Super early Christmas list.

Because I know there are people who will be a little busy closer to Christmas.

Pretend instruments:
This dulcitone library (in Kontakt).
This piano library (standard version; in Kontakt).
This circle bells library.
Kore Soundtrack Pop Drums (in Kore Player).
Scarbee Pre-Bass sample library.

Real instruments:
CymBells (C6-C7).
A metallophone.

Computer stuff:
A 1 Terabyte (or bigger) hard drive.
This desktop memory.

Wii games:
Wii Mario Cart
Tiger Woods 2009
New Super Mario Bros.

Artwork:
Etchings by Mary Lou Hess.
Paintings by John Singer Sargent.

Clothing:
An Iowa State Anna Prins jersey.
An awesome handbell shirt (under the perhaps incorrect assumption that one exists).

Who cares about Shamu when there's a bounce house?

Instead of getting tickets to just Disneyland for our California trip, we got a combo pass called a City Pass. For less than $50 more than the 3-day Disneyland pass, we also got admission to Sea World, San Diego Zoo or Wild Animal Park, and Universal Hollywood. There's no way I'd pay the $65 gate price for Sea World (especially since none of us could ride the new big rides), but it's a nice place to go if the price is right. So that was our main destination for Day 2 of the trip.

Benji's favorite part of Sea World was the rides — of course. The last time I was at Sea World (probably 20 years ago) it was all about the animals, but now they have several large roller coasters (Benji didn't meet the height minimum so we didn't go check them out) and Elmo's Bay of Play. He was quite fond of Elmo's Flying Fish (basically the Dumbo ride shaped like Elmo; strangely their policy was that I couldn't ride, but really, how dangerous could this possibly be?).

But his favorite "ride" was the bounce room. This was no standard bounce house where they cram 10 kids into a tiny inflatable. No, safety-minded Sea World lets 6 kids in at a time and the room was huge (maybe 15 feet x 15 feet). With so few kids in such a large area I could feel safe letting Benji run around in there. The first time in, he kept trying to stand up and run around like the bigger kids but kept falling down before he could even take a step. So he crawled over to the edge and complained at me that he couldn't do it. A bit of tough love was appropriate here so I just sent him back to the middle and told him to keep practicing. (Lately he's been getting overly frustrated when he can't do something perfectly the first time. Therefore we're working on the idea of practicing to get better.) He certainly didn't master it on that session, but it looked like so much fun and he knew that smaller bounce houses were fun so he asked to go back in many times. Very quickly he was running around like a pro! Later that evening we couldn't even get him out of the bounce room willingly to watch fireworks. It must be pretty fun in order to rate higher than fireworks in Benji's mind!

We did, of course, also go to the big shows — Shamu, the sea lions, and the dolphins. Benji didn't really like the dolphin show, due more to the fact that it had pyrotechnics including fire. We had to cover his eyes for about half the show. Admittedly it was quite hot when the fire was on and the show certainly would have been better with less fire and more dolphins. Perhaps we should have sit further back. We sat in the very last row of the "splash zone" which concerned Benji. He did not like those Splash Zone signs so we had to convince him that even if we did get splashed it would be a very little splash (we stayed completely dry). For Shamu we had to sit way back in the stadium even though we were still 15 minutes early for the show and I thought Benji was rather unimpressed by the whole thing. However, days and weeks later he's referred to seeing Shamu the whale. I guess you never know what information and experiences they're soaking in.

The other favorite part of Sea World was touching animals. They don't let you touch nearly as much as they used to (no more petting the sea lions or walruses and touching the dolphins costs a pretty penny) but they still have a tank to touch rays and a tidepool to touch starfish and crabs. We tried the rays, but they didn't come close enough to the edge of the tank for Benji to reach and he refused to let Daddy hold him up higher. (He still asks us why they didn't want him to touch them.) They starfish were much more successful. The tidepool was much shorter and had fake rocks to climb on so Benji could get up over the edge to touch things much more easily. There were lots of starfish in there, so we went around the whole tidepool touching various starfish. He also liked picking them up. There was a sign that said not to take the animals out of the water (which he read, of course) so we told him he could pick up the animals (gently) as long as they stayed under the water. He liked feeling the bumpy starfish and looking at the underside. There was one crab in a very large shell that apparently was quite heavy and impressed him.

Prior to the Sea World part of the day, we did the "Mommy & Daddy" part of the day with a trip over to Balboa Park. Since we were unsuccessful with Balboa Park and its artist galleries on Sunday, we decided to try again. As we were parking we heard the organ playing, which was quite surprising. Of course we had to check it out. It turns out that there would be a performance that evening for an organ festival they were hosting, so some folks were rehearsing. So while Matthew missed the real concert the afternoon before, he ended up with his own private concert with a front-row seat. I'm so happy for this serendipitous finding. In fact, it was so lucky that by the time we walked past later in the afternoon it was all done.



Organ rehearsal at Balboa Park.


Just like on Day 1, Benji continued covering his face for photos and laughing.


Styling in his sunglasses.


Doesn't Daddy look good in the Elmo fish ride?


And to think this was considered too dangerous for me to ride.


I loved the view of the bay from the sea lion and otter show.


Oh yeah, there were sea lions at the show, too.


Shamu!


Back to the Elmo ride. Better than Shamu, right?


Benji's favorite ride, the bounce room.


Benji was a little upset that the triangle music station was missing its stick, so we had to show him you could hit the triangles together. There were similar hands-on activities at Disneyland, and he enjoyed those too.


He waited and waited to play the giant xylophone.


It's hard to touch a ray when your hands only go 2 inches into the water.


Did you know that starfish are bumpy?


Benji touched so many starfish! We went around the entire tidepool touching every starfish he could reach.



I think this is Benji picking up the crab in a large shell.


He also loved turning them over and looking a the bottom. I'm happy to say he was very respectful of the animals.


Back to the bounce room for some wild fun! Late at night the line was super short so he got tons of play time (although it was too dark for good photos).

Libellés : Benji, vacation

Our California adventure begins

The highlight of our first day was definitely Cabrillo National Park. We didn't even end up making it up to the lighthouse, but that's OK. Because they closed earlier in the day, we decided to start by driving down to the tidepools right down on the water. We were approaching low tide so we could go quite far out onto the rocks. Benji just loved the waves. He would get all excited when a wave would come in and he'd wait for the splash, yet he would also hold both hands up "to protect [himself] from the splashes." Apparently even low tide was too high today to see much sealife in the tidepools (or at least that's what the sign said) but that didn't matter. We still saw two small crabs, which was apparently enough for Benji (and he'll see plenty more tomorrow at Sea World).

After we climbed back up to slightly higher ground, Benji enjoyed looking around for big rocks to sit on. We also watched the surfers and talked about how hard that must be. Then when it was time to get back in the car so we could go up by the lighthouse he thought we were going so far. We had to show him the lighthouse on the top of the hill and asked if we wanted climb all the way up there. He decided that no, we didn't want to climb that mountain. I don't think Uncle Dave would agree with Benji's definition of a mountain!

Back at the top, we spent a bit of time in the gift shop, where we all got our National Parks Passports stamped. Although we had started a book for Benji back in Richmond, he didn't remember that at all. I think, however, when I talked about getting our books stamped that he thought we were getting his "book map" stamped at the library and that we were getting a prize. I suppose he did get a prize of sorts, though, since he picked out a souveneir all by himself — a small book of mazes in the shapes of sea shells. Still, no coloring books for this kid. But mazes, yes! We also did a pressed penny at his request and he even turned the crank most of the way (with a bit of help from Daddy; note that this clip is VERY long so it may not be worthwhile with a slow connection).

Other places we went today included Old Town (our favorite art gallery/co-op that had been there since my family had gone to San Diego 20 years ago was gone — big disappointment) and a failed attempt to see the organ concert at Balboa park (drove forever and still couldn't find a parking spot). We also had a nice dinner at Seaport Village. The restaurant wasn't just on the water's edge, but was literally on the water — on stilts. Matthew and I both enjoyed the seafood (I even got the three-fish platter — yummy) while Benji ate every last noodle of his macaroni and cheese. Benji also really enjoyed watching one particular seagull walk around outside our window. There was a small walkway around the perimeter and the seagull walked back and forth the whole meal, with Benji getting excited every time his bird friend walked past our table. After dinner we strolled around the shops and shared a piece of fudge.

So Cabrillo wins today. It's especially nice because it's somewhere that Matthew and I would have gone to without Benji yet it was fabulous to see it through his fresh eyes.



When we first got there I stayed behind a bit since I didn't want to fall. After scoping things out and seeing how much Benji loved it, Matthew came back to get me and help me down onto the rocks.





From a distance I couldn't figure out what Benji was doing, but it turns out the upturned hand was his attempt to stop the waves.


Since these are tidepools, Matthew is trying to point out a crab (I think).


Oooh! Big splash!











Wait! Someone other than Benji as a focal point in a photo? Isn't he good looking, too?





Family self-portrait off-center.


Benji started an odd habit on this vacation. He thought it was totally hilarious and silly to put his hands in front of his face for photos so we had to get creative to get decent photos.


Ah, finally the whole family!











Benji got tired of my taking photos and started blowing up his cheeks and popping them. Another view into his growing sense of humor as silly preschooler.


Which one will be our new computer wallpaper?


The "bored teenager" look.


After we finished with the tidepools themselves we walked a bit around the overlook.





This one is a favorite of mine!


Benji's seagull friend at dinner.

Libellés : Benji, vacation