Summer Vacation!!

As most of you know, Kevin and Stephanie came out for a 2 week visit a couple of weeks ago! It was so GREAT to see them again and also really fun to show them around our hometown, San Diego! There were a lot of great first time things for them, like going to the beach and seeing the ocean for the first time! Steph LOVES water!

Here's Steph and I @ La Jolla Cove! Steph's first time seeing the Ocean! How cool!!

Lol, my friend Kyna gave us some sidewalk chalk that we put to great use!! Thanks Kyna! We had so much fun coloring the sidewalk!

And here's Kev and Steph @ the Zoo! Lol, we have soooooo many pictures, but, there's no way we can put them all on here! Lol!

We also took trips to most of the major parks here; Seaworld, San Diego Zoo, Disneyland, San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park, USS Midway Museum, Maritime Museum, etc... We also drove to Lone Pine, California so the guys (Josh and Kev) could climb Mt. Whitney!! Pretty cool, huh?! And we ate at some of the BEST places! Ruby's on the pier in Oceanside, Wings-N-Things, California Pizza Kitchen, In-N-Out, Jamba Juice, Coldstones, and more!!



Here's Kev standing in front of a manatee @ the Manatee Rescue @ Seaworld. It was the first time it's been open since I've lived here!

Here's Bug with SHAMU!!!! Well, one of them, this guy is actually the baby! BIG BABY!!! After Seaworld, we ate @ California Pizza Kitchen!! MMM mmm good!!!

We even got the kids to eat their famous Spinach and Artichoke Dip! YUM! And they loved it!! Go figure!

Obviously, I can't upload all of the pictures for everyone but, I can put some few really good ones on here! Except of Mt. Whitney, Josh is going to make a blog on that later! = ) I have to run , though , and go get my hair cut! Josh's sister, Nikki, is out for the week so, we'll be pretty busy again! We love you guys and miss everyone! Kev and Steph, I hope you had a great time! We sure did!

This a Black Rhino that was hand carved by Alex Chitura, a very famous stonemason. And yes, this is heavy! It is made out of stone or metal, stone I think. It's displayed @ the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park and costs about $750,000! It's sister stone, the African Bush Elephant, is bigger and costs $1,750,000, roughly. It took him 2 years or more a piece to carve these by hand!

They were very impressed @ the endangered California Condor exhibit, especially when they found out that Condors have a 9-10 ft wingspan! Impressive!

CHEETAHS! This was probably our favorite exhibit! @ 1pm on Sundays (the day we went) these ladies get a special treat! Can you guess what's inside the box the zoo keeper had?!

Part of the trip while the kids were here was going up to Lone Pine, California, home to Mt. Whitney and the last leg of the John Muir Trail! How pretty is that! But, Josh is gonna make his own blog about his and Kev's trip!

OH! And look! After we got back from Mt. Whitney, Kev got a military haircut, as promised! And he shaved the squirrel off of his face!

The USS Midway! This picture probably looks familiar! That's because we've been here before! But this time we took the kids and we actually got the chance to see things we didn't get to see the last time we went! And it was FUN!!! Look @ the anchor chains! They weigh 80 lbs a piece, I think, which is more than Steph!!

Lol, who are these prisoners in the ship's Brig??

WINGS-N-THINGS! Yum! Look @ Steph go to town on the BBQ wings! Kev ate the mild spicy, I think, but we all enjoyed them!

And last but not least, our final adventure took us to Disneyland!!! We went on some rides, like the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters ride! Kev ultimately kicked all our butts in the end!

This cute little girl and I loved getting pictures with the characters from The Hundred Acre Woods, like Tigger!!!

I think my favorite ride from Disneyland, though, is a toss up between the Indiana Jones Adventure ride (above) and the Pirates of the Caribbean ride!! Which, lol, Kev got soaked in that last one! Heeeheee!!

And here's Josh and I, standing with the statue of Walt Disney himself and his most beloved and famous character, Mickey Mouse.

She was sad to have missed Minnie, her favorite, but she still enjoyed getting a picture with Mikey!

As we were leaving the park, Steph got her awesome Minnie ears with her name stitched in the back! She stopped for a little "photo shoot"! Isn't she adorable!

I'd like to think that they had a good time. I really hope that they did. They got home just fine, and showed off all of their souvenirs and t-shirts, along with their super awesome scrapbooks that I made for each of them. We love you guys and really miss you! Hope you had the time of your life! We did!

God Bless,

Jess and Josh!