San Diego Zoo Fun With Animals

Next up in our trip to California is the San Diego Zoo!  This was my first visit to the San Diego Zoo and I was very excited as I had heard such great things.  People were totally right!  This Zoo did not disappoint.

I had read many tips on visiting and many people said to make sure you head to the Pandas first.  

The zoo is big so the best way to get there is walk in and go to the left.  There you will find the Skyfari aerial tram.  This is the quickest way to head to the back of the Zoo plus get a scenic view of everything and get the lay of the land.  Your one day pass includes the tram.

Seeing the pandas is amazing.  This is the first time I have ever seen them.  One was very active eating and walking around.

You can even watch their Panda Cam online.

So adorable.  There are two pandas, this one was more active than the other one who was relaxing.

The panda keeper explained that the panda went in this bucket with water to cool off.  He put his lower half in to cool himself off.

I also loved the Koala Bears.  I learned that they sleep most of the day.

Hey look, Lauren with a panda and a koala bear!

We loved this Cheetah.

We learned that they are paired with a dog to be their friend and calm them.  I had never known that.

This jaguar was beautiful.

This was one of my favorite pictures of the day.  Love the snow leopard.

This Orangutan was pretty cool.

I love this guy too.

This Mandrill was pretty cool to look at.

There is a lot of walking in this Zoo but they offer a bus that I highly recommend taking to get from area to area.

So cool!

The Rhinoceros was pretty cool to see too.

Lovely giraffes.

I always enjoy seeing the elephants.  They are one of Evan's favorites.

Hippo!

A cute little penguin area.

I love seeing the polar bear too.

How beautiful!

This guy was so cool.

There was a special night celebration when we were there.  Here you can see some cool stilt walkers.

There were also some puppets near the front of the Zoo and there was a bubble show later at night.

You should definitely head to the San Diego Zoo!  There is so much to see!

This is just a sampling, you can see all of their animals here so you can plan your day:  http://zoo.sandiegozoo.org/animals

Disclosure:  I was provided with four tickets to the zoo for review purposes.  No other compensation was received and all opinions are my own.

Cars.com Tips for Picking a Car

This post is Sponsored by Cars.com

Buying a car is such a long and arduous process.  My husband in particular looked at cars comparing features, prices and style for years before he recently purchased his Dodge Charger.  Back in the day it involved many trips back and forth to different car dealerships.  Now with the Internet and resources like Cars.com the process has become a little easier as you can arm yourself with the right information before even entering in to the car dealership.  Read on for some tips from Cars.com to get your dream car.

Tip #1:  Do your research!

On Cars.com you can perform a search of different make/models and get more information including a Video Review!  The nice thing is you can see positive and negative reviews.

Tip #2:  Safety first!

Safety is of utmost importance.  Ensure you check in to safety features.  Especially if you have kids ensure you know how to install the car seats.  See some video and tips from Cars.com on how they conduct car seat checks.

Tip #3:  Make sure that you shop multiple dealers!

Make sure to visit multiple dealers to get a sense of prices, options, colors, and availability.  This will allow you to get the best price.

Tip #4:  Don't rush!

If you rush you are bound to over pay and maybe not get some of the options that you wanted.  Take your time, investigate what features you absolutely want.  For me it would be options ABS, Brake Assist and the color blue!

Tip #5:  Attend local Car Shows.  

This is a great way to see so many different makes/models of cars in one place.  Plus you can get in to the car and get a feel of the features it has.  The best part is no pushy sales people.

Tip #6:  Test Drive the car.

Make sure that the car is right for you by test driving it and getting a feel for how it is on the road.

Check out Cars.com before you purchase your next car!

Disclosure:  I was provided with compensation from Cars.com for this post.  As always, all opinions are my own.

Knott's Berry Farm Fun

Next up in our whirlwind trip to California is Knott's Berry Farm.  I love amusement parks but I also love great theming and they have both!  I love the different feel of each of the different areas of the park.  Plus Snoopy is there and the whole Peanuts Gang!

We started in Ghost Town which was so cool.  GhostRider was the first ride we went on which was a really fun wooden roller coaster.  It was a long ride which I liked, sometimes roller coasters are too short.

I love the whole feel of the park, plus there are people walking around acting like they are in the Wild West.

There are even some beautiful horses to visit and a horse drawn stagecoach.

I must say I had never seen a roller coaster where you ride a horse but they had it!  It is called the Pony Express and is one of the most unique rides I have ever seen.

Here is the horse you ride on.

One of my favorite rides was the Calico Mine Ride.

This unique trip through a gold mine with animatronics and awesome scenes was amazing.

They even have a full size train!  Evan loves trains so he was excited to ride.  Just be careful there may be some robbers on board looking for some people to rob.

The kids even ended up in jail.

Next we headed to Camp Snoopy.

Snoopy has always been one of my favorites so I was excited to see him.  It was a really hot day so all of the characters were in the little food spot near where they are shown on the map.  Just be aware of this to look a bit to the left of the character spot.

We even got to see all of Snoopy's friends like Peppermint Patty.

Linus and Lucy!

Sally!

And of course Charlie Brown!

There are so many rides for the whole family.  Camp Snoopy has a lot of the kiddie rides.

Of course there are thrill rides too.

Fun roller coasters.  

The Silver Bullet was a ton of fun!

Lauren and I went on this one called La Revolucion.  It was so much fun!

This ride looked super cute.

They also have a water park called Knott's Soak City but we were not able to experience that.

We also stayed at the Knott's Berry Farm Hotel and got to say goodnight to Snoopy!

I highly recommend going there if you are in California.  They also have Knott's Scary Farm coming up.

Find them online:  https://www.knotts.com/

Disclosure:  I was provided with four tickets for my family to go to Knott's Berry Farm.  No other compensation was received and all opinions are my own.