Bugseum

We left the Three Rivers area pretty early this morning to start our drive south. We were heading home, with one more stop at Carsland!
On the way to Anaheim, we made a pit stop at the Insect Lore Bugseum. We've ordered all of our live insect kits (butterflies, lady bugs, praying mantis, frogs) from this company and their warehouse is right here in CA. They have a nice little store and with lots of live bugs for the kids to look at. The kids got to "pet" at cockroach...yuck! They picked out a Sea Monkey kit because there wasn't much there we haven't done yet!

We got caught in a lot of traffic through LA, but when we finally got to Anaheim, our hotel room was ready for us. We had made late reservations for dinner at Goofy's Kitchen and walked around Downtown Disney to kill some time. The kids played for a long time at the Lego store.
Zachary ate like a pig at the restaurant and both kids enjoyed seeing all of the characters. The character dining experiences never get old. We could pay the same amount of money to eat somewhere in the park. Plus, we can still get away with saying Zachary is "almost three." I've been wondering how long we can get away with getting Zachary in to places for free and I'm really not one to lie about it. But...when we said Zachary was 3 for the dinner, the lady asked, "is he 3 or almost 3?" And...when we got tickets for the aquarium in San Francisco, the guy said, "are you sure he's not 2 1/2?" I'm not really worried about it anymore:)

After dinner, the kids made cars at Ridemakerz. It's like a Build-a-Bear for cars. You pick the body of your car and then customize it with wheels, rims, an engine, etc. Kailani made a pink car and decorated in with stickers (every single one in the pack) and Zachary made a fire engine.

Fresno Chaffee Zoo

Since we had done both Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks yesterday, and we didn't want to make that crazy drive in again, we looked for something else to do today. There was a zoo about an hour away, so we decided to check it out.
It was a small zoo (nothing like the San Diego Zoo), but it gave us something to do for another day. The kids were able to feed the giraffes, which they really liked.

 And after another long hot day (106 degrees), we cooled off in the pool back at the hotel.

Sequoia and Kings Canyon

Today we headed into Sequoia National Park. Again, the roads were very scary...and they were doing road construction, so the road into Sequoia was only open every hour on the hour. Before we even got up the mountain, we had decided we were going to do everything we wanted to do today so we didn't have to make this drive again tomorrow. Once we got up the mountain and took a look at the enormous trees and beautiful forest, it was easy to forget about the crazy drive in.

We stopped at the visitor's center first to get the Junior Ranger activity books for the kids. One of the things on the list they had to do was collect a bag of trash and/or recycling to bring in. Zachary loved that part! The kids collected a full bag of each.

The hike we decided to do was the General Sherman Trail. The General Sherman tree is the largest tree in the world by volume. It was just an amazing site.

After the hike, we continued our drive, making a few stops along the drive. We finally stopped to have lunch at one of the few places in the park to eat. After lunch we decided to continue on with the drive to Kings Canyon National Park. Zachary fell asleep and the kids were tired, so we made a quick stop at the visitor's center and then headed back to the hotel. On the way out, we stopped at Tunnel Rock and Zachy posed for a quick picture.

Junior Rangers

Today we drove through Yosemite on our way to the next destination. We thought we'd get around driving all of those curvy roads again, but no luck...We stopped by the visitor center for the kids to get their Junior Ranger badges. All of the national parks have activities for the kids to do in order to earn and Junior Ranger badge. Kailani got one from Cabrillo Monument in Point Loma when we went there a few weeks ago.
Both kids got their Junior Ranger badges and then we were on our way to Sequoia.

Just after we stopped for lunch, we had to pull over because poor Zachy got sick all over the car! He said his belly was upset from all of the curvy roads, and I believe it. He was fine the rest of the night.
When we got to the hotel in Three Rivers, it was so hot so the kids and I went swimming in the pool to cool down.

Yosemite

We got to our hotel late Friday night and headed into Yosemite this morning. What a crazy drive! The roads were really curvy and up the side of a mountain. It was a pretty scary drive and took about 2 hours to go through Yosemite. It turns out that we stayed on the wrong side of Yosemite. Most of the activities for the kids were in the Yosemite Valley. We decided to make the best of it and head into Tuolumne Meadows, the side closest to where we stayed. We stopped at the visitor's center first.

 Then, we did a short hike to Soda Springs, a natural carbonated spring. It was a neat hike, but the kids had a hard time hiking in the heat. We stopped to have lunch and then did another hike behind the campgrounds.

 At 7pm there was a kids campfire activity that we hung around for. The park ranger told stories and sang songs. The kids enjoyed it, although Kailani was freaked out by all of the mosquitoes. We don't see too many of them in San Diego.

Jelly Belly Factory

This morning we got up early and left San Francisco heading for Yosemite. We made a pit stop in Fairfield to visit the Jelly Belly Factory. A friend told me about the Jelly Belly Factory; otherwise I would not have known to make the stop. First, we took a group tour of the factory from the upper level. We looked down on the factory and the tour guide explained what was happening as we watched the factory workers making candy. We got to taste jelly beans at the different stages of production. After our group tour, Kailani and I took an individual tour of the factory. We got to go directly onto the factory floor and watch what the workers were doing. We got to taste a lot of candy:) We each got a t-shirt for attending Jelly Belly University. Kailani really enjoyed the tour.
Before getting on the road again, we had lunch at the Jelly Belly Factory; a jelly bean shaped pizza!

Alcatraz and Angel Island

Today we took the ferry to Alcatraz Island. I've been wanting to visit Alcatraz for such a long time. It was such a neat experience!

After exploring Alcatraz for a while, we took the ferry to Angel Island. I'd never heard of Angel Island before, but it was really nice. We took a tram tour around the whole island and stopped for an awesome 180 degree view of San Francisco. We could see the Golden Gate Bridge, The Bay Bridge, and Alcatraz. The tram driver offered to take a picture for us. We don't get many of the four of us!

We had dinner at the Rainforest Cafe in San Francisco. Zachary slept the whole time, so Lani had us all to herself:)

 After our dinner, we still had some time to hit up The Aquarium of the Bay at Fisherman's Wharf. Yesterday Kailani spun a wheel and won a free ticket to the aquarium, so we thought we'd check it out.