Intermission part 2....

A continued break from road trip.. :)

Christmas eve morning we went to the zoo with our friend Suzanne to see Orangutans Indah and her baby Aisha, the 9 month old Clouded Leopard before mom and I headed over to the Safari Park to see the Lion Cubs.. 

Satu opening his Christmas presents that had special treats in them.. 

Gandha; 9 month-old Clouded Leopard.. 

 Mom and I ran over to the Safari Park in the afternoon to see the Lion cubs... Ken was still out on exhibit, but Dixie was still off exhibit. We will just have to go back and see her when she is back on exhibit with her brother. They are 18 days old. . 

Just waking up from a nap.. 

While mom was taking pictures of Ken, I was watching / playing with Robert; the Zebra. Robert remembered me from yesterday, which was really cool. We played and sang Jingle Bells together. It was fun! 

Christmas Day... 

Christmas morning we went to the zoo, meeting up with Bob there to photograph Orangutans Indah and her baby Aisha. Indah was all over the place, so we got some good looks. She even went on a platform, and sat her baby; Aisha up on the box making everyone watching nervous despite her always being such a good mommy. She also made her baby a little bed inside a box; one of the present boxes. 

Janey, a much older Orangutan and I hung out a few times together. She really enjoys watching me, and vice versa. 

Satu, the male Orangutan stood up. That was really cool as that was the first time mom and I have ever seen a male Orangutan stand up. He is so big.. 

We said good-bye to Bob and later met up with Helene after she was done with her volunteer Zoo job, and her husband Frank.. We walked around the zoo looking at the Koalas, Giraffes including trying to see the baby (days old), Elephants (learning the difference between the Asian and African Elephants) before we went to our Christmas dinner. 

It was so much fun. After dinner, it was dark, so walking out to the exit of the zoo, and then the car, I got to see all the lights. 

Day after Christmas, mom and I got up, packed up the car and started our drive home. We stopped off at my great Aunts in Dana Point to visit my great grandma. It was so nice to see them. We stayed several hours, really enjoying our visit. That evening, we drove home. 

After spending a few days at home, mom and I headed north to San Francisco.. Besides having to deal with some business, we also visited the baby Gorilla that was finally out on exhibit at the zoo. It was quite chilly, but fun. We also spent some time over at Marin Headlands for sunrise, Crissy Field for sunset. I had such a good time.. 

Grandma adopted the her grand-baby to raise it because the mother couldn't care for it. They were fun to watch, and the baby is so adorable. Unfortunately, taking photos through the glass was very tough mom said.  

This Polar Bear had fun playing in the hills of dirt it has in one of its enclosures it has access to. I think it thought it was Halloween and was trying to pretend to be a Brown Bear. :) 

We went for a long walk one evening along this trail were we had several different viewpoints. It was really nice. 

 Grandma was doing everything she could to get baby Gorilla off her back. She wanted to carry "her baby" in front, but the baby didn't agree so was holding on. 

New Years day, we headed down to Marina, just north of Monterey for two days. One of the days, we spent it along the Big Sur coast watching over 20 Gray Whales pass by heading south, thousands of Risso's Dolphins passing by us consistently for over 2 hours. They were on the move heading north, and could see them from 50 yards out to about 1 mile from shore. It was insane. Mom said she has never seen so many Risso's, but the highlight of our trip was the coastal Bottlenose Dolphins. We came upon 4 groups of Coastal Bottlenose Dolphins within an 1/8 of a mile in the surf along the coast. She counted how many were in the smallest group and there were 40. Wow! They were surfing in the waves as if they were surfers. We were up on a cliff watching them, so mom's photos of them are pretty wide, but she still couldn't get them all in one frame. That is how many there were. 

It was such a gorgeous day. Big Sur was the warmest area up there as Monterey and Marina were chilly and windy. 

Gray Whale heading south along Big Sur.. 

The next morning we went out whale watching with Capt Jim and Kate (Blue Ocean Whale Watch) out of Moss Landing. It was their first day back on the water since getting the new engines. We saw lots of Gray Whales and Risso's Dolphins.. 

And again, it was a gorgeous day out on the water.. 

Then we drove home and I went back to school a couple of days later. :)

I almost forgot.. I have been traveling the world at school, so my last day of school before winter break, I got to bring home all the animals I have made so far while traveling the world. I don't get to bring my passport home until the end of the year my teacher said. So far, I have traveled to Egypt (Camel), Africa (Elephant & Ostrich), Australia (Kangaroo & Koala), Mexico (Donkey)... I wonder what this semester is going to bring... :) Be on the lookout for others.. (excuse mom's name on the photos. somehow during export process it got added to them)

Next post will be the next fun part of my summer road trip.. :) Its going to just get better and better from here on out, so get ready.. :) 

Love,

Kayla 

Intermission part 2....

A continued break from road trip.. :)

So, after mom and I discussed it, and not just one time either, we came to the conclusion that it would be good to do my Holiday blog post rather than the next part to our road trip. How nice this will be to have a post up just a little over two weeks from when the last part of this post occurred.. And just a little over a month of the very first part - my favorite.. :)

Highlights of December and my winter break that rolled into January.. 

So, to start off my Christmas theme fun, mom, Kenny and I went to Disneyland. Of course, I had to play hooky from school, but that was okay because I didn't want to go on a weekend when it was super crowded. 

We met our friend; Christina and went over to California Adventure Land so I could on the carousel. We got a tad of a late start to Disney, so mom wanted to take me on my favorite ride (one of them anyway). 

Do you see my new Mickey that is holding a bear that I am holding on to? Yep, Christina got me it for Christmas a few minutes before I went on this ride. She got me a cool string of lights too, but I will show those later. 

 

It was very cool. 

As we were making our way over to meet up with Kenny at Monsters Inc, we stopped for a few pictures, and I got to see a Bear character.. That picture will have to be seen in another post. 

After meeting up with Kenny, we went over to Disneyland to go on the Haunted Mansion ride before Christina had to go to work. That was really cool. That is my second time going on it. 

We went to lunch, and then had to say good-bye to Christina. 

Kenny, Mom and I had a great time the rest of the day. We went on a few rides, saw some characters, watched the parade and fireworks. 

 

You can see how Cubby is wearing my xmas lights that Christina got me. They are so cool!

 

Cubby, Xmas Mickey, Bear, Mickey had their own seat on It's A Small World

 

Back to school I went until winter break. Friday night, the last day of school, mom heard there were Orcas (California Transients family group 51's) down off southern Cali. Ugh, she contemplated whether or not we should go out on a boat Saturday or stick to our original plans of packing, getting ready for San Diego to leave early Sunday morning. Mom decided we better not. 

Saturday morning came, and she got a text around 8am saying the Orcas were off Palos Verdes, but heading north. She thought, okay, they are heading north so no we won't go. But then the more she thought about it, the more she realized they could just as easily turn around and head back into reach of Harbor Breeze Cruises out of Long Beach Harbor. So, I bet you know what we ended up doing! Yep, we quickly got ready and headed down to Long Beach. Very tight on time, but we made the 12pm boat along with our friends Elizabeth, Jessica, Janet, Tim, Wendy and Capt Carl. Capt Carl and crew searched and searched for the Orcas. Mom and Tim kept getting in contact with the people on shore to see if they see them. They told us their last position. We finally found them between Catalina Island and San Pedro, but closer to Catalina. Yay! They were just milling around in all crazy directions. Then we went back out on the 3pm trip, and caught up with the Orcas. This was the best trip ever! They were holding like this little boat "hostage". They liked their boat. They would swim all around it and rub up against. They would show off near the boat (spy hop, breaching). They wouldn't leave them alone. The big male stayed with us for a little while, but even him went over to the little boat. It was so cool! Unfortunately, it got dark so we had to head in. Not sure when that little boat was able to leave. They had to wait for the Orcas to move themselves away from the boat at least 100 yards so the boat could leave safely. 

Comet below spy-hopping

 You can see the Orca below rubbing up against the boat...

We got home late that night and still needed to get ready to leave the next day for San Diego. 

We got up and packed (well mom did) our stuff up for San Diego. We left around noon, so that canceled out our early afternoon plans there, but we made it in time to meet our friend Suzanne for Jungle Bells at the San Diego Zoo that evening. :) 

We walked around part of the zoo seeing all the lights. We watched a music program in Koala land and went on the trolley to see the lights around the zoo. Had a fun time. 

On Monday, mom and I went to the Safari Park to meet up with our friends; Clark, Jayne and Clarks' mom; Merrell. 

I loved the Lorikeets.

 

We went to the bird shows, which were so much fun to watch. I was awake this time to. :) We saw the Lemurs, which one of them totally checked out everything on my chair, including my chair. The Gorillas habitat is being remodeled for when the new baby arrives, so they were not out today. 

We spent a long time with them. 

Yep, he is still trying to try out for the bird show.. :) 

Okay, I think it would be best for everyone's sake, especially yours if I did this post in two parts so I don't kill your computers and make you all wait a very long time for the post to load.. I will start working on the second post and get it up very soon. Then we can get back on track with the road trip. :) How does that sound? :) 

Until next time.. :) 

Love,

Kayla