The Ranch

For those of you who don't know, my in-laws own a house and land near Ione, OR. It is a beautiful place that we visit every once in a while. We went over there for a long weekend to play. They own a couple of tractors, which Cameron has named the "BIG tractor and the little baby tractor."

Cameron truly loves the outdoors and absolutely adores his Grandpa. So he followed Tom around the whole weekend and "helped" him whenever possible.

When he wasn't helping Tom he was taking turn asking everyone else to take him on four wheeler rides. We went on a long ride with everyone and Kasey fell asleep.

The deer also love their ranch and we had a great time hanging out and playing games.

When we finally had to go Cameron cried. It was a great weekend.

Washington DC

Okay, this is going to be the final blog about our trip. Besides going to southern California we also flew to Washington DC to visit my brother Jer, his wife Cecile and their daughter Pauline. My mom, who lives in Portland, was also visiting them.

One of the best things we did was go to a splash park near my brother's house. The kids had a blast. Kasey even got into the water some to stay cool. Cameron was a little shy at first, but then thought it was great and was running through all the water. Pauline, as you will see in the pictures, is quite a character. She was being silly, then practicing her dance moves in the water.





The Smithsonian has added a second Air & Space Museum. The one on the mall has more to do with the history of flight and how a plane works. The new one has a bunch of cool planes and the space shuttle. It was a lot of fun. The kids had fun running around.
That is me holding Cameron in the lower right corner. You don't realize how big the shuttle is until you stand next to it.

They had a little Cessna that they let kids get into. Cameron thought it was fun to "fly" a plane.Now I know they may hate this picture when they get older, but I had to include it because it was cute. Pauline was taking a bath so Cameron just got undressed and joined her. Needless to say the bathroom was soaked by the time they were done.
They also enjoyed dancing together. Its a shame that we live so far apart. The kids have a great time together.

San Diego Zoo

This trip has been so much fun. The zoo is really big, but the did not have many of the fun animals as we were expecting. They only had one tiger, two bears, and two lions. They did have six different types of pigs though. Most of the exhibits were set up so that most of the animals could hide or so that the fencing was really distracting. We still had a good time though. Cameron had fun with his Dad. Kasey got a cute new hat and an orangutan that he smiles at every time he sees it.

They did have some really good exhibits. The giraffe exhibit was great You really feel like you got a good look at them.

They had a giraffe that was only a month old. This is her laying down where she was still five and a half feet tall.

We got to see a few animals that I, at least, have never seen. I have no idea what this next one is, but it is a cross between a giraffe & a zebra.

I have also never seen a hippo under water, a koala, or a little kangaroo(can't remember what they are actually called).The ape exhibit was awesome. You could see them quite well. They also had some statues to climb on and Cameron really enjoyed them.The panda exhibit was cool. They were no more than 10 - 15 feet away from you.The rhino and snow leopard just posed really well for us. The snow leopard cage was so close they actually had signs that said he bites:)

Look for another long post tomorrow to some up our Washington DC part of the trip.

Sea World

Sea World was so much fun. Cameron loved the shows & Kasey even was able to follow some of the action.

The Clyde & Seamore's Risky Rescue show was great for kids. Cam thought it was hilarious.

They had a small penguin exhibit, but it had a ton of them. It was nice and air conditioned in the exhibit so we stayed & cooled off.

The dolphin show was impressive, we went to it two times. The first time we sat above the splash zone and watched the show. However Cameron really wanted to be splashed so we went back later and Chris & Cam sat in the splash zone. They got three direct shots & were soaked (sorry no pictures we took video of the splashing). Cam didn't like it too much until we told him it was silly, then he started laughing about it. The rest of the trip Cam kept saying "The dolphin splashed me and got water all over my face. It was really, really silly!"

They also had a little tide pool with starfish they could pick up and look at. I think this was Cam's favorite thing. He didn't want to leave.We saw the Shamu show and it is amazing to see a 4 ton animal jump up out of the water.


Now this was my favorite part of the day. There are moments where your kids expressions just light up with excitement. About 10-15 minutes before the park closed we went to the under water killer whale exhibit. We were the only people there and the whale cooperated wonderfully. She was swimming around the tank and kept going right by us. Cameron thought that it was so cool. Every time we told Cam the whale was coming he would get right up to the glass and say "Whoa!!!" when she swam by.

It was a really fun day. We wish had a second day to spend there.