Brief Rundown to Date...

Tell you what, this holidaying is tiring work! (No, I'm not complaining... it's been lots of fun, but holidaying with a small child can really wear you down!)

Just thought I'd better jot down my random thoughts before I start to forget what we did on what day...

On Thursday, (the day I was knackered, due to the midnight waking), we went to SeaWorld... Phan and I woke up at 8:30am-9am and Beth slept in until 10am! So we didn't get to SeaWorld until late morning! SeaWorld was good, but Beth wasn't in the best mood... still quite jetlagged and she was badly constipated (sorry, if TMI... but it was due to not drinking enough fluids on the flight over)... so she was cranky and tired... The highlights were seeing Shamu in the "Believe" show (amazing!), watching the beluga whales (they are so unique looking!), seeing a polar bear come right up to us (with only the glass between us), watching the pets show with lots of really well trained dogs doing tricks and even geese and pigs doing things, and the dolphin show (which was great, but I think the show at SeaWorld on the Gold Coast is better). We only spent 4 hours there before we called it a day... Beth was really grumpy and tired and as a result, I was also getting grumpy and tired. Also, the queues to get food were ridiculously long, so all we had for lunch that day was a muesli bar after having only had a minimal breakfast (I had a custard danish thing, Phan a raisin snail thing)... so we were both starving! Beth finally did a poo in the afternoon (yay!), and the we took her to the toddler park to cheer her up before we wandered off and found a great little Thai/Japanese restaurant called Thai Island & Sushi... Ordered some food "to-go"... an inside out california roll for entree and then sesame chicken and a tofu & vege stirfry with lots of rice. We were eating Asian food in an effort to get Beth to actually eat since she loves rice (she'd eaten very little since we got here). An early night for all of us...

Friday... no midnight waking! YAY! Beth slept straight throuhg until 6am... and was so chipper and awake once she was out of bed. Phan's first day of the conference, so he headed of to walk to the conference (1/2 an hour walk) at about 7:15am, and Beth and I wandered down and had a slow and leisurely breakfast in the hotel breakfast room. Beth hates American bread (too sugary for her I think), but I have discovered, she will eat it if it is smothered in philadelphia cream cheese (she tries to lick off the philly!). She also loves to sit there with a plastic knife and spread the philly on the toast by herself... So that amused us for about half an hour, and then we went back to our room, where I got all our stuff ready for our day trip... I ordered a complimentary shuttle bus to take us to Balboa park at 9:45am and by 10am, we were exploring the park.

Balboa Park is HUGE! Imagine a massive botanic gardens, with 13 museums scattered around the grounds + an whole heap of gardens, fountains, ponds... It is realy just beautiful and such a wonderful place to explore. There is a massive pipe organ in an open air amphitheatre and we were lucky enough to see it and hear someone play it because there was a group of school children there on an excursion getting a tour and having a person talk to them about it. There is a puppet theatre at the park, so I took Beth to see a puppet show... they did the story of "The Gingerbread Man"... with a bit of a unique twist on it. Beth was really uncertain about the whole puppet concept to start with (even though she's seen puppets before), but by the end of it, she was loving it! At the end one of the puppeteers came out and walked a marionette puppet called "Tiko" out amongst the children so they could give him high fives... Beth even gave him a high 5! After the puppet show, Beth fell asleep and I wandered around the grounds exploring... so much to see and do... there is an amazing botanical building with a beautiful lilypond out the front... I explored a Spanish Art Centre made up of quaint brightly coloured buildings/studios, walked past a HUGE morton bay fig tree, stopped to rest by a fountain... I managed to take some photos, so I will share them once I get back home (converting photos on the netbook, is cumbersome process!) Beth woke up mega cranky... and after bribing her with snakes to cheer her up, we went to a playground with lots of slippery dips which Beth loved! (I have to mention, the map was really confusing, so I had a really difficult time finding this playground... I reckon I walked around for about 15 minutes trying to find the damn place, but it was worth finding it in the end!) We spent about 1.5 hours at the park (it was cloudy and overcast, so it was good weather for her to enjoy all the equipment) and by 3pm, I called it a day and rang for a shuttle bus to come pick us up... I was knackered from all the walking... (hard work pushing the stroller and taking photos, reading a confusing map all whilst heavily laden down with a back pack with all our necessities!) Back to the hotel to have a rest and at about 4pm, we had housekeeping knock on our door to make up our room, so I took Beth out whilst they did this. We went and explored the local CVS/pharmacy (it's like a mini-grocery store without fruit & veg/pharmacy/kmart dept store)... I bought weird chocolate (Nestle Butterfingers... it was on sale 50% off!... I can't even describe what it tastes like... weird, but I've eaten the entire thing, so it's not that weird) and i got Beth Animal Crackres (which are kind of like a bland biscuit thing in the shape of different (deformed) animals... Beth really likes these biscuits, so we've added another snack to the list... Back to the hotel, and Beth got to watch some Playschool, while I had a micronap (I needed it!) whilst waiting for Phan to get back from the conference. He got back at a reasonable hour and went and got "to-go" from the same Thai/Japanese place.

Saturday - conference free day for Phan. We thought that Beth would be up early after she got up so early on Friday... but nope... we all slept in until 9am again! We rushed down to grab a bite of breakfast and then back to our room and got ready to head out to Balboa Park (I wanted Phan to see it... it was the only chance he was going to get!) Because I'd already scoped out the place, I knew where the best places to go were... so we went to the Botanical building and took a look around, then I wanted to go in the Natural History Museum... Beth had fun here... loved looking at a tadpole tank and playing with some animal puppets... She also liked pushing buttons on the interactive exhibits. Spent about 45min-1hour here... then we stopped and had some lunch by a fountain and went to the Reuben Science Centre. We loooved the Science Centre (yes, we're all geeks here)... Really good value and I think we spent 2+ hours here... The 2 level has a Kid's Centre, with all these great things for young kids (ages 5 and under) to play with... wheels that turn, things that pump out air, vacuum suction things... conveyor belts with different things you can put on them... Beth had a ball up here... It was really fun! Then we checked out some of the stuff aimed at older kids and adults, which Beth still enjoyed... She loved any exhibit that had a screen and buttons (and there were lots of them)... Her favourite thing was this 3 person quiz game about the planets... It was hilarious... We each took a buzzer and played the game and Beth beat me once and tied with Phan on several occasions! She has intuitive knowledge of the planets! After that, Beth crashed in her stroller... so Phan and I took the opportunity to have a rest and then we called for a shuttle to take us back to the hotel.
We did get a drink at one point, and whilst we were waiting to pay for it, we spotted one of staff members making someone nachos with cheese sauce and seeing that they had run out cheese sauce (from a machine!) so they had to refill it with the most revolting looking yellow liquid in a plastic bag! Honestly... that was just scary... we're not having ordering anything with cheese sauce after seeing that!

After having asian food for the last few nights, we decided to have a proper American meal tonight and went out to dinner at Yard House... It's a great place... looks very swish and trendy and not like the kind of place that you can bring kids, but surprisingly, they really look after the kids... They gave Beth a colouring in book with crayons and then a drink of water in a cup with a lid and straw... They have a kids menu (she got chicken strips with rice) and she got a drink of orange juice in a cup with a curly straw! (Very novel!) And as part of the kids meal, they also give them dessert which was a strawberry iceblock... Really, I highly recommend this place... They really take care of the kids and the food is good quality for the adults too. I wanted to experience a "real" hamburger, American style... so I got a hawaiian burger and Phan got a bacon and cheese burger... very generous sized burger with a good serve of fries... I was soooo full at the end of it... and I was very pleased with my first taste of an American burger after having experienced some pretty average American food so far.

Dropped into our local CVS on the way home to grab some milk, nappies... and whilst we were there we spied some Almond M&Ms and couldn't resist getting them (and boy, are they moreish!). Now Phan's watching some NBA recap show on TV... and I'm doing this recap before I'm going to head off to bed before another fun-filled day tomorrow!

Sorry, for the lack of photos... I have taken some good photos (got some great ones at Sea World!) if I get really motiviated, I'll put some up, otherwise you're just going to have to wait 'til I get back to Oz...