fun-filled weekend part 1

So- this last weekend was great. Our friend David came to visit us. He was here from Thursday afternoon until early Monday morning. Kraig and David went to high school together, and I know David through other friends that I have from Niles. We had such a great time together, and got to do a lot of fun things! We also ate a lot of great food... including churros. The weather was perfect- beautiful and sunny, until Sunday- but I will get to that later.


Like, I said, David got here Thursday afternoon. I picked him up around noon at the San Diego International Airport. It was really great to see him...and at that time, he had no idea what kind of excitement we had in store for him! Anyways, david could not believe how the roads are out here. I guess I never realized how crazy it is because nothing compares to driving in LA and because I am always focused on following the Garmin's every whim. Anyways, David was very happy not to be driving. There aren't traffic jams and excessive road rage like in LA, but the exits out here split like 5 times as you exit off of the freeway, and you really have to pay attention to the lanes of traffic and where they are really going.
Kraig worked on Thursday, so David and I hung out. We started out by having lunch at the California Pizza Kitchen in the Fashion Valley Mall. I figured what better way to start your CA vacation than by going to a restaurant with the name California in it!?! Plus, they serve really great pizza there. We shared some sort of tasty appetizer and pizza before walking around the mall. We were definitely the most under-dressed people there. This mall is an open-air mall with any and all of the expensive and high fashion stores that you can think of. David and I definitely stuck out as being from the Midwest- a distant land where appearance isn't quite everything...

Next we went to the embarcadero, which is where all of the ships dock in the San Diego harbor. We went to the Maritime Museum. We got to go onto multple ships, including the Star of India (which is an old, supposedly haunted ship), a ship that was used in the movie Master and Commander, a submarine, and a ferry boat. We got to tour through the quarters of each ship and see a little bit about their history. I enjoyed the submarine the most. I learned that I am too tall to work on a submarine because I can barely fit my long legs through the round portals within the sub. The ferry was also really nice and pretty on the inside. The only thing that would have made the museum better is if we could have climbed around on the ship's ropes and riggings and sat in the crows nest!
Oh well, after the museum, we headed back to the apartment to meet up with Kraig. On our way home, we stopped at Target to pick up a few things- plus I had to introduce David to our 2-story Target with an escalator for your shopping cart! He was impressed- don't laugh though, because it is impressive! That evening, we went to Old Town San Diego. We did a quick walk-through the state park, showed david the Whaley House, and ate at Fred's Mexican Cafe. We ate outside on the patio (under heat lamps- yes I said heat lamps.. I think my blood has thinned so much out here that I will never be able to survive the cold in MI again). The atmosphere at the restaurant was fun and festive. The Mexican food was not bad either!

On Friday we went to the San Diego Zoo. We spent close to 6 hours there! The zoo is huge, and is not laid out in a perfect circle. There are multiple little areas within the zoo that you have to hike up hills to get to and go around in various circles just to see all of the animals. This zoo had all of the animals that normal big zoos have (except penguins). However, they also had pandas and koalas! I have only seen pandas and koalas on tv.. so it was really cool to see live ones! They were so cute. I also really liked the pygmy hippo and would like to have one as a pet. The otters, meerkats, and naked mole rats were also cool! We had lunch in the zoo, watched the sea lion show, and spent a lot of time going through all of the exhibits.

Near the tigers, there was an educational sign that played recordings of different sounds that the tigers make, two of the sounds were a "chuffle" (which is a tiger saying hell0) and a roar. I was pushing the buttons on the sign while david was trying to find the tiger in the exhibit. It's kinda funny, because he thought the sounds that I was playing were real... he was looking all over, like I hear the tiger, but where is it?!? ha... I wasn't even trying to mess with him.. it just worked out that way! I was really just trying to learn how to say hello in "tiger." After that, we tried to mess with other people in the same way. I am not sure if it worked, I just think that people thought we were jerks! Oh well.

This zoo is really cool because it is big into conservation and has many endangered animal breeding programs. They have a panda breeding program. This zoo is home to the first ever panda born into captivity. They have been able to breed many babies since then, and we even got to see one! It was so cute! I do not know which animals were Kraig and David's favorites. I will have to ask them. Anyways, Kraig and I ended our day by getting our caricatures drawn. It turned out pretty good and pretty funny, but we are not sure where we will put it. We decided to get our pictures drawn with a giraffe (since we are both tall), but the artist drew us like Tarzan and Jane with me riding the giraffe. She gave kraig a loin cloth in the picture- which he is not too thrilled about, so I do not know where we will hang it! Oh well... Also- a really big thanks to James for the free zoo tickets!

After the zoo, we ate dinner at Joe's Crab Shack. We actually got to meet the real "Joe" - the actual owner of the chain. Kraig and David ate tons of seafood and got to wear some pretty snazzy bibs... The restaurant is also fun because the servers come out and dance to songs for the diners. I wonder if we could do something like that at that hospital. hmmmm.. After dinner, we went back and played with the Wii. We had a bowling contest and taught David how to play all of the sports. We also played Guitar Hero. All in all, it was a really fun day.