Wild Animal Park and Sea World

This weekend my in-laws came to visit, we had to do something so we went to the San Diego Wild Animal Park and Sea World. The Wildlife Park has a new tram ride that gets you closer to the animals than before, which is really nice. And they opened up a whole new section. Definitely worth going to if you get a chance. And Sea World had all the usual shows and such. It was nice to be outside and do something a little different. Here are a few photos from the weekend.

This is us in front of the Dolphin pool at Sea World. We spent our fair share of time there. My face is still a bit swollen from surgery.

And this is one of the newest editions to the Elephant exhibit at the Wildlife Park. How cute is this little guy? There was another baby there also. It was fun to see them be so playful.

And this is mama. I think she was watching another tram or something. Someone may have looked like dinner.

And we had to watch Shamu do it's thing.

And of course this little guy was just too cute not to take a picture of.

I hope you all had a great weekend.

One to Six

Back in November I commented on the short film my friend Brad was filming. He finally got the time to finish it up a couple weeks ago. This is a topic that is near and dear to his heart so if you have a comment I can pass on to him, fell free to leave it and I'll make sure he gets it.



Congratulations Brad on a job well done.

Surgery

Well, I had my SARPE surgery last Friday. I went into LLUMC at about 12:30 p.m., did all the preop stuff and surgery finally started around 3 p.m. I was finally aware of my surroudings by about 5:50 p.m. and to my room by about 8 p.m. Stephanie came to see me for a little bit then headed home. I spent the night with ice packs on my face. Sabbath morning the surgeon, Dr. Herford, checked me out. We were home by about noon. Thanks to my antibiotic, I know have a nice red tone to my skin. Allergies are the greatest. Luckily I have been off of pain meds and antibiotics since the weekend. Now it's just ibuprofen a couple times a day to combat the pain of spreading my maxilla apart. I'm taking pictures a couple times a day of my face so I can look back and watch the swelling go up, then go down, and also watch my jaw spread open. It will be a great documentary:) Some of you have called and sent me emails, thanks for thinking of me. I have to tell myself the pain will all be over soon...I hope. Talk to you all soon.

Mmmmm

Morningstar...mmmmmm. Veggie meats are awesome.

Check out www.seeveggiesdifferently.com for all their meat substitutes.

Munich

We finished up our Europe trip in the Munich area. First we visited Dachau, the first concentration camp used from 1933-1945. While we were there a survivor came. Watching him in his reproduced uniform was a sad sight. I'm not sure exactly what they were doing but it was some kind of memorial type service. Watching him break down and cry was quite a scene. We can only imagine what he went through while he was there 62+ years before. I can't imagine how hard it must be for him to return to that place.

This is a photo taken by the Americans when they liberated the camp. I can't imagine what these people were thinking either when they saw those planes fly over.

From Dachau, we went on to Neuschwanstein. It was a two hour train ride and well worth it. Fussen is a pretty little town and the scenery on the way was great also.

That night we finished our travels back in Munich where we had some dinner, directly across from the Glockenspiel, went back to our hotel and turned in for the night so we could get up early the next morning for our long trip home.

In the morning we all went to the Munich airport, grabbed a little something to eat then said goodbye to Stephanie's parents. We flew from Munich, to Paris, to Atlanta, then on to LAX. We caught the shuttle to our car then went home. All in all it was about a 28 hour day.

It was a very fun trip and I'd definitely do it again. Thanks for checking in on my photos and reading along about our trip.

Salzburg

We finally made it to Salzburg after getting on a later train. It was only about 30 minutes later but it took us a lot longer. We went through Verona which is west, not north like we needed to go. Then to Innsbruck then on to Salzburg. We got in at about 11:30 and made it to our hotel. The next morning we again had breakfast at the hotel then our tour guide picked us up at the hotel. If you ever want to go on a great tour of Salzburg, check out Bob's Special Tours. They can only fit 8 people in the van so it is a lot more intimate of a tour than the big buses. And RosaMaria was a great tour guide. She is from the same town as Arnold and says California the same way. Anyway, RosaMaria took us around Salzburg to show us some sites then we went to most, if not all the places the Sound of Music was filmed. They jumped all over the place to film that movie, including Hollywood. We did see the headquarters for Red Bull also. I had no idea it was there. And there are no signs so you don't even know what it is. It's just a very modern building in a little town. We also got to stop at a little restaurant overlooking a lake and snow covered houses to eat apple strudel. Mmmmmm, that was good.

We finished with our 4 hour tour then got the chance to walk around Salzburg. It is a very fun city. It has so much character and sooooo much cleaner than Rome/Italy was. We got a few different flavored pretzels, looked around the city, then walked for a very long time trying to find a certain restaurant. We think we finally found it but it was closed, so we had to keep looking. We eventually found a restaurant and had, yes, pizza. But we also threw in some soup and some pasta. After we ate we headed back to our hotel and turned in for the night.

Now for a few pictures.

The house in the background is where the Von Trapp family had lemonade and played in the water. The front of the house is at a different location.
This photo was taken near the yellow wall that Maria Von Trapp walked along carrying her guitar on her way back to the house. Yes, those walls are yellow.
And this is where we ate apple strudel.
And if by chance you know the movie as well as I do, joking, this flower was taken in a park where Maria and the Von Trapp children danced around.
And this is come random rock pillar. I just liked it.OK, enough of Salzburg and my favorite movie in the whole wide world... Monday we will move on to our last stop, Munich, Germany.

More Venice

This will just consist of photos, nothing to read:) Well, maybe just a few words.

Now that was some good pizza!!
We will go to Salzburg tomorrow. Oh, by the way, don't expect the water buses in Venice to be fast, we missed our train by about 3 minutes and had our 5 hour trip to Salzburg turn into an 8 hour trip. But we made it.

Venice

OK, so we made it to Venice after a 4 hour train ride. What a beautiful place, but a little hard to navigate at times. Do you know how long it can take 4 adults to find a specific gelato shop? Let me tell you, it can take a long time. Anyway, spent some time wondering around looking through shops and checking out St. Marks Square. Those pigeons are crazy. You'd think they were friendly or something. We were also able to go on a 30 minutes gondola ride. Our gondolier has been at it for 18 years and his dad did it for 42. It's a fun experience. Nothing like being that close to that dirty of water.

And yes, we ate pizza in Venice also, twice. The second time was much better. I'll post that pizza photo tomorrow.





I will have one more post for Venice, probably not much to say but more photos. See you tomorrow.

Finishing up with Rome

What a night we had. He grabbed some awesome pizza, again, watched another hail storm then went for a very long hunt looking for our final few things to see.

Here we are at the Heartbreak restaurant. This is where we were when it started hailing for the second time that day. You can see us in the mirror trying to decide what to order.
This is the square right outside the restaurant. All that white on the ground is hail. About a cm big. It was crazy. It blew through like it did in the morning, but dumped a lot more this time.
Once the hail stopped, we walked to the Pantheon, the oldest building in Rome. They have redone the inside but it is still a very impressive building from so long ago. The pillars in the front are one piece each and were shipped in from Egypt, I believe that is what we read. You can see how big they are by looking at the people at the base of them.
On our way to more gelato, I grabbed a couple shots of this bike. It just seemed cool sitting out there by itself in the rain.
Then more walking, and walking, and walking. We found the Trevi Fountain then walked more to find the Spanish Steps. I have to tell you, the Spanish Steps were a little disappointing. Maybe it is because they are just some steps, maybe it's because my feet hurt, maybe it's because the rain would not stop, maybe it's because people gave us wrong directions, maybe, maybe, maybe...they were just disappointing. I think I got 2 pictures of them and they were not worth showing here:)

Come back tomorrow for Venice, ahh Venice.

More of Rome

OK, back to our Europe trip. After we left the Coliseum we walked over to where the government buildings were...also known as the Roman Forum. Again, simply amazing. Unfortunately a lot of the buildings have fallen down or have been taken apart.


This photo was taken in the jail where Peter and Paul were. This is Stephanie's dad reading a few passages out of the Bible.
We then went over to the Sistine Chapel and into the Vatican. That is one ornate place. Stephanie and I walked up to the top of the dome to look out over Rome. It was very windy and a cramped walk, but it was worth it to be that high and to be able to see that much of the city.
I have a few photos left of Rome to share so check back tomorrow for more.