Vacation Highlights

We made it to the Aquarium of the Pacific. In case you are wondering what this is about, click here.

This crab's legs were gigantic!

That is a really neat place to visit! We spent several hours there. They have great exhibits to see. The shark lagoon is neat to look at. There is actually a sword shark! Its teeth are on the outside of the sword and its mouth is underneath the base of the sword. We were there at feeding time and it was interesting to watch how it eats.

The jellyfish were great to watch as well. It was like looking at living art. They look so graceful as they move around in the water.

Aren't these birds gorgeous?!

Everyone but me touched the sharks (there are sharks that are only about 3 feet in length as an adult kind of like nurse sharks that you can pet), starfish, manna rays, anemones, etc. I was behind the camera and I just don't like to touch those kinds of things.

We enjoyed ourselves immensely!

We spent the weekend in Long Beach with some friends of ours and went to church there.

Monday morning we packed up the van, had some breakfast and headed down to San Pedro to the tide pools. We drove alongside the shipyards. That was interesting. We also saw a cruise ship that was in port. Those things are enormous!

Little crabs feeding on something.

Then it was on to the coast along the cliffs. We drove down a big cliff to park and walk to where the tide pools were. It was a beautiful day but it was very cold. A neat place to visit, though. I think I will like it better if we go back during the summer when it's much warmer outside. But we did enjoy ourselves anyway.

Tuesday we went to a place called Painted Hills. It's a little east of Indio, not too far away from home. We had never been there. We considered camping there until we found out there's nothing there (water, bathrooms, etc).

Painted Hills is one of the most beautiful places to see. The hills are just exactly what the name says. "Painted" by God.

gorgeous!

We hiked in there for about 2 hours. We had a great time. But, boy, were we exhausted by the time we were done! I was stiff a couple hours after we were done and I was incredibly sore for 3 days after! We want to go back again.

Thursday of that week was Walter's birthday. The kids and I took him to lunch. Tyler wanted to go to PetsMart and look at the animals.

Um...note to self: Don't go into a store and window shop when there is something in there you want. You just might come home with it spontaneously one day!

My Mr. Wonderful has always loved birds. He had one as a boy and has wanted one for a long time. I was going to get him one for our anniversary last year but we didn't have the money.

There were doves at PetsMart. I had never seen doves for sale. I took one look at them and told my husband I wanted one. Well......he decided we needed 2. So we are now the proud owners of 2 Diamond Doves...um.....Fred and Ethel to be exact.

Introducing Fred(left) and Ethel(right)!

Fred and Ethel

It looks like we may be having baby doves here soon, too. The nest is being readied and well, just know that we know what we are talking about as far as babies.

On to Friday of vacation week. We were absolute bumps on logs. It was the only day we didn't go anywhere. We were just plain worn out from all the excitement. We didn't go camping because the night temps were in the low 40s. Brrrrrrrr! So we are planning on camping in May.