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California Adventure Park

Our last day of park stomping was at California Adventure Park, right next to Disneyland.

Jaydn loved the whitewater raft ride.

No, it's not the REAL Wall-E.

Goofy couldn't get over Jaydn's sticker on his forehead.

Our favorite ride was called "Soarin' Over California." It was unreal!

Our least favorite part of CA Park was the "High School Musical 3" dancers. Lame!

Bumper cars!

After hitting some roller coasters, we went to the Brother Bear playground. My feet were about ready to fall off!

And then, the long drive home. Sheesh. Next time we're flying!

Disneyland

Disneyland! There is no more magical place. Even for old kids like me, it still is a great place.
We first went into the Tiki Tiki room, which I remembered as being really cool. It was ten times better than what I remembered it to be. The whole room comes to life!

Next we went on the safari boat trip. The best part of that was the guide, who basically spoke in "joke."

The Swiss Family Robinson treehouse was replaced by a Tarzan treehouse. A big disappointment!
Pirates of the Carribean scared the socks off of Jaydn, so we stayed away from dark, scary rides after that (although I did go on Indiana Jones by myself. That was fun!)

Here we are on the very tame boat ride:

And (I don't really have a second chin) Jaydn and I drove the cars. The most outdated ride at Disneyland, for sure.
Jaydn wore a sticker on his forehead--the whole week. He told us that if we ever got separated, we could tell where Jaydn was because of the sticker on his forehead! What a great idea!

Jessi and Jaydn did the submarine ride, which is totally redone in the theme of Finding Nemo. They said it was awesome. That's good, because I remember that when I was young it wasn't that cool.

The highlight of the day was that Jaydn was picked to go through Jedi training! And to think that they also chose the girl with the Mickey Mouse ears!?

Jaydn was so excited.
Good thing he learned these light saber moves. What a good padowan.

But then the unexpected...

How'd you like to put on this guy's makeup every day for the Jedi show? What a total pain! I hope he gets paid well. He actually did a good job of acting and moving like Darth Maul.

It's a good thing Jaydn fought him, he was too scary for me!

This girl seemed a little outmatched for the Vader.

So Vader, Maul and the storm troopers were totally wimpy! They got afraid of a bunch of kids and a few pretend Jedis, and left.

Way to go young padowans!

Jaydn's favorite ride was the Buzz Lightyear ride. This combined a ride with laser tag technology. It was really fun!

What a great day!

Sea World

The next day we went to Sea World in San Diego!!

The shows were very spectacular. Sea World was very professional.

Dolphins shooting out of the water!

Arh! Arh! Seals.

And a big ol' walrus.

Check out this big boy.

That looks like fun.

Dolphin feeding and petting was a hit.

So was petting the manta rays.

They even had a bad lawn ornament section of the park.

The Shamu show was awesome!

Here's Jaydn and Jessi with Avery, Sheri Bates' daughter. We stayed with the Bates's. They were so nice to let us stay with them only a few days before they moved.

They didn't move because of us.

Rainy First Few Days of California Vacation

On Sunday we just relaxed after a crazy long drive to CA. Monday was President's Day, and it was cold and wet. So we skipped the theme parks and went to a museum, the Temple, and the Beach.

Mammoth bones:

Beautiful (and huge!) LA Temple:
Beach at Santa Monica Pier:

Jaydn missed the beach so much he did his "Lalomanu" wave running game:

Jessi joined him for a run:

A tradition going back to our honeymoon:

Anyone want a degree in trapeze?
Pretty cool pier, eh? We finished the day eating on the pier at "Bubba Gump's"

Anyway, like I was sayin', shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That- that's about it.