California - Day 4

Day 4 was spent at the California Academy of the Sciences. We toured a 3 story high rainforest, visited the aquarium - fabulous, viewed the largest digital planetarium show in the world, toured Africa, watched a 3D movie on catepillars/butterflies - it was a wonderful day. Of course, an accident did occur which put us all into a stir. While taking a break outside, the children asked if they could play in the courtyard. C crawled up onto this sea lion statue and I thought it to be a great pic opportunity. Pic taken, C jumps down safely. Then it occurred, P decides to climb onto the statue as well, a statue that is at least 4 ft tall and surrounded by nothing but hard, hard dirt, not soft dirt, hard as concrete dirt. MK decides to tickle his legs that were within her reach. As I watched in horror, my little Pryce fell head first onto the hard as concrete dirt. Of course I screamed, the woman beside me screamed, Ryan came running, MK was crying and Colin was standing there asking if P was going to live. It was awful, but with a piece of gum and a little extra love, he recovered and was soon running around with a bruised head like nothing had happened. Following our day at the Academy, we ventured back down to Fisherman's Wharf for dinner at Rainforest Cafe. We thought this to be a good idea, fun for the children. Well, two out of three isn't bad, right? Upon entering the restaurant, the boys were in awe as we were being led to our table. There was the sound of rain, the animal sounds, lots of greenery, everything that a rainforest has to offer. Finally we were seated in front of a waterfall with two elephants braying beside us. Lovely table. MK, with her head tucked into my chest, screamed in terror. We requested a different table out of view of the elephants and for a moment I thought all to be well (that is when we took the pic).

Then the elephants began to bray again and even though they were not in her sight, they were within earshot and she quickly made her way back into my lap, head tucked into my chest. Food was served, MK did not budge. She would only say, "Mommy, en-a-nants (elephants) scare me!" She did not breathe easy until we were back safely at our hotel that evening! Lesson 4 learned: All's well that ends well.