home.  But she was a complete angel.  Aspen is completely content doing two things: 1) swimming/baths and 2) being pushed in a stroller.  I think she is really bored at home, but at Sea World and the zoo she constantly had something interesting to look at.  Aspen is really intent and watches everything going on around her.  She doesn't smile or laugh all the time, but she is really observant and takes everything in.  She absolutely loved being pushed around for two days and hardly made a peep of complain the entire time, even when it was raining on her (another plus of the covered stroller).

After the zoo we switched hotels to one near Isaac's conference.  We were at Embassy Suites.  It was a much nicer hotel.  There was a main room with a mini-bar, table, hide-a-bed and tv and separate bedroom with another tv.  This made evenings so much more bearable because Sophie and Aspen could fall asleep in one room and Isaac and I could turn on the tv in our room without waking them up.  Our hotel also had a really nice continental breakfast in the morning and a small indoor stream with goldfish that Sophie liked to look at.  The only downside of the hotel was that their swimming pool was freezing.  We tried to go swimming a few times, because Aspen loves it, but ended up just soaking in the hot tub instead because the pool was too cold.