Summer Vacation 2009--Part 5

More Fun in the Water

After playing so hard at Legoland, we slept in and had a leisurely breakfast, followed by swimming in the hotel pool.

Erin claimed she "learned how to swim" because Megan
taught her how to hold on to a noodle and kick her legs to move.

Ian got a nose and mouth full of chlorinated water during a battle with Kevin,

and it made him feel a bit sick. He recovered on the pool chair.

We happened to time the swimming when Dallin was sleepy,

so he was stuck in his stroller again and April took him back to the room shortly after.

When everyone else was done swimming, Kevin caught this handsome Western Fence Lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis) on the outside wall of the hotel behind some bushes. He was excited because he had never seen one with the bright yellow markings--in Utah they only have blue. In spite of his excitement he let it go after photographing it.

La Jolla Shores Beach was our next destination. We lucked out and found a parking spot among the masses of cars and people right next to the beach. Thanks to cell phones, we also found cousin Emmy with Gabe and Betsy and staked out our spot on the sand. Emmy came beach-ready with umbrella and sand toys.

Dallin was ready to go play again in the sand--no time to pose cute for a group photo.

Erin and Gabe bonded, and she was ready to go home with Gabe
by the end of the afternoon. Dallin crawled around and splashed a lot.

Betsy was the perfect, happy baby hanging out with her mom.
She slept most of the time.

Kevin, Megan, and Ian are not pictured due to the crowded conditions. They spent all the time playing in the waves and looked like dots amongst many other dots. Every so often, the lifeguard tower would announce a lost child. Emmy and April were kept busy keeping track of Erin and Gabe.

It was comforting to know that there were readily available rescue services if needed.

Summer Vacation 2009--Part 4

Legoland!!!

The children chose to visit Legoland for our big activity (not the world-famous San Diego Zoo, not the Wild Animal Park, not Sea World--and we thought we were trying to instill in our children a love of animals and biology).

We spent two fun-filled days exploring this amusement park and enjoyed it more than Disneyland (with apologies to all our die-hard Disney-fan family members). The amazing thing about Legoland is that almost everything is made from Legos! The park is filled with hundreds of Lego statues, animals, plants, and structures. It is most impressive. We thought that a job as a design engineer here would be pretty sweet.

Posing with a Lego Knight

The New York Skyline and the Sydney Opera House

Merging of Great Minds!

April's best chance of ever meeting Harrison Ford
(Legos could not recreate his nice beard stubble or chest hair, however.)


Bionicles!!!





















Lego Parasaurolophus


Erin riding a Lego camel


Some Star Wars Favorites
Darth Vader even made noise!

In addition to enjoying all the Lego creations, you can ride helicopters and trains,

Steer boats and create waves,

Drive or pedal cars,

And go jousting!

Creative expression opportunities abound in the Imagination Zone. Lego Build and Test was a place where people could design and build their own cars and then race them on a track.

In Bionicle Evolution, Megan and Ian spent an hour or so creating Bionicles. There were several tables with hundreds of Bionicle parts to pick and choose.

Then we had to go on the Bionicle Blaster ride which is comparable to the spinning teacup ride at Disneyland and can make one motion sick.

We made a reservation to participate in Lego Mindstorms, where the children learned how to program a Lego robot to perform four different tasks.

Here are the tired, but happy parents watching their children playing in the water (yes, you'll want to take swimsuits for the water play area).

Dallin had a cushy napping seat with him at all times.
He got visually overstimulated watching people.

Indulging in ice cream is a great way to end your Legoland adventure!

Summer Vacation 2009--Part 3

Carlsbad Beach and Grandpa T

Fortunately for parents and children, the drive from Yuma to San Diego was only about 3 hours long as opposed to the previous 2-day drive to Yuma. We took our time and met up with Grandpa in Carlsbad early Sunday afternoon. After checking into our hotel we went across the street to Carlsbad Beach.

We had to climb down a steep path to access the beach.
Along the way we saw several hatchling side-blotched lizards.

Playing in the waves

Dallin contented himself with digging, eating sand, and dipping in the water just a bit--it was kind of cold for him after the intense heat of the desert. Erin ran back and forth between playing in sand and finding shells at the edge of the tide.

Grandpa enjoyed watching and video taping the children.

He thought they had grown a lot in the past four years.

Summer Vacation 2009--Part 2

Return to Yuma, AZ

Our last field work in Yuma occurred in 2005, so we were long overdue for a visit to the Sonoran Desert and to our many good friends in Yuma. Even though it is one of the hottest, driest places in North America, we have a fondness for the desert life after living there for many field seasons. Everyone was excited to go out to look for our favorite little critter, the flat-tailed horned lizard (Phrynosoma mcallii).

Miss Megan was the FIRST to find one, thanks to her fine training from her highly skilled parents.

Look at that proud smile!

Not to be outdone by her daughter, April found the second, third, and fourth lizards, all by following tracks that look like this:

If you can decipher the trail from all the other desert tracks, you will be rewarded by finding a lizard at the end. Few people ever find this species because of its camouflage and its propensity to bury in the sand long before you see it. Here is one lizard that did its best to escape detection, but April's finely-honed lizard-sleuthing skills paid off yet again! She was pleased that she had not lost the touch after all these years. Kevin, on the other hand, was getting frustrated that he was not finding any.

Dallin was a party pooper and slept through all the fun. We had to document him with his first flat-tail, however, since we have baby photos of all the other children with one. Here is his glamour shot. No lizards were harmed in the taking of this photo.

It was getting pretty hot, but Kevin couldn't leave until he could claim a horned lizard. He found the CUTEST one, a hatchling which Erin adored and wanted to keep for a pet. We had to explain that horned lizards don't make good pets and usually end up dying in captivity.

Between the horned lizard finds, Ian and Megan kept busy chasing and catching other lizards. Ian noosed this zebra-tailed lizard (Callisaurus draconoides). Zebra-tailed lizards are one of the fastest species of lizards.

Then Megan noosed a baby desert iguana (Dipsosaurus dorsalis) that Kevin had found hiding in a creosote.

And as we were returning to our Suburban, everyone teamed up to catch this gorgeous juvenile leopard lizard (Gambelia wislizenii). The bright orange colors are only found on gravid females and hatchlings. This lizard is famous for biting hard.


















By 9:00 a.m. it was far too hot to play anymore, so we drove back to cool off in a lovely swimming pool at our hosts' house. The H Family was very gracious to let us stay in their home and enjoy their pool while they were vacationing in Peru.

Tree lizards (Urosaurus ornatus) were hanging out on the walls around the pool.

Following lunch, it was just too hot to do anything more outside, so we visited the J Family, who hosted our family for 3 different years during our field seasons.

Megan had been anxious to see one of her best friends, Hannah. They have been corresponding via snail mail and exchanging photos over the years. They were so excited to be able to spend the afternoon together in person.

Ian and Reed reunited to rescue toads "stuck" in a hole.

Grandma J still has her late afternoon routine of spraying down the tortoise pen and feeding all her critters (a menagerie that puts ours to shame).

It was so fun to see everyone and reminisce. We really love this family and are so glad they "adopted" us years ago. They fed us dinner and dessert (as always--no one ever goes hungry at this house!). Then as darkness approached, we packed up and headed back to the desert sands for some scorpion catching.

Megan and Hannah worked as a team with one black light, and Ian and Reed worked with the other.

Dallin once again fell asleep and missed the adventure. It is always surprising just how many scorpions are crawling around the desert at night. Each team ended up with a small bucket full of the arachnids.

The day sadly came to an end, and we bid farewell to our friends.