Scott's birthday is this week, so to celebrate, I took him down to Ensenada, Mexico last weekend. It's only a couple hour drive and has some great views along the way. We didn't do too much while there except enjoy the resort and a good dinner, but it was nice just to see something new and get away.
Aunt Sandee was excited to be in San Diego to have some good cultural food, so we went to an authentic Chinese restaurant for Dim Sum (chinese appetizers). We arrived early and were the only white people in there for a little while. The servers coming around with the carts didn't know how to explain the food in English very well, so we pretty much tried everything. FUN! We next went to Quail Botanical Gardens up in Leucadia that I had never been to before. It was pretty cool and gave me a lot of names to put with the plants that I see in San Diego every day. The South African garden looked the most simlar because as you can see here, it is so similar to San Diego. These are a couple of plants that are very common to San Diego. The beautiful bird of paradise and this pretty purple ice plant that is always along the walkways in my neighborhood when I walk/run. The purple is actually a lot brighter, but you can't really tell here. There are all sorts of other gardens, too. This bottle tree, I think was in a garden from Australia or somewhere around there. The picture of the lush green area and waterfall is... you guessed it - in the rainforest. I saw many plants there that I had seen on my Costa Rican treks.
We went out the night of the zoo-ing and had fancy Mexican food in old town at El Agave. And you can't eat at a place like that without having margaritas - they were great! Scott and I got some new games for Christmas (including one from Kelly!) and my visiting family loves games as much as me so after trying to get into a sold out movie, we came back and had game night. I won't rub in too much that the boys lost in battle of the sexes. ;-) Kelly and I went out way too late and partied way too much after we said good night to her parents. It's all part of growing up, right? Oh wait - shouldn't I already be there!? :S
My Uncle Glen, Aunt Sandee and Cousin Kelly came in town this weekend to visit and we had such a great time! The day after they got here, we walked to the San Diego zoo and the animals were out. There were a few Koalas, but this one held her baby oh so sweetly. We wanted to cuddle with them, too, but couldn't get close enough. The big brown bear (huge, actually) was walking all around maybe looking for his next feast? Thank goodness we were on the other side! I can never usually see the cats when I got to the zoo here, but most of them were out and quite active on this day. As soon as we came up to the leopard cage, he came out and started pacing right in front of us. You can see by this video how incredibly close he was. It was very surreal!
The panther was high on his perch when we first arrived, but he too came down right in front of us. He crouched down into a little den and started making the weirdest noises - almost like he was crying. The video can describe the sounds and the picture can show you the panther himself. It was very odd to have the cats come so close to us and right when we arrived. I tried to convince Kelly that she was letting off some sort of pheremone that the cats liked.
I got a really cute shot of all three of them while we went up an escalator - what a perfect family shot!
Many of the gorillas were huge, and this guy was the biggest. When we first arrived there were all sorts of sounds coming from the crowd and we realized it was because he had a bunch of poop hanging out of his butt and his baby was sniffing at it. Very interesting. :S
We saw many very cool birds, but this was one of my favorites.
The meercats are always some of my favorite. So tiny and cute just standing up on their hind legs.
Kelly got to see her favorite giraffes - I will always be amazed by their size no matter how many times I see them.
The pandas are perhaps the most famous at the San Diego zoo. There were three of them that we could see on that day. This was a mom feeding herself on bamboo while her baby slept in the tree. The baby was not very small and is about to be split up from the mom soon.
We also saw a lot of monkeys, but this video shows one of my favorites that day.
After the zoo, we walked to Balboa Park to see some of the great architecture. I need to find out the history of these buildings - anyone know?
For New Year's Eve day, Alex, Scott and I went up to Stone Brewery and had a great lunch and good beers. The place is pretty incredible with a great restaurant.
6 of us hung out that evening to bring in the New Year. We finally decided to go out at 11 PM and by then it was too difficult for all 6 of us to get into a bar for midnight. After midnight, we ended up back at the Hong Kong nightclub where we brought in the New Year last year. And it was the best place we went! Notice the great wig that Monique brought home with her - it was passed around a bit all night.
