San Diego Trip- Zoo and SeaWorld

We took a trip to San Diego during the winter break this year! It was kind of crazy to leave two days after Christmas, and we ended up with all the kids coughing throughout it (but it wasn't Covid, we tested), but it was still pretty fun. Our hotel was on this little strip of land in San Diego bay called Shelter Island, so we had a marina on one side of the hotel, and the bay on the other. It was so pretty to just walk around there!

Our first day there we went to the San Diego zoo:

We saw all sorts of animals, like polar bears:

And hippos:

We saw a tiger:

And koalas, which was cool, because I've never seen one in real life before:

We rode the sky tram:

And we went on the bus tour:

And we saw some cool sculptures:

It ended up raining more and more as the day went on, so we headed out a bit earlier than planned, then hit a fun ice cream shop called The Craft Creamery where they ship in ice cream from specialty ice cream shops around the country. They even had ice cream from good ol' Provo!

Then the younger three kids went swimming in the heated pool and hot tub. It was such a beautiful pool, with the pretty boats and city in the background:

The next day we went to SeaWorld. I took Ivy on all the little kid rides while the big kids rode a couple roller coasters, which they were all so brave to do them and they loved them!

Ivy and I got to be up close with the Orcas:

We went to the dolphin show, the orca show, and the sea lion show. They were all so cool to see!

We saw the sharks:

And they had some cool decorations up for Christmas still when we were there:

We saw the manatees, which was awesome, and played in their arctic play area:

We saw lots of sea animals, and other animals, like flamingos:

It ended up raining pretty hard all day again, so we left SeaWorld in the early afternoon again. On our walk out to the car it started pouring REALLY hard, and we were all completely soaked by the time we got to the car. Then once we were all in the car, the rain stopped. It was kinda sad, and also kind of hilarious. Our tennis shoes were wet the rest of the trip, but it wasn't so bad. We went back to the hotel to change into dry clothes, then we went to Corvette Diner for dinner, where we had delicious milkshakes and comfort food. And the kids got balloon sculptures. Hyrum got a Pikachu, Cora got a rose, Ivy got a dog on a heart, and Zane got a Fortnite pickax:

It was a fun restaurant! And we had a fun day at SeaWorld.