One of the things I was most excited to do, after Disneyland, was to take my famiy to the tide pools. I always loved exploring the tide pools in Monterey Bay whenI studied there and I was sure the kids would be tickled with all the life in the intertidal zone.
La Jolla has some great tide pools because of it's rocky shore line and Wednesday evening was the best daytime low tide that week, so off we went.
The rocks were teeming with tiny crabs and larger horseshoe crabs, barnacles, limpits, chitons, sea anenomes, fish, mussels and more! Marco was just like a kid himself out there too, I LOVED it! I only took pictures when we first got there since my hands were wet and sandy shortly thereafter. 
Enzo collected some good shells, they all did some rock climbing and Massimo was enamored with the dog nearby! 
San Diego was fabulous! It is such a beautiful place! Once we finished our explorations we headed over to Old Towne for some good old Mexican food and those homemade tortillas (not as good as yours, though, mom). It was such an enjoyable day! 
Seaworld was tide pooling on a much grander scale!! I don't know that they learned a whole lot more, but they sure loved what they saw, felt and tasted! 
Dolphins were first on tap, followed by sea otters. They enjoyed seeing the dolphins so close up and watching them jump out of the water. They got a kick out of the sea otters because they would come knock on the glass w/ their ice blocks right by where the kids were standing; it was as if they wanted to say hi. 
Marco didn't think we needed to visit the tide pool exhibit since we had done that the night before but I still wanted to show the kids sea stars since the tide wasn't low enough to see any in La Jolla. Arianna wasn't sure she wanted to touch them at first; she has always been cautious. Then there was Enzo: he was ready to dissect one and find out all about it right then and there. I think he was planning to tuck one in his pocket and take it home w/ him! That was enough to convince Arianna that she would be OK petting one just a bit. The sea cucumber was fun too...and gross, I guess. 
We wanted to get a good seat in the soak zone for Shamu (well, I did) so we headed to Shamu's place next. That was certainly the best part of the day for the kids. Even though we sat in the first few rows we managed to stay dry much to my chagrin and everyone else's relief. 
The trainers had the audience call 'Shamu' to get the Killer Whales to come out and splash us all. The kids are still chanting 'Shamu, Shamu' more than a week later, even our littlest fish (though his sounds more like 'mamu, mamu')! 
By the time the show was over we were too hot and hungry to go on so we stopped for a bite to eat before making our way into the sun again. 
The kids were thrilled to have located a kids' zone in the middle of the park and they stopped in to bounce and climb and play there for a while.
The Marine Biologist w/in me could only handle that for a little while before the urge to see more sea life kicked in, though. Besides, the sharks were getting hungry for some lunch! Or that was Enzo's fear, anyway. 
The shark exhibit is dark and that, combined w/ all that Enzo knows about sharks, was enough to almost keep him from entering with us. He was SO nervous! Good thing the first sharks we saw were the smaller ones, that put him at ease. Marco loved it here, who wouldn't?! He played it VERY cool, as you can see! 
Rays, eels, pirhanas, frogs, fish, and turtles followed. I don't know that I had seen Flamingos before, is that crazy??! So I was excited...for at least a minute. They were cool to see, but the boys were more interested in chasing the pigeons nearby and that was quite entertaining to me as well! 
The seal show was next up, very humorous and Marco's favorite part. The kids sat mesmerized so I think they liked it a lot too! Those animals can be trained to do some pretty amazing tricks! Again, we were in the soak zone. Again, we stayed DRY! That meant we were headed BACK to see Shamu. It was too hot to stay dry ALL day! This time we got WET! I was the only one that liked it. 
Massimo cried, the other kids whined so Marco high-tailed it up the stairs w/ three kids in tow (he wasn't a fan of getting wet himself, so it worked out perfectly).
Still left to see: Penguins and the other Arctic animals. Arianna was enamored w/ the Belugas, Enzo liked the polar bear...kind of. It was a love-hate relationship; he was terrified of him and yet fascinated, as well. Marco and I got a kick out of the walrus. Weird creature! We had a wonderful day at Seaworld! Marco hopes we can ride more of the rides next time (one of our kids was too short and the other too frightened) but all-in-all we loved our time w/ the sea creatures!
Since dessert ALWAYS has to follow dinner we thought it would be fun to switch it up a bit on vacation. So on Friday walked the long pier for some huge and tasty shakes BEFORE dinner! Ruby's did not disappoint.
Enzo couldn't resist a cone. 
Arianna's eyes were blood shot from diving for coins w/ Daddy ad nauseum in the pool while the boys napped but that didn't stop her from enjoying a banana caramel shake any! THEN it was time for dinner so we hiked back to our condo and hopped in the car to find a yummy seafood joint. The Jolly Roger was what we settled on, a quaint little restaurant that overlooks the Oceanside harbor. Loved it! In fact, we went back w/ my sis when she was down on Saturday. Yummy! I can never get enough of seafood!
