Heflin's Head West - Zoo, Sea World, and the beach

The next day we headed out to the San Diego Zoo. This was a long time coming for me to visit the zoo. When I was a kid and my family traveled out west our parents gave us the option of going to the beach or the zoo. It was the same summer MTV was having their summer programming based out of San Diego. The highlight of the trip to the beach was seeing Mandy Moore on top of a 3 story building filming a show. We chose to go to the beach. This trip with my kids I decided that we had to take a day to explore the San Diego Zoo because ever since that trip my mother has not let us live it down that we missed out on seeing the pandas at the zoo.

Waiting for the park to open. Excitement was in full swing with all of us. I got some tips from the workers at the front. They told us to head down to the koalas because they feed them early and that is about the only time they are active.

These koalas were so cute!

The real koalas were awesome. We caught many videos of them walking around in their trees. Glad we listened to the worker up front because later in the day when we stopped by they were all snoozing. Apparently koalas sleep about 22 hours a day. 

My little monkeys checking out the baboons. 

We finally got to see the panda! Apparently they spend the majority of their day eating bamboo. This one just had a pile on his stomach, just ready to grab the next bite. 

Family picture with the panda. 

Found out that polar bears in captivity really enjoy carrots. We watched this guy munch on them for about 20 minutes. Pretty sure where he lives in the wild there are no carrots. 

The zoo also has a sky lift that takes you from one end of the park to the other. You couldn't really see any of the animals from this viewpoint, but it was a neat little ride. Jennifer was terrified and wasn't excited at all when we got in line later to ride it again.

Landon sometimes thinks he is tough as a gorilla. Here he was showing off his muscles.

Even though it wasn't shown on the zoo map, we did spot a little walrus. 

Had to get a picture with the elephant, which has always been my favorite animal.

The very unique okapi, which looks like half zebra and half horse. Little known fact is that it is most closely related to the giraffe. If you are ever close enough to see it stick out it's tongue then you would realize it. Really interesting animal.

Our new silly face picture. 

The San Diego Zoo was amazing. I had to call my mother and apologize that we chose the beach all those years ago. It is definitely a must do if you ever go to San Diego and like animals. Brinley even said after we got home that it was her favorite thing that we did on our trip! The little girl loves some animals! On the other hand, Landon asked to leave about every 20 minutes. I made him push through because I knew that Brinley wanted to see all the animals. When Brinley was ready to leave then we decided to head out.

Since the kids had loved the beach so much the night before we told them that we would go again after we finished at the zoo. We went over to Mission Beach. They were both thrilled to play in the water again. When we got there, the sun was beginning to set and it was getting chillier. That didn't bother the kids at all, but Jennifer and I decided to not get in the water at all. Clearly you can see the kids didn't care!

Very thankful to have my favorite lady by my side. I love her so much and am so glad that we get to experience life together.

For some reason the kids, mostly Brinley were obsessed with seaweed. Brinley kept trying to pull it back out into the ocean. She said she was just trying to put it back in it's home. If only she would do that with her toys.

The kids with the sunset. They were starting to complain that they were freezing. 

I thought this picture was pretty cool with the sailboat in it. 

The next day we decided to relax and just have a beach day. We slept in a little since we didn't have any certain time we had to be somewhere. Before we left on our trip we had a friend recommend the beach at Coronado. This proved to be an awesome place and we would in return recommend it to anyone going to San Diego in the future.

Brinley found this seashell and baby sand dollar all on her own. She was super proud too!

I could never get a picture that did the sand at Coronado beach justice. It had black and gold flecks in the sand. It looked like someone had just opened up a container of gold glitter and dumped it all over the beach. It was really beautiful.

Brinley loved playing on the beach and out in the ocean. She could have stayed here all day.

Landon enjoyed playing in the sand more. The big object in the background is the Coronado Hotel, which has been in many movies over the years.

I couldn't resist a chance to show off a little love for the CATS!

My little man and me. I was a fool and didn't wear sunscreen, which resulted in getting a sunburn just a few days into our vacation. The weather was great in about the mid 70's. 

Since we flew for this trip we weren't able to pack beach toys. We just happened to save the kids cups from dinner the night before and it turned out to be a nice little sand bucket. This was the highest that we could get them to stack before collapsing on each other.

While Brinley and I were playing out in the ocean, Jennifer buried Landon's bottom half in the sand and then decorated it to look like a mermaid merman tail.

I thought it was cool that we could stack up the sand and make these towers. 

The kids and I spent a long time building a little water hole. Here is another view of our sand tower.

Landon was terrified of the waves. He refused to let go of me. It is nice to know that the little man still believes that nothing wrong can happen when he is holding on to me. I will always be there to help protect him from all things in this world.

We didn't have enough snacks and stuff to eat at the beach so we left to go get some food. Instead of going back we decided to go check out some other beaches in the area. We ended up at the La Jolla cliffs. Brinley had fallen asleep in the car so Landon and I went to explore and see the sea lions up close. 

My little man and I with the sea lions.

I found this little tree that I thought looked interesting. I put Landon up here and took his picture and then he immediately asked me to get him down. He is smiling, but not really happy about it.

Mommy and baby sea lion.

After Brinley woke up we decided that it was cool enough to have mom and her come check out the cliffs and the sea lions.

That night we made our way out to Mission beach again. The kids played in the water and Jennifer and I just sat and watched the waves roll in. At one point we were surprised with a wave that came up and soaked all of our blankets and even got Jennifer's phone wet. Thankfully none of our sandals floated away too!

Our last full day in San Diego we went to Sea World. I had been to the one in Florida before, but the kids had no idea what we were getting into. They had seen dolphins before, but I am not sure they had ever seen a picture of an orca before.

Our first Orca spotting happened right after we entered the gates. No matter what I still always refer to them as Shamu.

One of my childhood friends actually lives out in San Diego. I had gotten a lot of tips and ideas about things from him before our vacation. His wife actually works at Sea World so we were able to meet up and see them while they were exploring at the park. It was good to catch up with him and for our kids to meet.

Beluga Whale, aka Bailey as the kids called it from the movie Finding Dory.

The dolphin show was amazing. What beautiful and amazingly talented animals. 

Family picture waiting for the killer whale show. The kids had no idea what to expect. Jennifer talked them into not sitting in the splash zone. I couldn't talk them into it at all. We actually sat in the very back row of the stadium.

Landon with a penguin. They have been trained so well that they can't look at a penguin with out saying something about it being Aunt Andrea's favorite animal.

There was even a little baby penguin that hatched while we were there.

Looking at the dolphins up close.

Shamu! I mean an orca.

These animals are absolutely huge. In the water they are so graceful, but yet so powerful and you can see that when they jump out of the water. 

Hugging a killer whale statue. 

We all enjoyed the killer whales so much that we decided to go watch the second show of the day. Landon was excited about sitting down close and being in the splash zone. I knew better than to sit in the very front row because I knew that we would have gotten soaked. We sat just a few rows back. Near the end of the show the orca came up on this little area and I told Landon that I wanted to get his picture. He was upset at this point because he hadn't gotten wet, not even a single drop. First world problems.

I thought this was a neat picture of the killer whales.

The next day we slept in and waited for the morning traffic to end and then we began our trip north to Los Angeles.

Last year when Jennifer and I went to Los Angeles we hiked all the way up to the Hollywood sign. I knew that this would not be an option with the kids. After doing some research online I found that you could actually get really close to the sign by driving up into a local neighborhood. This worked perfect for us. We drove up and got out to get some pictures and then walked about 100 feet back to our car and drove off. I would highly recommend this to anyone wanting to get pictures with the sign.

Silly faces strike again!

There was a little dirt hill that you had to climb up in order to get the best picture.

Literally about 100 feet away from where we took the pictures was where we parked.

We also drove downtown to the famous Chinese Theatre where they have movie premieres. When we got there they had it all blocked off for something that they were filming that morning.

Then all of a sudden some men came and took the barricades down! What perfect timing. Now we could go see some of the famous people's hand and feet prints.

Took the kids over to see the most famous Heflin, so far, in show business! Van Heflin was apparently pretty famous back in the 50's. I have never seen any of his work, but I had seen this at the Chinese Theatre before.

I wanted to get the kids picture with someone on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but I wanted them to know the person. This was the only one I spotted that the kids would even know since they both like the Wizard of Oz. 

Our last stop in Hollywood was at the original location of Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles. It was delicious! 

Our trip had been jammed packed so far. Everyone was being a trooper and relatively well behaved for everyone not getting the right amount of sleep every night. You always stay up later on vacation right? Next stop on the trip was Disneyland! Thanks for reading and God bless!