San Diego, CA Vaca – Day 2: Balboa Park and the Fleet Science Center

Our second day started off early… 5 a.m. California time! eek! Someone is still on Texas time! We hung around in our hotel room a little bit and then went and got some free yummy breakfast from the hotel. We drove to Balboa park around 9, walked by Spreckle’s Organ Pavilion and the Japanese Tea Gardens. and then stopped by the visitor’s center to get a map. This place is huge! (P.S. they sell zoo tickets in the visitor’s center gift shop that are $5 less than at the zoo, so we saved about $10 doing that today. Just a tip!)

Spreckle’s is one of the world’s largest outdoor pipe organs.

Looking down into the tea gardens.

While we were waiting for a few minutes for the visitor’s center to open, Jackson played around this fountain with his Monster Mutt “Jacey Truck” and van for a little bit before he just started running in circles around one of the huge columns. It’s the little things, right?

Our first stop was the Bontanical Gardens Building. Absolutely gorgeous, and so serene! We loved walking around the courtyard area and looking at the ferns, orchids and other plants and flowers inside.

Real men wear Vera Bradley backpacks without being asked.

Sniffing the flowers… they smelled good apparently!

I love orchids. They had some orchid plants inside the Gardens Building that were so pretty! They reminded me of the orchids garden we went to when we were in Singapore, except on a much smaller scale haha.

Got a little smile out of him today!

Our next stop was the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center. My friend Amy had recommended this to us when I was asking her what she did with her daughter, and it was a HIT! We spent over an hour just in the Kid City Section. I really don’t see where this kid gets all of his energy, he is so non stop!

Future HEB sacker right here!

Oh yes, we sat in the fire engine for a long time and of course Mommy and Daddy both had to take turns getting in as well!

Ok, these were so cool… there was this whole piping system that the plastic balls traveled through, he loved it!

Just checking out some runoff water… no big deal.

Building marble mazes!

He was more interested in the wet sponge instead of the little styrofoam peanuts that you could build with. It was making the Science center lady nervous I think haha…

Having some fun on a huge turn table.

Building with blocks! Thank goodness this kid finally got hungry because I don’t think we would have ever gotten him out of here! haha…. fruit snacks are very persuasive at times!

Grabbed some lunch here and ate outside! It was a gorgeous day!

Family selfie! And yes, that is another hotdog. I’m telling you… obsessed.

We went back to the hotel for Jackson to take a nap and for us to rest, this momma was pooped! After he woke up and watched some Mickey Mouse, we thought he might like to go to the pool for a little bit before dinner. The second we said pool he said, “Yes, pool! pool!” So, very excited Jackson went to the pool… for about 2.45 seconds. It was heated, but apparently not to his standards haha so after swimming around for a few minutes he decided he wanted stairs and out, so we went back to the room and changed. Very profitable trip. 😉

Of course the belly is a good head rest, especially when you are chomping on some cantaloupe!

Excitement is building… pool time!

So excited about the pool!

And we’re done. But mean mommy and daddy made him get in and swim a little haha…

I’m telling you, Yelp is the best app ever for finding places to eat when you are traveling. We found this place called Phil’s BBQ (I think I had also read about it on someone’s blog when I was researching…) and it had over 8,000 reviews and 4.5 stars. Cray cray! So considering it was 10 minutes from our place, we thought it was a good choice for dinner… and we were not wrong!

I think it might be Christmas for him right now…

After dinner, we took a walk and let the little crazy one run around a little bit. I’m seriously contemplating letting him wear my fitbit one day because I know he would blow everyone out of the water. He is all day non stop until you make him stop!