Dreams Do Come True

I'm so sore and tired right now, but for good reason: We went to Disneyland yesterday! At first Maya wasn't very interested in doing or seeing anything and I was afraid she was going be that way the whole day. Every ride or character we saw, she just wanted to sit in her stroller and sucked her thumb. We finally convinced her to go get her picture taken with Winnie the Pooh. After she got that hug from Winnie, she totally changed her outlook and was so excited about everything. Everything we mentioned, she wanted to do. We went on so many rides, a couple of them twice, and walked all over the park. We also saw two or three of the 3-D movies, which seem to be a favorite of Josh.

Maya's favorite ride was It's A Small World but her favorite thing all day was the lunch we had at Ariel's Grotto (which is actually in the California Adventure Park just adjacent to Disneyland). We found out about this special lunch they have there where you go and eat while all of the princesses walk around and stop by your table. Maya got to see Ariel, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Belle, and even got to meet Cinderlla's Fairy Godmother! She was so excited she could barely sit long enough to eat her food. All of the princesses were very nice, even as Maya subjected them to her long drawn out story of how she lost her last blankie at a baseball game.

We stayed long enough to see some of the fireworks being set off and Sleeping Beauty's castle lit up at night time. Maya was very excited to see Tinkerbell flying all around during the show as it seems that Tinkerbell is now her favorite character. By the time we left, Josh and I could barely move but it didn't matter because Maya had an awesome time there. As she went to sleep last night she lovingly clutched her new Tinkerbell doll in her arms and I'm sure dreamed about princesses and fairies as she slept. Proof to me that dreams really do come true.

The Late Show

Unfortunately, we've been so busy the past few days that I've not had much access to the internet. This would be why I'm just now getting around to blogging for both today and yesterday (yesterday's is below). We had a full day today and I'm pretty tired. Maya is blessedly sleeping now but earlier, she had skipped right over bed time and went straight to crazy time. I thought I was going to have to peel her off the ceiling there for a moment. At one point, she was pretending that the room service menu was a storybook about a lost chinchilla. Good grief!

We woke up a little late today and packed up our suitcases because we were checking out of our resort and driving up to Los Angeles for the last few days of our trip. After we checked out, we went to the San Diego Wild Animal Park which is an open animal reserve for African wild animals. Maya celebrated being only a few hundred feet from them by sleeping though the entire tour. Even though Maya missed out on most of the park, Josh and I both agreed that this park was more fun than the zoo just because of the proximity to the animals. It was pretty amazing to be that close. After tour visit with the animals, we headed up to L.A. for a soccer match and then on to the hotel (I could write a whole other blog about my love for soccer) (and no I don't like soccer because of David Beckham) . The hotel's parking lot was forever away and actually part of LAX's parking so I was happy to have Trixie on hand to help me get from the car to the hotel with Maya. Maya seemed to enjoy the fact that we were going so much faster than Josh and Robin. Now, Im going to go get some sleep before our big day tomorrow at Disney. I'm on my way Prince Charming!

Halftime

Maya and I have reached the half-way point of our trip. First on the agenda, after a swim in the pool, was the Birch Aquarium, which is part of the Scripps Oceanographic Institute. While it was small, it had some really nice exhibits and Maya had a great time looking at all the jellyfish (her favorite marine creature thanks to Spongebob Squarepants).

After the aquarium, we headed down to Belmont Park in the Mission District. Belmont Park was an old time seashore carnival area. They had an old wooden roller coaster, carnival rides like the tilt-a-whirl, and a few kids rides. Maya's favorite ride was the antique carousel. Once we all had wobbly legs from riding the rides and walking around the beach front, we had dinner in the Gaslamp District of San Diego. Since Robin speaks fluent Spanish, and we were eating at a latin restaurant, I thought I would embarrass myself by speaking Spanish, with an emphasis on embarrass. Despite subjecting everyone to my horrible foreign language skills, a good time was had by all and I think Maya may have actually learned some Spanish (though, not from me)!

Water Babies

Today seemed to be all about water. We woke up early and Robin, Maya, and I all headed down to the pool. The resort doesn't have a children's pool which made me a little apprehensive since Maya is still in the process of learning how to swim. She totally showed me who was boss, though, when she swam like a pro (with a little help from some hot pink floaties on her arms). By the time we left she was jumping in with no help and even swimming out to the deep end with no one holding her. I was so proud of my little fish!

After our watery morning, we headed out to La Jolla (pronounced la hoya) for a little California sea lion watching from the special sea lion watching pier. Maya thought they were cute, but she thought the waves breaking on the rocks were much more interesting. She and I had a great time just watching the waves crash against the coastline, trying to guess if the next one would be big enough to get us with sea spray. Once we had had our fill of the beautiful La Jolla coast, we hopped on down to Coronado for a great dinner at the Hotel del Coronado, made a quick trip to see the Mexican-American border crossing, and then finished up the day with another swim! I'm waterlogged!

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

Today we put on our walking shoes and headed out to the world famous San Diego Zoo. Our friend Robin, who is in America on holiday, flew down to San Diego from San Francisco to join us on our trip. After we picked him up, we made our way to the animal kingdom!

Maya squealed with glee at anything remotely looking like a deer. No matter what it was, if it had four legs, horns, and brown hair it's name was Bambi. At one point she actually looked at a giraffe and said, "Mommy, look! Bambi's neck grew and grew and now it's really long!" (I'm shaking my head as we speak at that one). We also got to see quite possibly one of the cutest images in the world: a live video feed of a mother panda caring for it's 17 day old cub from the inside of the panda den. Everyone say "Awwwwww!" We did notice, though, that the zoo is really into pigs. I think they had at least 7 different species from the pig family. I'm guessing that someone there really likes Charlotte's Web. All in all, the zoo was great and one of the best I've ever been to. It was well worth all the walking.