Christmastime Hiking in Southern California

The day after Christmas, we decided we'd had too long a pause in our family hiking routine, so we set off on an adventure.  There is a trail in our area that runs about 18.5 miles long from start to finish (nearly reaching the coast), and we've been hiking it in sections since we have young hikers.  We covered another portion and it was a lovely one.  

 

I especially loved that bridge, but then I've always been a sucker for bridges since I met Christopher and he took me on many a walk over charming ones all over a little town in Austria.  

 

Kayla insisted on a picture with the her new bear friend that she received from our good friends, Crystal and Jonny.  She named him Snowflake.  

The picture on the right is Chris and Kayla racing up a hill off the main trail.  Elise and Ava, not to be left out, followed behind.  

And they reached the top...

and eventually came back down to where Sophie and I were waiting patiently, enjoying the lovely gray clouds and the almost stormy view.  

A few days later, I got a text from my friend (and household sister in college) asking if we'd be interested in hiking down in the San Diego area with her that week.  Do you even need to ask, Cathy?  Of course we want to hike!

We headed to Santa Margarita River Trail (the trailhead is in Fallbrook) and walked along the beautiful river (no, it was not dried up!).  The girls LOVED playing in the water and pretending like they were fishing.  It was really very cute.

this picture was taken by my friend, Cathy, obviously.  :)

our little fisher women (picture by Cathy)

I snapped a few fun shots as well as we hiked along.  Ava is usually our whiniest hiker and wants to be carried all. the. time. BUT, apparently hiking with Cathy was motivating for her, because she hiked almost the whole way by herself without complaint.  I believe we went about 4-5 miles.  

with Cathy!

"fishing" and shadows

family shadow shot in the water

(left to right) Ava, Elise, Laura and Sophie, Kayla, and Chris

I believe there are some shots Chris took on the good camera somewhere, but they are still in raw form, which means I can't upload them here because the files are way too big until you shrink them down, so perhaps there will be additional pictures in this post eventually....

On the way home we decided to stop by the ocean.  A day hiking in nature that ends looking out on the vast, sparkling ocean is one that is difficult to rival in my book.  

this shot is one Chris took on his phone as he was swinging Ava 

I'm not sure it gets any more relaxing than being pushed on the swings by your daddy at the ocean.  

31 Days of Gratitude- {Day 29}- San Diego Zoo Safari Park

Yesterday we joined in on one of the field trips that a fellow homeschooling mom in our group organized to go to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.  On the way home, I asked the girls about their favorites of the day. 

As soon as we got there, Kayla checked the map, and saw that there were flamingos.  And of course, we just had to go see the flamingos.  And we did.  Several times, too, because they had several flocks throughout the park.  Kayla's lucky day!

 

It was so bright that the actual flamingos didn't come out very well, but the reflections are pretty lovely and reflect better what the flamingos actually looked like.  

 

 

Ok, so moving on from the flamingos....

The other BIG hit with the girls at the park ended up being Robert the Zebra.  He was a funny digital  puppet that you could interact with (like Crush at Disneyland!)  The girls thought it was HILARIOUS.  (See the videos below)  My favorite part about our visit with Robert the Zebra was watching Sophie in the stroller though.  She was bouncing and chattering and smiling.  Too cute for words. 

                         

Dance party with Robert

                          

For part of the day, we ventured around with a few other families.  Kayla and her "twin-friend", Val, were inseparable during that time.  

With the group we saw the Birdshow, lions, gorillas, lemurs, meercats, and more that I can't possibly remember or name...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later in the day, we broke off into our separate groups to just explore the park on our own and saw the elephants, warthogs, antelope, giraffes, rhinos and more.  It was just so fun to adventure around the park with my girls and experience the "African Safari" together. 

 

 

We weren't sure we'd get a group picture of us, so we tried a few seflies.  

We actually took 4, and Sophie smiled in every single one.  Little ham.  

On the way out of the park, we saw this bat photo opp which cracked me up.  Random side note: It's probably worth noting that we did NOT see the whole park even; just too much for us to do in a day without hubby and without making it a loooooong day where meltdowns occur.  Hope to go back again sometime and check out the rest and take Chris with us. 

And when I was snapping the photo above, a woman from our homeschool group walked by and offered to snap one with all of us, so we did end up getting a picture with the girls and I that wasn't a selfie after all.  :)

I'm so grateful for our fun homeschooling group organizing this.  Kids were free in October and with the group rate, my adult ticket was only $10 plus the parking fee was also waived, so we got a super fun day for the price of gas to the park plus my $10 ticket.  

Mostly though, I'm thankful for the memories I made with my little girls and the adventure we had on our "African Safari".