Capistrano Encore (Encore)

Yikes, if I don’t hurry up with posting Rach and Erik’s visit, I won’t get through it before Henry and Janet are here!

                          
You wouldn’t keep coming back if you were tired of looking at pictures of my favorite people, right?

                       
I’d like to say that it’s a nice, quiet place to contemplate, maybe gain some perspective, but the gang I travel with doesn’t really do “quiet” or “contemplative” all that well.  At least not for long stretches.


On the other hand, maybe they do look a little contemplative here in the chapel.  Or maybe they just look bored.  Hard to tell.

                                                 
The flowers, meanwhile, are glowing in the sunshine . . .


and the architecture is silhouetted against a brilliant blue sky. 

                                                     
Which brings us to the fountain, yes THAT fountain.  No, they weren’t allowed to walk around the edge of it this time.  

    
The boys are looking towards the cemetery, not sure what was so interesting over there just then.  But on either side we have an olive tree and some odd-looking flowers.

     
The first picture, for me, reflects the impressive grandeur of humankind’s creations; whereas the second shows the ultimate splendor of God’s.

Family pic!  Here you go!

        
           
A few more flowers and we’re done here.  Moving on . . .

Capistrano Encore

Rach asked about a botanical gardens down in San Diego but we opted, largely due to travel/nap conflicts, to go for the more local next-best-thing, which is really pretty good after all.  So the gardens were the main photographic focus of this excursion, and not just for me!  You see Rachel buried in those bushes, don’t you?  The kids, meanwhile, were entertained by the audio tours again.

           
So many new things in bloom this time; orange blossoms and irises were just the beginning!

 
Here are those two goofy, gorgeous kids of mine, along with a quartet of the fabled swallow’s nests.

                     
The “curiosity cart” was set out with squirrel pelts, arrowheads, corn husk dolls and other touchable Juaneno artifacts and toys.  Nearby, the hollyhocks stood more than six feet high.

             
Since it was only a couple days after Easter, the message of this inscription (trans: I shall rise again) was particularly powerful.

                    
I didn’t catch this until just now as the photos came together somewhat coincidentally, but look how the colors of the fish echo the colors of the flowers.
 Best aunt ever?  Logan might think so.

                               
Glorious beauty everywhere you turn.

My favorites among the flowers.

                         
This is as good a place as any to cut it off; I’m going to go ahead and break this post up.  Partly so that’s it’s not as massively long as the last one, partly because I want to go to bed!  G’night all!

San Diego Zoo Safari Park

It being Rachel’s birthday, she got to pick our event of the day.  This one was extra-fun because it was something that the kids and I hadn’t checked off our list yet.  Hooray for new adventures!

“Jambo!” the signs exclaim as you walk up to the park.  Both Jake and Erik were excited about this, having heard the word frequently while in Iraq from the Ugandan guards they had there. 


We start off with the birds.  That blue crested fellow in the middle was the one that chased Naomi down.

Not a fan of the pretty pigeon, but completely unfazed by the giant rhino (statue).

                      
Let the tour continue.

          
The meerkats were fun to watch but I think the best job in the whole park belonged to whoever got to be the mouthpiece behind this interactive zebra.  Slightly sassy and very well-animated, “Robert” answered kid’s questions, told jokes and relayed bits of zebra trivia to his captivated audience.  “Goodbye, zebra!” said Logan; “Goodbye, human!” said Robert.

         
Fun with Uncle Erik and Aunt Rachel.

       
More fabulous animal-related antics.
             
Getting ready for the big tram ride.

  
Here come the animals!  I’m trying really hard to spare you a picture of every species that was out there, but it was pretty spectacular and a beautiful sunny day, perfect for photos.

Here’s the landscape for the park.  Not a bad view, eh?

                         
Spring means animal babies.  The baby rhino is looking shy, but it’s there.  If you go back up to the water buffaloes, there are a couple of calves in that picture as well. 

                    
We got a good view of the lion from the tram but then managed to catch an even better view afterwards.  Naomi is working on her roar.  (Thus far, a rather uninspiring thing.)

                        
If you think this post is getting long, imagine how the kids were feeling as we pushed towards lunch time.  But there was just SO much to see!

 
I think we’ve established that I have an odd fascination with elephants.  But look now at that first picture; glance back and forth a few times from the random woman’s head to the elephant.  Doesn’t that thing look like it’s about two stories tall?

The best part: just as we were getting ready to move on, we hear a joyful, loud trumpet and this (I’m assuming) mother elephant comes running out with two baby elephants following behind.  It was this great little family reunion moment where you could honestly tell that they were so happy and excited to be back outside with the herd.  Very cool to watch!

   
I love the very different personalities that the gorillas appear to have in these pictures.  I totally read the first one as “giving him the stink eye” and the second as “too cool to care”.  What’s your take?

Almost done.  Don’t worry; we’ll find our way home.

         
Coming back around to the front, we run into the birds again, with some water babies this time.

   
Later that afternoon, AFTER naps (hooray!), the kids practice their synchronized ice-cream consumption.  Now dip, and lift, and taste, and swallow.  Good!  Now dip . . .

Whew!  Longest post yet?  Tell me, do the longer ones take forever to load on your computers or is it pretty smooth?  I thought about breaking this up into two posts for those who might have slower internet connections.  Would that be better for you?