Sea World

For my birthday, my parents got me an annual pass to Sea World, which was way generous of them! I had never been there and have wanted to go for a very long time, so we decided to go on Monday and Tuesday during Thanksgiving Break. On Monday, we just wanted to take it easy and see what there was to do there. We saw some pretty cool dolphins... AND SHAMU!!! We also took some time to check out their Christmas decorations!
We stayed until closing time and then went over to Old Town to see the Mormon Battalion Visitors Center. It recently re-opened after being renovated and it is way different and way cooler! We were super impressed by the presentation and how informative it was. Here we are at the visitors center: At the end they take your picture and you can email it to yourself:
Then, we ate dinner at a place that we often go to on our more recent Old Town San Diego trips. It's just across the street from the Whaley House, which you can see in the background. The fire in the middle of the table kept us cozy and warm since it was super cold out.
We stayed in a hotel that night and then got up the next morning and went back to Sea World.
We got to see a couple more shows and see the penguins! What majestic animals they are! We pretty much just walked around the park and had a leisurely day. We stopped at some of the pretty Christmas decos they had around the park and took some pictures. I love my parents SO much! I'm so grateful that we get along and have such a great time together.




We got to pet stars and urchins in the tide pools!

We got to pet stingrays too!
It was so much fun!

Mummies of the World

An exhibit called "Mummies of the World" came to the California Science Center in LA and I was way excited to see it. My parents and I got tickets and went on November 20th. It was a perfect way to start Thanksgiving Break! We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the exhibit, which was a bummer, but we saw some really cool stuff!
Before we went into the museum, we went over and saw the Coliseum, where the USC Trojans play.
Then we went through the Air and Space Museum after we saw the Mummy exhibit.


So glad we went!

Weekend Fun With the Wee Men

So, a couple of weeks ago, I watched my nephews so that my brother and his wife could go away for their anniversary. (Their anniversary isn't until December 15th, but they'll have a brand new baby by then, so going away alone would be pretty much out of the question.) I decided that I should take the boys on a little adventure. Usually, an adventure for me and the boys includes a trip to Target (where else!?!) hehe, so I made sure this one was a little different. I took them to the Mary Vagle Nature Center in Fontana. It's sort of a little nature preserve area in the Jurupa Hills. It has a man made lake with lots of ducks, geese, turtles, plants, etc. They also have a building that you can go into where they have snakes, spiders, chinchillas, bugs, etc. First, we went over to the lake and fed the ducks.

After feeding the ducks, we went inside where we got to look at some cool animals. Cy got hold of a magnifying glass and so, of course he had to use it to look at everything through it. Like:this snake...
and these chinchillas!

They also got to see a couple of bearded dragonshuge tarantulasgross beetles We got to learn about and look at different mineralsand Joey taught us all about the chinchillas!
These are just a few of the things we got to see and it was way cool!

When we went back outside, the boys wanted to walk around the lake.


These are just some shots from our walk around the lake.
I know that the last 2 are almost the same, but I couldn't decide which was cuter, so I put them both up. : )

After this, we drove to the library, where each little man got to choose a story for me to read to them.

That night, we decided to make some spooky root beer and a cool Jack 'o Lantern cookie. The boys got to help mix everything up and then at the end I put in some dry ice, which the boys thought was awesome! Our made-from-scratch root beer turned out pretty delicious, if I do say so myself. ; )






I had tons of fun with my sweet nephews! I love being their auntie!

Adventure at the Westgate

Thanks to a family wedding, my siblings and I were all able to gather together, along with our parents, and spend some quality time together. In fact, here's a rare photo op: all of us Wheeler ladies together!
As you can imagine, the months before the wedding were quite eventful and, at times, very stressful. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to have some R & R time with my sister, Diane, immediately following the reception. Diane is an accountant for an oil company and her company owns a bunch of hotels. For every year that she is with the company, she accrues 2 complimentary nights at the company hotel of her choosing, for herself and a guest. So, she invited me to come along. We stayed in the Westgate Hotel in downtown San Diego, which has an interior modeled after the Palace of Versailles. Here's a pic I found of the lobby: It was B-E-A-utiful and definitely the nicest place I will probably ever have a chance to stay in. We checked out the room...... and then ordered room service at about 1:00 a.m. This was the first time I've ever ordered room service and it was way cool. They rolled in a little cart and then put the sides up, so that it made a round table, then the guy put two chairs up to the table for us. There was even a real flower on the table. The food was delish!

After our late dinner, we just chilled in the room for a bit. We had the coolest view! This is the view from the balcony of our 18th floor room. Amazing! In the daylight we also had a view of the ocean to the right and in front of us.


The next morning, we got ready and went to breakfast. I got to use the big marble shower just off of the dressing room and Diane took a bath in the huge bathtub. It was way fancy!
This is the dressing room and you can see the shower in the back.

We had breakfast at the restaurant in the hotel. I had waffles with carmelized banana slices and a smoothie.
Diane and me at breakfast:

After breakfast, we explored the hotel a little bit. Here we are in the lobby:
Here's a picture in the hallway. We thought it was kinda funny that even the hallways had even the smallest detail perfect. The bottom of the curtains were all fanned out at the bottom like people fan out the trains on wedding dresses for pictures.
After breakfast we walked to Seaport Village to check out a couple of shops. On the way, we passed some cool stuff downtown.

It was a beautiful day in San Diego and the ocean, as usual, was simply beautiful!


Finally, we went back to the hotel to get our bags and check out and we headed to the San Diego Temple. Unfortunately, it had closed early that day because of the Relief Society broadcast, so we just took a look at it and then drove home. We had a great time and it was nice to spend some quality time with my sister!